I worked at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in the mid nineties with a group of really good cooks and a chef, Michel Veron, who taught me among other things, how to run a kitchen and how to treat your staff.
Our team in the kitchen was a diverse group of people. We had Filipinos, Chinese, Caucasians, African Americans and Central Americans. A band of real characters. The Filipinos were Max and Romy; the Chinese were Kan, James and Hauley; the Caucasians were me, Tom the sous chef, Michel the chef, Mary and a bit of a revolving door of others, Will our african american member of the staff and Carlos the lone Latin member, at least on the back floor.
I will share stories about most of them in the future, but today is about Kan. Kan was from Hong Kong and with his brothers owned a 500 seat dim sum restaurant in HK with his brothers. I think Kan was somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 years old and was responsible for the sweet side of the pantry.
He was blind in one eye and had been working on Nob Hill for something like 28 years. To look at him you would think he was just a regular guy. He wore an old Greyhound bus jacket that I think he must have picked up second hand. It was the restaurant in HK that set him apart.
Apparently the place was busy, very busy. Although he seemed to spend no money at all on himself, he lavished his family with amazing gifts. It seemed so unreal to me that such an unassuming guy would buy luxury cars for his children and his wife while he continued to wear his beat up bus jacket.
I think that at a time when cooks and chefs were starting to get out of control with their egos that this guy stood apart. He was gifted in the area of the pastry department.
He made delightful soufflés, and the most amazing Creme brûlée that I had ever tasted at the time.
Here is his recipe:
1/2 gal manufacturing cream
1/2 gal 1/2 &1/2
28 oz granulated sugar
20 egg yolks
3 vanilla beans (split and scraped)
I asked him for his recipe and asked if I could use it. He told me that I could, but as I worked later as a chef, I felt that it needed to be altered for my taste.
I changed the recipe to this for my restaurant:
1/2 gal manufacturing cream
1/2 gal 1/2 &1/2
21 oz granulated sugar
20 egg yolks
3 vanilla beans (split and scraped)
I found that for my taste that his recipe was a little too sweet. When I dropped 7 oz of sugar from the recipe, it was right where I wanted it. This took about 6 months of adjustments to get to the right amount of sugar.
What I loved most about his Creme Brûlée was the texture. This is one of the reasons that I rarely if ever order it when I am out in a restaurant.
Almost no one I've experienced the work of has made a better brûlée than mine (a variation on Kan's recipe), and therefore I am usually disappointed.
Today I do not need a gallon of base, so I've cut it down a bit:
1 pint cream
1 pint 1/2 & 1/2
5.5 oz sugar
1 vanilla bean
6 egg yolks
I have also changed the method that Kan taught me in a few parts of the process. So here we go:
Separate the yolks from the whites of the egg.
Combine the egg yolks and sugar and mix with a wire whip.
Be careful to just combine the two, they should be a very "yolky yellow". Set aside. Be careful not to whip it much, just get it to combine. If you over whip the egg and sugar mixture, the texture suffers.
You will know it is whipped too much if the color lightens and becomes more of a pastel color rather than a rich, bright yellow.
Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
Place the cream and 1/2 & 1/2 and vanilla bean in a sauce pan and scald.
Scalding is when the first little bubbles begin to form on the sides of the pan.
Now it's time to "temper" the eggs.
The point of tempering the eggs is to add the hot cream mixture to the egg yolks and sugar without cooking the egg yolks. When you are doing this it is important to to be vigorously stirring the yolks with your whip as you add the cream.
Once you have incorporated enough of the cream to make the eggs very warm add the eggs into the cream while whipping the hot cream vigorously.
Turn the heat back on and cook while stirring to prevent the eggs from"scrambling". Once the mixture has thickened to a texture like a melted milk shake, remove it from the heat and immediately remove it from the heat and pass it through a fine strainer like a chinoise.
Cool the final brûlée base in an ice bath. Continue stirring to get the mixture to cool completely.
Refrigerate until it is cold.
Pour into ramekins and bake in a water bath at 250F.
This is going to take a lot longer than you want it to. But the final product is worth it! This can sometimes take more than two hours. Trust me it's worth it!
The custard is ready when it barely quakes in the ramekins when you lightly tap them in the oven.
When the brûlées are done, cool to room temp and then refrigerate them. I like to get to this step at least a day before I serve them. You can go as long as three days in the fridge, but liquid will form on the top of the brûlée. It is also helpful to wrap them tightly with plastic wrap individually once they are very cold.
At service time, remove any liquid that may have formed on the top of the and the dust them with granulated sugar.
Caramelize with a blow torch or other similar tool.
This also makes an excellent vanilla ice cream, better than most that are available in the store.
No comments:
Post a Comment