Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

Over the past couple weeks, i’ve been cooking a lot, and i wanted to share a giant personal triumph with you. This adventure starts back in February, when i received the French Laundry cookbook for my 30th birthday from good friend and traitor ( HA! ) Joel.

For those that don’t know, the French Laundry is a restaurant in the Napa valley town of Yountville, CA. Headed by award winning chef Thomas Keller, this place makes food that is in a class by it’s self, and the recipes found in this book are no joke. Although based in simple french style cooking, Keller’s contemporary approach to the basic french methods requires an insane attention to detail, a lot of time, and patience. I’m not afraid of a challenge, but the fact that it took me 8 months to attempt one of his dishes should give you an idea of how intense the process is.

When i went to the grocery store last week and saw that lobster was on sale ($6 a pound!) i knew it was time to suck it up and dive into the book head first. I decided to make his interpretation of macaroni and cheese, and while this may seem simple in concept, it was as far removed from the blue Kraft box as possible. I first checked out Carol Blymire’s blog French Laundry at Home for some insight on this dish. This woman has cooked every recipe in the book over the past couple years, and i have the utmost respect for her because of it.  

I started by getting the lobsters ready for their quick bath. It sounds much nicer that way.

Once the water came to a boil, i ‘steeped’ the lobster for a quick two minutes, just enough to kill the buggers and make the meat easier to remove from the shells.

After they stopped doing their version of kicking and screaming (Note: they don’t actually scream when boiled, at least they didn’t for me) i pulled out all the meat, let it rest on a plate and them put it in the fridge for a few hours.

After that, it was time to make the Creamy Lobster Broth part of the recipe. It begins by searing the bodies the lobster for a bit, then adding various aromatics and water, and then boiling for about 4 hours to reduce everything. Yup, 4 HOURS!

While that was happening, i made some parmesan cheese crisps in the oven. Basically just grate some cheese and place them in 2-3 inch circles on a baking sheet:

Then bake for a few minutes till golden brown and smelling awesome. This was the easiest part of the whole recipe.

OK, so now that the lobster broth has been reduced, cream added and reduced some more, you get the most amazing smelling/tasting Creamy Lobster Broth. This gets added to the partially cooked Orzo pasta and reduced even more. The more you reduce sauces and soups, the stronger the flavor gets. This is the point that the Marscapone cheese gets added, and thus the name of the dish, ‘Mac and Cheese’

The final step is to finish the lobster off. The initial steeping process just makes the meat easier to remove from the shells, but doesnt cook it all the way. You finish cooking it by poaching it in butter. You heard that right – POACHING IT IN BUTTER. This guy Keller figured out how to make something that is already delicious – lobster – and make it unreal amazing by cooking it this way. Drool.

Now that that’s finished, it’s time to plate the food, and i did my best here, but i’m sure that this part gets easier with practice. First you place some coral oil down (made from the lobster roe and oil mixed in a blender for 20 minutes earlier in the day). Next is a scoop of the Orzo and cheese in creamy broth, followed by a parmesan crisp, layer of lobster, another crisp and a couple more pieces of lobster. Basically, you build a tower of awesome, and then eat it.

As much work as this was (about 8 hours of cooking time start to finish) it was totally worth it. I will definitely be making this again, especially if the Dandy Lord pays a visit back to VT (how’s that for a reason to come back and hang?)

 

I’m also going to put up a couple photos of a dinner i made the other night. It was supposed to be for Zimmerman and Cavan, but Zim’s truck stopped working the day before and he couldnt make it from Rutland for dinner. Cavan just straight up blew it and missed another meal that was quite delicious. 

Cornish Game Hens stuffed with Cornbread-Apple stuffing (recipe here). Gratin potatoes (from the Les Halles cookbook) and Brocolini. Enjoy

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under Designers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.