We love to cured meat. Certainly, the pleasures of the great long cured meats of the world don’t escape us–Iberico, Benton’s, etc.–but we’re also huge fans of the power of quick-curing proteins prior to cooking. Like us, meat is mostly water and to the extent you can extract this away, you can intensify the flavor of a meat. Recently we described this as a key step in our Bo Ssam framework and we’ve even packaged together one curing blend that we’ve used with great success.

The Studiofeast Cure for Meats was a limited edition giveaway at one of our recent dinners. There are some left in limited quantities, so email me if you’re interested in getting your hands on one. The labels and the name were lovingly designed by our very own Soomin Baik and we think they’re wonderful…

This cure is best applied to large, red meats and is applied at a ratio of 1/4 cup per 1lb of meat. Things like pork shoulder, beef brisket, and lamb shank are perfect with this. We simply cover the surface of the meat with the cure, place in a large container and refrigerate overnight. You’ll be left with a small pool of liquid and cure in the bottom of your container which you should discard as you rinse the excess cure off of the meat. With that, you’re left with a quick cured protein that’s lost some of its water content and has a slight sweetness imparted onto it from the cure. Cook the meat as you wish and I swear you’ll taste a great difference. Quick curing is a simple, but effective force multiplier that’s great at amplifying flavor in your proteins.

Interested in getting your hands on some cure? Email me!

Over the years we’ve cooked a lot of recipes. Some have called for a battalion of ingredients and some have even begged for certain items to measured within a tenth of a gram. Taken literally, a recipe inherently calls for some semblance of perfection in the kitchen–you have all the ingredients, all the equipment, all the spices, etc.–and depending on whose recipe you’re reading, deviating from the script can be hazardous.

This sort of cooking is fine and well for the situation that calls for it, but more often than not in our lives, we cook in a much looser format. Life isn’t perfect, we aren’t perfect, so why live under the engineered construct of cooking by the recipe, where the ante is usually some level of perfection that most kitchens don’t have?

And while I learned to cook to some extent by following recipes, what stuck with me has not always been the exact composition of a recipe, but the underlying structure that most good recipes follow. The simplest example is pasta. Why does Yummly need to show us 300 variations on Pasta Primavera? Why do we need 300 separate units of information to tell us how to make different versions of the same dish structure? The formula for Pasta Primavera is: 1) Pasta, 2) Vegetable, 3) Meat, if you wish. Why don’t we just tell people the basic structure of Pasta Primavera, tell them the characteristics of each element in the structure (e.g., Pasta: any long pasta works great, don’t use stuffed pastas; Vegetables: sturdy green veggies work best, don’t use potatoes…) and implore them to find the combinations that they like?

This is a question I aim to explore more. I believe that if you pay attention to how a dish is structured, rather than cooking each variation of it one by one in a recipe, you can have a much more fulfilling experience in the kitchen. You will gain intelligence about cooking, not just knowledge, and you will be more adept in the kitchen as a result.

A recipe is written like classical music–you follow the score, and note-by-note on the page, you create music. What I’m proposing is that we all start thinking of cooking more like Jazz–learn the basic scales and the right chords, then go off and jam out.

The Jazz approach brings cooking back down to Earth, embracing our culinary imperfections and whims, not making us feel bad that we don’t fit the rules dictated by a recipe. If we can teach people to become better improvisers in the kitchen, we can lower the barriers to cooking at home, and hopefully create new a new habit for the average American. I believe that we are smarter than the caricatures of chefs (professional and otherwise) that we see on the Food Network, and that we can teach people how to be intelligent in the kitchen, not simply follow orders.

Which brings me to the image at the top of this post. Here is a structure for Bo Ssam, that carnivorous Korean classic that has sat at the center of many a dinner party for us. In the image, the key elements of a Bo Ssam are unpacked, but we try to give guidelines rather than instructions on how to create your own. It’s an imperfect, initial attempt, but I want to see if it makes sense to people and if it can be the first step toward getting people to approach cooking a different way. This is the start, and it will evolve.

Go on, download the Bo Ssam Framework here and try it on your own. Let us know on Twitter or in the comments below how you did.

Mike Lee & Will Turnage at SXSWi

The dust has settled and another SXSW is in the books. If you’ve been following along along, you may have known that I presented this year with Will Turnage something called, “My Robotic Kitchen Planned this Dinner Party.” The talk outlined how technology in the kitchen needs to be used to analyze the holistic cooking experience rather than just focusing in isolation on a few discrete tasks. We had a great turnout and a receptive crowd, and you can listen to a full audio recording of the talk and see the slides embedded below from Slideshare.

In the talk, we demoed a rough prototype of a dinner planning app we built as a proof of concept. The app empowers a dinner party planner to customize, scale, and shop for a menu, then organize all of the required steps into one master to-do list. The central inspiration for what Will and I created is essentially a digitized version of the professional chef’s mind, where flexibility and adaptation are the hallmarks of the cooking approach…

Create dinners, create magic. Simple as that.

We think that this approach represents a different way of looking at cooking instruction from what you typically find out there today. For instance, anyone can easily discover 3 recipes on any recipe site, but each of those recipes still exist in their own silo. The roast chicken recipe has no idea its being cooked with the roasted brussels sprouts and a side and apple pie for dessert. You still need to make your own mental leap to unify the steps of these dishes into one single to-do list and have a meal that’s efficiently prepared and well timed. Someone who’s an experienced cook or professional chef naturally knows how to get all three of these things onto the table with minimal drama, but for most people, this kind of thing presents a challenge. Herein lies one of the gaps in showing you how to plan and execute a dinner party and we think there’s real value in figuring this and many other problems out with technology.

The challenge: digitizing the mind of a chef

There’s much more to be done, and the playing field is wide open for where this can go. At the end of the day, I believe that great things happen when you cook for those you care about. Knowing that, I wish everyone could cook more for the people in their lives and have the same great experience I’ve had doing the same. To the extent that I can help lower the barriers to cooking through technology, content, and inspiration, I will, and this is just the start.

App Prototype

Take a look/listen to the presentation and let me know what you think. Would this approach be valuable to you? Leave us a note in the comments.

 Presentation photos by Steph Goralnick

If you’re in town or following along on Twitter the mayhem that is SXSWi, check out Will Turnage (Ratio, Bread Baking Basics) and I speak on Friday at 3:30 CST on the role of technology in the kitchen. Our dual presentation is called, “My Robotic Kitchen Planned This Dinner Party,” and you can track the conversation with the #SXcooking hashtag.

Over the years, we’ve gotten a fortune of riches from dinner parties and we think they’re straight up magic for bringing people together. Where some see a pile of groceries as simply food, we see them as the raw materials for community and great times. If you believe this, you’d think everyone should be throwing dinner parties more often. We know that’s not the case, and Will and I dissect what we think stands in people’s way: knowledge, organization, and effort. These are things that technology can solve, which is how Will and I came to meet and collaborate on this topic.

A big theme of what we cover is the notion that kitchen gadgets and today’s recipes engines don’t solve for the holistic experience of putting on a dinner party. They solve certain problems related to cooking (e.g., Slap Chop: if you can slap, you can chop) but they don’t really teach you how to think like a chef. We’re not advocating everyone needs to become a real chef to have a great party, but we think that there are smart things a home cook can take away from how a chef works that can help anyone. For instance, knowing how to multi-task multiple recipes into one single to-do list, how to approach improvisation in the kitchen, and understanding basic recipe structures instead of rote recipe learning.

All of this we cover in our talk, and I’ll post an update afterward with the slides what we learned from the crowd. Stay tuned for more, and come say hi to us if your’re down here in Austin.

Photo by Steph Goralnick

On February 19th, we had our second installment of Studiofeast Sunday. While we still love the big, weird events that we’ve been known to throw, last week also reminded us how great it is to cook for a small group of people in a really intimate setting. We had a great group of dinner guests with whom we shared a good laugh with, but we also had an conversation about one of the dishes we served and the technique involved in the preparation.

Of the five courses we served, one standout was the 72 hour short rib we served with white bean, fennel, and carrot. The ribs were locally raised and sourced from Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, then sugar cured overnight, sealed with olive oil in a vacuum bag, and cooked in a water bath for three days. The result is a medium done rib that’s insanely tender due to the time in the bath, which breaks down the connective tissues and collagen. It tastes amazing and is a great application of low temperature cooking with sous vide.

Comparing it to a traditional short rib is apples and oranges. I love both, but the texture of the sous vide version is truly unique. A traditional rib is cooked well above the “well done” temperature of beef for just a few hours, but it ends up being great because of the wealth of connective tissue, fat, and the braising liquid that is typically included. The modern short rib, on the other hand, is cooked at 60 degrees Celsius (140F), which is considered “medium.” If you were to cook a short rib at this low temperature for the same duration as a traditional rib, the collagen and fat wouldn’t have enough time to break down and you’d have a really tough piece of meat. But, time and temperature work together and in the modern technique, the time is extended greatly to compensate for the drop in cooking temperature.

In a traditionally prepared rib, the individual strands of beef shred apart easily, but the meat is technically well done. The modern rib however, has a structure that resembles sliced steak, yet it’s ridiculously more tender due to the long cooking time and broken down fat. While traditional and modern low temperature methods both yield great results, you cannot achieve a unique texture quite like this without employing sous vide. This technique, in my opinion, is an evolution in how we approach the short rib and produces a distinctly different result than what we’re accustomed to with this dish.

In the end, all that really matters is the taste, and I think the ribs went over unanimously well that night. We even got a pescatarian to eat short ribs for the first time and she loved them. I take pride in turning someone onto the dark side like that and will continue to do so 72 hours at a time.

Thanks to Jessica Lawrence and Brian Quinn for being our gracious hosts, pairing the wines, creating the cocktail, and taking photos. You were the glue for this Studiofeast and we couldn’t have done it without you both! Check them both out at Alchemist of Spirits.

Our Studiofeast Sunday dinners are our more intimate 10-12 person affairs, with seating in an open kitchen similar to a chef’s table format. Ask questions, poke around, smell things right as they hit the pan–everything is out in the open for you to interact with.

This is the second of the series and we have a plethora of new dishes, really weird ideas, and questionable jokes to share with you. We take our food seriously, but not much else.

The following is our menu, with two wine pairings and an assortment of cocktails for $100:

1. Lobster, Burrata, Green Apple, Micro Arugula
2. Winter Vegetable, Bagna Cauda, Chili
3. Split Pea, Bacon, Creme Fraiche, Miso Toast
4. 72 Hr Short Rib, White Bean, Fennel, Carrot
5. Zeppole, Sichuan Pepper Hot Chocolate, Fig

Please RSVP with your donation at this link:
http://studiofeastsunday02.eventbrite.com/

Wine pairings and cocktails will be by our good friend and bartender, Brian Quinn. He’s awesome and is a wealth of adult beverage knowledge. (http://www.brianquinn.co)

Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.

I do hope you’ll join us and can’t wait to cook for you.

As the year draws to a close, we all have a tendency to look back and reflect on what happened in 2011. For Studiofeast, it was a great year filled with events where we had the privilege of bringing people together with food. You can surf this site to see the things that ensued in 2011–through prose, video, and photo–but a less visible reflection of our year comes in the form of the responses to that question on our invite form, “You’re about to die, what’s your last meal?”

Of the 564 new names added to our invite list this year, we’ve compiled the responses into an infographic that was also the basis of our Last Meal dinner on December 18th. It has become an annual tradition to close out the year with a dinner influenced by the year’s responses, and for this year we created a 5 course meal that used the top items from selected invitee segments. This resulted in a dinner rooted in cheese, lobster, chicken, duck, and chocolate, for which a full menu and photos are listed below.

The Last Meal 2011 Infographic
Created by Soomin Baik. Click image below to see a larger version, or download a PDF or JPG. 

To draw these ingredients from our 2011 dataset (a.k.a. “The Death Row Class of 2011″), we looked at the available data about our audience and split them into segments: geography, gender, occupation, email domain, season, and time of day that the invite request was submitted. Using Google Refine to scrub and structure the dataset, Mechanical Turk to categorize the dizzying array of answers we received for various categories (e.g., the “Administrative” occupation category derived from far flung answers such as: “Secretary,” “Admin,” “Assitant,” “Exec Asst,” etc.), and Textalyser to analyze the most popular words/ingredients in each segment’s datteaset, we created a top items list for each segment.

What resulted from the analysis was a top 3 items for each segment we looked at. Some results are what you’d expect (e.g., Massachussets includes “Lobster”) and others present amusing/puzzling results (e.g., Pennsylvania: “Scallop, Vermouth, Heart.”). At times, the results remind us that we’re not so different after all, (e.g., Men & Women both list “Cheese” in their top 3) and at others they highlight how rich a tapestry we are as a people (e.g., Businesspeople want “Duck, Cheese, and Soup” while engineers/architects requested “Potato, Korea, and Chocolate”). We are reminded how the seasons subtly influence our cravings, (e.g., Spring includes “Salad,” Winter asks for “Potatoes”) and but also how we could benefit by rethinking conventional wisdom of how time and food are related (e.g., Breakfast time submissions requested “Fresh, Duck, Pho,” which I hope to God becomes a food trend for 2012). We unearthed a few new things since doing this in 2010, that’s for sure, but I’m still happy to report that “cheese” remains the overall #1 request for a last meal. It’s good to know that despite our shortcomings, we as a society still have not lost our goddamned minds.

In the end, our goal with this dataset was to create a conversation piece, one that served as both an inspiration for a menu as well as a natural ice breaker for dinner table conversation. This isn’t hard science and we don’t expect Proctor & Gamble to come calling for the dataset with hopes of launching a Last Meals product line based on this research. But this sort of thing exemplifies one of the things we strive to do with Studiofeast: spurring conversation over a meal, which leads to a great social experience for all.

And having witnessed the vibe at the Last Meal dinner, seeing strangers find common ground in the things they wanted to eat for their last meal, commiserating over the food and wine, and ultimately forming new friendships and enriching old ones, I can assure you that it worked. The food and the concept simply got people at the table talking and great things happened as a result. Hopefully, we can extend that night’s conversation here. I encourage you to share the infographic and let us know what your last meal would be. We look forward to hearing what you have to say and hope we can cook for you sometime soon. It’s been a great 2011 and we have much in store for you in 2012.

But until then, we hope you have a Happy New Year and we look forward to one day making you a last meal worthy meal.

Many thanks to the talented Soomin Baik, who crafted this infographic as well as helping to execute the Last Meal.

The Last Meal 2011 Menu

— CHEESE —
Halloumi, Parsley, Lemon, Foie

— LOBSTER —
Lobster Bisque, Crouton, Roe

— CHICKEN —
Sichuan Chicken, Charred Scallion, Pickled Carrot

— DUCK DUCK DDUK —
Duck Breast, Duck Confit, Dduk Boki
Crispy Kale, Potato

— CHOCOLATE —
Chocolate Ganache, Caramel, Bacon, Bourbon

— WINE —
2005 François Raquillet Mercurey 1er Cru Les Veleys
2009 Domaine Monpertuis “Vignoble de la Ramière” Côtes du Rhône

Last Meal Dinner Time Lapse

Last Meal Dinner Photo Gallery

For the past few years we’ve been doing events that have become more and more ambitious in scale, concept, and execution. This has been a good thing, as we’ve been able to push ourselves to create some really great dining experiences for our guests. These events have been our way of continuing to explore the culinary & social gray area between a high concept restaurant and dinner at your best friend’s house.

We recently kicked off a series of dinners we’re simply calling, “Studiofeast Sunday,” which will seat no more than 12 guests and serve anywhere from 3-6 courses. While things like the L Train Lunch or the Doppelganger Dinner were larger, more bombastic concepts on a spectacular scale, the Studiofeast Sunday series aims to be smaller and more unassumingly awesome. If Doppelganger is the Per Se, then Studiofeast Sunday is the Ad Hoc.

Rest assured, we’ll still be doing the more extravagant dinners, but these smaller dinners will be a way to connect on a much closer level with you on a more frequent basis. We look forward to forming much closer bonds with all of you at these dinners. We look forward to telling more ridiculous stories at these dinners. We look forward to balancing tried and true favorites on the menu with more experimental things that we honestly have no idea about. For what we subtract from size and scale, we will add back with intimacy and camaraderie.

Below are photos, a video, and the menu from our first Studiofeast Sunday, on December 4th 2011. A great time was had by all and the night ensued with wonderful cocktails from Brian Quinn, a primer on how to make Sichuan peppercorn hot sauce & vodka, the serendipitous NASA Space Camp connection between our guests, and big fun with warm brie through a nitrous whipper.

Studiofeast Sunday #1 Menu

• Raw: scallop + foie + oyster + tarragon
• Salad: broccoli + shallot + sichuan + pork floss
• Soup: cauliflower + apple + salsify + chive
• Main I: rib cap + asparagus + mushroom
• Main II: ribeye + scallion + kimchi + tteok
• Dessert: brie + honey + lavender + cranberry

We hope to cook for you soon.

—-
Photos by Jamie Moy & Brian Quinn

I hope this message finds you well. As the end of the year draws near, I have the pleasure of inviting you to our final meal of the year: The Last Meal 2011.

For nearly 5 years we have had a question on our mailing list form that asks, “You are about to die, what’s your last meal?” Over time we’ve collected some great responses from all of you and last year, we created a meal using the top 20 ingredients from our entire dataset.

This year we’ll be creating a meal inspired by the “Death Row Class of 2011′s” submissions. To do this, we’ve sliced and diced the dataset into segments and will prepare dishes inspired by the favorites from various segments: Brooklyn vs Manhattan, Male vs Female, Spring vs Fall, Gmail users vs AOL users, etc.

Which Studiofeast segment has the best taste in death row food? You decide:

• DATE: Sunday, December 18th.
• TIME: 5:30pm – 9:30pm
• LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY
• FORMAT: Five courses that deal with duck, chicken, lobster, sichuan peppercorns, bourbon, whipped foie, more.
• WINE: Two wine pairings; BYOB if you wish
• DONATION: $100/pp

Seating is incredibly limited, so act quickly to secure a spot at the table by visiting this link: http://sflastmeal2011.eventbrite.com/

Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.

I do hope you’ll join us, but if not, have a great holiday season and we’ll see you in 2012 for more ridiculousness.

–

Photo by: David Christiansen, http://pop-up-studio.com

“And on the seventh day, we ate awesome”

On Sunday, Dec 4th in Williamsburg, we will be kicking off the first in a series of intimate Sunday dinners that we’re simply calling “Studiofeast Sunday”

These dinners will be 10 person affairs, with seating in close proximity to an open kitchen. Our aim here is to cook awesome food for you while holding an informative / hilarious / titillating dialogue with you about everything and nothing, all night.

We’ll be doing brand new recipes for you over five courses with two wine pairings for $100:

• Raw: scallop + foie + oyster + tarragon
• Salad: broccoli + shallot + sichuan + pork floss
• Soup: cauliflower + apple + salsify + chive
• Main I: rib cap + asparagus + mushroom
• Main II: ribeye + scallion + kimchi + tteok
• Dessert: brie + honey + lavender + cranberry
• Wines: two pairings + you are also welcome to byob

Please RSVP with your donation at this link: http://studiofeastsunday01.eventbrite.com/

Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.

I do hope you’ll join us and can’t wait to cook for you.