Coastal Cooking with Chef Michael Hutchings

Banana Tart Tatin

 

The Tatin sisters, creators of that famous caramelized-upside-down apple tart, probably never considered another fruit for the eponymous dessert. Well, I have. I have made mago, peach, fig and banana. All are tasty, although I prefer a Pink lady apple version the most.

Each fruit has a special need to cook it properly. I developed the banana version back in the 1980s when Dough Richardson had the Seaside Banana Farm in La Conchita, CA.

From Wikipedia, "From its opening until its forced closure in 1996, the Seaside Banana Gardens operated by Doug Richardson and his partner Paul Turner, became the most famous attraction in La Conchita. The Gardens were featured in both national and international publications and made La Conchita a landmark along Highway 101. Although horticultural authorities maintained that bananas could not be commercially grown in California, Richardson and Turner proved them wrong by cultivating over 50 exotic varieties. The unique micro climate of the community's location was ideal for this purpose. Many subsequent generations of bananas continue to grow and thrive throughout the home gardens of La Conchita today."

Doug had about 45 banana varieties he was experimenting with at the farm. One called mysore worked particularly well with the tatin style cooking. It is short and has a firm texture that holds up well when cooked and the acidity is higher that the Cavendish banana clone. Just prior to the first Gulf war, I filed a segment for a CNN story on the banana farm. We were preempted by the war and some months later the story was aired.

Serve with whipped cream or a great vanilla bean ice cream.

 

Chef Michael Hutchings

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Zucchini Blossoms

Photo Jake7401 Wikipedia

 

My oldest daughter, the gourmet, sent an email asking what else to do with squash blossoms other than frying in a beer batter. In Monaco, we use to get these for breakfast. They were cooked like a tempura, dusted with sugar, Beignet de Fleur de Courgette.

Here are a few ideas. These are not recipes but outlines for a practiced hand.

Zucchini Blossoms

-Stuffed with goat cheese flavored with garlic and herbs, warmed, served on a mesculin salad tossed with sherry vinaigrette, ring the salad plate with grilled zucchini coins with herbs de Provence

-Fill with lobster mousse, steam, nest on a julienne of leeks-carrots sweated in butter, lobster sauce.

-Fill with Mushroom duxelle, serve on a creamy goat cheese sauce on top of a ratatouille cut into small dice

-Make a cream of zucchini soup, fill the blossom with chicken mousse and chopped truffles and set on middle of soup, drizzle truffle oil on the soup.

-Beignet Provençale: Fill with olive tapenade, cook beignet style, Serve on a tomato sauce vierge (dice tomatoes, chop shallots, olive oil, lemon juice, basil chiffonade.

-A La Bouillabaisse: Fill with a fennel duxelle, apply breading and deep fry, serve on a bouillabaisse broth with a medley of seafood booked bouillabaisse style (clams, scallops, rock fish, mussels).

-Stuff the flowers with a classic risotto Milanese and serve with lobster and saffron cream with fennel julienne.

-Prepare zucchini latkes, fill blossoms with buffalo mozzarella, bread and deep fry, serve with red bell pepper coulis.

-Fill with a ricotta stuffing, serve with balsamic reduction and basil oil.

-Fill with artichoke bottoms, diced and cooked, goat cheese. Batter and deep fry and sauce with parmesan cream with black pepper.

-Stuff with diced escargot, morel mushrooms and caramelized shallots. Sauce demi glace.

And the ultimate:

-Prepare a chicken mousseline, add diced half cooked foie gras and diced fresh truffles. Fill the flowers and apply breading. Deep fry. Serve with a classic Madeira and truffle demi glace.

Bon Appetite

Chef Michael Hutchings

Julia's Junk

In 1995, the AIWF (American Institute of Wine and Food) held an event in Santa Barbara, CA . Julia Child donated kitchen utensils, cook books and a few odds and ends that were used on her PBS television shows. It was a grand evening in spit of monsoon conditions that cut off Santa Barbara and had 3 inches of water coursing through the event tent. The event benefited culinary student through a scholarship fund.

If you are interested in the quality of food and wine that you enjoy, the AIWF is a perfect forum for you to enhance your knowledge of gastronomy. There are chapters in 22 cities around America. Click here for more information.

Tastefully, Chef Michael Hutchings

ABOUT AIWF Americans are so fortunate to live in a nation where there are regional-based cuisines, fresh, local ingredients, and a vast array of cultural and ethnic gastronomy. More than ever before, we are educating ourselves on what’s in season, where the ingredients are coming from, and the environment in which it’s grown. Who doesn’t enjoy a beautiful local heirloom tomato or a freshly plucked peach?

At AIWF, we enhance the quality of a rich and flavorful life by cultivating our members through educational programs, creative scholarships, and fun social galas enjoying great wine and good food.

Explore … and you will find that we’re a perfect blend of diverse food and wine enthusiasts and professionals, who have come together to celebrate the richness of our culinary culture. We have reserved a place for you at the American table.

MISSION

We enhance quality of life through education about what we eat and drink

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gateaux Reine de Saba - Queen of Sheba Cake by Julia Child

Julia Child has had the Queen of Sheba cake in many of her cook books including the first, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In her words, "This extremely good chocolate cake is baked so that its center remains slightly underdone; overcooked, the cake looses its special creamy quality. It is covered with a chocolate-butter icing and decorated with almonds."

We are making 12 for her birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday Julia

 

Bon Appétit!

Happy Birthday Julia Child et "Bon Appetit"

Julia Child would be 100 today. She will live on through her culinary works and vast video collection as well as in the hearts of those of us who knew her.

Bon appetit!

 

Julia Child and Chef Michael Hutchings Hunting Chanterelles

Santa Barbara, 1984

 Memorabilia

 

Julia Child and Chef Michael Hutchings Hunting Chanterelles, Santa Barbara 1984

Pissaladiere Gargantua Julia Child

Pissaladiere Gargantua

 

The food world is celebrating Julia Child's 100 birthday this month (August 15) with food fests of various types. Julia was one of the most influential cooking instructors-cook book authors from the early 1960s onward. Her iconic television show, The French Chef, on PBS lead many a home cook out of the jungle of Jello and frozen TV dinners that was the 1950s legacy. Her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was a landmark book that was at the forefront of the culinary revolution that reverberates to this day.

The local chapter of the AIWF, an organization that Julia help found with Roberto Mondavi in 1981, is holding a picnic in her honor on August 19. The menu will be from Julia's repertoire. Information on the event follows below.

One of her dishes being prepared is a version of the Pissaladiere, a sort of French onion pizza. It can be made with pie dough, a yeast risen bread dough or puff pastry. The anchovies are options but of you do use them make sure they are from a recently opened tin as they get old fast. Olives should be the small dark ones from Nice. I have recently started using a balsamic cured olive from a local company called Olivos del Mar. They have the salt and bitter balances with the sweet-acididty of the balsamic vinegar. I think Julia would approve.

Bon Appétite

 

Chef Michael Hutchings

 

 

 

19th Annual Hope Ranch Gourmet Picnic

Benefitting the Food Bank of Santa Barbara

 

Celebrating 100th Anniversary of Julia Child’s Birth

We are celebrating the 100 birthday of Julia Child at the annual AIWF picnic in Hope Ranch. Come join us in a Julia Child inspired French “Piquenique”. Come and meet new friends, enjoy great food from Julia’s repertoire and raise a glass to the “Queen” of the kitchen.

Sunday August 19, 2012

5:00 UNTIL DARK

Hope Ranch Picnic Grounds, directions follow           

 Picnic Highlights

Raffle and short live auction to follow. Tracy Beard is putting together some terrific items.

 

Mary Dorra, founding member and first chairperson of the AIWf will regale us with stories of Julia Child.

Video of Julia Child cooking show.

Recipes from the picnic menu. 

 

PLEASE BRING YOUR FAVOURITE WINE TO SHARE WITH OTHERS AT OUR SHARING TABLE, French Varietals suggested. Waters and other beverages provided.

 

PLEASE RESPOND WITH NAMES OF THOSE ATTENDING

BY August 15st

SEND CHECK MADE OUT TO AIWF

c/o Jean Schultz

PO Box 6806

SANTA BARBARA, CA 93160 

$65 MEMBERS and Guests, $15 of the ticket price will be for our charitable contribution. Consult your tax specialist for deductibility.

Sign up online at www.michaelscateringsb.com by going to the payment page and using Paypal.

Parking is limited so please carpool if possible. 

 

Directions

Go to Hope Ranch. Drive south on Las Palmas until you come to Las Olas Dr on the right (chances are you'll pass it the first time, it's not an obvious intersection, but you'll know you're getting close as you approach the ocean. It IS a beach, after all). You will come to a gate. Let them know you're with AIWF.

An optional route is to come up from Hendry's Beach, along the bluffs. The road turns into Las Palmas as it heads inland. In a short time, Los Olas is on the left.

Catering by Chef Michael Hutchings - Michael’s Catering

Recipes from Julia Child’s Repertoire

 

Mediterranean Hors d’Oeuvre Platter

peppers, roasted asparagus, hard boiled eggs, olives, anchovies

Pissaladiere - French Style Onion Pizza

A Platter of Cheese and Seasonal Fruits

Flamiche - Quiche aux Poireaux

Fish Terrine, Straight Wharf Restaurant

Gaspacho Salad

Julia's Italian Sausages

Selection of Accompaniments

grilled, roasted and raw vegetables, mustards, cornichons

Celery Root Remoulade - Mustard Dressing

 

Reine de Saba

Julia’s famous Chocolate Cake - Queen of Sheba

A Variety of Fine Breads

The American Institute of Wine & Food (AIWF) is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization established in 1981 by the late Julia Child, the late Robert Mondavi, the late Richard Graff and others to provide a forum for the study and enjoyment of gastronomy.  The AIWF is one of the few national organizations with the unique combination of dedicated wine and food enthusiasts and professionals. Wine and food enthusiasts get to meet and learn from renowned chefs, winemakers, authors, culinary historians, and food producers, while industry professionals have the opportunity to know and understand their core consumers. We recognize Heidi Barrett, Michael Chiarello, Michael Escoffier, Tyler Florence, Gale Gand, Michel Richard, Gail Simmons, Rick Tramonto, and Roy Yamaguchi as AIWF ambassadors carrying on the legacies of our founders and promoting The AIWF.

 

 

 

 

Menus, I've Got Menus

A menu is to a chef what a musical score is to a musician. And like a musical score, how it is interpreted is the mark of the chef. My cooking, like my taste in music, leans to the classics. Keeping cooking simple, with a few elements well selected and expertly executed is the mark of a master. Here are a few menus ideas using those tried and true classics.

Tastefully,

Chef Michael Hutchings

Soup Shots, Crab Cakes, Lamb Lollipops

Tried and True Catering Classics

Tray Passed Hors d’Oeuvres
Caesar Salad
romaine Hearts, olive oil, lemon, garlic, parmesan, croutons

NY Steak on Cocktail Spoons
set on caramelized cippolini onions and topped with Roquefort Butter

Smoked Salmon Mini Pizette
sour cream, red onions and roasted vine tomatoes

Fingerling Potatoes
Topped with sour cream, chives and apple wood smoked bacon

Prime Cheese Burgers
mini brioche buns, aged cheddar

Spicy Tuna Tartar
set on won ton crisps, miso greens

Lobster Rolls
Main lobster of soft roll, house made mayonnaise

Meatballs
on cocktail spoons, pesto oil and polenta

Tenderloin Roast

Main Courses

Grits Station
cheddar grits with smoked salmon, duck ragout, wild mushroom “Bordelaise”

Risotto
creamy risotto, shrimp and sweet corn with chive oil

Lamb Osso Bucco
on Tuscan Kale with garlic and parmesan

Veal Ragout Open Ravioli
wild mushrooms and light jus

Braised Beef Short ribs
old fashioned mashed potatoes and market vegetables

Seared Sable fish
succotash of chanterelles, fava beans, potatoes cocotte and chives

 

Warm Chocolate Velvet Cake

Desserts

Chocolate Velvet Cake
raspberry coulis

Soufflé Glace Grand Marnier
frozen Grand Marnier soufflé

Sablé of Berries
shortbread disks layered, berries and berry coulis

Almond Cake
warm champagne poached peaches

Chocolate Ganache
pecan praline crust