Symon Says

Happy Holidays to all!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday as much as me...friends, family AND three days off in a row, it just doesnt get any better than that!!!!

We had our big Xmas eve feast yesterday. Normally we do the seven fish and it is an all night party with family, friends and staff but this year we had a big brunch instead. Liz had the great idea to do brunch and although I was hesitant at first it worked out perfectly.

When we would do the seven fish bash it would ussually not end until about 5-6 in the morning. Between cooking fish for 60 people and cleaning up at 6 a.m. it made for a crazy long day and left us pretty wiped out for Xmas day.

Our brunch feast came out quite fabulous. Liz made her famous breakfast bread pudding with eggs, bacon, aged cheddar and scallions and some rocking coffee cake. I grilled up a whole mess of sausage including keilbasa, spicy italian, garlic bratwurst, country sausage and some chorizo. We also made some dips with pita chips and had some great cheeses from baricelli. Since I was running tight on time I made a stop at the Sausage Shoppe on Saturday and picked up some blood and tongue susage, some old style head cheese and smoked lieberwurst, all were incredible!!! Norm and company do such an amazing job. We also had a great ham some smoked salmon and a mess of pickled vegetables. What a feast!!!

The best part of this was that at 8:00 the party was winding down and Liz and I were in bed by MIDNIGHT!!
I think the pooches liked brunch better to since they definatelly prefer sausage and breakfast pudding to seafood....lol...They are still sleeping of the food coma as i type.

Next order of business is who won the contest...First off, everyone did a great job and some of your meals sounded fabulous but I had to go with Gynene..smoked pork fat drippings and toast!!!!! You know the way to my heart. I also loved how you were keeping up the traditions of your childhood (I've been thinking about my moms lasagna all week!!....lol)

Everyone have a great and safe Holiday season.....MS

G...please send me a email to lola@lolabistro.com with all your info, so I can send out you gift cards for the cooking classes!!!

Holiday contest

So I have an idea.

With the holidays closing in and everyone scrambling for gift ideas, I thought I would have a little contest.  Since all the cooking my classes at Lolita sold out in a day I am going to open up two spots in one of the classes (free of charge) to whomever makes me the hungriest while describing their plans for their holiday feast!!

You can write about what your going to eat or prepare, just make sure you make it juicy and tantalizing.  If your planning a big vegeterian feast you may want to make something up, since tofu has never made me hungry!!

Please make sure to include your email adress so i can contact you.  The cut off date will be Dec 22 and if you win I'll mail you out the giftcards for the class.

Happy Holidays,

MS

Food fabulous food

First off...I would like to thank all of you for your suggestions about the blog. It will really help me set up the blog to be enjoyable for me and a great place for all you to get recipes, some advice and a couple stories.
I am currently out west for a couple of days doing my yearly holiday tour for Calphalon. I have been their chef spokesman for the past 10 years and typically spend a couple days around holiday time traveling and doing some demos and tv for them.
The trip started in LA and as luck would have it my good pal J Waxman was in town doing a book tour so we had a great lunch together at Pizzaria Mozza. Mozza is a great new restaurant courtesy of Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali. This is truly my kind of joint, casual and deliscious without a bit of pretense. We were lucky enough to be joined by Ruth Reichel and Nancy and just had an outstanding meal. We started with a bunch of antipasta including white beans al forno, meatballs with crostini, chicken livers bruchette with guanciale and brussels sprouts with foccaccia bread crumbs. We then moved into some outstanding pizzas incliding one with egg, guanciale and radicchio, a fennel sausage number and a wonderful anchovie pie with rosemary. Great meal with great people, nothing is better!! I also had a great meeting with some people with Jay Leno and it looks like I may be doing a segment after the writer strike is over, which is very exciting.
That evening I headed to San Fran where I was joined by Liz and continued the eating frenzy. In two days we have eaten at Hog Island Oyster bar, Chez Panise, Incanto, Bar Jules, Slanted Door, Jardineire and Zuni. All the food has been amazing and I am insanely full. Here are some of the highlights. Chris just killed us at Incanto with tuna meatballs, cod sperm crostini, linguini with grated cured tuna heart, seared duck liver with braised duck tongues, a pork liver and kidney pie, roasted pig head wrapped in bacon, roasted lamb neck with salsa verde, and fried tuna "ribs" with chile and mint. Boy I'll tell you Chris can really cook and his food is just loaded with soul and flavor. At Slanted Door we also ran the gamet with some raw yellowtail, oysters, cellophane noodles, whole roasted branzino and some killer wilted pea shoots. Zuni and Chez were just classic wonderful California cuisine. Perfect preperation of beautiful ingredients. Simple and deliscious..what more can u ask for. Bar Jules is a new little place that i highly recomend with a tiny chalkboard menu that changes daily and is super fresh and spot on. We are heading to Jardineire in a couple minutes which I am very excited about. Traci is one of the greatest chefs in the country and I dont know what I love more...her or her food.
The bonus of traveling is getting to see so many different chefs in action and try all their great food. It is a great way to learn and to stay inspired and I highly recommend it to any young cooks and chefs. You should never stop learning and travel is a great way to do that. Its not always easy to do and certainly isnt cheap but I feel it is a absolute must and an important part of growing as a chef.

Live to cook....how bout dem Browns, MS

What would you like to see?

Hi everyone,

It's been a little since my last blog...but it's been a crazy couple of weeks.  To make this site as user friendly as possible I'd like to hear what you would like to see most on it...stories, recipes, life in the biz etc.  Here are a couple of the things I am thinking about including, please tell me what you think.  A recipe request box, some links to my favorite places and things, some running stories about lola, lolita and iron chef and a general question box.

I read over some of the comments and questions about the thanksgiving recipes...so from here on in i will suggest pans, reheating methods etc.  Here are some answers to some of the questions. As far as cast iron goes i love it but mainly for cooking proteins and never for sauce work or anything that contains acid..i would recomend a stainless pan for those preperations.  Also all of the recipes were intended to be served immediately which I should have mentioned earlier and will in the future.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and Go  Browns!!!!   

Live to cook,

MS

 

Turkey Day Recipes

• Chorizo Stuffing
• 4 tbl olive oil
• 1 -1/2 # chorizo
• 2 tbl minced garlic
• 1 cup small dice red onion
• 1-1/2 cups grated manchego cheese
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1-1/2 cups heavy cream
• 10 cups french bread cut into 1 inch cubes
• 4 tbl chopped oregano
• zest and juice of 2 lemons
• salt to taste
• heat large skillet over medium heat and add oil, brown chorizo for 4-5 minutes and remove from pan.  Sweat garlic, onion and celery for 3-5 minutes until vegetables are tender and place in mixing bowl with chorizo.  Deglaze pan with chicken stock and bring to simmer,  add cream and season with salt and oregano and simmer for 10 minutes and remove from heat.  whisk eggs into chorizo mixture and slowly whisk in cream.  Add bread, lemon juice, zest and manchego and mix thouroughly.  Place mixture into 9 by 13 casserole and bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until golden brown. 

Root Vegetable Mash

• 1# peeled parsnips (lg dice)
• 1# peeled celery root (lg dice)
• 1# peeled chef potatoes (lg dice)
• 1# butter (cubed at room temperature)
• salt to taste
• salt a large part of water heavily (about a half cup per gallon) and place all veg in water.  Bring to a boil and cook until veg is tender (about 45 minutes) Strain veg making sure to shake off all liquid and return to pan over low heat let remaining liquid steam off for about 2 minutes.  Remove from pan and put through a vegetable mill or a ricer.  Place mix in large bowl and vigourously whisk in butter.  Serve immediately

Brussels Sprouts

• 1# brussel sprouts quartered and blanched
• 1/4 # lg dice smoked bacon
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 shallot minced
• 1/2 cup pecans chopped
• 2 tbl grain mustard
• 4 oz chicken stock
• 1 lemon juiced
• 2 tbl butter
• 1 tbl chopped flatleaf parsley

heat half butter over medium heat and caramelize sprouts for 3 minutes and set aside..in seperate pan crisp bacon for 3 minutes and add pecans, garlic and shallots and continuew to cook over medium heat for 1 minute.  Deglaze pan with stock and lemon juice and whisk in butter, mustard and parsely.  Toss in cooked sprouts and serve.

Roast Turkey

• 1-12# fresh organic turkey
• 1 bunch thyme
• 1 halved lemon
• 1 halved red onion
• 4 cloves peeled garlic
• 1 buld quarterd fennel
• 1 large piece of cheesecloth
• 1 # butter
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 tbl salt

Remove inners from turkey and rinse inside and out. Place all veg, herbs, stock and butter in large pot and bring to simmer. Place cheesecloth in pot and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain liquid and reserve vegetables and herbs and let them cool.  Stuff cooled vegetable mix in cavity of bird and place on roasting rack in pan breast side up.  Cover bird with soaked cheesecloth and place liquid in bottom of pan and place in 350 degree oven for 2 hours.  Open oven and remove cheesecloth and baste with liquid.  Raise temperature to 400 and continue to cook for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove turkey from oven and make sure leg and thigh are at 160 internal temperature.  Let rest for 30 minutes and serve.

Here are some of my favorite Turkey day recipes that i will be using this thursday.  I hope you love them as much as me....Live to cook, ms

   

One down!!!

This was a fun battle albeit very nerve wracking!!! Our food really came out great and all in all we were very happy with it. The hit of the night with the judges was the "turduckin" which we had some fun with. I cant stand the tradtional turduckin as it just seems so ridiculous to me so we had to do these three wonderful birds some justice!! We did a crunchy stuffing, topped with a poached duck egg, turkey cracklin and a chicken liver sauce..yum.
The strange thing about the editing was that we presented both the turkey and dessert family style in honor of my favorite holiday and i was a little disappointed not to see them that way. None the less the judges really seemed to love all of our flavors and the riffs we put on a traditional meal.
After watching this episode i need to get ready for my biggest challenge so far...cooking for my family on thursday!!
Ill try to get some good turkey day recipes up for everyone in the next couple of days.
Live to cook!!>>>MS

Crazy week....

This has been one heck of a wild week. As you can probablly imagine there is alot going on for me this week so i just wanted to give you a quick update. After Sunday night we did the big media circuit which has included about 50 radio interviews, some tv appearances and a coking demo for 800 students at the CIA. Fortunately chefs are use to all the crazy hours so it that sense it is just bussiness as usual.
Some of the highlights have been filming The View (which will show the day after Thanksgiving) This was alot of fun and the hosts of the show were a blast. After that we drove up to my old stomping grounds in Hype Park N.Y. and did a cooking demo at the CIA for 800 students. I absolutely loved doing this as you can see the passion in their young eyes as they boldly pursue their goals and visions and start on their culinary journey. It seems like just yesterday that i was in there shoes watching Chef Dean Fearing do a big demo in 1988....holy crap am i getting old!!!!!
Today, i have a couple more media things to do and then life goes back to normal. I'll be back in the town I love Saturday morning and manning the stoves that night. I can't wait to get back home with Liz and the dogs and get back to cooking!! I'll have more updates as they come.
Remember my first battle is this Sunday at 9 on FNTV
Live to cook, MS

what a night!!!!

First off, I just want to thank everyone for all their support throughout this wild ride...you all made it so much more enjoyable!!!!
So last night we watched the show at lolita with 200 hundred of our closest friends and it was just awsome...the strangest thing is even though i knew the results i was a nervous wreck as lolita was insane. To watch these after the editing is crazy each dish takes about 10 minutes to judge and there are a ton of comments which then get edited down to these little snippets.
After the cooking was done we felt very confident as our food came out quite tasty...i was most happy with the braised collar and suvee loin..we missed a little on the rav as the mousse broke down a bit during the reheat but the flavors in it were great.....Johns dishes also looked great and through this whole battle he was as tough as they come. When you really get down to it all the chefs were so even it really just came down to that given day and the judges pallettes and opinions
I go into more detail later as its time to feed the dogs!!!!....Hungry bullmastiffs is not a good thing..and no i wont be making them swordfish this morning..lol..live to cook, ms

Test...Test...Test

Look for Michael Symon's blog in the next couple of days.  Will he be the next Iron Chef?