Isolated in the mountains of Hokkaido , in the north of Japan, the village of Toya, hosted the group of leaders from the G8 with an official dinner at Michel Bras restaurant located in the Windsor Hotel Toya.
I asked Michel for an image with all the presidents for El Sarten. His answer was no; " it's not my style" he said, but he did give me this image of the menu served on the night of the 8th of july 2008 , and I should thank him for it. A simple and great man who is not afraid to share his passion and philosophy with us every day, but is shy enough to avoid showing pictures with the presidents of the most powerful economies in the world. For me it was more than enough, here I share it with you.
After a serious mountain-bike ride, we decided to stop for our picnic in the meadows in l’Aubrac. Before we left we made some bulgur wheat and added some fresh vegetables, shallots, radish, courgette, and bacon. Once we had sat down we seasoned our salad with what we found around us: “sistre” a plant of the dill family (the symbol of Michel Bras) and some flowers like “pensees” and “potentilles”. It felt just great to give this special touch to our meal, taking only what we needed and enjoying it in the freshest way possible. It is great to be surprised by simplicity.
The cryo-vracking phenomenon started 25 years ago. It's a cooking method that allows us to preserve all the qualities of a product and to greatly extend its period of durability in safe conditions. It has revolutionised the way the restauration business functions. Using this technique, it is possible to manipulate and control the temperature at which a product is cooked almost to perfection.
Mr. Bruno Gaussault, scientist and president of CREA ( Centre de recherche et d'études pour l'alimentation), affirms that « cooking a product immersed in water is the best way to get the best quality ». It is easy to regulate the temperature of water with great precision, making it the best and the simplest way to heat or cool a product. But how can the damage caused to a product that has come into direct contact with water best be avoided? The answer is to protect the product from the water by vacuum sealing it into special bags. It will then be possible to perfectly preserve the texture, aroma and flavour of the product, as well as monitoring how it cooks with the accuracy of a digital thermometer. It has enabled chefs to save time and improve quality - it's a complete revolution.
We had a one week course on cryo-vacking with Mr. Gaussault, also president of the number one company in the world, cuisine solutions, and we did plenty of experiments using fish, meat and vegetable: it means cooking at the right temperature, respecting the hygiene with amazing results, and above all, it means giving new solutions.
Here's some useful information:
After our tests we discovered the correct core temperatures for the following products:
Fish: 58-60°C
Beef: 58-60°C
Veal: 65-68°C
Pork: 65-66°C
Chicken: 65-71°C
Vegetables: 80-85°C
* You can use a home digital thermometer to have a go yourself, try to avoid harming the product while you do it.
Objective: To get to the top.
Difficulty Level: Very Hard
Time: Many years.
Team: Only the best.
Equipment: A back pack full of courage, the right decisions, patience and some talent.
Every day is a challenge, every night is a day accomplished. Keep thinking about the feeling of reaching the top. Everyone has his own mountain to climb, and summit to reach. Passion is a must. Dreams are there, is our duty in life to make them come true.
In my experience, it is important to feed the soul and not only the stomach. I believe that food and emotions are directly related; hand in hand they go in the eternal search of happiness. The power of food is so amazing that we can actually control our emotions by eating well. You want to try it out? I will give you some simple recipes from now on, here is the first one: 20 minutes before breakfast every morning, mix one spoonful of pollen with a glass of pure carrot and parsley juice, then have a spoonful of a good olive oil. Try this every day for a week. The next week you can change the juice using another vegetable such as broccoli, but don't add any water to it. Get into a routine and do this every day - you will see the results in your hair, eyes, skin, and especially in your mood. It works very well in many other aspects too.
People often say that in England you wont eat well, but they are wrong. London offers an enormous variety of international cuisine to suit all budgets. Pierre Gagnaire, one of my favorite chefs has created a unique restaurant concept, an incredible experience that melts the art of cooking with music, visual arts and design. The Lecture Room, a one Michelin-star restaurant, is the gastronomic paradise of the Sketch, chef Pascal Sanchez, the executive chef is a true master, he has put together a small team and improved the skills of each of its members, the result is fantastic food that achieves the true balance between simplicity and complexity that this art requires. Fresh products, and the perfect technique to transform them into very good dishes make this place somewhere worth trying. I have the chance to be part of this team during my stay in London, I would like to share this experience, this is my first impression, and these images a small bite of this perfectly conceived dish.
In the kitchen world the language used is very important to be able to describe a dish, or to understand it when reading a menu. Most of the words come from the French, because most of the techniques and cuisine bases where also created here in France. In the professional world it is also important to know how to describe your creations in an attractive and truthful way. The oral and written language are also part of the culinary world. I have been looking for a website that can help us translating and describing the techniques, from French to English and vice versa, I did not find a proper site until my friend Paul James Kirrage,a member of the Institut Paul Bocuse team gave me the link of his new website, and finally, a gastronomic translator on line, www.pjkhospitality.com, thank you for this amazing service Paul!
It is so interesting to melt different arts into one. Ideas from both sides merge together into one creation. The power of the image and the charm of food together can go far. A good dish can look even better with good photography, for instance. Add some graphic design with modern ideas to the mix, and the result will hopefully be a yummy photograph. El Sarten and RGB Studios just started to work together in a fun culinary and design experience... Click to enlarge the image.
This dish was made with a variety of shellfish and squid in a creamy light broth with vegetables. It is really interesting to work with products from the sea because of their nature and also because they have to be fresh, in fact, beside the fish, almost every other product arrives alive.
Located around a 45-minute drive from the centre of Paris, Rungis Market is one of the biggest in the world. This school trip began at 4.30am, when we arrived at the market, then we spent several hours visiting all the different areas of this enormous place. Each area is determined by product: meat, vegetable, poultry and fish. The fish section was particularly impressive; all these high-quality products from the sea were perfectly handled and stored in the correct conditions. It was a fascinating journey into the world of all the marine creatures that humans eat. Some of the fish here is even sold just a few hours later in the largest and most important fish market in the world, the Tsukiji shijō.
I am very happy that my blog will have new visitors, it is now part of the Institut Paul Bocuse website, this site is visited by thousands of people around the world, there are students of 39 different nationalities, making all this extra interesting! Check it out, go ahead and help me promoting this passion all over, lets all become cooks!
Marinated red tuna fish mi cuit,celery and strawberry salad in white balsamic and fennel seed dressing, fish jus colored with squid ink and a yellow pepper emulsion, me and ruth did this spontaneous recipe that turned out really well, it all started at the supermarket, we chose some different products and transformed them into a nice experience, a good rosé was also part of our culinary trip.
It will soon be the eighty-second birthday of Paul Bocuse, a man who has been very successful and accomplished a great deal from a lifetime of hard work. He started cooking when he was fourteen, as an apprentice in the Restaurant de la Soliere in Lyon, where he worked under Claude Mare, the chef. He also worked with "la Mère" Brazier, and Fernand Point in Vienne. He obtained his first Michelin star in 1958, then a second in 1960, and he became a Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 1961 before obtaining the third star, which he has managed to keep for the last forty three years in the Guide Michelin. In 1987 he gave his name to the most important cooking contest in the world these days, the Bocuse d'Or. He has been voted Chef of the Century and is President of the Institut Paul Bocuse, the Euro Toques, the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (cuisiniers) and the Fondation Paul Bocuse, and has also received several awards from the French government. He owns many restaurants and hotels around the world. As our great Chef Franck Petagna use to say, he created the " sprit de cuisinier", the cooks spirit, and he is still waiting by the doors of his restaurant in Collonges Mont d'Or for his clients to arrive.I learn from him that time is essential to become a good chef and you must dedicate yourself to it completely in order to succeed. He gave me my diploma last year. People think that when you finish your cooking school you are a chef, but I think that this is merely the moment at which you enter the professional world. The title of chef will only come with time.
The wind blows hard and the sun shines to welcome the spring, the blue sky melts into the green landscape, the birds make their music and the flowers perfume the air. I feel that this moment of my life is very spiritual, this is definitely more than just working in a kitchen: it is putting your soul in what you do, it does not always happen, is not often what you feel in the early, intense stages of becoming a chef. At Michel & Sebastian Bras things are different. It is very hard work, as it is crucial that the client leaves satisfied. It is a 3 Michelin star restaurant, one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world. The responsibility of keeping the reputation they have built up over many years is in our hands. It’s a silent pressure that we carry every day. Although at times it can be difficult, it is also a pleasure to be part of a team like this. I find the humility of the people here touching, which caused me to think on my hike over the surrounding countryside. I see the plants and the flowers as what they are, living things, because I am convinced that nature has a soul, and that we are able to connect ours with it. I went out this afternoon after work, I was once again amazed by the beauty of nature, rolling on the ground like a child, taking pictures, trying plants, hugging the earth, I fell asleep, in love.
Is this what they call happiness? Sometimes it takes less than we think.
Today I received a comment in one of my old articles where I talked about making yourself happy by cooking something quick and nice at home.
Anonymous said...
"i think your wasting your time presenting a meal like that to eat for yourself..maybe try cooking something for flavor before cooking for looks...coconut risotto? wtf....are you indian / italian or somthing?
baby steps my friend...baby steps"
April 30, 2008 11:30:00 PM MEST
I want to dedicate this article to him, his words inspired me.I found them very interesting indeed. If we all took baby steps the world would be different;life would be more spontaneous, we would be amazed by the most simple things around, there would be no war, no racism,just playing, all day long...
At La Palme D'or, the two Michelin-star restaurant where I now work, things work in a very particular way, namely fast and perfect. Their mentality is to push the team to its limits, all in a very hot environment.
One of my duties as the lowest ranking member in the team hierarchy is to go and look for things for other people, bringing them from the fridges to the different stations.
One day at work, I started to wonder just how far I walk in fetching all these different things in a day. So I did the calculations and found out that every day I travel 2.4 kilometers, around 12 kilometers for every week. In this profession whoever wants to success, has to run for it. Distance is just a number, the will to succeed is what really counts.
In the 'Sirha', the Bocuse d'or is the most important cooking competition in the world. 24 chefs are selected to represent their countries for this great event, which attracts not only the millions who attend the cooking fair in Lyon, but also more than a thousand journalists from 30 different countries. The atmosphere in the stands facing the kitchen is comparable to a football match – no exaggeration! Supporters come from every country to watch the remarkably high-level cooking on offer, which unfolds before their eyes in kitchens where everything runs like clockwork. This year, the winner was France, represented by Fabrice Devignes: a well-deserved victory. In second place was Denmark with Chef Rasmus Kofoed: excellent work. In third place (a closely-contested position) was Switzerland and Frank Giovannini. Each dish was transported by a MOF (Meilleur ouvrier de France), amongst them Alain Lecossec, one of the chefs from the Institute Paul Bocuse. The panel of judges formed an impressive pantheon of stars from the cooking world. Counted among them was Heston Blumenthal, the British genius behind the Fat Duck, a restaurant in the South of England that has been voted one of the best in the world; Juan Mari Arzak, a great Spanish chef; the Frenchman Serge Vieira, winner of the last Bocuse d'or two years ago; Olivier Roellinger, an important French chef; Jerome Boscuse, son of Paul Bocuse; Pierre Orsi, MOF and renowned French chef and, obviously, Monsieur Paul Bocuse, who, even at 82 years old, is still present at the competition that bears his name, and which is undoubtedly the most important cooking contest in the world. Anyway, it's getting tiring listing all these names; in short, all the big cheeses were there. My cheese and oenology teachers were the maitres d'hotel, and several students from the school worked as waiters for the judges during the meat and fish rounds, so that the jury could taste each dish and award marks accordingly. C'est la folie!
During this fabulous week spent in Burgundy, we were lucky enough to get to try some great local products like good wines and different fresh market ingredients that I then used to prepare dinner. The beautiful surroundings and the good company of family and friends made this week something to remember.
Fois gras with home made ravioli and a red porto sauce and mushrooms emulsion, celeriac salad with an orange and cumin vinaigrette, duck breast with a wild mushrooms fricassee and a mandarin sauce were some of the classic French cuisine meals made to celebrate our journey in the French countryside.
You can prepare something nice without having to be in the kitchen all day; this dish was made in hardly any time, and is a great example of a quick supper. The coconut risotto is ready in a mere twenty minutes, during which time you can prepare and season the tuna fish before it's added to the frying pan for the final touch. Here, I used a light wasabi sauce to accompany the dish, which anyone can make in less than five minutes. Cooking shouldn't be stressful; on some days, you're able to take your time and enjoy it, on others it's easy to create a delicious dish in hardly any time to enjoy with your friends and family.
Awarded the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France in the year 2000, Chef Franck Petagna worked in the Hotel Martinez in Cannes before spending 10 years in Biarritz at the Hotel du Palais with Jean Marie Goutier. He worked in many countries, was respected everywhere, and joined the team at the Institut Paul Bocuse in 2001. His intelligence, technical skills, and generous spirit made him one of the best chefs we have ever had the pleasure to work with. Franck Petagna was a great chef and a great man, there is so much to say about him, and I can't find the right words. He lost the battle to a terrible cancer, and we lost a very special person. I dedicate this article to him, to Chef Petagna, to this great man, this great warrior.
At the Institut Paul Bocuse ,the two-star Michelin chef from France, Thierry Marx, shared some of his life, his extensive knowledge and his advice on having a restaurant with us today. He gives great importance to how both the kitchen and service teams should be managed and emphasized how a restaurant's success can depend on the personalities and motivation of the staff. He is a person that I admire because of his charisma, and his unique philosophy on how to be a good chef (he takes his team to teach them Judo, where they learn how to handle difficult situations and stay in control).
He also showed us different techniques used to prepare different products, both saving time and achieving better results. From the "soufflé instantané de chou-fleur aux huîtres avec une crème au citron vert" (oyster and cauliflower soufflé with lime cream), to the salt cod with passion fruit 'spaghetti' and frothed mango, or the Szechuan pepper minute-meringue cooked in liquid nitrogen (-183 °c) with a sparkling blueberry coulis and chocolate decoration, all his dishes impressed me.
It was a hard week at Saisons, the gastronomic restaurant in the Institut Paul Bocuse: not only were we cooking, but we also created the menu. While I'm working, I have a habit of eating slices of raw ginger, as it has several qualities that help me in the kitchen. It's great for energy and concentration, and it keeps me awake and active. During our last service on Friday night I started to eat a bit too much of it, and at one point my body temperature rose to a point where I was too hyperactive, I was breathing really fast and I just couldn't stop moving. I enjoyed it, but I also learned that I should start taking smaller doses. I accept it: my name is Rodrigo Pacheco and I am a ginger addict.
Sunday is a day to relax, to sleep a bit more, to take it easy. I suggest you try making this salad for brunch, and your day will start just fine.
First, you have to choose the best roquette leaves that you find, and with the least pretty ones, make a pistou composed of half a garlic clove, some good olive oil, salt, ground parmesan cheese and a couple of turns of a black pepper grinder. Add some fresh vegetables nicely cut - take your time. Make a bed of this salad on a plate, and place some smoked salmon fillets on top. With a mixer, make a sauce composed of a tomato, olive oil, part of a garlic clove, salt, black pepper and some wasabi. Pour this sauce lightly over your salad, add some toasted bread, some pine nuts and some parmesan shavings. If you want to make it extra nice add a glass of a fresh Champagne to this special brunch. Enjoy!
I enjoy cooking, travelling, and being part of nature. I have a Bac + 4 in Hotels and restaurants management in Chile, and a Bac + 3 in Arts Culinaires et Management de la Hotellerie at Institute Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France.
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