We were perhaps a bit overzealous when we wrote our most recent book, Baltimore Chef's Table, and handed in far too many words. Unfortunately, this meant some of them needed to be cut, among them several recipes and sidebars. We're posting some of those sidebars here on Minxeats. Think of them as supplemental material.
Back in 2009, after recognizing the popularity of the many kitchen competition shows on the airwaves, Baltimore native and SYSCO food service professional Erik Folkart, an amateur chef himself, decided that local food industry people deserved the same opportunity. While not televised, his competition would allow chefs and restaurants in the Baltimore-Washington area to participate in an event that would showcase their businesses, promote their geographic area, and help their communities through charitable contributions.
After talking to several chefs, restaurants, and suppliers, Erik realized that his idea could take off. He partnered with sister-in-law Karen Folkart, an experienced marketing professional, to start Mason Dixon Master Chef, LLC. And with the help of many people, including generous sponsors willing to supply food and financial support, chefs willing to give up their nights off to compete, and judges donating time and expertise, the Mason Dixon Master Chef Tournament became a reality.
The Mason Dixon Master Chef Tournament is a multi-week, single elimination tournament. In each battle, competing chefs have one hour to prepare three courses, which are judged on taste, plating, and creativity. One chef goes on to the next round, while the other chef is sent home. These one-on-one battles go on until the finale, when one chef ultimately emerges victorious.
The competition is open to the ticket-buying public, who are encouraged to watch the chefs complete their pre-match cold prep up close and personal, then sit back and enjoy the competition as it unfolds. Special “Judge Experience” tickets allow some audience members to taste the chefs’ entrées and assist in judging.
The first tournament was held in 2010, at the venerable Belvedere in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, with Moveable Feast acting as charity partner. After a year off, the competition was back in 2011 at Blob’s Park Bavarian Beer Garden in Jessup, MD and in 2012 was back in Baltimore City at Mari Luna Bistro. Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland was beneficiary of some of the proceeds in those years.
During the first three years of the tournament, numerous local chefs and food writers (including yours truly) participated as judges, masters-of-ceremony, and participants. This list of local culinary luminaries includes Sergio Vitale of Aldo’s and Chazz, Ted Stelzemuller of Jack’s Bistro, Chad Gauss of the Food Market, Jirat Suphrom of My Thai, Neal Langermann of Langermann’s, Chris Lewis of Iron Bridge Wine Company, Sarah Simington of Blue Moon Cafe, and Neill Howell, of Bond Street Social, who was the tournament winner in 2013. They competed using donated ingredients from local companies like Tulkoff, McCormick, Holly Poultry, Congressional Seafood, and Phillips Food, among many others.
2014 will bring a new season of competition, one that we hope will feature many of the chefs within these pages!
Posted on Minxeats.com.
Showing posts with label sidebars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sidebars. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2014
Friday, July 11, 2014
Sidebar - Chocolate Cups
We were perhaps a bit overzealous when we wrote our most recent book, Baltimore Chef's Table, and handed in far too many words. Unfortunately, this meant some of them needed to be cut, among them several recipes and sidebars. We're posting some of those sidebars here on Minxeats. Think of them as supplemental material. This recipe sidebar originally followed the recipe for Peanut Butter cups provided by the former pastry chef at Fleet Street Kitchen and Ten Ten, Bettina Perry.
The more adventurous among us might scoff at the idea of using pre-made chocolate cups for a fancy dessert, especially since making them at home is no big deal. Ok, it does take a lot of steps and some patience, but the result is pretty satisfying.
You might think that you can just use melted grocery-store chocolate chips, but it’s best to use good-quality chocolate. If you can find pre-tempered chocolate, you’re more than halfway there, otherwise it’s a good idea to temper the chocolate yourself. Tempering makes the chocolate less-susceptible to melting all over your hands, and it gives it a pretty, shiny appearance. Tempered chocolate also shrinks a bit when it cools, which makes it slip out of molds easier.
To temper chocolate and make your own chocolate cups, you need only one ingredient: chocolate. But there are also a few tools you should have on hand as well.
1 lb of good-quality dark chocolate, in block form
double boiler
silicone spatula
candy thermometer
cupcake liners, preferably silicone, but foil is ok too
paintbrush
1. Chop your chocolate into chunks.
2. Place 2/3 of the chopped chocolate into the top of a double boiler set over simmering water.
3. Stir the chocolate gently as it melts, using a silicone spatula.
4. Using a candy thermometer, continue to heat chocolate until it reaches 115°-120°F. When it reaches the correct temperature, remove the bowl from the double boiler.
5. Add the remaining unmelted chocolate and stir gently. Continue to monitor the temperature. When the chocolate has cooled to just below 84°F, scoop out any unmelted chocolate chunks (putting them aside for another use, or simply stuffing them into your mouth).
6. Place the bowl back on the double boiler and heat gently, stirring, until the temperature of the chocolate is back up to 89°F. At that point, remove bowl from double boiler.
7. Keep the bowl of chocolate warm while using, somewhere between 85-88°F. An electric heating pad set to low, placed under the bowl, works well. Make sure you stir the chocolate often so that the temperature remains uniform.
8. Paint a thin layer of chocolate inside of each cupcake liner. Refrigerate for ten minutes. Repeat painting and refrigerating.
9. Gently pop the cups out of the liners.
10. Fill and eat!
Posted on Minxeats.com.
The more adventurous among us might scoff at the idea of using pre-made chocolate cups for a fancy dessert, especially since making them at home is no big deal. Ok, it does take a lot of steps and some patience, but the result is pretty satisfying.
You might think that you can just use melted grocery-store chocolate chips, but it’s best to use good-quality chocolate. If you can find pre-tempered chocolate, you’re more than halfway there, otherwise it’s a good idea to temper the chocolate yourself. Tempering makes the chocolate less-susceptible to melting all over your hands, and it gives it a pretty, shiny appearance. Tempered chocolate also shrinks a bit when it cools, which makes it slip out of molds easier.
To temper chocolate and make your own chocolate cups, you need only one ingredient: chocolate. But there are also a few tools you should have on hand as well.
1 lb of good-quality dark chocolate, in block form
double boiler
silicone spatula
candy thermometer
cupcake liners, preferably silicone, but foil is ok too
paintbrush
1. Chop your chocolate into chunks.
2. Place 2/3 of the chopped chocolate into the top of a double boiler set over simmering water.
3. Stir the chocolate gently as it melts, using a silicone spatula.
4. Using a candy thermometer, continue to heat chocolate until it reaches 115°-120°F. When it reaches the correct temperature, remove the bowl from the double boiler.
5. Add the remaining unmelted chocolate and stir gently. Continue to monitor the temperature. When the chocolate has cooled to just below 84°F, scoop out any unmelted chocolate chunks (putting them aside for another use, or simply stuffing them into your mouth).
6. Place the bowl back on the double boiler and heat gently, stirring, until the temperature of the chocolate is back up to 89°F. At that point, remove bowl from double boiler.
7. Keep the bowl of chocolate warm while using, somewhere between 85-88°F. An electric heating pad set to low, placed under the bowl, works well. Make sure you stir the chocolate often so that the temperature remains uniform.
8. Paint a thin layer of chocolate inside of each cupcake liner. Refrigerate for ten minutes. Repeat painting and refrigerating.
9. Gently pop the cups out of the liners.
10. Fill and eat!
Posted on Minxeats.com.
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
Sidebar - H.L. Mencken: Culinary Chronicler of Baltimore
We were perhaps a bit overzealous when we wrote our most recent book, Baltimore Chef's Table, and handed in far too many words. Unfortunately, this meant some of them needed to be cut, among them several recipes and sidebars. We're posting some of those sidebars here on Minxeats. Think of them as supplemental material.
H. L. Mencken, the cantankerous journalist who worked for the Baltimore Sun during the first half of the 20th century, wrote about everything that affected his era, from revolutions in Cuba to the antiquated ordinances of the city government. Despite his contrarian and sometimes fiery demeanor in print, he could also become quite romantic when it came to the culinary delights of Baltimore.
Mencken lived the vast majority of his life at 1524 Hollins Street, a three-story rowhome in the West Baltimore neighborhood known as Union Square. Some of his earliest memories are of his mother going to the fishmongers on Hollins Street to buy 8-inch blue crabs “with snow white meat almost as firm as soap” for ten cents per dozen. The rarer soft crabs were more expensive at 2 1/2 cents each. When his mother reported to his father that the price of a 20-inch shad had gone from 40 cents to 50 cents, his father predicted that the Republic would not survive the 19th century.
Breakfast and lunch were the heavy meals in the Mencken household. While many today would have a sandwich for lunch, this was a rare item then. “When I was a boy there were only three kinds of sandwiches in common use - the ham, the chicken and the Swiss cheese. Others, to be sure, existed, but it was only as oddities. Even the club sandwich was a rarity, and in most eating-houses it was unobtainable.The great majority of people stuck to the ham and the Swiss cheese, with the chicken for feast days and the anniversaries of historic battles.” A typical lunch would include a platter of Norfolk spots, Himalaya corn cakes, succotash, buttered beets, baked potatoes, and string beans. If they were in season, oranges and bananas for dessert. Mencken estimated that the calorie content of this family meal was around 3,000.
Fruits and vegetables were seasonal in those days, and in winter there wasn’t much produce at all. In the summer, however, Mencken recalled the African-American street vendors who sold produce from the back of their horse drawn carts, known as Arabs or Arabers. “Arabs (with the first a as in day)...announced their wares with loud, raucous, unintelligible cries, much worn down by phonetic decay.” A handful of these vendors can still be seen and heard wandering through the streets of Baltimore today.
To Mencken, oysters were a low class food eaten by drunks in oyster houses like Kelly’s on Eutaw Street. He did concede, however, that one of his favorite lunch spots, the now gone Rennert Hotel at the corner of Saratoga and Liberty Streets, had a decent oyster pot pie. He was more inclined to order the crab soups, either the shore-style with vegetables or the bisque.
Indeed, crabs were the most popular item which came from “the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay.” Mencken remembered how a former sheriff of Baltimore, Tom McNulty, had a special way of preparing soft shell crabs. He would spear a slice of bacon on a large fork, jam a soft shelled crab on top, and hold the fork over a charcoal brazier until the fat melted over the crab. Then he would slap it on a slice of hot toast.
Mencken loved strong drink as much as food, and was not a fan of Prohibition. "A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with -- even if he drank." He felt that alcohol was “the greatest of human inventions, and by far -- much greater than Hell, the radio or the bichloride tablet." Indeed, he saw food and drink as prime examples of Man’s ongoing quest for the finer things in life,"...all the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs, to bouillabaisse, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from tap water to something with color in it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen."
Posted on Minxeats.com.
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| Robert F. Kniesche, Baltimore Sun photo / September 20, 1950 |
Mencken lived the vast majority of his life at 1524 Hollins Street, a three-story rowhome in the West Baltimore neighborhood known as Union Square. Some of his earliest memories are of his mother going to the fishmongers on Hollins Street to buy 8-inch blue crabs “with snow white meat almost as firm as soap” for ten cents per dozen. The rarer soft crabs were more expensive at 2 1/2 cents each. When his mother reported to his father that the price of a 20-inch shad had gone from 40 cents to 50 cents, his father predicted that the Republic would not survive the 19th century.
Breakfast and lunch were the heavy meals in the Mencken household. While many today would have a sandwich for lunch, this was a rare item then. “When I was a boy there were only three kinds of sandwiches in common use - the ham, the chicken and the Swiss cheese. Others, to be sure, existed, but it was only as oddities. Even the club sandwich was a rarity, and in most eating-houses it was unobtainable.The great majority of people stuck to the ham and the Swiss cheese, with the chicken for feast days and the anniversaries of historic battles.” A typical lunch would include a platter of Norfolk spots, Himalaya corn cakes, succotash, buttered beets, baked potatoes, and string beans. If they were in season, oranges and bananas for dessert. Mencken estimated that the calorie content of this family meal was around 3,000.
Fruits and vegetables were seasonal in those days, and in winter there wasn’t much produce at all. In the summer, however, Mencken recalled the African-American street vendors who sold produce from the back of their horse drawn carts, known as Arabs or Arabers. “Arabs (with the first a as in day)...announced their wares with loud, raucous, unintelligible cries, much worn down by phonetic decay.” A handful of these vendors can still be seen and heard wandering through the streets of Baltimore today.
To Mencken, oysters were a low class food eaten by drunks in oyster houses like Kelly’s on Eutaw Street. He did concede, however, that one of his favorite lunch spots, the now gone Rennert Hotel at the corner of Saratoga and Liberty Streets, had a decent oyster pot pie. He was more inclined to order the crab soups, either the shore-style with vegetables or the bisque.
Indeed, crabs were the most popular item which came from “the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay.” Mencken remembered how a former sheriff of Baltimore, Tom McNulty, had a special way of preparing soft shell crabs. He would spear a slice of bacon on a large fork, jam a soft shelled crab on top, and hold the fork over a charcoal brazier until the fat melted over the crab. Then he would slap it on a slice of hot toast.
Mencken loved strong drink as much as food, and was not a fan of Prohibition. "A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with -- even if he drank." He felt that alcohol was “the greatest of human inventions, and by far -- much greater than Hell, the radio or the bichloride tablet." Indeed, he saw food and drink as prime examples of Man’s ongoing quest for the finer things in life,"...all the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs, to bouillabaisse, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from tap water to something with color in it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen."
Posted on Minxeats.com.
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