I was tidying some things up on the old Google Docs, and found a few old menus that aren’t up on the Brooklyn Warehouse’s proper blog, so I thought I’d throw them up here, just to see some of the other stuff we’ve had going on in the past.
So first up, we have the Christmas Dinner that we did with Bill Wood (of Wood ‘n’ Hart Farm, who regularly supplies our lamb shoulders and rabbits).
Bacon and Scallops
Braised Lamb Bacon, Seared Scallops, Butternut squash purée, Pine nut relish
Lamb with 4 Garnishes
Grilled Rack of Lamb, White Beans, Mint Jelly, Glazed Parsnips, Fennel Sausage
Roasted Leg of Lamb
Horseradish Mashed Potatoes, Candied Apple Jus, Crispy Carrots
Figgy Pudding
Clotted cream, Brandy flame
This was a pretty amazing dinner, everyone had a bit too much to drink and it was around one in the morning that we all finally left. The PigFish that we served here has turned into the one we currently feature on our menu.
Next up, our New Year’s Eve dinner. This one was a hell of an event. We ran two different menus for two different seatings. First a three course menu for the early seating of people who had to get some where else.
First Seating
First
Choice of
Chilled Apple Soup
Roasted Walnuts
-or-
Spinach Salad
Roasted Beet Chevre, Jost Prost Viniagrette
Second
Choice of
Choucroute Garni
Braised Ham, Sauerkraut, Lunenberg County Montbeliard Pear Wine, Taties `n`Nips-or-
Five Spice Roasted Chicken Breast
Spaghetti Squash, Crispy Potato Pave, Foie Gras Jus
-or-
Halibut Confit
Indian Point Mussels, Sofrito Rice, Saffron Broth
Dessert
Vanilla-Chili Pot de Creme
Blueberry Grunt
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bread Pudding
Hot Toddy
This seating came and went pretty quickly, and left us plenty of time to finalize all the preparations for the second seating. A real show stopper this one. We purchased a full pig from Oulton’s, and (since we don’t have anywhere to put a whole pig) had them break it down into the primals for us. Then each cut got its own special treatment. A full snout-to-tail feast.
Second Seating
First
Crispy Tete de Cochon
Braised Celeriac, Mustard Sauce
Second
Figatelli Stuffed Trotters
Chervil Salad, Grilled Orange Sauce
Third
Smoke Roasted Pork Belly
Roasted Garlic White Beans, Corn Meal Crisp, BBQ Sauce
Fourth
Choucroute Garni
Braised Ham, Sauerkraut, Lunenberg County Montbeliard Pear Wine
Fifth
Apple Roasted Pork Loin
Taties `n` Nips, Candied Walnuts, Apple Sauce
Dessert
Vanilla-Chili Pot de Creme
Blueberry Grunt
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bread Pudding
Hot Toddy
So a little break down for some of these dishes.
The tete de cochon (for those like me who absolutely failed at being bilingual) is the pig’s head. After boiling the whole thing, the skin was removed (we saved the ears for ourselves), shredded all the meat, reduced the cooking water down to essentially just the gelatin, mixed that with the meat, rolled it into a log, chilled it, sliced and fried. The exterior gets a wonderful crunch, while the interior absolutely melts in your mouth. With a real sharp kick from the mustard sauce, this was a hell of a way to start the meal.
The figatelli is a spicy, liver sausage, which you can find either dried or fresh. We didn’t have time to dry our sausage, so we stuffed it into the boned out trotters and slow roasted it for a couple of hours.
The smoke roasted pork belly was a real gem. If we ever get a smoker around here, expect to see more things like that. This was also the first appearance of my own, “kitchen sink” BBQ sauce.
The hams were a pretty impressive dish to prepare. A pot full of cabbage with two whole legs covered in four bottles of a very sweet local wine. Add in all your usual suspects of spices (cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg) and this was what you want your house to smell of when you cook a big dinner. It would be interesting (and perhaps I’ll get a chance to do this some day) to do a full Choucroute Garni, or perhaps Cassoulette, dinner. All the traditionally garnishes (not just the hams, but pork belly, sausages, veal breast, duck confit (in the case of the cassoulette), whatever else you have on hand), but each served as an individual course.
The pork loin could be considered the fore runner of the roast that I did for the Slow Food Spring Supper. This one was good, but the Pork Saddle Arista, a boned-out saddle (loin and attached belly) rubbed with a blend of salt, pepper, rosemary and fennel, inside and out, and rolled up, with the belly providing a shield and basting the loin with its fatty goodness, was a real hit at that dinner (Craig Flynn commented during the plate up that it certainly seemed to be the chef’s favourite, as we were all greedily sucking back excess or mis-sliced pieces).
I think the desserts went over well, but it was after midnight that they went out, so…I don’t really remember.
