Benjamin Henion

Tonight's amuse is a spicy, flavorful little bite. Its a 71-90 shrimp cooked in sweet Thai chili sauce, with scallions and agar agar. I am serving this cold. The agar agar turns the mixture into a "shrimp jelly" style component. I made both red and yellow curry coconut sauces. The shrimp rests on a fried won-ton circle and its garnished with toasted coconut and fresh cilantro. As and entree this might be a little too spicy for some, but as one bite to stimulate the appetite, it works well. The coconut curries are well rounded sauces with just a little heat.

As I keep on trying new ingredients and techniques in the kitchen, I purchased some fun molecular gastronomy common items from Willpowder .com. One of these is tapioca maltodextrin , pictured here. It is a light, fluffy white powder that does some cool stuff. Unlike any other starches, tapioca maltodextrin has been modified to thicken fats instead of water. This is cool because we are able make powders out of oils, butters, yogurts and so on. If you know me, bacon fat, duck fat and rendered sausage fat are all in line for the transformation. Basically all you are doing is combining the fat and the starch to the correct consistency so that you are able to push the mixture through a tami and sprinkle it or spoon it onto a plate for garnish. This example shows a huilacoche butter, which I have melted, mixed with the tapioca maltodextrin and turned into a powder. I had no idea how much of this powder it would actually take. I found several websites that say 10% can be enough. I found...

These are two results when using tapioca maltodextrin. The grayish one is the Huitlacoche Butter Powder, and the bottom, a very delicate fluffy olive oil powder. No question, I need to work on consistancy, but for the first time using the ingredient, I am happy.

Today chef surprised me with an unexpected gift. A vacuum packaging machine. And naturally, as with any gift, the first thing I had to do was play. I got the dry ancho-coffee rub for the Buffalo packaged, went through all the portioned fish and other meats. Pretty much anything I could find now can be found tightly packaged in one of our many coolers. Then, sous vide came to mind. I have been looking for a way to make our achiote marinated chicken more attractive and simplified. The marinade, although very red when the chicken is uncooked, tends to darken and become less attractive once it has been sauteed. My thought had been, just roasting it would help. It did, but not enough. Well today I think I found my solution. By vacuum packing each marinated chicken breast and steaming or poaching them I loose no color. In addition, the fully cooked chicken seems larger, brighter, and even more delicate. Its very easy to slice, and stays incredibly juicy. The great thing is, you can cook th...

Here is tonight's amuse- bouche . It is a margarita shrimp, on diced avocado, red corn chip and margarita sauce. It is garnished with a touch of Hawaiian pink sea salt and a cilantro puree. I marinated the shrimp in a lime and tequila oil. The margarita sauce has a very potent, yet refreshing flavor. It is roses lime, mae ploy Thai chili, corn syrup, tequila , key lime juice and it is thickened slightly with a slurry. Very nice start to a dinner.

Many people are looking for a deal when dining in this economy. Here is our answer. It is our "Colorado Fusion Tasting" entree. It is a great chance to try the best of the best when it comes to our new menu. Starting on the left you see our Stuffed Poblano dish, which is our vegetarian option. It is packed tight with roasted corn and potato hash, smoked cheddar cheese and mild spices and herbs. The right side has our Pork Adobo , which is a pork wing (the Achilles tendon and surrounding meat). Its garnished with a fresh pomegranate and Mandarin orange relish and a charred scallion. The center of this incredible dish is our Ancho -Coffee Braised Buffalo Short Ribs. It is a hearty, very flavorful dish that we braise for about 5 hours. It literally falls off the bone. We top this off with a roasted forest mushroom salsa. All three dishes have a touch of adobo sauce and grilled glazed yams to complete the dish. We have only run this menu 2 days now, but this dish has been a h...

So, here is our first, somewhat successful, attempt at molecular gastronomy. We used sodium alginate and calcium chloride to make this olive caviar. Our plan is to make a hand passed app that will look like caviar, yet will resemble a tapanade . Although not perfected, the fact that you can see the chemical reaction in making this interesting tapanade excites the hell out of me. Rest assured, more of this will be popping up on this blog.