Sample Dinner Menu

Cooking for My Life/Cooking for My Wife

If my life is on the line for one meal, or the woman of my dreams will decide on my marriage proposal based on one meal, this is the menu I “think” I would serve. I could re-write this every day for a month and would probably get 15 different versions, but this is it today.

Crawfish Bisque

Shells and heads of boiled crawfish are used to make a three-hour pressure-cooked stock mated with a sixty-minute roux, san marzano tomato sauce, an appropriate amount of cream, and a touch of barrel-aged hot sauce. It is loaded with crawfish tails and finished with a roasted poblano pepper and jalapeño créme fraîche.

Crab & Caviar Shooters

Jumbo lump Chesapeake blue crab meat is sautéed in a white wine, butter, and lemon sauce, topped with paddlefish caviar mousse, and topped with more caviar – the crab and its sauce are hot, the créme fraîche and caviar are cold which means for maximum enjoyment, this dish must be consumed quickly to get the full appreciation of the temperature and textural contrasts.

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Tomato Confit Pasta

Hyper-local plum tomatoes are slow-cooked in olive oil for eight hours (as one client described it: we turned tomatoes into bacon). The tomatoes are tossed with crushed pistachios, roasted garlic, pecorino & parmigiano reggiano cheese, single vineyard, extra-virgin olive oil, hand-made linguine fini, and finished with a basil chiffonade.

Twice-Cooked Pork Belly

Heritage breed pork belly is marinated for 72 hours in a buttermilk and beer solution, and cooked sous vide with An (in)Appropriate Amount of Butter. The belly is cooled, sliced, and crisped in brown butter. It is served on a whipped polenta made with parmesan and sundried tomato, topped with crispy strips of prosciutto, and finished with a creamy pan sauce.

Summer Sorbet #23

Blood orange, mango, honey, and sea salt sorbet, topped with freshly made rum-butterscotch sauce.