Okay, more details to follow, but tonight I got to eat at Jasper’s Restaurant of Kansas City and in attendence selling his new cookbook (a work of both food porn and some awesome recipes) was none other the Next Iron Chef competitor and all around awesome guy Chef John Besh.

Pictures and recipes and reviews to come!

Chris

Broccoli and Eggplant

Okay, it’s #meatlessmonday again, which means it’s time to do right by yourself and the earth by going twenty-four short hours without meat.  Sound tough?  Not when you have

Eggplant Rollitini

I just love eggplant and I swear after this, so will you!

Also, you may have noticed, this is another fantasic 2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative recipe, wherein I take the delicious vegetables that Shawna Coronado has grown and make them into dinner for family of four for less than $11.50.  Sadly, because winter is here (feels like it never left did it??? ) the growing season is almost over, so there won’t be many more of these in 2009.  But fear not, while the veggies keep coming, so will delicious, healthy dinners for less than $11.50.

With that being said, this particular recipe was inspired by Jasper’s here in Kansas City.  It was one of the dishes Chef fixed during the Best Meal I Ever Ate.   It was wonderful then and I just hope I can do it justice for less than $11.50!

Read the rest of this entry »

Eating with Chef Jasper Mirabile

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen me mentioning a meal I recently had at Jasper’s in Kansas City, MO.  Some of you may have even gotten the chance to see the picture I took of some of the amazing food Chef Jasper made for us.  Others probably saw the repeated comments that at any moment, I was sure I was going to burst.  Despite the worries about my own mortality, that meal was sooooo worth it.

Jasper – The Tradition

To set the stage for this meal, I should let you know that the Mirabile family has been serving up outstanding Italian food to hungry Kansas Citians for over fifty years.  It all began in 1954 when Leonard Mirabile opened Jasper’s with his son Jasper.  According to their website, back then you could get a three course meal for seventy-nine cents.  (I can only imagine how fat I’d be if I could still get Chef Jasper to cook for me for seventy-nine cents…  Yikes.)

Since 1954, Jasper’s has seen a lot of change.  For instance, they moved from their original location on Wornall to Watt’s Mill on 103rd and State Line.  They have also gone from a neighborhood restaurant to one of the most decorated restaurants in the country, earning a Mobil Four Stars for dining excellence, the AAA Four Diamonds and DIRONA award (among others).  The restaurant has also seen a third generation of Mirabile, Jasper’s sons Leonard and Jasper, Jr., enter the restaurant business.

Chef Jasper – The Culinary Icon

However, Jasper’s is more than a restaurant.  If there is a food event in Kansas City, Chef Jasper is probably there.  He teaches numerous classes all over the Kansas City area, on such varied topics as making mozzarella to teaching kids the joy of cooking.  He has cookbooks.  He has a radio show on AM 710.  His smiling face can be found in any Hen House market.  He works with cheese producers to evangelize good, artisan cheeses.  He helps local food producers.  He knows everyone.

In other words, there may be no single name more synonymous with food in Kansas City (which is saying a lot, since Kansas City is starting to establish itself on the culinary map.)

Jasper’s – The Menu

And there I was with Mrs. WellDone at Chef Jasper’s invitation eating the best (and by several pounds of food the largest) meal I have ever eaten.

For reference, here’s the menu:

1. Lobster cappuccino with pancetta and foam
2. Shrimp Scampi alla Livornese Over Polenta
3. An “Appetizer” of Eggplant Othello and Lobster Ravioli
4. Half a loaf of good Italian bread
5. Caprese Salad with Mozzarella Made Tableside, Heirloom Tomatos Chef’s Wife Grew, Basil, and a Homemade Balsamic Reduction
6. A Pasta “Tasting” Consisting Of
   • Pasta Nanni with Prosciutto, peas, romano, mushrooms, and tomato sauce
   • Gagootsa sauce (Italian gourd) sauce over ditali pasta
   • Rigatoni with a Melon cream sauce
7. For our entrees:
   • Five hour slow roasted pork shank
   • Chicken Saltimbucco
8. For dessert:
   • Peach Napolean with Chef’s mama’s pastry cream
   • Death by Chocolate
9. After Dinner Drink:
   • Homemade Amaretto
   • Homemade Limoncello
   • Homemade Anisette
10. House Wine

With a menu like that, I don’t even know where to start describing everything.  It was all amazing.  However, in the interest of space, I will limit this article to the two times in the meal when the food was so good I lost the ability to speak English.  (Later, I’ll talk about more of the food and maybe sniff out a recipe or two.)
 

Pasta Nanni – The First Moment of Silence

The first time I lost the ability to speak was when I took the first bite of the pasta nanni.  It came served on a long plate with three individual sections, one for each of the pastas on the tasting menu.  I didn’t know what it was, and frankly, I was far more excited about the gagootsa sauce.  However, I think the nanni was closest to me, so I started with it.

Mere words defy the flavor of the pasta.  I can tell you there was salty Prosciutto, earthy tomato, sweet peas, savory mushrooms, and rich cream.  But those are just words.  They cannot convey how perfectly those ingredients worked together.  The saltiness of the Prosciutto was perhaps the lead flavor, but the tomato sauce and the peas wouldn’t let that flavor dominate.  Then there was the touch of cream, giving the dish just enough richness to take it from great pasta to something magical.

As a side note, I have two regrets from the evening at Jasper’s.  The first was that I shared any of that pasta with my wife and the second was that I saved some it for later.  See, our entrees arrived with the pasta course, so there was other pasta, pork osso buco and my wife’s chicken to eat.  All the while, the pasta nanni got cold and while it was good when I got back to it, it was nothing compared to when they first brought it out.  Plus, I think my wife ate all the Prosciutto.  Which is a crime in some places I think.

To this day, I still want more.  I will not consider my life complete unless I can go back to Jasper’s and eat that pasta again. 

Chef Jasper’s Chicken – Pure Bliss

The second moment of bliss so intense words failed me was when I ate my wife’s chicken dish.  When she ordered chicken Saltimbocco, I laughed. 

When I saw it on the menu, I didn’t think it was anything special.  It’s a Roman dish of chicken breast, ham, a little cheese, and some tomato sauce.  Traditionally, it’s rolled, but Chef Jasper says that it dries out the chicken too much so he left it unrolled.  There’s also a sauce made from lemon, stock, white wine, butter, and sage.  But still, when I saw it on the menu, I wasn’t excited.  I came for the big, the fancy, and the impressive dishes with hard names to say (ie osso bucco.) 

Don’t get me wrong, the pork was fantastic, but the chicken Saltimbocco was unreal.  It just worked.  The chicken was moist and the ham was perfect for adding a bit of salt, a bit of pork fat, and a bit of flavor.  The tomato sauce was gently nestled on to the chicken and added a nice bit of earthy tomato taste.  Then there was just enough cheese to top the dish to add a bit of extra saltiness and keep the dish together. 

Then there was the sauce.  That slightly citrusy, slightly tangy, slightly sagey butter-lemon-sage sauce.  To be honest, I shouldn’t like the sauce.  Citrus and wine together are about my least favorite sauce pairings, but there was I soaking it up with a piece of bread.

More than the ingredients, that dish worked because of the artistry.  You can probably find a frozen dinner with the same ingredients as that chicken Saltimbocco, but you probably can’t find a hundred chefs in the world who could make them absolutely sing like Chef Jasper.  I just can’t get over how there should be nothing special about an unrolled rolled chicken dish, but in a master’s hands, it was simply sublime.

Like the pasta, I would say that I wouldn’t consider my life complete unless I went back and had that dish it again, but I took care of it already.  So that part of my life is complete.  Though I am kinda jonsing for it again.

Chef Jasper Mentioned Melon Pasta Special

Also, I should mention the Rigatoni melon, which was the completely odd, but absolutely fantastic pasta dish with a sauce of melon, parmesan cream, and a little bacon.  If that sounds familiar, you might have seen Rachel Ray make it in her magazine, though Chef Jasper assures me his was the better version because of the bacon.  I refuse to argue against either Chef Jasper or bacon.

What amazed me was that dish its utter potential for chaos.  When you mix sour/salty parmesan cream with sweet melon and salty/fatty bacon, you should have a mess on your hands.  However, in the hands of a master, that combination was something both my wife and I loved.

And so that just part my meal with Chef Jasper.  I plan to talk about so many other parts of that dish and everything I learned from talking with him.  But for now, I need to go.  I hear some pasta nanni calling my name.

The logo was taken from Jasper’s website.

Fine dining is very much alive in Kansas City, MO at The American Restaurant.  Located right next to Crown Center, The American is making a name for Kansas City upscale/fine dining cuisine and serves wonderful contemporary American food.

The American and Chef Debbie Gold

Returning to helm the kitchen at The American is Chef Debbie Gold, an easy going, likeable chef who was more than happy to talk cooking.  I got to talk to Chef for a few minutes about her career, the restaurant and all topics food.  Like all of the KC chefs I’ve talked to, I was very impressed with Chef Gold’s passion for food.  For instance, the question “What’s your favorite Spring vegetable?” could not be answered with a single vegetable.

Chef Gold on Molecular Gastronomy

On the topic of trends, she mentioned molecular gastronomy at which point she made a statement I found deeply profound.  It seems Chef Gold is not a huge proponent of molecular gastronomy because, as she put it “We’ve worked so hard to get the chemicals out of our food when we grow it, why would we put it in in the end when we cook it?”  As much of a fan of Chef Richard Blais, the gastronomic wizard from Top Chef, I found myself suddenly calling into question the whole practice.

Why’s She Not Yelling?

Still, what stands out most to me about Chef Gold, other than her food, which we’ll get to in a moment, was just how happy her brigade seemed to be.  I live and die on Gordon Ramsey reruns so I am used to the idea of the chef as screaming slave driver.  A Gordon Ramsey kitchen seems devoid of humor and fun.  From the moment I walked into the kitchen, I could tell her staff was having a good time.  Yes, there was dinner going on, but everyone was all smiles and there was a enthusiasm  in everyone’s work.

Strangely enough, there was no fear Chef Gold was going to break into a tirade of F bombs and screaming.  By the end of the tour, i wanted to work for her.

Lamb Belly and Duck Breast

So, the thing that stands out most about Chef Gold including her food was her food.  She treated me to some of her roast lamb belly (the meat near the stomach, not the stomach itself!) served on top of a green peas with a little splash of what I think was a tomato ginger relish.  This dish reflects both the high and the low point of the meal.

That lamb belly was… supercalifragilisticexpedaladocious.  I seriously can’t think of another word for it.  Granted, I don’t eat a lot of lamb, but the lamb belly I had there was unbelievable.  The best I ever had.  I could cut it with my fork.  It was flavorful, perfectly seasoned with simple salt and pepper, and cooked, I think, just on it’s own fat.  Amazing.  The tomato relish was also wonderful.  It was strong, so there wasn’t much, but it mixed with the lamb and the peas.

Which brings us to the low point.  The peas.  I was not a fan of the peas.  They were a little too al dente for my taste and could have used a little…something else.  It wasn’t bad enough to detract from the lamb, but not perfect.

I also had the La Belle duck breast served on a sunchoke puree with ramps.  The sauce was a Grand Marnier gastrique.  This dish was a total success.  The duck was rich, but tender.  The sunchokes were mild, but worked perfectly with the duck and the broad beans were terrific.  Had I only had this meal, I would have been very happy.  However, after the lamb… well… I can say the duck’s major failing was that it wasn’t a second plate of lamb belly.

All in all, I had a great talk with Chef and a great meal.  The next time you are looking for a fine meal, a place for an anniversary, or just a tremendous view of the city, stop by The American Restaurant.  Ask for the lamb and tell them BlogWellDone sent you.  Enjoy!!

Thanks to the Kansas City Star for the picture.

Braised tofu.  For some reason, the very concept terrified me.  In fact, despite doing some very good braised dishes in my life (if I do say so myself), the whole technique seems exotic and difficult.

Then again, sometimes you have a meal (like the Fire Bird from Blue Koi made with braised tofu instead of duck) that forces your hand and suddenly you find yourself trying a dish you never thought you would.  Like

Asian Braised Tofu

… and finding it’s actually really easy.

Braising?

For those who are not familiar with braising, it’s a wet cooking method (meaning there’s a lot of liquid).  The most often used wet cooking method is boiling where food is completely submerged in liquid.  This tends to be a harsh cooking method and is good for leeching starches and flavor compounds out of the food.

On the other hand, when braising, the food is usually browned first and then covered halfway in a flavorful cooking liquid.  Having one half of the food (usually meat) uncovered allows for different flavors to develop while the food absorbs flavors from the cooking liquid.

It’s a great technique for tougher cuts of meat or for slow cooking dark meat chicken.

Braising Tofu

However, in this case, I decided I was going to braise tofu.  Because tofu is essentially a soft protein, I knew that cooking it for a long time was going to result in a big soy mess.  So I did three things:

• Used firm or exra firm tofu
• Precooked the tofu
• Cut down the cooking time for the tofu

Ready for the recipe?

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I was honored to sit down with Chef Emmanual Langlade, head chef at Aixois French Bistro, near the Brookside area in Kanas City, MO.  For those who live outside Kansas City or have just not been, Aixois is an experience. It’s elegant, yet not ostentatious.  I could take my wife on a romantic date there or I could just drop in for a relaxing bite to eat.  Plus, I really enjoyed talking with Chef Langlade.

During our chat, he shared his passion for food, his knowledge of the restaurant business, and his love for his restaurant.  He also shared with me his recipe for

Ruby Trout with Shallots and Lemon Sauce

Now, I know what your thinking.  French food = butter and cream.  French food is heavy and rich.  Not so my friend, not so!

Read on and you’ll see…

Read the rest of this entry »

Poverty is not something I talk very much about on Blog Well Done, but given the importance of Blog Action Day, I thought I would take a moment to discuss it.

As my friend at the Peanut Butter Project has rightly said, it is difficult to eat well when you are in poverty.  This statement hits close to home for me since I am a food blogger and I play with food all the time.  I play with food while others starve because they fell on hard times or were born in a country where food is not bountiful or where it is hoarded by totalitarian governments.

Don’t get me wrong, I love food blogging.  I love cooking.  I love watching the look on people’s faces when I feed them good, but after only the briefest self-reflection, I cannot help but wonder I am not part of the problem.

I am going to continue doing what I can.  I need to keep feeding money into my Kiva account, which I use to help others create food across the world.  I beg you all to do the same.

I have also thought about volunteering to help teach others how to stretch their food dollar to provide better nutrition.  Maybe it is time to stop talking about it and start doing it.  After all, the only way to end this problem is to do something about it.

I went to my friend John’s wife’s birthday party at a resturant in Strawberry Hill called El Rincon Columbian, which translates to The Columbian Corner.   We had a great time and the food was excellent.  My wife ordered chicken in a Columbian sauce of chopped onions, tomatoes, and saffron for which I am going to find a recipe.  The boy asked for rice and got a tangy, tomatoey chicken friend rice-esque dish that he did not eat (it was red after all) but that Tina snacked on.  I found a bit of the rice which was chicken free and had a taste.  It was very good, though I could not place the tang.  If I had to guess, I would have said red wine vinegar.

I ordered garlic shrimp which came with rice and tostones (mmm….tostones) which are pieces of plantain which have been friend, mashed, and then friend again.  The garlic shrimp lived up to its name.  It was served in a broth that was swimming with minced garlic.  Fantastic.

I liked my dish, but I think that the star of meal was not the protein.  The side dishes are what made the meal. 

 My wife and the boy’s meals came with this salad that was basically like Columbian cole slaw.  It had lettuce, tomoato, and I believe a little celery smothered in a white sauce that may have been creme fraiche because it was not strong enough for sour cream nor sweet enough for mayo.  My tostones were to die for as were the sweet friend plantains (cousins of the banana, though more starchy and less sweet.)  We also ordered a side of yucca, which is a South American root vegetable that was served deep fried.  Hands down, yucca makes some of the best french fries I have ever tasted.

It was a very pleasant experience.  The food was good, the company was better, and we found a new restaurant.  Tina wants to go back for more of her chicken and while I enjoyed the shrimp, I believe next time I will try to huevos (eggs) because they had some really good looking egg dishes.

If you want to go to El Rincon, the address is:
611 N 6th St
Kansas City, KS 66101

In a episode of Dinner: Impossible, Chef Robert Irvine was tasked with preparing a cocktail party for a fashion designer in New York.  During this challenge, he put together an amazing spread of finger foods including some awesome looking chorizo taquitos (he also did a salmon mousse which inspired the one I blogged on earlier.)

A few days after I watched the episode for the tenth time, I had a day at home and plenty of time to cook so I went to my local Whole Foods and browsedthe aisles when lo and behold what did I see?  Soyrizo…soy-based chorizo.

Now, my experience with chorizo is that it is very greasy.  In the hands of an untrained chef, chorizo can overpower everything else in a dish.  But this…this was soyrizo.  Could it be good or would I be just another untrained chef?

When I got home, I squeezed the soyrizo into a bowl (despite the fact it was packaged to looked like sausage, it was really a paste) and cut it with some sour cream (Robert used creme fraiche, but I had not thought to buy any.)  I then rolled up the taquito, pan fried it until crispy and served it with some guacamole.  It was awesome!

What you need:

• One package of soyrizo (all I can buy locally is Melissa’s Produce in the same size.)
• 4-6 tablespoons of sour cream (depending on your preference)
• one package of flour toritillas
• olive oil
• To make the guac: 4 avacados, 1/2 a red onion, 1/2 tomato, 1 jalapeno, 2 limes, 1/2 bunch of cilantro, salt, pepper, garlic powder

1. Squeeze the soyrizo into a bowl and spoon in the sour cream.  The more sour cream is added, the more the mixture begins to taste tangy and sour.  Personally, I am not a big fan of sour cream, so I stop at four.  Some may go as high as six tablespoons without overpowering the soyrizo.
2. Heat the mixture in a skillet over medium heat.  Stir to prevent burning.  Remove the mixture before the sour cream separates.
3. Coat each tortilla with the soyrizo/sour cream mixture and roll into a cigar.
4. Preheat a skillet over medium.
5. Determine how many taquitos you can fry in the skillet so that there is space between them.  I have a ten inch skillet and I can comfortably put in four at one time.
6. Add one tablespoon of olive oil per taquito you are going to fry.  Wait a few seconds for the oil to get hot.
7. Cook the taquitos on one side until it gets crispy, about 2 minutes.  Flip and cook the other side an additional two minutes.
8. Remove to a cookie rack or a plate lined with paper towels to get rid of excess oil.
9. Repeat until all taquitos are cooked.
10. To make the guac, remove the fruit of the avacados, dice the tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos and mix in a bowl with the juice of the limes, some cut cilantro, and salt, pepper, and garlic to taste.

That’s it.  This dish is good even for nonvegetarians as the soyrizo is packed with spicy flavor, but is not nearly as greasy.

Enjoy!

As part of the overabundance of fruit from a week ago, I decided to poach some of the apples and peaches I had left from Waverly.  I found that poaching was very similar to the process I used to make pickles where I produced a flavorful liquid, put the fruit into the liquid, and made a fantastic dish.

Poached Apples and Pears

• 1 Bottle of Red Wine (I used the Steamboat Red from Les Bourgeois.  Pick something you want to drink.)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon (this was a late addition that my two year old son dumped into the wine, but it did make it taste better…)
• 2 peaches halved
• 4 apples cut into eighths

1. Combine wine and stir until the sugar is dissolved in a sauce pan
2. Add the cinnamon stick and bring to a boil
3. Give two year old son a spoon and turn head just long enough to have him throw the ground cinnamon into the pan
4. Step #3 can be omitted and the ground cinnamon added at Step 1 or not at all
5. Once the wine is at a boil, lower the heat to low
6. Put the peaches and apples into the wine and cook until soft.  This took about 5 minutes for the peaches and 25 minutes for the apples.  Remove from the wine when each is done.
7. Continue to boil the wine until it is almost syrup.  Remove from the heat.  The wine will continue to thicken as it cools.

Serve the fruit with ice cream and drizzle with the wine reduction.