Ad Hoc at Home: Vanilla Ice Cream

As I've been using Ad Hoc at Home as a springboard into the world of ice cream making, instead of skipping ahead to slightly more complicated recipes I decided to make what Keller calls the "base" for many of his ice creams and other desserts. Here are the ingredients needed for the basic vanilla ice cream (note the real vanilla beans):

After heating up the cream, milk, sugar, and eggs the main step in the recipe is removing the beans from the vanilla stalks and placing it in the mixture (along with the stalks as well) and allowing to sit at room temperature for a while to allow the mixture to absorb the vanilla flavor. Here is the mixture pre-trip to the fridge:

After letting the mixture sit in the fridge overnight, I mixed it in my Kitchen Aid ice cream maker/attachment and placed in the freezer to let sit and firm up. Here is the finished product:

The Verdict:

This was a very good ice cream. Like Ad Hoc's  other desserts, it is very rich and should be limited to 3 or 4 bites. The ice cream tasted the best for two days after I made it, after that it started to loose its texture and became a bit icy.

Thanks T.K.!

When reading Ad Hoc at Home, Thomas Keller tells you not to use tongs recently made popular by the Food Network TV chef corps hawking them at Target. TK claims that they squeeze and damage the food and in one article even tells the author to flip scallops with your hand. Anyway, I've been trying to hold back on using tongs as much as I can. What do I get for my loyalty to Keller's school of thought?:

A gigantic burn welt on my hand! I was frying the beef for last week's beef stroganoff when the hot oil popped and nailed my hand. At first it didn't hurt really at all. But over two days the skin burnt off and formed a literal hole in my hand. It was so bad someone at the office blurted out "Oh my God! What happened?" I walked over to the office first aid kit and threw a large bandage on it.

Thanks T.K.! 

Ad Hoc at Home: Caramel Ice Cream

To go along with the beef stroganoff we made this past weekend, we also thought it would be fun to make one of the ice cream recipes from Ad Hoc at Home for dessert. We decided on the Caramel Ice Cream recipe because it sounded interesting and actually pretty simple.

Here are the ingredients, a pretty basic ice cream collection of egg yolks, milk and cream, sugar, and salt:

First off, you make the caramel by putting the sugar in a pot with some water and bringing to a simmer. It doesn't look like much now:

But after a while it starts to look familiar!:

After adding and mixing in the cream and milk, you strain and place the mixture in an ice bath:

After cooling in the fridge for some time. We ran our ice cream through our Kitchen Aid mixer attachment, then we put it in the freezer to firm up before serving. When we tasted it we were shocked how rich it was, and decided to balance it with something else...in this case a brownie. Here's the finished product:

Verdict

Very tasty but also very rich. Anymore than a scoop and the flavor becomes a bit too much in my opinion. It did taste great with the brownie (just a mix, not the Ad Hoc recipe) though. We also thought this would go great with apple pie instead of the traditional vanilla.

Ad Hoc at Home: Beef Stroganoff (includes Braised Short Ribs)

This past weekend our trip to the Twin Cities was cut short after we decided to skip town early before blizzard hit the area on Sunday. We got home on Saturday night and with no plans at all for Sunday I popped open Ad Hoc at Home to look for ideas for the next night's dinner when I came across a recipe for Beef Stroganoff, which my wife and I have made many times prior in the "classic" Cambell's Cream of Mushroom soup style. I started reading the full recipe and taking notes on things I would need at the store. As I was reading I said a couple of times "this seems too easy" and sure enough....sub-recipe!!

Keller's recipe calls for the braised short rib recipe from the previous two pages. I have never braised anything, but Keller notes that "it's a very rewarding process for the chef." I've learned quickly that when TK says rewarding he means "this is going to take a long time...I hope you have comfortable shoes."

After getting back from an early dawn trip to Whole Foods in Lincoln Park where I've never bought more produce in one trip to the store in my entire life, I started on the recipe. The first part of creating the braise is making a red wine reduction, which when done resembles a glaze. This required a whole lot of chopping of carrots, leeks, shallots, thyme, button mushrooms, and onions. You then let it simmer and shake for about 45-50 min before adding the beef and starting the braise.

After the reduction becomes a glaze, Keller tells you to add even more carrots, leeks, onions, and shallots, and to start on the meat. The recipe calls for short ribs, with the bone cut out. The "butcher" at Whole Foods who clearly didn't feel like deboning short ribs at 8am on a Sunday sold me on buying short rib chuck cut in the shape of short ribs. I was tired as well and agreed and took a shortcut which in the end was probably stupid. He claimed for that cut he would charge $3 more a pound, but when I thought about it later that probably isn't too mad of a deal considering otherwise you're paying for the bone weight that you don't eat. If the Butcher & Larder opened before 10:00am or I had more than a day's notice I would of gone there.

Anyway...I digress.

You then dredge the salt and pepper seasoned meat through flour before browing it in a frying pan:

Browning the meat in some very hot canola oil:

After you brown the meat, you wrap it in cheesecloth, add in the newly chopped veggies, and cover with beef broth and let it cook in the oven low and slow for about 2 hours. After it's done, you remove the meat, strain the contents of the pot to separate the braising liquid, and place the meat back in the liquid to cool and soak up the liquid for flavor and tenderness. Before serving the dish, you cut the meat into small bite sized pieces and reheat it by carmalizing it in a pan and placing it in the oven for a short period of time.

TK makes an interesting comment in the beginning of the recipe and states that this beef stroganoff is just as much about the mushrooms as it is the beef, and he's right there are a ton (actually 2 pounds) of Crimini mushrooms in this! In order to make the sauce, you place 1 pound of the mushrooms in a food processor and something that looks like this:

After adding about 3 cups of heavy cream and mixing in the above mixture you get this:

As for the remaining pound of mushrooms, the recipe calls for them to be sauteed and placed on top of the dish. Pre-saute:

Post Saute:

Like much of the other recipes in Ad Hoc, this beef stroganoff is really a sum of parts. When plating, you assemble the beef, pappardelle egg noodles (Keller tell you to make from scratch in a sub recipe, but I had no time for that), mushrooms, and parsley for some color.

Verdict

This is one good Stroganoff and Keller was right, it's all about the mushrooms here. While the beef had a good amount of flavor, the egg noodles covered in the cream and mushrooms were my favorite part. Our friends, Joanie and Ryan, who (unknown to me) hate mushrooms came over for dinner and both of them cleaned their plates and loved it. While very time consuming to make, this was a winner in my book.

Ad Hoc at Home: Banana Bread Pudding

In addition to the Chicken Pot Pie, we thought we would make a couple of after dinner treats for our guests. One recipe from the back of Ad Hoc that stood out was "Banana Bread Pudding." The recipe seemed a little complicated when we started, but we had no idea it would take more than 4 hours to make!

Here are the basic ingredients:

First, you cut the bread lengthwise and lightly toast in the oven:

Then you make the custard with a lot of whole milk and heavy cream!:

Eggs and sugar for the custard:

Splitting fresh organic bananas for the pudding:

Here is the finished custard base:

You start the process of building the dish by pouring a little custard in a pan, then dipping the bread in:

After the bread is laid out, you place the bananas on top then cover with the rest of the bread with the slices going the opposite way:

Once constructed, you bake the dish in a larger pan filled with water for an hour:

Once it's baked and has sit in the fridge overnight to cool, Keller recommends frying small squares in some butter for taste:

Here is the final product:

The Verdict

While very time consuming...this was an awesome dish. Very flavorful and tasty. It works almost as well for breakfast!

Ad Hoc at Home: Chicken Pot Pie

This past weekend we hosted a small group of my wife's friends from business school over for dinner. The same group meets about once a month and rotates through host homes. This being the second time we've hosted, I thought it would be the most obvious time to pick a few recipes from my new copy of Ad Hoc at Home to cook for our guests.

The main course was the Chicken Pot Pie. We started the pie the same day, starting the process (as seen below) around 10am for a 6pm dinner. First off was boiling the "air chilled" organic chicken we picked up from Whole Foods in Lincoln Park the night before:

It doesn't look too great here, but Keller lists no other instruction other than to have 2 cups of cooked chicken meat per pie. Later I took the meat off the bones and shredded it into a bowl to be used later:

The ingredients for the pie crust. A pretty simple crust recipe in the back of the book works for multiple recipes throughout the book. According to Keller, knowing how to make a proper pie crust is essential for a good cook. It's made by combining the salt and flour in a bowl with 1.5" cubes of butter (2.5 sticks worth) and working the butter with your hands until the flour and salt have completely incorporated the butter and there are no butter pieces larger than a pea.

Say hello to Robin

Once the pie crust is made, it's time to start on the filling. I cooked the vegetables, each one separately with 8 peppercorns each as well as bay leaves and thyme (the celery was blanched just briefly). Now, I understand that this method is important, and I assume Keller wants to separate each ingredient so that they don't mix together and form a stew like flavor. I'm sure you could make a few shortcuts here without damaging the final product - the carrots and potatoes, for example, could probably cook together. But, I did as TK told me to do!:

                                
                                                             Blancing the celery gave it a really nice green color.

I then worked on the bechamel sauce. This was time consuming, but worth it. It reduces for about 40-45 min before you pour the sauce on top of the ingredients. It was so heavy that it really didn't mix with the crust at all and the crust wasn't made soggy:

After pouring the bechamel over the vegetables and chicken, we sealed the pies and brushed milk on top in order to brown them. (Keller calls for butter, but I was told milk and butter act the same way):

Here they are just out of the oven:

And here is the final product:

                           

The verdict

This is one great chicken pot pie. Fresh, buttery crust, but somewhat light...it was great. We served with some peas to give the plate a little color, otherwise the pie works by itself. This took a good amount of cooking and time, but we made two pies to make sure we had enough food, and I've been having leftovers since. This is a great recipe to make on a Sunday for dinner and to save for lunches for the rest of the week.

Ad Hoc at Home in my Home.

Even though the Chicago Blizzard of 2011 and FedEx did its best to delay it, my copy of Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home was delivered yesterday.

According to a few Internet searches I'm about a year late to the Ad Hoc at Home party, but there is a reason for my recent Amazon order. Next week my wife and I are planning a trip to San Francisco and the Napa Valley and have a reservation to visit Ad Hoc.

For those that don't know, Thomas Keller is considered one of the greatest chefs in the world. He is the only chef in the world to own and operate two Michelin 3-Star restaurants: his landmark The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se in New York City.

While known for very high end culinary experiences at his restaurants, he claimed his dream restaurant was one that would serve "hamburgers and red wine." Around 2005, a building that used to hold a diner went up for sale just down the road from Keller's The French Laundry. He bought it, but didn't have the time to properly design, staff, and set up a new restaurant concept. However, since he was paying for the space he came up with the idea for a temporary, pop-up, family style restaurant. The menu changes daily and costs exactly the same every night ($50pp before drinks, tip, and taxes). The menu was inspired by the meals Keller at as a child as well as the "family" dinner kitchen staffs serve themselves. Ad Hoc was only planned to be open for a few months, but the restaurant was a huge success and its now permanent.

Ad Hoc at Home represents the family style, "user friendly," food Keller and it's staff  serve at Ad Hoc. But for someone well below the skill level need to tackle The French Landry Cookbook, this is pretty neat!

The book came just in time as this weekend my wife and I are having a few of her U of Chicago friends for dinner this weekend. We're planning on making a few of the recipes from the book.