Mother's Day 2008

Had the folks over for Mother's Day this year and I had two things in mind Jamaican jerked fish and some type of puree. Both concoctions came out great and I was pretty happy with the rest of the menu. Although portions in the picture were smaller, that was just for presentation - everyone requested seconds (and thirds) and I gladly obliged..something you can't get at a place like French Laundry :)

Menu
1) Amuse - Torched O-toro, Jalapeño, and Yuzu
2) Seared Wagyu Ribeye, Edamame Puree, Enoki, and Miso Butter Sauce
3) Jamaican Jerked Chilean Sea Bass, Mache, and Fruit Salsa
4) Assorted Mochi
**Note as usual, all measurements are estimates since I don't keep track of precise measurements. Just taste, re-adjust and repeat until it comes out right.

Torched O-toro, Jalapeno, and Yuzu
Flipping through some of my cookbooks for plating inspiration and pulled this dish out from the Nobu cookbook. Haven't pulled a dish directly from a cookbook in a long time and it unsurprisingly came out great. Fatty o-toro has an amazing texture and when you torch it, it gets a nice smoky flavor. It's cut nicely with the jalapeno and sour Yuzu soy sauce.

Ingredients
O-toro
1 Jalapeno thinly sliced
Yuzu Soy Sauce

1) Torch the block of o-toro until caramelized (around 5-10 seconds). If you don't have a torch, you can sear the toro quickly over high heat. The key is to make sure almost all of the toro is still raw - only getting slight caramelization.
2) Cut thin slices of toro (I need a sushi knife), add one slice of jalapeno on each toro slice, and drizzle the yuzu soy sauce over top.


Seared Wagyu Ribeye, Edamame Puree, Enoki, and Miso Butter Sauce
A great combination of textures and flavors. Tender beef, velvety edamame puree, and pleasantly chewy enoki. The butter sauce kicks ars and the puree has a surprisingly intense edamame flavor. Plate in the picture was a wedding gift from my buddy Chu...thanks dude.

Ingredients
Wagyu Ribeye (and American Ribeye for seconds)
1 Pack Enoki Mushrooms cut into bite size pieces
2 Tblsp Butter
1.5 Tblsp Miso Paste
1/3 cup Sake
Splash Mirin
Splash Soy Sauce
4 cups Frozen Cooked Edamame (high quality is very important)
1 small white potato
1/4 Cup Cream
1 garlic clove crushed
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1) To make the enoki butter sauce - add 1 tablespoon butter to a saucepan and cook until it's completely liquid over low heat
2) Add enoki, sake, mirin, and soy sauce to a sauce pan and cook for 8 minutes until the enokis are soft. Add Miso paste during the last 2 minutes and make sure it dissolves.
3) Strain the enokis, reserve the liquid, and set aside. Add the liquid back to the saucepan and simmer over low heat. Remember to taste and adjust if necessary. Reduce until it's a syrupy consistency.
4) To make the edamame puree (there is definitely a better way, but this is the first time I made a puree so these are the steps I took) - Shell about 4 cups of cooked edamame. Make sure to taste them raw. If they have good flavor and good color raw, then it'll be good in the puree. Puree the edamame in a food processor.
5) Boil a potato (don't forget to salt the water), cut it up, and add to the food processor.
6) Add 1/2 of the cream to the processor and puree. Now this is the step that took fo'eva. I kept adding the salted potato boiling water (maybe 1 cup?) until it looked relatively smooth. Then, I emptied the puree into a saucepan and cooked it with 1 tablespoon butter over low heat. The puree wasn't as velvety as I liked, so I added the mixture back to the processor pureed again with more water - then added the puree back to the pan with some cream. Voila...insanely velvety pureed edamame. Btw - I looked up how they made pomme puree at French Laundry intense...tami, chinois and repeat.
7) Ok. Final steps. Sear the ribeye with sea salt, pepper, and olive oil. Since it's wagyu, I got a nice crust on one side (5 minutes) and barely cooked the other side so it was rare to medium rare.
8) To plate, add the edamame puree on the bottom, top with thinly sliced beef, enoki and drizzle with the sauce. Btw - we ate multiple portions since this was great and surpisngly the American ribeye had a much beefer taste than the wagyu I bought. Not sure if this is because it was a bigger cut or not, but I was quite surprised. The Wagyu was obviously 10x more tender than the American ribeye.


Jamaican Jerked Chilean Sea Bass, Mache, and Fruit Salsa
Spicy and tender jerk sea bass that's cut by the sweet, sour, and spicy fruit salsa. I forgot how fatty and unctuous Chilean sea bass was - great fish to use for this dish. This plate was a wedding gift from Porthos...

Ingredients
Chilean Sea Bass
2 cups Grandpa Eddie's Jerk Sauce
1 Pineapple diced
2 Mango diced
1 Red Pepper diced
1/2 Red Onion diced
2 ears of corn
1 Avocado diced
1/4 cup Honey
2 Limes
Mache (a nutty salad leaf)
Extra Virgin Olive oil
Yellow Pepper Sauce

1) Marinate sea bass in the jerk sauce for 4 hours.
2) Combine 1/2 the pineapple, 1/2 the mango, honey, lime, olive oil, pepper sauce, and kosher salt. Taste. Should be slightly sweet, sour, and spicy. I know, I know...this is such a Flay wannabe sauce, but it does taste good. Set the fruit sauce aside.
3) Pre-heat convection oven to 375. When the oven is ready, remove the excess jerk marinade from the sea bass and place the fish in the oven. After 8 minutes turn off the oven - the fish can finish in the warmed oven. Check after another 5 minutes - should be super fatty, tender, and cooked through. If you don't have a convection oven, cook maybe 12-15 minutes total but check after 10 minutes to see how much further it needs to cook.
4) Toss the Mache, Onion, Red Pepper, Pineapple, Mango, Avocado, Corn and the sauce. Again, remember to lightly toss the mache in a minimal amount of fruit sauce - don't drench the leaves. The mache should still have some crunch to it.
5) To plate, add the sea bass then a small amount of the mache on top. Add extra jerk sauce and fruit sauce on the plate for some extra flavors.


Assorted Mochi
I didn't make these since I needed to save some time. These kicked ars though. The mochi to the left was one wrapped in an oak leaf, the middle was the green tea mochi, and the one to the right was a mochi stuffed with chestnut. They all had a red bean filling...great stuff. Chestnut was my favorite...