Root Vegetable Bisque

With fall upon us, root vegetables are available in the height of their freshness. In this recipe, ingredients such as turnips, long since thought of as working mans' cuisine are transformed into a rich and delicate palette pleasing bisque.





Ingredients:
2 lbs turnips
2 lbs yams
1 qt of low sodium chicken stock
2 shallots - chopped
3 cloves garlic - rough slice
3 tbs olive oil
2 leeks, cleaned and cut into circles, some for the bisque, some to garnish.
5 bay leaves
1 sprig of tarragon, plus some additional for garnish
1 tbs maple syrup
Salt to taste
1/4 cup yogurt
1/4 lb pancetta


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Peel and slice yams and turnips.
Toss yams and turnips on 2 tbs of olive oil.
Place on sheet pan and place in oven until they start to brown
In a large stockpot add 1 tbs olive oil, shallots, and garlic over medium high heat, cook until the onions turn translucent.
Add yams, turnips, and chicken stock. Bring to a high simmer.
Add 1/4 cup of leeks, bay leaves, and 1 sprig of tarragon.
Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, until the middle of your largest root vegetable is tender.
Remove from heat and add the mixture to a Food Processor in increments. It will probably take 3 to 4 rounds to puree all the ingredients.
Add the puree back to the stockpot.
Add maple syrup and salt.
In a frypan, add the pancetta and cook until crispy. Remove from heat and place pancetta on a paper towel to dry.
Add the remaining leeks to the frypan, turn the heat to medium/low and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until leeks are tender.
Crumble the pancetta.
Finely chop any remaining tarragon
Just prior to serving add the yogurt to the bisque and stir well.

To serve, add the bisque to your bowl, top with leek rings pancetta crumbles, and finely chopped tarragon.

Notes/Variations:
Any starchy vegetable will work well with this recipe, be it potatoes, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, beets, or parsnips. However, if you use parsnip, be sure to trim out the core of larger roots, as they tend to be overly bitter.

Nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon, in small quantities, can turn this particular dish into a pumpkin pie flavored soup.

In order to be a traditional bisque, it is ideal to use fish, lobster, or clam stock. However, it is not readily available in low sodium varieties. Feel free to substitute ocean based stock if desired.

Sour Creme Brulee

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Creme Brulee. Most restaurants make the same version with little or no creativity. It always ends up a rich vanilla custard covered in burned white sugar. In a nutshell, it's boring. However, by introducing a little sour cream to the custard, it adds an exciting flavor profile brought on by the fermentation of the sour cream.

The trick to making a perfect dessert is using a water bath surrounding the custard and cooking at a lower heat. Experiments have shown that cooking custard at lower temperatures creates a margin of error of almost 10 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas custard heated quickly only has a 5 degree margin of error before curdling. Cooking it slow is like trying to stop a car on a dime while driving at 10 miles per hour instead of 60 MPH.

1 3/4 cups cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp orange zest
6 tsp Sugar
7 egg yolks
1/4 cup sour cream
6-8 tsp Turbinado/Raw sugar

1 - Preheat oven to 325 Degrees.

2 - Combine vanilla, orange zest and 1 cup cream in a saucepan over medium high heat.

3 - Combine sugar, egg yolks and remaining cream and whisk well. Bring vanilla/cream mixture to a boil.

4 - Slowly add hot cream mixture to cold egg mixture, starting with a small amount of hot mix whisking well and then gradually adding more hot cream, until the two are combined.

5- Add the sour cream to the custard mix and whisk well.

6 - Place 4 ramekins of at least 1 cup in volume each into a larger baking pan. Pour the custard through a sieve into ramekins, filling no more than 2/3rds of the way full.

7- Add water to the larger baking pan, filling until the water level is 1/2 of the way up the ramekins.

8- Bake for 25-40 minutes, until the middle of the custard reaches a temperature of 175 degrees. The edges will be set, but the center will be just slightly jiggly. There is a HUGE difference in time baking as the amount of water added to the pan, and the volume of each ramekin will cause cooking times to vary greatly. On this recipe, "doneness" is more important than the actual time in the oven.

9- Transfer ramekins to a cooling rack for 1 hour, then cover with plastic wrap and place them in the fridge for at least 4 hours for custard to set. You can keep the custard in the fridge for up to 4 days.

10- Prior to serving, gently blot up any condensation from the surface of the custard with a paper towel, sprinkle 2 tsp of turbinado/raw sugar over each ramekin and then turn the ramekin, making sure the an even layer of sugar is distributed evenly across the top of each custard. Clean the edges of the ramekin of any excess sugar.

11- Using a either a butane "creme brulee" torch or a propane blowtorch (the kind you find at your local hardware store, and also my preferred method) apply heat to the sugar in a circular motion until the sugar is bubbly and brown. Once the sugar is browned, the custard can be stored in the fridge for up to 45 minutes, but best served immediately.

12 - Garnish with chocolate shavings and berry fruit.

Notes: Egg proteins have a very narrow window between setting and curdling, be very careful not to overcook the custard (you'll know it if you do it as the custard will be far from smooth.)

The 1/4 cup of sour cream lowers the pH of the custard, making the cream more likely to curdle, so it is extremely important that your whipping cream is extremely fresh. Fresh cream has a higher pH, and is not affected as much by the sour cream. However, if you have old cream the sour cream will cause your custard to curdle at a much lower temperature.

If you choose to make regular creme brulee, omit the sour cream and increase whipping cream to 2 cups.

Variations include:
Date Creme Brulee:
Use 5 Tbs of date sugar instead of white table sugar. Omit sour cream.
Agave Creme Brulee:
Use 5 Tbs of Agave Syrup instead of white table sugar, Reduce 1/2 cup of tequila by 3/4ths and add during step 5. Omit sour cream.
Almond Creme Brulee:
Reduce 1/2 cup Amaretto by 3/4ths add in step 5. Omit sour cream.
Orange Creme Brulee:
Increase orange zest to 3 Tbs, after bringing cream/vanilla/zest mixture to just boiling, remove from heat and let sit for 15 minutes prior to adding to egg mixture. Garnish with orange segments with skin, pith, membranes, and seeds removed (Orange Supreme). Omit sour cream.
Lemon Creme Brulee:
Replace orange zest with 3 Tbs lemon zest, after bringing cream/vanilla/zest mixture to just boiling, remove from heat and let sit for 15 minutes prior to adding to egg mixture. Omit sour cream. Garnish with twisted lemon peel and mint leaf.
Pumpkin Creme Brulee:
Add pinch of nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and pinch of ginger powder to cream/vanilla mixture After bringing mixture to a boil, let sit for 15 minutes and then strain into egg mixture. Whisk in 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin in step 5 and don't strain the custard mix into the ramekins. Omit sour cream.
Cherry Chocolate Creme Brulee:
Combine 1/4 cup Kirsch (or any cherry liqueur) and 1/4 cup Creme de Cocoa, reduce by 3/4ths. Add in step 5. Omit sour cream.

Pot Roast Nicoise

I LOVE the flavors of a good pot roast. The trick is to let the roast sit at roughly 210 for an hour or so. At this temperature the connective tissues (glycogen) transform into gelatin, coating the long protein strands of normally tough meat, and turning them into tender morsels of deliciousness.

This version calls on French methods to produce an outstanding overall meal.

3 lb pot roast, preferably "chuck" in nature, trimmed of outside fat, reserve the fat for popovers.
2 Tbs cooking oil
1 lb pearl onions
2 lbs peeled carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 tsp Sea Salt
1/3 cup all purpose flour
8 oz crimini/baby bella mushrooms cut into 1/4ths
1 bottle dry red wine (Cabernet, Zin or Syrah) (use 3 extra cups chicken stock if you choose to omit wine)
1 cup low sodium chicken stock
1 cup water
Zest from 1/3 of an orange
3 Tbs anchovy paste
5 sprigs thyme
1/2 cup nicoise olives (kalamata will work too)
2 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 325. Add cooking oil to an enamel coated dutch oven and warm over medium high heat. Once the oil starts to shimmer (but before it starts to smoke) add the roast and brown on all sides. Remove the meat. Add the onions and carrots to the pot and cook until onions turn transluscent.

Sprinkle the flour over the onions/carrots, and stir to combine, making sure that no flour chunks form. Add the mushrooms, red wine, chicken stock and water. Bring to a strong simmer. Add orange zest, anchovy paste, olives, thyme and bay leaves.

Cover the dutch oven with a sheet of aluminum foil, and then place lid on dutch oven. Place in oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until meat is fork tender.

Remove the dutch oven from the oven, and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Remove bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Carve the pot roast, and plate with carrots and onions, and cover with the remaining pan gravy.

Prosciutto and Sage Popover

This is one of those happy surprises I discovered while playing around in the kitchen. I've always been a big fan of popovers, but struggled to create the right flavor balance. When I add nothing, I get bored. But I didn't want a full meal either. I had some leftover prosciutto from another recipe, and I have a sage plant in the back yard. Voila!

Pop these in the oven about 45 minutes before your guests are set to arrive. They'll have a few minutes to cool, but still possess that fresh baked warmth.

1 1/2 cup flour
1/12 cup milk
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbs rendered beef fat from pot roast (optional)
3 oz prosciutto, chopped into small chunks
10 sage leaves

Preheat oven to 425. Combine flour, milk, salt, eggs and beef fat. Stir till just combined. Refrigerate batter.

Heat a shallow frypan over medium heat. Add sage leaves, and roast until nearly dehydrated, remove. Add prosciutto chunks and fry until meat starts to crisp, transfer to a paper towel lined plate.

Mince sage.

Add a small pat of butter to each cup of a 12 cup popover pan (or cupcake pan) and place in oven for 1 minute, until butter just starts to sizzle. Divide the sage and prosciutto evenly in the 12 cups, and then pour batter 2/3 of the way up the pan.

Place in oven for 18-20 minutes. When popovers appear brown, turn off oven, and let popovers sit for 5-10 minutes in oven.

Enjoy!