Thyme brush and butter

NYC Delft Table Settle. Designed by Demian Repucci

A simple solution to a problem that we hadn’t known we needed to solve. Lost in the striking rush of action in the kitchen of Norwood, I stumbled through the final steps that I needed to perform before our me

al was to begin. Three floors above us, forty locally-made delft china settings, neatly wrapped in bright red string were awaiting their guests. As I was imagining them battling the brisk chill of the early autumn evening and Jonny’s humor, I collected a tray of mis en place and saw this out of the corner of my eye.

Discarded by its creator twenty minutes earlier and left to wallow as the task at hand moved to the toasting instead of the buttering of the bread. Stacks of quart containers blocked it from clear view and it was starting to get dangerously near the back edge of the prep table.

Thyme brush buttering toast. ©2009 Andy Buck

In the haze of the night, I didn’t remember the bunch of time and the smile the simple idea brought to my mind until Andy sent over these photographs. Mike Lee has done some amazingly creative things before and I have laid witness to an every growing portion of these (thanks to twitter) but this is one is exceptionally elegant.

Thyme brush buttering toast. ©2009 Andy Buck

The home for finished meatballs before the get frozen

Daniel and I designed these meatballs with Josh Ozersky to compete in the 2009 NY Wine and Food Festival Meatball Madness.

Meatballs

It was essential that we include all three main meats in our meatball for flavor but instead of mixing the ground meat together we allowed each meat to express itself  in a different layer of the dish.

The center of the meatball is a veal ragu made from veal bones and ground veal cooked into a smooth tomato deliciousness with onions and garlic. It was then set with 2% gelatin and placed into a mold.

Veal Ragu

Gelatinzed Veal Ragu

Gel Centers

We wrapped the ragu molds with pork, herbs, spices, grated cheese, breadcrumb, and eggs.

After, we rolled them in flour and egg, and covered them in coarse breadcrumbs. Next, we froze them.

While they were freezing we rendered out 20kg of beef tallow. Once frozen, they were deep fried in beef tallow and seasoned with salt, locatelli cheese, and beef bone marrow fat that had been powdered with n-zorbit tapioca maltodextrin.

Beef Tallow

Beef Tallow Rendering

We didn’t win but Giada did get hot sauce all over her face because she refused to listen to me tell her to eat it in one bite. Happens…

Finished Meatballs