It is as quiet as a church at midnight in the kitchen of Le Titi de Paris at 8 a.m. one recent Friday. The essence of last night’s smoked meats and sauces and dreamy desserts lingers, like the aroma of Sunday’s fading incense. So many marvels are born herefrom the hot and cold foie gras on toasted brioche on through the grilled swordfish and the baby pheasant and the bittersweet chocolate and passion fruit dessertthat it is hard to believe there are disasters at work. That’s not the part anyone gets to see.
Two choices present themselves to the master chef facing trouble. Toss it, which is just like throwing away money, or fix it.
That is what it is all about on this Friday morning.
Michael Maddox, the chef de cuisine at the 25-year-old French restaurant in Arlington Heights, is getting ready to reveal some kitchen secrets, even as owner Pierre Pollin labors over one of his delights, perfect little white chocolate diamond candies with rich chocolate and coffee fillings.
Maddox, 26, a farmer’s son with a passion for food that reaches back into his mother’s kitchen, will deliberately ruin some very pricey ingredients to show how they can be repaired. Other things will just go wrong. He will fix them too.
These things undoubtedly happen in your kitchen, but on a much smaller scale. The challenge, Maddox says, is to know how to repair what goes wrong. And that is a lesson as valuable at home as it is here in the stainless-steel environs of Maddox’s kitchen.
Probably the first and most important secret in his kitchen: Food must be prepared as though it were being presented to a loved one.
Maddox, working in restaurants since he was 13, sharpened his skills at Kendall College in Evanston and has earned his reputation for excellence over four years with Pollin. He is one of those fortunate people who have turned passion into profession.
Provisioning
Planning is an important secret, he says, particularly in the restaurant business, where costs are closely scrutinized. Yesterday’s find, which arrives by Federal Express, is Petrossian caviar at a good price, along with two metal boxes of that priciest of spices, saffron.
Supplies are so important that much of Maddox’s morning is spent either making arrangements and checking stock or pouring over the arriving bounty.
He is not shy about sending things back. It has to be that way, he says, so everyone knows this is not a game. The assumption is that the smallest part has to be right or the entire project is in jeopardy.
Maddox seems to be doing at least nine things at a time. But he is not at all frantic. He talks about supplies, for example, even as he is making little spun sugar molds, shifting focus every few seconds to explain the process, a formula that combines chemistry and physics.
“Simple sugar cooked up won’t work,” he says.
He has concocted a mixture of glucose and confectioners’ sugar. It looks positively volcanic when it exits the microwave.
Maddox sprays small porcelain cups with vegetable oil then swirls the inside with strands of the bubbling hot liquid. A few minutes later, a perfectly shaped, delicate and very fragile cup is carefully removed and stored.
Breaking down
“OK, now let’s break some creme anglaise and then fix it,” he says.
It will take two dozen egg yolks, about five quarts of milk, a couple of bananas of advanced age, a whole tray of toasted walnuts and sugar meted out to the very grain to make step 1 of this particular ice cream that he is about to ruin and then repair. In the process, four secrets are revealed.
1. The inside of an egg is much cleaner than anyone’s hand will ever be. Use the halves of the shell to separate.
2. Separate two eggs at a time into small bowls, then examine them to make certain they are perfect. “If you were putting them all together and you got a drop of blood from the yolk into the mixture, then the whole batch would have to be thrown out,” says Maddox. On top of that, it wouldn’t work properly.
3. Egg and sugar chemistry 101. “Don’t ever let sugar and egg yolks sit, not even for a minute while you answer the phone.” The yolks start to “cook” the minute the sugar arrives and that can ruin everything.
He takes his whisk and mixes the sugar and egg yolks together in the big bowl, a sparkling, almost iridescent and remarkably smooth paste. The milk goes in next.
Then he heads to the stove to ruin it all.
The usual goal is to get the creme to the point at which it is thickened so that a finger drawn across a wooden spoon covered with the stuff would leave a clearly defined line, with no little clumps to signal that the mixture has been overcooked.
He reaches that point fairly soon, and then moves on into what would usually be the forbidden territory of overcooked and burned things.
The mixture was starting to look like very bad tapioca.
“Now, we save it!” the chef says.
4. Two ways to save creme anglaise: Get one of those hellishly fast bar mixers and pour a little bit of the mixture in at a time (it must still be hot or it won’t work) and beat the bejabbers out of it. Or, get some perfect creme anglaise, if you are lucky enough to find it, and mix the bad into it, very slowly. In one of those chemical twists that seems to defy nature, the small amount of good transforms the big amount of bad and, oila, it’s perfect again.
So who is going to know whether the ice cream was made from overcooked creme anglaise?
First, Maddox would know, which is enough.
Diamonds in the rough
Something goes wrong a few feet away while Maddox is ruining and reviving the ice cream.
The filling for Pollin’s diamonds, a ganache (chocolate-cream mixture) dotted with smashed-up coffee beans, has failed. Its cocoa fat molecules have become confused and are shifting every which way. It looks dull, gooey, unfriendly and in need of repair.
But first, the mechanics. Chocolate is notoriously finicky.
It must be tempered by heat before it can be used. The white chocolate that coats each half of the diamond mold must be thin and shimmering. The filling goes in after the white outside has been poured and set, and it must be just the right temperature.
How do they know? There are no thermometers here.
“What if it would break?” Pollin says of the thermometer. “Then you couldn’t make the candy.”
The secret is to know what 90 to 94 degrees Fahrenheit feels like, or at least to know what it looks like when a strand of chocolate is poured across the face of a spatula. After a decent interval, given the proper tempering, the strand will form a curl when you touch it with your finger.
The outsides of the diamonds work perfectly.
Hundreds of white shells sit in the molds, awaiting the filling. But the filling is a disappointment. Now, who would know whether the filling of a white chocolate diamond is a disappointment?
First Pollin and then Maddox, which is enough.
It takes about one-half cup of cold thick cream and one of those spiffy industrial hand-mixing wands to fix the mixture. Maddox leans over the bowl, pours in the cream, and applies the mixer for just a few seconds. Almost miraculously, the errant chocolate fat molecules change their minds and march back in line.
Luster is restored.
More cream to the rescue
What else can go wrong?
In the controlled firestorm of the kitchen, on a cast-iron slab beside one of those big industrial burners, an important sauce, a cider cream sauce for salmon, goes straight to hell. Overheating is the culprit.
There is caking on the bottom of the big pot, an unhappy looking scum on the surface. Hours of work are at risk and the luncheon hour approaches.
What this sad sauce needs is about a half cup of cream and a little spritz of lemon juice, Maddox says. But the cream must boil and must boil now.
Here’s the secret.
Assuming you are cooking on a griddle of some kind, put a couple drops of cooking oil on it and sit the cream in the pot right on top of it. Almost instantly, it boils.
The cream is added and the sauce is repaired in just a moment.
But Maddox is worried. Having sampled the sauce on its way down, his palate is just not up to testing it in its revived version. So another chef is called in.
“The saying is that too many chefs spoil the broth, but maybe not,” Maddox says. “You need a fresh palate to test these kinds of sauces.”
The eyes have it
Maddox is a great keeper of lists, from his black appointment book full of names and sources and events and schedules down to the lists he has taped up all over the kitchen.
“If you have a list, then you know everything that needs to be done, and you know what you have done and what you have to still do,” he says, revealing a workaday secret that is crucial to his business and an asset in anyone’s kitchen.
The other tip is to use your eyes.
“A lot of what happens is not opening your mouth, but opening your eyes,” he says. “I always watched when I was in the kitchen with my mother and in the restaurants where I have worked. If you see someone cutting up duck or breaking down fish, then you watch.
“Learn from your mistakes. You learn how to save a broken sauce. You learn to know when something goes wrong from the taste. You expect problems to happen, and then you say, `OK, what do you do with this?’ “
It might sound fairly obsessive, pushing so hard to make certain that everything is right. But Maddox says this kind of attention to detail has its own reward.
“The people who know, they know when it is right,” he says.
TULIP COOKIE CUPS
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 4-6 minutes
Yield: 10-12 cups
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsifted cake flour
1 large egg
4 egg whites
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/8 teaspoon salt
Tulip cookie cups
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine sugar, flour and whole egg in medium bowl; mix well. Whisk in egg whites until well combined. Add butter and salt; whisk until smooth.
2. Spoon 1 tablespoon batter onto baking sheet sprayed with vegetable oil. Spread batter, using back of spoon, into 6-inch circle. Make only 2 cookies per sheet. Bake until center is set and edges are golden, 4 to 6 minutes. Immediately remove cookies using long metal spatula; place on upturned base of wine or juice glass. Pinch sides to form tulip. Let cool completely. Place on serving dish; fill with ice cream and fruit.
Chef’s secret: Tulips will soften and collapse in humid weather. To firm them, place in muffin tins in 375-degree oven 2 to 3 minutes. If necessary, reform on bottom of glass as directed above.
Nutrition information per shell:
Calories ….. 120 Fat …………. 7 g Cholesterol .. 40 mg
Sodium ….. 60 mg Carbohydrates .. 14 g Protein …….. 3 g
BANANA WALNUT ICE CREAM
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 30-35 minutes
Yield: 6 cups
1 quart (4 cups) cream or whole milk
1 cup toasted chopped walnuts, see note
1 very ripe banana, chopped
1 1/3 cups sugar
12 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Heat milk, walnuts and banana to a boil in large saucepan over medium heat; strain milk into bowl, reserving walnuts and banana in strainer.
2. To make a creme anglaise, combine sugar, egg yolks and vanilla in top of double boiler. Heat mixture over medium heat, stirring frequently, until hot and sugar is dissolved, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in strained milk. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until mixture coats back of wooden spoon and finger leaves path when run down back of spoon, 30 to 35 minutes. Add walnuts and banana. Puree slightly in blender or food processor fitted with metal blade, leaving it somewhat chunky. May need to puree in batches.
3. Pour mixture into ice cream freezer container and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. Serve in a tulip cup, if you like, or garnish with sliced bananas and berries.
Chef’s secrets: To toast walnuts, place on baking sheet and roast in a 350-degree oven for about 10 minutes. If creme anglaise becomes lumpy, pour it into a blender container and process until smooth again.
Nutrition information per cup:
Calories …… 900 Fat ………… 71 g Cholesterol .. 605 mg
Sodium …… 70 mg Carbohydrates .. 57 g Protein …….. 14 g
PAN ROASTED CHICKEN BREASTS WITH BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Adapted from chef Michael Maddox of Le Titi de Paris restaurant.
4 boneless chicken breasts,about 5 ounces each
8 fresh spinach leaves
4 tablespoons dried tomatoes, blanched, julienned
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 shallot, chopped
3 tablespoons each: olive oil,balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce
1/2 cup cooked corn kernels
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cut a pocket into each chicken breast horizontally, not cutting all the way through. Fill each with 2 spinach leaves and 1 teaspoon of the dried tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Place chicken, tomatoes, shallot, oil, vinegar and teriyaki sauce in roasting pan. Bake, uncovered, until juices run clear, about 20 minutes.
3. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm. Add corn and tarragon to pan juices. Heat to a boil over medium-hight heat. To serve, place chicken breasts on four serving plates; spoon vegetables and juice over each.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories ……. 300 Fat ………… 14 g Cholesterol .. 80 mg
Sodium …… 495 mg Carbohydrates .. 14 g Protein ……. 31 g
SAUTEED SALMON WITH CIDER SAUCE
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 4-6 minutes
Yield: 8 servings
This delicious yet simple recipe requires very fresh salmon, either wild or farm-raised. Maddox often uses the farm-raised salmon from Norway.
9 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 cup dry hard cider
1/2 teaspoon tomato paste
1/4 cup whipping cream
Salt, freshly ground pepper
1 leek, julienned
2 pounds fresh spinach, washed, stems removed
2 apples, peeled, cored, sliced
3 pounds fresh salmon fillets
1. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in small skillet. Add shallot; cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Add cider and tomato paste. Cook until mixture reduces to 1 tablespoon. Add cream; heat to a boil. Gradually add 3 tablespoons of the butter, bit by bit, whisking constantly. Season with salt and pepper to taste; set aside.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in skillet. Add leek; cook 3 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in same pan and cook spinach until slightly wilted, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Repeat with apple slices. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons of the butter in skillet. Add fillets; cook 2 minutes. Turn fillets and continue cooking 2 minutes. To serve salmon, top with spinach; garnish with apples and leek. Pour sauce over top.
Chef’s secret: If cider sauce separates, quickly whisk in 1 to 2 tablespoons more hot whipping cream until the sauce is smooth.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories ……. 385 Fat ………… 23 g Cholesterol .. 115 mg
Sodium …… 165 mg Carbohydrates .. 14 g Protein …….. 33 g
