I was cleaning up some old photos on my hard drive when I realized I posted this scallop crudo a while ago as part of project food blog but I never wrote a recipe for it. Crudo in general don’t need recipe since it consists of the freshest seafood money can buy with a squeeze of citrus juice and a drizzle of high quality olive oil. I played with this concept a little bit and made shiso and yuzu oils to enliven the pristine sea scallops. One with an herbal, grassy tone and the other one with the bright floral aroma of my favorite citrus, yuzu. The fruity and mildly peppery flavor of pink peppercorn fits perfectly here, and so does the mineral complexity of Fleur de Sel. This is how, with only a few simple components, you can make a dish worth of a fancy restaurant.

Since the ingredients are few, the key to success of any crudo is the quality and freshness of the ingredients. So don’t skimp on the good stuff. And your guests will think you’ve gotten an expensive culinary education.

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When Pierre Hermé calls a recipe “Nutella tart” you can assume it’s a little bit more involved than just scooping Nutella out of a jar and into a tart crust.  His version consists of a layer of Nutella topped with a chocolate ganache and toasted hazelnuts in a rich tart shell. The tart is then baked until the ganache is barely set.

In this version, I omitted the hazelnuts and added some sour cherries in syrup I made a few summers ago to make room in the refrigerator cut through the richness of these little devils, and I strategically sandwiched them between the Nutella and the chocolate ganache to keep those two from getting into a fistfight. It’s really delicious this way but you could also substitute the sour cherry with bananas or raspberries. I didn’t use Hermé’s recipe for the crust but my own “go to” recipe for pâte sucrée. It works everytime and allows you to make it in smaller batches.

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I wanted to take a “Modernist” approach to short ribs but while keeping the robust flavors of a traditional braisé. So this recipe is a mix of Nathan Myrhvold 72 hours sous-vide short ribs and my own concoction. I normally would soak the short ribs overnight in a mixture of aromatic vegetables, herbs and red wine but I skipped that step because I figured that with the gentle cooking process over a 3 days period the short ribs and the “braising liquid” would have plenty of time to get to know each other.

I have a vivid memory of the best short ribs I ever made. I used this exact same recipe in a traditional braisé but the difference is that they were made at high altitude, in the Colorado mountains. As you may or may not know the braising process is slowed down at high altitude and it has to do with the smaller vapor pressure and lower boiling temperatures – and as a result I had to braise the wine-soaked short ribs for 8 hours straight. They were beyond incredible.

I had high hopes using sous-vide because I thought it would recreate and even surpass the ultimate environment I remembered from this experience. So how did it go?

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Does the world really need another food gallery site? The answer is YES! of course.

If you’re a regular visitor of this site you probably noticed a little icon on the top left corner that says “Check Out Zenspotting”. I decided to create Zenspotting because I thought it would be fun to have a space for chefs and adventurous cooks, where they could publish or view photos linking to interesting recipes. The selection is of course purely subjective. I appreciate everybody’s efforts in their kitchens, but my focus is on recipes with an edge, visual appeal and the ones that makes you want to say: cool!

Sign up, submit or simply go and take a look! I appreciate your support.

ZC

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This is where Thai curry meets chicken pot pie to create one of my most favorite comfort food. I always thought of the flavor combination of lemongrass, galangal and Kaffir lime – the building blocks of Thai cooking – as a concoction made in heaven. It’s simply perfect. When you add chicken to it and gently simmer it with coconut milk, Thai curry paste and chicken stock, and finish it up with fish sauce, Thai basil and lime juice to make the flavors sparkle, you end up with one of the most satisfying meal known to mankind. Or at least to me. You could stop right there and be happy, but it’s all about never being satisfied, isn’t it?

So we top it with a golden, buttery crown of puff pastry to make something so delicious that you’ll fall on your knees, look to the sky, and wonder what have you done for attracting so much goodness into your life. It’s okay. Take it all in. It’s all yours.

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