Alinea at Home: Croquette, Smoked Steelhead Roe, Endive, Radish

I teased this post on Facebook over a week ago and just now ;getting around to writing about it.  I've had a couple different versions of this dish on my various trips to Next and Alinea and was always very curious on how they pulled it off.  Fish eggs are very delicate and don't hold up to heat very well.

The star of the show, a tin of steelhead roe.  The recipe called for smoked and I could have gotten smoked but I checked the wrong box on the website I ordered this from.  The roe is from BLIS which is one of Alinea's and Next preferred product providers when it comes to roe and some other specialty items.

In addition to the roe, the interior of the croquette had small cucumber balls.

The final part of the filling was what brought everything together, this is a mixture of salt, creme fraiche, water and simple syrup.

The creme fraiche mixture was all simmered together and then some gelatin to get set the whole mixture.

In the bottom of the hemisphere mold I put a small dollop of steelhead roe and then but a cucumber ball in.  The whole mixture was topped with the creme fraiche mxiture and then went to the fridge to chill out until the mixture was set.

While the interior was setting in the fridge, I started in on the garnishes.  First up was candied endive.  This is a belgian endive, which is a relative of the cabbage which simmered in a water and sugar mixture for about 45 minutes.

Ad Hoc at Home: Chicken Pot Pie

The family style recipes in the Ad Hoc cookbook are, surprisingly enough, a very nice change of pace from the uber fancy preparations of Alinea and French Laundry.  Chicken Pot Pie is one of the perfect family style dishes that most every red blooded American loves.  Given that Thomas Keller is the owner of Ad Hoc this is obviously a little more fancy version of the classic but it was still delicious.

The first step was to make the dough, butter salt, and flour and a bit of water to bind everything together.  Once combined it went into the fridge until I was ready to use it.

The first hit of vegetables included pearl onions and carrots, flavored with some bay leaves and peppercorns.  All the ingredients were boiled together until tender for about 10 minutes then set aside to cool.

The second round of vegetables included celery which were boiled in a separate pot of water until tender.

I took half the dough and rolled it out for the base of the pie and put it in the pie dish.

The sauce that went inside the pie was a bechamel which was is a combination of milk, flour and butter.

I made a roux out of equal parts of the flour and butter.

Once the roux had cooked down for a little bit I added the milk and let the whole mixture cook for about 45 minutes.

A chicken pot pie wouldn't be anything without a chicken.  I bought a whole roasted rotisserie chicken from Fresh Market here in town and chopped down enough of it to go in with the vegetables for the pie filling.  The egg in the picture was beaten to be used as an egg wash on the top of the pie.

I added salt, pepper, thyme, parsley and cayenne to the final bechamel for the last bit of flavoring.  This went into the bottom pie shell with the cooked vegetables.

I topped the bottom shell with the top and brushed it with the egg wash and put it into the oven for about an hour.

And the completed pot pie.  It was delicious, though I wish I had put in some potatoes.