A new direction

So, the Next at home series here is on indefinite hiatus depending on when the Childhood cookbook comes out. I got this tweet back from the businessman behind the Next, Alinea, Aviary empire.




Needless to say that doesn't instill confidence in me that this thing will be out by the end of the year like I had hoped.  If they are going through a publisher if this book is out by the end of 2016 I'll be pleasantly surprised.

For those of you who know me, I'm extremely OCD (shocking I know).  Less than 48 hours after the Tour of Thailand project I started to get anxious about starting another major cooking project.  The most logical move would be to get back into the Alinea cookbook.

I finally decided that, that is exactly what I would do.  Then, my wife made a mistake that I don't think she realized she made.  For Valentine's day she got me two Thomas Keller cookbooks, Ad Hoc at Home and The French Laundry Cookbook, the mother effing french laundry cookbook!!!!!!!!!!!

So having gotten those books, I'm not only going to get back into Alinea, I'm going to start in on both Thomas Keller books, so there should be a three way rotation of projects for the forseeable future, and whenever the Childhood menu from Next comes out I'll work that in as well.  Once that Childhood menu is out I'll be working my way towards a big dinner party in much the same way as Thailand. 

I hope you'll follow me through this next chapter.

Next at Home: Tour of Thailand

So, nine months of prepping and practicing are in the books.  I had intended to pull this off much faster but life got in the way.  Either way, I was able to successfully host a dinner party Saturday night centered around the Tour of Thailand from Next Restaurant which ran between July and October 2011. I had so much fun working my way through this, and I can't wait until the next menu comes out, hopefully sooner rather than later.

The first four courses of the evening were Street Food.  The first picture is Shrimp and Garlic, basically a shrimp ceviche and Northern Fermented Sausage.  The second photo is Thai Banana and the third photo is Green Curry Steam Buns.  There was supposed to be a fifth course with this but I don't have a dehydrator and burned the prawn crackers as I tried to dry them out. You can see it in the background of the third photo but these dishes were served with Joe Cat Punch which is a cocktail of Papaya Juice, Mango Juice, Guava Juice, Tea, Sugar Cane Juice, Arrack, Cognac and Sparkling  Wine.

Courses #6 - 8 were the grilled courses, which of course I didn't get a picture of.  This included strawberries, chicken hearts and squid. 

Course #9 was Tom Yam.  The primary piece of this dish was a cured, poached and roasted pork belly.  Underneath the pork is a slice of tomato and the whole plate is garnished with mushrooms, garlic and shallots.  The broth is a very rich and labor intensive pork broth that was made with pork feet and shanks that cooked for a total of 14 1/2 hours. 

Course #10, the famous or infamous Som Tam or Green Papaya Salad.  Given that I served this meal to a Thai National this was probably the one dish that I wanted to make sure was as authentic as possible since I knew that this was something that was eaten on a nearly daily basis in Thailand.  Overall I was told that I got this mostly right.  I was in a bit of a hurry so the green papaya was typically fettucine width and I guess it's traditionally more like spaghetti.  I was also informed that this version was essentially Bangkok style Som Tam given the relative lack of chiles and addition of seafood.  In my sister-in-law's hometown of Uban Ratchathani apparently they don't use seafood or peanuts and use a lot more chiles. 

Course #11, Pad Thai.  As you can see I started to run out of actual plates so we switched to disposables at this point, but it worked out ok.  This is rice noodles that were boiled and then tossed in a combination of fish sauce and tamarind.  The plate was then garnished with fried spinach, radish, chinese long beans, bean sprouts chives and egg.  Typically the egg is just served scrambled in the mixture but in Next fashion they played with a little bit by placing it in a vacuum bag and cooking it sous vide. 

No meal from Asia is complete without rice.  These are seven relishes and sauce that were served with the rice.  From upper left to lower right we have, Pepper Relish, Pickles, Spicy Sauce, Funky Sauce, Duck Egg Relish, Nam Prik Pao and Tamarind relish.  My brother and sister-in-law had a blast trying to remember what some of these sauces were actually called in Thai.

Course #13, Catfish.  This again is missing a couple of components, primarily the celery garnishes.  I also undercooked the catfish, ultimately a product of not being as prepared as I would have liked.  The sauce on the bottom is a white pepper caramel sauce and the garnish is pickled pearl onions. 

The final savory course of the night, Beef Cheek.  This a cured, and poached beef cheek that was served in a penang curry sauce and roasted vegetables.  By this point, my guests and I were getting a little fatigued mostly because the meal was taking longer than I had anticipated.  But this is a dish I had been looking forward to serving for a long time and it didn't disappoint.

There's also not a picture of it, but after this dish the palate cleanser was a watermelon ice.

The first desert of the night was a halved coconut filled with licorice tapioca pearls, cured mango, aerated and frozen corn pudding, aerated and frozen coconut mousse and corn coconut rock which is freeze dried corn, coconut milk powder and lime. 

The final actual food served on the evening.  This is a dragonfruit that was topped with a sugar, citric actid and rose water concoction.  Needless to say I wasn't sure if this dish would make it on to the table.  I realized on Wednesday night that I hadn't received my order that I had placed at least a week prior.  When I looked it up on Amazon I realized that somehow, my shipment had ended up in upstate New York.  After some back and forth the company sent me a new shipment overnight and they showed up at about 1 PM on Saturday afternoon.

The final course I also didn't get a photo of, but it was Thai Iced Tea.

Overall, everyone enjoyed the meal.  I also learned so much about myself and my cooking skills throughout this process.  I can't wait to do it again and be a little better prepared next time.  

Next: Bistro version 1.0

The first meal of the year at Next was their version of a French Bistro.  This was the shortest meal they've ever done and also the one where you have the most choices.  The primary menu was six courses, but each of those courses had four or five substitutions that could be made for an additional fee, there were also seven different side dishes that could be added.

The table when we got to the restaurant.  Yes, that's a free form baguette in the middle, and there was also some homemade butter on the table.  We didn't finish our whole loaf but based on the tables around us they would bring as much bread out as you wanted.

The Amuse-Bouche course, basically a course to whet your appetite.  This is an egg custard topped with hollandaise sauce, crispy chicken skin and chives.  This course and the next one were served with a hard pear cider cocktail that was quite delicious.

Hors-d'Oeuvres, this is a lentil soup that had some whole lentils, bacon, dates and turnips underneath.  I don't generally like lentils but this was really good.  The substitution options for this course included a headcheese with watercress and cranberry, an endive salad, foie gras torchon or a shellfish tower that would have been for the whole table.

This photo is called stock footage, for the first time in all my trips to Next I forgot to take a photo of a course.  This is the Poisson or fish course, in this cash Skate wing with capers, brown butter, lemon and brussels sprouts.  Skate wing is a species of sting ray that I've had a couple times before and I'm really kind of indifferent about it.  The version that Next did in this case was a riff on fish meuniere with ais a classic French method.  They served this course with a white wine from Alsace in France known as a Gewurtraminer.  The menu says there were substitutions available for this course but the back of the menu wasn't clear as to what they were specifically. 

The first main course or Premier Plat.  this is a carmelized onion tart with gruyere cheese and white anchovies.  This dish was fantastic a perfect combination of sweet from the onions and acidity from the cheese.  The drink for this course was a twist on the wine that was served with the last course.  The brought out a little carafe of Creme de Cassis, sage and spruce which turned the wine into sort of a kir royale.  The available substitutions for this course included individual portions of roasted snails with herbed butter sauce and pull apart bread, Lobster with artichokes, puff pastry and sherry cream sauce, blood sausage with hazelnuts, leeks and truffle, and turbot with wild mushrooms, fennel, pernod and sunchokes.  The whole table option included a fried guinea hen with thyme, braised radishes and roasted potatoes. 

The second main course or Plat Principal.  This is a roasted and sliced leg of lamb with roasted vegetables similar to a ratatouille and a olive and rosemary sauce.  The lamb was cooked perfectly and the sauce was absolutely delicious.  The subs available for this course were veal cheese and sweet breads with cream sauce and root veggies, beef tenderloin with foie gras, black truffle and potato puree and poached dover sole with razor clams, salsify, pear and cider vinegar sauce.  There were two whole table options as well for this course.  The infamous pressed duck and potato gratin or a duck cassoulet.  This course was served with another cocktail that was a riff on a manhattan.  Armangac, bitters and vermouth with an armangac soaked prune at the bottom.

The final course, entremets or desert.  They offered a desert of the day, and on this night they had two to choose from.  The top picture is what I ate which is a cake doughnut with raisins and an armangac sauce on the bottom.  Highly alcoholic but highly delicious.  The second photo is what my brother ate which was an apple tart of some sort.  He didn't let me have any so it must have been good.  The pairing for this course was a mixture of pear brandy, raspberry brandy and grapefruit juice.  You had the ability to swap these deserts out for a cheese plate. 

So, this was one of the more unique trips to Next.  I wasn't sure how they were going to pull it off, but they did it well.  I'm not going to lie, the menu seemed a bit reserved, the dishes were good but nothing blew my mind. 

I put version 1.0 in the title because this menu will change more than any other menu that Next has done in their 4 years in business with new dishes coming on the menu about every week or two.  Generally, the menus are designed for people to enjoy once, and are priced accordingly.  This menu is considerably cheaper than just about every other menu they've done which is partly because it's only 6 courses, but partly to get people to come back.  I'm still debating whether I'll go back a second time, but we'll see.

Next 2015

This weekend it begins!  My 2015 season at Next.  On Sunday I will enjoy French Bistro.  In June I get to partake in Tapas, with the start of the meal outdoors as Next has a temporary sidewalk permit.  Then in November its Terroir, a hyper-regional menu taking wines from very specific regions and pairing them with dishes from those regions.  It will be a fantastic  year, can't wait to share it with you.  Check in on Monday for the first in this year's series of posts.

Next at Home: Tour of Thailand: Practice Iced Tea

So, this is the final dish on cooking my way through the Tour of Thailand menu before I do this whole thing for people who know Thai food.  It's a little bit of an unceremonious way to end the menu but it was actually delicious.

So the start of this dish as the title indicates was tea.  Two different teas in fact, regular black tea and Rooisbos Tea from South Africa.  I heated the water to a boil and then let the tea steep for about 20 minutes.

Once the tea steeped it was time to add the ingredients that make this thai inspired.  I say inspired because I don't think Thai people actually drink tea, but don't quote me on that.  So in typical Thai fashion there is a sour component, tamarind paste, sweet component, sweetened condensed milk and palm sugar. 

Everything got mixed together and went into the fridge until ready to serve.

I'll admit the plating was a bit of a cop out, but it didn't really affect the flavor.  I promise for the real deal I'll have something better.

Overall, this dish surprised me, especially since I'm not really a tea or coffee drinker. 

I'm shooting for Feb 7 or 21 for the whole thing, and I already have an order placed for a component I need to pull that off.  I can't wait for my family to eat this. 

Also, I'm timing things really well as my first 2015 trip to Next is coming up on Jan 18.  This one is a French Bistro menu.  They've advertised the early portion of this menu as a 6 course menu with several supplemental courses to buy at the restaurant.  To say I'm looking forward to this menu would be an understatement.  Hoping to have that post up by the 19th but no promises.

Next at Home: Practice: Dragonfruit

I followed up a complex desert with a simple one, thank God after spending 12 hours in the kitchen yesterday. 

This is everything you need for the entire dish.  Dragonfruit, sugar, citric acid and rosewater.  I split the dragonfruit in half and then spread a layer of the sugar mixture on the top and refridgerated for a bit. 

The completed dish.  This was unique.  I've never had dragonfruit before and honestly, it's nothing special.  Definitely needed the sugar mixture to pump up the flavor.  But I also know why Next used this as the final edible course of the evening when they did this menu. 

I now have just one course left and I will have cooked my way through the entire menu, which is exciting.  It definitely took much longer than I anticipated, but I think the wait will be worth it.  Now I just need to find a time for my brother's family to come down and do the whole menu for them.