sunchoke veloute

buttermilk cheese made in house, bitter greens, pickled-braised pistachios, sumac pudding.  The veloute is poured table side.

feast of fowl

Deboned quail chop, pan roasted terrine of guinea hen legs, foie gras, duck livers, and fat back.  The proteins were served with smoked celeriac puree, prunes, black walnut salad, and tart apple vinegar

winter preservation dinner with Tarver King!

One of my best friends Tarver came to New Heights to do a guest chef dinner, the theme was winter preservation.  We used food preservation techniques that people have used for generations to get through the dry food swells of winter.  Here are just a few pictures from that night, it was a seriously great time.

barramundi

The barramundi was slow cooked till the skin was stretchy and gelatinous, on the bottom is a black garlic puree, a noodle made of shrimp, little neck clams, chervil, and a shirmp-chervil broth (pictured on the bottom) poured table-side.

Boudin Blocks

my beloved sausage press broke two days before valentines day.  The failure of the press created new ideas, why be limited by the tyranny of the casing?!?!  poached the boudin in large logs and served them to look similar to hockey pucks it was visually interesting and fun...  I used the same technique with the rabbit ballotine below.  The rabbit legs were deboned; some pieces reserved for garnish and others used for mousse...  both were poached in a circulating bath creating a perfect cook with no chance of breakage.

Rabbit...

Rabbit loin wrapped and glued to it's belly, housemade speck, apples salt cured with fennel pollen, barley cream whipped in the isi, crispy fried bulgar wheat "rocks", with a sauce of just reduced sweet potato juice... The natural starch of the potato gave it an awesome consistency and sheen, this was the first speck I have made as well and I've been kicking myself for not doing it sooner, the stuff is super delicious.

Maryland Rockfish

Crispy skin, malted cauliflower puree, roasted cauliflower stems, aleppo pepper oil, pliable buttermilk-tamarind gelee, applewood smoked butter emulsion

Escolar and Beets

Escolar was poached in beef fat, sherry-beet puree, roasted baby beets and shaved candy striped beet, spruce, rosemary oil, and golden beet pickle juice whipped into a foam

Foie Gras au Rosaleen.

Foie Gras.  We put foie on the menu about once a year.  A special occasion appetizer that always gets me and the team excited.  The same day the fatty duck liver was delivered to the restaurant was the same day my niece Rosaleen was born, seemed appropriate to honor her.  Having a name like Rosaleen I thought make the dish have strong aromatics and a fresh rose flower flavor.  The foie was cured in rose water, coriander, and nigella.  The foie was then slow poached for 40 minutes, chilled, and sliced.  We served it in a bowl with black truffle vinaigrette and a rutabaga terrine.  At the table we pour a roasted crab consomme (crab stock has an intense aroma) that was infused with more rose, coriander, lime, grapefruit, orange, and keffir lime leaves.  The truffle remains in the bowl which allows the diner to pick how much truffle flavor they want with each bite.  Welcome Rosaleen to the world and congratulations to my sister Alicia for giving birth to her 5th child!  I know, 5 kids!  

Minestrone.

Our Minestrone is a vegetable inspired Italian soup.  The only real requirement in a 'minestrone' is that it has a legume and a pasta and/or grain.  We created a version with winter vegetables, farro dressed in lemon zest, and a sphere made of corona bean cream.  We pour a consomme table-side; which is made of duck confit jelly, braisage of pork shoulder and short ribs.  All of the braised or confit'd meat was brined so the consomme has a heavy spice flavor...(clove, cardamom, juniper, black pepper)...  This dish is a culmination of several different dishes and ended up being one of the best of the season.

Foraged weeds

Wood Sorrel, Purslane, Chickweed, Baby Dandelion, Ground Ivy...  all found out of the cracks of the city of Washington D.C.!

holy mackerel

house cured mackerel with a french breakfast radish puree, watermelon radish salad, tarragon oil, pears, and a mussel-miso mayonnaise...
plated by another, a one named johnny spero.

147 lbs. Half Pig!

 This big boy took me forever to break down, it barely could fit on out butchering table!  Eventually got all the proper parts in place and created different brines and cures for different pieces (culatello, head cheese, trotters, ham, loin, tenderloin, ribs, tail, belly)  After about three weeks here's the first dish sold using this bad boy!

We treated the loin as if we were making a piece of baked ham (long brining time, then poached in the circulator) took the bellies out of brine a week later then braised it till tender.  On the pick up it was served with smoked and pickled matsutakes, savoy cabbage stuffed with guanciale (made in house), rutabega, onions, garlic, whole grain mustard, and chilies.  The sauce was just molasses aerated!  super porky.

Skate Wing...

Wrapped the skate around a cooked calamari-shrimp mousse (slow poached using optimus prime), shrimp-chestnut puree, brussel sprout leaves, spruce gel, egg white-onion vinegar espuma.

carrots from culpepper, va

duck legs

Brined and braised duck legs, deboned, shredded, and set with the braising liquid.  It was breaded and then deep fried.  Served with pistachio puree, sumac pudding, and a duck fat mayonnaise(which we incorporated crispy duck skin bits and kewpie) with a salad of shaved matsutake mushrooms and weeds dressed in pistachio oil and sumac

Sablefish

 Sablefish (black cod) is a delicious fish, it has an amazing and rare texture.  If you don't cook it right, it'll just fall apart into pieces.  We served it with an oyster stew made of tapioca pearls cooked in clam juice, small dices of celery and potato, pieces of treated seaweed, and chesapeake and/or rappohannock oysters from Virginia.  The white 'cream' is smoked olive oil that was emulsified and whipped...  It was finished with crispy chips of baked skin, celery leaves, other wild autumn greens

La Belle Farms Duck!

I recently got these La Belle Farm Ducks.  They're air dried birds have enormous breast's (insert pun here) and the perfect sized legs and wings for us!  This is the dish we're using for a duck breast entree.  The duck is spiced with cumin, coriander, clove, and cardamom.  It is garnished with a watercress puree, pickled grapes, hazelnuts, fried pieces of Oatmeal-hazelnut polenta, and whipped yogurt.  Now to figure out a leg and wing dish...  all waiting in brine till we can decide.  Any ideas, let me know!  

Venison

We crusted the leg of venison in licorice root and anise seeds; then pan roasted.  It was served with Spaghetti Squash "saurkraut" (pickled and fermented), black trumpet mushroom veloute, dots of celeriac-pear puree, baby turnips with their greens, and pieces of crispy fat back.

Buttercup Squash

New Soup!  We created a soup made of buttercup squash; made primarily of the roasted squash, ginger, onion, garlic, and mounted with a whole bunch of spiced drawn butter.  This soup is poured table side over this garnish.  A black garlic puree with a bit of sherry vinegar, caraway and juniper powders, wild peppercress(im still amazed what you can find in the city), and tuna.  The tuna was cured, smoked, and then slow cooked in smokey duck fat.  The fish was flaked and has flavors reminiscent of bacon and tuna salad.  I really love the flavors of this dish.  Simple looking (tuna, powders, black garlic, soup) but lots of different things going on.