Craig Case, host of The Inn Crowd, welcomes Father Larry Gosselin to the kitchen at the Crossroads Estate in the picturesque Santa Ynez Valley. Father Larry is an associate pastor at the Old Santa Barbara Mission. The Santa Barbara Mission was established on the Feast of Saint Barbara, December 4, 1786 and was the tenth of twenty-one California Missions to be founded by the Spanish Franciscans.
More than 200 years later, the Mission continues to be the chief cultural and historic landmark in the city of Santa Barbara. Home to a community of Franciscan friars, the Mission also has a retreat center with guest rooms, conference rooms, and a fully equipped commercial kitchen and dining room; a beautiful church with a large and active parish ; a museum and gift shop; a cemetery and mausoleum; and ten acres of beautifully landscaped gardens. The Mission's commanding position and grand proportions, graceful lines and soft, blending colors all reinforce her title, "Queen of the Missions."
The menu was based on some of my classic recipes from Michael's Waterside restaurant (1984-1993). We begin with a house made spinach tagliatelle pasta tossed in a basil pesto cream with prosciutto, pine nuts, sun dried tomatoes and parmesan. This dish was named in honor of a very dear patron, John Huganin. John was a dear, affable stock broker from Montecito. He had this appetizer almost every time he dined at Michael's Waterside. Finally one day I mentioned that the dish was renamed in his honor.
Canard (dusk) Juliette is a Roux classic. In their version, the duck is served in two stages. First the breast is served on the light side of medium with a julienne of leeks and carrots with an orange scented duck jus. In Roux's version the legs were served as a second course, cooked crispy, and garnished with a salad of curly endive. My version uses only the duck breast.
The apple tart Tatin in my most favored dessert. It is on my "last meal" list. I have three different methods of preparing the dish. The classic is to place butter and sugar in a pan and add apples, lost of peeled, cored apples. The cooking process and slow as more apples are pushed into the pan until you have an almost solid puck of caramelized apples that are then topped with a circle of puff pastry and baked in the oven. In all, it takes about 1 hour to cook this version. The "Tatin Minute" is the method I used for this menu. Butter and sugar are place in a heavy bottom saute pan, apples are peeled, halved and cored then set round side down in the pan, some water added and the heat turned up to caramelize the sugar and brown the apples. Finally the puff pastry lid is placed on top and it is baked about 15-20 minutes until the pastry is crisp. The last method from pastry Chef Christine Dahl. CHef Dahl makes a caramel sauce, peels, halves, cores and slices the apple. Caramel is placed in and individual mold, topped with apples and a puff pastry lid and baked. All three are delicious! Click hear for the history of the tart Tatin: "Tart des Demoiselles Tatin."
Join is on The Inn Crowd Saturdays at 6:30 on ABC affiliate KEY channel 3. View the show on-line at the Santa Barbara News Press. Look to the right side of the web page for a link to the show.
Put on your apron, grab your food processor and hang on to your whisk. We have 30 episodes coming to you this year. I'll provide the recipes, the rest is up to you. See you in the kitchen.
Tastefully,
Chef Michael Hutchings
All recipes Copyright Michael Hutchings 2015 All Rights Reserved
Thanks to the crew at YTS for the directing, filming filming and editing The Inn Crowd.
