We really enjoy cooking for people who are serious eaters
check out chuck’s recent experience with us
http://www.chuckeats.com/2008/07/15/mccradys-charleston-sc-ingredient-fetish/
if you haven’t read chuck’s blog you will be hooked instantly, chuck has quite the dining resume
this is one of my favorites
it’s an old pea introduced in the late 1800’s
the flavor when they are fresh is very earthy, almost like eating dirt, in a good way of course
these will be great with a truffle puree and some jean marc apple vinegar….with pork of course
we are going to grow a whole field of these this fall….lots of shelling to be done in the meantime, we just bought 4 and a half bushels from our friend Todd Blair, thanks to Randolph for helping us find Todd, whom we also got our piggies from
we finally harvested our jimmy red…
anybody want to grow some next year??
we now have a ton of seeds
I am doing a participation cooking demo at Charleston Cooks on July 31st. Charleston cooks is right across the street from McCrady’s. It’s only 60 bucks. I will be focusing on vegetable cookery but will also touch base on some other things. Seats are limited since it is a participation class. This facility is amazing. I look forward to seeing you in class….don’t be late!!
Discussions:
vegetable and fruit compression using the vac machine
vegetable and fruit infusion using a vaccuum
vegetable aeration using a vaccum
cryoblanching using liquid nitrogen and vaccum
cooking vegetables under vaccum in a pressure cooker
other ways to utuilize the pressure cooker to cook vegetables
creating a vegetable driven dish using lots of different ideas and theories
fish sous vide
vegetable cakes
using hydrocolloids to reshape vegaetables
using versa whip
frozen ice cream pearls using liquid nitrogen
should be a hoot
here is the link:
We have decided to take a different approach to gardening. I have pulled inspiration from Thomas Jefferson’s garden at Monticello. We are trying to eliminate plastic mulching and tractors without killing ourselves. Stay tuned to see how things develop. We are very excited.
Since attempting to raise vegetables and pigs my daily checklists have changed a bit.
Fish Carcasses (tomatoes)
Egg Shells (tomatoes)
aspirin (tomatoes)
Bone Meal (tomatoes)
Lime (tomatoes)
organic fertilizer (tomatoes)
4 gallons sour milk (pigs)
2 gallons sour heavy cream (pigs)
2 large lexans of kitchen scrap (pigs)
water (me)
slim jims (me)
if you are curious about all the strange things for the tomatoes check out this site
Cynthia is one of the most talented tomato growers in the united states, if not the most talented, she is also the person responsible for all the crazy delicious vegetables for my favorite restaurant Manresa.
if Cynthia said to put toenails into the soil to get a better tomato I wouldn’t have any toenails
The peach is compressed and then bruleed. We serve it with a brown butter crumble and honey-mascorpone cream….
This has been an incredible project on many different levels. This corn is from James Island, here in Charleston. Jimmy Red Corn is nearly extinct. Thanks to Ted Chewning for keeping this strain alive, he was nice enough to share some seeds with us this year. We ended up growing 1600 feet of Jimmy Red for seed. The scraps will be used to make grits for the restaurant. We use liquid nitrogen to ensure that the corn stays nice and cold when it is ground. Next year, John Haulk corn.
http://www.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2008/07/photos-of-mccradys.html
here is a link to some pics from the dinner with the guys from ideasinfood..
what a great night, thanks to all that made it possible
August 31st, 2008
Richard Blais
100 per person
50 wine pairing
reservations can only be made through me..
chefbrock@mccradysrestaurant.com
this should be interesting….
Our newest project is raising pigs for the restaurant. These pigs are our responsibility and will be eating the scraps from our vegetable garden. They will also enjoy lots of heavy cream and peanuts. Stay tuned……
the great thing about growing produce for the restaurant is the learning curve involved. Today I realized that 700 tomato plants might have been a few hundred too many. lots to learn
some seats have opened up…..who wants them??
june 29th…….75 bucks for 12 courses is a pretty darn good deal
reservations can only be made through this blog, email me quick
chefbrock@mccradysrestaurant.com
discovered a new foie terrine technique…rather easy..
temper the foie and clean it….cure it for 24 hours…push it through a tammis and place it in a vac bag…seal the bag…and roll it out…chill overnight, then it’s super easy to portion…by the time this gets to the guest the texture is like soft, spreadable butter, when eaten it is really creamy and decadent…awesome
we played around with lots of summer flavors but the winner was nutella, peaches and black truffles….
goes on the menu tommorrow
one hint……it’s totally natural
The heads are salt cured for 24 hours, then braised in pork stock in the cvap for 24 hours. We then allow them to cool in the braising liquid overnight. The stock gets clarified and used to bind the terrine.
the scallops are cooked sous vide in olive oil until they reach 50 c…then they are chilled and sliced…we then dress them with mango vinegar and olive oil ….garnished with fresh coriander berries
Coconut, Curry, Nasturtium and Artic Char Roe
Travis Grimes loves to cure meat, Thank God, he is damn good at it too
What an incredible thing to be a part of. Congrats to all the nominees and winners.
this city really never sleeps…which works out good for me!!
This event is so much fun….pretty funny seeing newyorkers going crazy over BBQ….my favorites were the ribs by my friend kenny of blusesmoke and of course the whole hog BBQ from the legendary ed mitchell. You could smell southern BBQ for blocks….I felt right at home!!!
reservations at:
Tailor
Yankees Stadium
Eleven Madison Park
Wd-50
Bar Boulud
Back Forty
can’t wait, I’ll take lots of pictures!!
Our tomatoes are struggling a bit right now……hope that they can pull thru, we shall see. They sure are tasty, my dinner tonight was a huge plate of cherokee purples with salt, pepper and olive oil, I must have eaten 4 tomatoes myself. Just like that it’s tomato season.
This was one of the components of a dish that Micheal Ginor cooked at the Share our Strength dinner in Nashville. He cured it for 5 days with Nori, Salt and Sugar. The Foie Gras was then frozen and grated with a microplane over tuna tartare. The flavor of the foie gras was insane. Just when you think you have seen it all with Foie Gras.
just got back from a great trip to my old stomping grounds. I did an event with the Southern Foodways Alliance and a dinner with Share our Strength at the Hermitage Hotel. Got to catch up with some old friends and also make some new ones. There’s always a good time to be had in NashVegas..
these grow cylindrical instead of spherical…tonight we served them poached in strawberry consomme with whipped blue cheese, cocoa nibs and nasturtiums….we finished the dish with some hazelnut oil from jean marc and some Oregon hazelnuts…i was really happy with the simplicity of this dish….I
this is proof that if you follow Maria Thun’s planting calender you will get straight, consistent carrots….when I pulled them out of the ground today that’s all I could think about…these were some kick ass carrots…thanks to matt and starla for planting them
These came straight from the boat and were still moving, one scared the crap out of me when it tried to pinch me. Man did these taste good…hard to describe how delicious these were, you’ll have to come to the restaurant and try some. These are straight from Charleston’s waters.
these edible succulents are really neat. What a cool texture
the may garden is great because you are still harvesting some things from the late winter garden but you also have fields full of peas, tomatoes, corn, beans, zucchini, melons, onions, okra and the begining of butternut squash (which are great in the baby stage btw)
Sometimes it pays to be impatient. Most of the time it doesn’t. One of the best things about our vegetable project is that we can see the plants at different stages. Where as before we were limited to what was for sale, now we can watch a plant grow in all of it’s stages and taste it along the way. These shallots have been in the ground forever and I pulled some up just to see what was happening below the ground. Wow, I will always harvest them this size. The flavor is so balanced, which makes them extremely versatile. Next year I plant 10 times as many I I did this year.
We finally harvested our farro. What a cool experience. You certainly cook it with more care after you see the work it takes to get it into a pot… Thanks again to Glenn Roberts of anson mills for helping us with this project.
we are fortunate enough to make jowl bacon out of emile’s pigs from caw caw creek. The quality of this pork in just incredible. I can’t wait to fry up some of this bacon
Insipred by the local shrimp arriving with it’s roe
local shrimp, avocado, white soy, red miso powder, perilla
This technique allows us to get the olive oil on the plate exactly where we want it and the guest experiences olive oil in a new way. We thickened this with a little glucose and a slow cooked egg yolk
this is so good….really well balanced.
Something tells me this will be served with zucchini puree
Yesterday I picked a few squash and zucchini…nothing to speak of, most of them were small
what a great snack…….these were wonderful dipped in Frank’s Red Hot
liquid center english pea soup encapsulated with crispy carrot puree
We really like this dish…the scallops are poached until the reach 50c and then chilled..then we slice them and dress them with some great olive oil and mango vinegar…for herbal notes we added some chamomile gelee and then we finish it with some really delicous wild char roe and some togarashi for spice
Today we cooked beets in the pressure cooker under vaccum in strawberry consomme….really tasty…once this dish is complete it will bridge the last meat course with the first dessert course in our tasting menu
Haven’t posted anything in a while………..been on the road, but I’m back!..promise to post more often
The garden is growing like crazy..lots to look forward to.
I am proud to announce Chef Todd Richards as our May guest chef. Todd is a great guy and one hell of a chef. You don’t want to miss this dinner, these sell out really fast. Check out Todd’s blog:
http://cheftoddrichards.blogspot.com/
Todd is doing some really neat stuff and we are excited to have him in our kitchen…just call the restaurant to make reservations the date is May 18th and costs 75 dollars
p.s. Todd was robbed on Iron Chef America versus Cat Cora during “Battle Carrot”
these were on the tv show deadliest catch, they came form the boat “the time bandit”…super cool
they taste incredible with a very soft “lobster like” texture…why have we been throwing them away??
Puffed Fish Skin with Vinegar Powder, fish and chips anyone??
I planted this on January the 21st….and all of a sudden it decided to grow the other day…great lemon flavor
Date Puree, farro Verde, Thackeray Cabbage
Thanks to Damon Campbell for prepping and cooking the lamb neck.
We started picking these a couple of weeks ago. Super Tasty
It doesn’t get much better. What a fun thing to make. We used local milk from grass fed jersey cows
I’ve had some new thoughts on rice recently. I am still quite obsessed with cereal production. We wanted to create a rice puff that was super light and airy…
We started by cooking the shit out of some nishiki rice and then we put it in the thermomix with some wheat dextrin. We tried frying the dough right away and got the hollow puffs in the second picture. We then smeared some on a scallop and seared it. The scallop was really tasty and super crispy, maybe the crispiest crust I have ever experienced. Then we dehydrated the mix and fried it. The result was very similar to a pork rind. All in all some good results but not exactly what I had in mind, funny how that works. We will see what happens today.
We had some uni left over from our David Chang dinner. I thought it would be fun to make a savory ice cream to start our tasting menu. Seems like everytime I make ice cream I want to try a different approach or recipe for the base. Today I called Alex and he suggested that I use white chocolate, cream cheese and greek yoghurt…..This turned out to be one of the best ice creams I have ever eaten…Alex needs to write an ice cream book
The last couple of days Travis, Timmy and I were able to make lots of great sausage. We were lucky enough to use some milkfed ossabaw and berkshire pork from Emile at Caw Caw Creek…We made chorizo, sauccison sec, hot and sweet italian sausage and bratwurst. Tasty stuff
We have found that gellan gum helps us produce great vegetable purees. .45 percent type f….set and puree
serious clarification….much cheaper than a chinios
Check out the differences in appearance. The straight iota has an incredible texture, but doesn’t hold up to any heating. We adding a little gellan to help us along, but we still couldn’t get it very hot. We then tried straight gellan but the texure was to crumbly. Back to the drawing board. Thanks to ideasinfood for the guidance.
tomatoes pressurized with olive juice, methocel riccotta (a4m), olive soil, arugula pesto
South Carolina Tamworth pork belly. Brined for 24 hours. Cooked in the cvap at 71C for 36 hours.
Today we visited Glenn Roberts at Anson Mills. What an impressive operation. Great products from a great guy. We are fortunate to call Glenn Roberts our friend. He is really doing some great things with seed saving. Very inspirational. Check out their website, www.ansonmills.com
Dessert by Winburn Carmack
Photography by www.heatherforsythe.com
www.heatherforsythe.com
Our Sous Chef Tim Moody had the brilliant idea of making southern flavored collard greens into a consomme. Extremely tasty.
thanks to my friends at www.chow.com we now have an antigriddle. Lots of ideas are in the works. here we cold seared some tuna with micro white soy pearls and lime-avocado puree.
These are from our kitchen garden. They taste wonderful with soft butter and maldon salt. Radishes are really easy to grow. These were planted 21 days ago We will harvest them in 10 days. I can’t wait.
this news came to us today via www.ideasinfood.com
our hearts and prayers are with Grant for a speedy recovery. I am sure he is strong enough to prevail.
http://www.seriouseats.com/required_eating/2007/07/alineas-grant-achatz-has-cance.html
Very few things in life bring me this much joy……….stay tuned for more pics as the growing season progresses….we are very lucky
new tuna dish for our current menu using these wonderful products
