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Showing posts from 2012

A November harvest

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In November, most places in the world, the temperatures are dropping and frost or snow become killers of gardens until spring. Not on Maui. Today I took a few minutes to walk through my home garden an snip just a few things. I have starfuit, bright lights chard, lemongrass, garlic chives, eggplant, red okra, mojito mint, (opal, cinnamon, lime, kafro, and Genovese) basils, and a nice variety of peppers that were right for the pickin'.

Yukon gold potatoes.

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Yukon potatoes are taking off! I planted these sprouting potatoes less than a week ago and they are everywhere.

Starfruit are beginning to grow.

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I planted this small statfruit tree about a year ago and the fruit is finally growing. From the look of it, this little plant should produce quite a bit of starfruit as well.

Roast night on Sundays

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We are now running a roast night on Sundays featuring herb crusted prime rib, house made porchetta, and while rotisserie roast chicken.

Spicy Ahi and Kajiki Sashimi

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This is Ahi and kajiki that is I bind together, seasoned, seared and sliced. It's pretty cool to have two different fish in the same slice of sashimi. This will give a new look to our weekend buffets.

Salmon stuffed scallops

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These salmon stuffed scallops were just for fun tonight to show the guys how to use "meat glue". They came out nice though, with a really great texture and just a subtle salmon flavor. The lemongrass butter adds a citrussy richness that compliments both the scallop and the salmon nicely. This may not be on the menu, but the gears are turning in the heads of my cooks tonight.

Won ton tacos

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Here are a couple pupus I made for a couple clients the other day. Kalua pork tacos and schichimi seared Ahi tacos to start their lunch out right.

Braised pork belly

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One of tonights specials is this braised pork belly. It's served with sauce made from reducing the braising liquid, adding demi and finishing with butter. I served it with creamy polenta balls, grape tomatoes and a roasted hearts of palm and mushroom pico de gallo.

Here are some good lookin' scallops the boys put together tonight for an appetizers for big table tonight.

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New supplies

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I just got in a few new items to try out some new molecular recipes. I finally got the "caviar" stopper so I don't have to make them one drop at a time. I also brought in more tapioca maltodextrin that i have used in past posts, but would like to do more experimenting with. Powdered agar, pectin, soy lecithin and Carrageenan are also additions to my shelf, so I plan to work on some new, fun stuff for our different restaurants. I am excited to liven up our menu a bit with some unusual components.

Prosciutto Wrapped Scallops, Morel Mushroom Broth

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Another nice appetizer to get your mouth watering. This is a simple, popular dish that I really enjoy. We wrap U-10 scallops in thinly sliced Italian prosciutto and pan sear. They are served on a house grown basil pesto infused polenta cake. The morel broth is hit with tomato and shallots, and of course, finished with whole butter.

Pepper Seared Ahi with Whipped Molokai Sweet Potatoes

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Killer feedback on this dish. My new favorite entree. We take a medium 2+ Hawaiian caught Ahi filet and clean it to just the beautiful center cut. We coat the entire loin with hand crushed black pepper, hawaiian sea salt and extra virgin olive oil and sear the whole thing rare. We cut a 6 oz portion to order and give it one final sear before serving. The combination of the high quality ahi, molokai purple potatoes and the vanilla and cherry demi makes for a very well rounded entree.

Passion of Hamachi and Ahi

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Here is a new app on the menu. It is the passion of hamachi and ahi. We do a nice little ahi poke tower with cilantro and kaffier lime sour cream, served with fresh hamachi sashimi, pickeld radish and daikon radish.

Duck Bacon "BLT"

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This was last nights little $6 appetizer. It is house made duck bacon, fresh house made mozzarella with house grown Thai basil pesto aioli, kamuela tomato and sprouts in a house made sliced maui onion bread. I served it with molokai potato chips. We were not slammin' busy, but one of the tables that ordered this app, actually bought another one for after their dinner because they really enjoyed the first one.

Todays home harvest

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Today we got some green beans, red and green jalepenos, kung Lai chile's, green and purple tomatillos, and a few snap peas. We are figuring out what works best here in Kihei without too much trouble.

A few more garden shots.

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It's still in its infancy, but this garden has an aweful lot of potential.

My home garden

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Here are a few items I have planted in my Maui lava rock raised bed garden.

Angelfish

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The photo isn't great since I took it in the freezer, but angelfish have been a common carving because they can be done very quickly.

Maui Pineapple

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Growing pineapple on Maui is incredibly easy. I simply spin the top of a store bought pineapple to remove it. Peel away a couple of the smaller leaves at the bottom and plant the sucker. This one was planted about a year ago, and has just recently begun to sprout a new pineapple. It will produce a pineapple about every 2 years, but they will get smaller each generation and will eventually become unusable. Garden is looking good!

Sailfish

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Another brunch carving. This one was a sailfish that was cut from a thin, half block of ice. It required attaching the bill, which this is the first time I have attempted this since being in Hawaii. Again, she turned out ok.

Hawaiian sea turtle on ice

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Lately I have been doing all of the ice carvings for our three weekend buffers. This honu has its flaws, but I carved it completely free-hand and it seems to have turned out pretty good.