It was fun to create the first ”Flow of Improvised Meals” for the Just Food Conference in February. Since it was so well received, I decided to do another one for my presentation at the 2012 Brooklyn Food Conference this past weekend.  You can view it, below.

This new sketch charts the movement of three ingredients–spring onions, peas in the pod, and pecorino cheese–turned into many possible meals.  Pecorino cheese plays an obvious role in pasta, but its rinds find their way into cheesestock, the basis for a rich, but light soup, or risotto.  Tough pea pods, otherwise largely inedible, are blanched and pureed with olive oil and lemon, then strained to make a bright, fresh, silky sauce.  The blanching liquid, also used to cook the spring onion stalks and peas themselves, is made into ice cubes for bloodymarys.  The peas, meanwhile, get pureed and paired with the spring onion braising liquid, plus a few eggs, and turned into a custard.  The iterations continue… Click here to read more »

A favorite moment this past workshop weekend: a student was warming a bit of pork shoulder for her improvised meal.  The pork had been braised with coriander, fennel, white pepper, wine, and orange, and she wanted to pair it with kale seared with garlic and lemon, and pickled yellow beets.  She placed some pork in a hot pan, pulled off the bone, and let it rest on the heat.  As she took a few minutes to think about how to plate her dish, the sauced meat began to cook anew.  When, after some minutes, she scraped out the pork to serve over the kale, she was left with a layer of re-caramelized sauce.  The pork dish was outstanding, but it was the dirty pan that caught our attention.   The pork plate was complete, but the pan begged her to continue.

So she did.  She added chicken stock to the hot pan, using a wooden spoon to scrape all the browned bits stuck to it.  She plopped in a knob of herb butter and into this improvised sauce, placed little salt-roasted potatoes.  She could have served the potatoes with the pork, but instead decided to serve them on their own.  We considered adding capers or substituting aioli for the butter.  It was all seriously very good. Click here to read more »