Most times, really good dishes are dictated by really good ingredients. After receiving “Micro Cucumber” from Kate at Lucky Leaf Garden, I took the crab salad from last week back to the drawing board. When she dropped it off, she said that it was actually micro borage rather than cucumber, but after tasting it I could understand the moniker. It was really clean, really crisp … Continue reading Crab, Corn and Compressed Cucumber Salad with Citrus, Avocado and Roasted Radish

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend some time taking in some phenomenal food in Charleston at the annual Wine and Food Festival. It was an awesome time of year to be down there, with spring produce just barely coming in to season and some winter produce still remaining. The following dish was inspired by a salad course that I had at … Continue reading Crab, Citrus, Radish and Cucumber Salad with Wasabi Vinaigrette

Two of my favorite things come together on this dish, braised beef short rib and brioche. While this isn’t a true “torchon” (see the torchon posting for details of that preparation), it very much resembled it before adding the brioche. The interesting thing about this preparation is that the tender braised meat, usually bound by gelatin from stock, doesn’t crumble into a pile when it … Continue reading Warm Beef Short Rib Torchon wrapped in Brioche, Beet and Mustard Green Salad

This is a re-imagining of a dish that I prepared for a Chefs Table this Summer. Here are the details of the dish. Continue reading Foie Gras Torchon with Apple Caviar, Champagne Gelee, Smoked Raisins

I recently had the opportunity to create a dish for a blog that I enjoy called Deep Plate. They have a great concept in which they send a plate out to a chef, the chef prepares a dish using the plate and it is then featured on their website. Chefs with successful entries can then go on to participate in “challenges” against other chefs with … Continue reading Lobster Waldorf Salad

This is a dish that one of our Sous Chefs, Matt Tilman, introduced that has been very well received. He very aptly entitled it “Southern Surf and Turf”. It consists of tender braised bacon, grilled shrimp, collard greens and Anson Mills Stone Ground grits. We served this dish this week to a class on Southern cuisine and you could watch the waves of euphoria wash … Continue reading Southern Surf and Turf

One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received concerning food pairings came from Chef Mark Ainsworth at the Culinary Institute of America. He posed the question to the class “If you killed a deer in the woods, what would you pair it with?” His answer was just about anything edible within a 100 yard radius of where the deer fell. Berries, herbs, … Continue reading Lobster Risotto with Truffled Corn Jus, Crispy Leeks

Lately there’s been so much cooking that there’s been no time to talk about cooking, which is a good problem to have. With the hectic holiday season, the blog has experienced the same amount of neglect as most things in my life outside of the kitchen. That’s the business, though, and as we head into our slow season I look forward to sharing some of … Continue reading Pan Roasted Halibut with Winter Vegetables, Sweet Potato Gnocchi, Citrus Beurre Noisette

This is a variation of a preparation called “Paupiette”; a thin slice of fish that is stuffed, rolled and bound before being poached in stock. For this dish I used filets of Dover Sole, then stuffed them with lobster knuckle and claw meat. The lobster meat was chopped, sprinkled with cracker meal for a binder, and then tossed with a mayonnaise based dressing for flavor … Continue reading Dover Sole Paupiette with Avocado Cream

This dish is Truffled Fettuccini Carbonara. Carbonara is a classic Italian dish with its names origin (corbone) meaning “coal”. This simple coal miners dish is traditionally made with spaghetti or fettuccini and is always accompanied by egg, black pepper and pecorino cheese. Variations include peas or other vegetables, mushrooms, and pork. The mushroom on this dish is a Perigord truffle. These small, black, round fungi … Continue reading Truffled Fettuccini Carbonara