Marriott in the Kitchen

Hill Country, Barbeque, and the new JW San Antonio

I just left the newly opened JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country, the latest entry into the JW portfolio of spectacular hotels. Located just miles from downtown San Antonio, this 1,000 room property is already a great place to visit, and a great place to dine.
 
Cibolo Moonis the three-meal answer to the question “What to eat while in the Hill Country?”  Try simple Texas cooking with three meals of bold flavor and a surprising nod to the German heritage of the first hill country settlers. Nearby New Braunfels was the first predominantly German settlement in 1860’s Texas, which explains the spattering of locally made sausages, tart and German potato salad, and house pickled vegetables. Much of the menu is full-on Texas barbeque, for those wanting the roadhouse experience without the roadhouse. Great side dishes, lunchtime chopped brisket on house baked Pullman loaf, butter slathered cast iron baked biscuits, simply grilled fish and  sweet wild Gulf shrimp take their rightful place next to smoky salt and pepper ribs, plate sized chicken fried steak, and “burnt ends”, the smoky bits off the bbq to wrap in soft flour tortillas.

Carefully selected redfish is prepared “on the half shell,” a unique Texas style that causes the fillet to curve up when grilled with the skin and scales still on. The scales protect the meat as it cooks, keeping the fish moist and tender before being mopped with a citrusy chile butter.  Authentic cooking, just as it is done along the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Breakfast is simply outstanding – pecan sticky loaf for the whole table, organic egg “huevos rancheros,” bbq local sausages, a serious burrito with serious Texas red, and real biscuits with real gravy. Cibolo Moon’s copper clad exhibition kitchen provides a direct view to Executive Chef Ryan Littman’s talented culinary staff and the dynamic Melissa Hendrickson, who runs the Cibolo Moon kitchen.

The restaurant 18 Oaks, boasts Prime, small ranch, and naturally-raised steaks as the showpiece to this striking steakhouse, located just off the golf course. Steakhouses are timeless but sometimes tired.  Not so here. There is a great balance of the expected with the unexpected. Order the local cut 100 mile radius beef (from Windy Bar Ranch), these well aged Steaks pair perfectly with truffled creamed corn, charred cippolini & foraged mushrooms, and crisp Rosti potatoes. Still a creamed spinach and au gratin steakhouse side fan? 18 Oaks’ examples are memorable. Steak toppings of made in-house grain mustards, classic béarnaise, peppercorn sauce or grated to order horseradish round out this well executed menu.

  
 
With a wall of screens and 24 beer taps, High Velocityis an amped up sports bar with great and interesting food to fit any game. Outside and just being finished, the Rivertop pool bar anchors a water park my kids have already claimed they simply must see, and in fact have already stated that no matter what, our next vacation is in San Antonio

If the Hill Country is considered the culinary breadbasket of Texas, the new JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country is the best place to experience it.

What’s on YOUR plate today? BBQ, Texas style.

Classic Desserts, Perfected Traditions

The dessert course. To some it is the whole purpose of going to a restaurant, a justified indulgence, a required and fitting end to any meal out. Rich chocolate, buttery crusts, sweet caramel, and tart fruit  all compete for the limelight on dessert menus. Whether it be a simple coffee kiosk or trendy destination restaurant, every restaurant concept has some form of dessert. Pastry chefs, like savory chefs, strive to capture creative inspiration, unique pairings, and a memorable end to the meal. So what are the latest trends in dessert? No surprise really, just think classic and comfort.

Generally without exception, the top five desserts are as follows:

1. Ice Cream, house churned if possible with flavors of vanilla bean (always) to even bacon (rarely)

2. Chocolate of course, in all forms

3. Crème brulee

4. Fruit, often apple, hot with a cold ice cream

5. Key Lime or Lemon pie/cream/custard

It seems that everyone has a childhood memory or tradition that includes a dessert. For me, it was always a simple chocolate pudding, though years later I learned it had a fancy name, Chocolate Pot du Creme.We make this recipe often in the test kitchen, incredibly simple and delicious. Give it a try!

Chocolate Pudding (Pot du Creme)

Ingredients:

1 qt heavy cream, 2/3 cup sugar, 12 ounces Semi Sweet Chocolate, 1 cup egg yolks, 2 tsp vanilla.

Method:

1. Cut the chocolate into pieces about 1/2" and place into a stainless steel mixing bowl.

2. Place the cream and chocolate into a sauce pot to melt the chocolate, do not boil.

3. Whisk in the sugar, egg yolks and the vanilla.

4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

5. Pour 8 oz. into individual jumbo cappuccino mugs.

6. Place into a water bath with enough water to cover the cups halfway. Cover loosely with foil and bake in a preheated 350 degree F. oven until set, generally 45-60 minutes.

7. Cool and serve with a dollop of whipped cream, and chocolate shavings.

The  What’s on YOUR plate today?

      

Reclaiming cooking oil for a greener kitchen

The National Restaurant Association's annual trend survey of Professional Chefs identifies sustainability as one of the top trends to guide 2010 culinary thinking. No surprise there, the global concern of our precious natural resources has been on the focal point of our industry for years. Local foods with a smaller carbon footprint, sustainable fishing and farming, recycling and composting, and purposeful menus have all shared in the shaping of our chefs' collective environmental awakening. 

When we announced in 2007 that we eliminated trans fats in our food preparation, I wondered how we could tap into the small but growing Bio Diesel market. 5.5 million pounds of cooking oil is a conservative estimate of what our hotel and restaurant kitchens consume annually. Typically, the used oils are manufactured into animal feed or consumer products.  We prefer to direct these oils into a more sustainable platform, one that ultimately provides ecological benefits in line with our global green initiatives. 

Reclaiming 5.5 million pounds of used cooking oil will:

Produce 362,000 gallons of usable biofuel
Be the equivalent of planting 92,000 trees due to reduced CO2 emissions

Finding a reliable BioFuel company to partner in these efforts have been hindered by the lack of a nationwide or global presence. Greenlight Biofuels, a subsidiary of Greenlight Energy Resources based in Charlottesville, Virginia, is one of the  companies with the capability to service a multi-state area.  Greenlight now services the majority of the Washington, DC-area hotels and is providing a model for other regions to identify similar companies in other areas capable of the same service. Wherever the infrastructure allows, we will globally direct our used cooking oil to be reclaimed into the Bio Diesel system.

Our hotel kitchens pride themselves on being good stewards of their environment, with the attainable goal of reducing our carbon footprint to the lowest possible. Running a kitchen takes a lot of energy (both physically and environmentally). Stoves, refrigerators, daily deliveries, and shipping packaging account for the obvious energy burners, but there are many more hidden opportunities. Turning our used oil into non-fossil fuel is just one more thing we can do for the environment and cities in which we live, globally supporting our local communities. 

A Great Apple Cake, Family Traditions, and Thanksgiving

No meal is more universally recognized than the Thanksgiving Day menu.

Globally, our hotels offer Thanksgiving menus for holiday travelers, expats, and locals wishing to join the US in the annual celebration of thanks for the nation's first settlers and their native hosts. Tables across the globe will be filled with the US staple of sweet and mashed potatoes, bread stuffing, green beans, the famous Turkey and pumpkin pie. How many turkeys are cooked for Thanksgiving? Some estimates say well over 600 million pounds of turkey are purchased in the month of November. However you calculate it, that's a lot of birds.

Every family has a wide range of "traditions" that make the holiday unique, embellishing the core staples with flavors and side dishes carried from one generation to the next. Do you put sausage in your stuffing? Oysters maybe? Cornbread or not? Cook an extra dozen legs to satisfy the giant drumstick fans, or just use the legs to make the gravy because no one eats the dark meat? I remember my grandmother's amazing rhubarb pie and her mashed potatoes, always a bit lumpy and buttery. To this day, I prefer her style of Thanksgiving fork-smashed potatoes streaked with buttermilk and flakes of black pepper. No classic "pommes puree" for me on the last Thursday of November for me. The variety is endless, and always unique to a family's tradition.  The food is important, yet secondary to the memories it creates.

My mother is a great cook and had a profound influence on my own culinary interest. In addition to our backyard garden, we had an old apple tree that produced beautiful Honey Crisp apples. These heirloom apples were sweet and tart, and the base of her amazing apple cake. A perfect fall recipe that always works, and a nice accompaniment to the traditional pumpkin pie. I made it recently for a high profile lunch meeting and thought I'd share her recipe, though I did dress it up with more caramelized apples and a bit of ice cream. Try it out, though according to my mother "it should only be served with a bit of lightly whipped cream", and not the ice cream we added!

Apple Cake

3/4 cup shortening  

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs   

1 1/2 cups flour   

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda    

2 cups diced, peeled tart apples that hold their shape during baking.  

§     Cream together until smooth

§     Add eggs, beat until smooth

§     Measure dry ingredients and sift together

§     Add the dry ingredients a little at a time until mixed and then fold the apples into the batter

§     Grease and flour a cast iron skillet (or cake pan)

§     (I add: 4 apples peeled and halved, caramelized in 1 cup of caramelized sugar until soft and browned, layered on the bottom of the greased pan)

§     pour in the batter and spread the batter so it is flat. 

§     Place into a 325°F(170°C)oven. Bake about 1 hr and 10 minutes, checking after 1 hour with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done.

Place on a cake rack and within a couple of minutes turn the pan over and remove pan no more than 10 minutes later.  A hint is to take a knife and be sure the cake is loosened around the side.  If you have greased and floured the pan well, it will come out very easily.  

(Mom’s note: BE CAREFUL AS THE PAN IS HOT AND CUMBERSOME WHEN INVERTING THE PAN. This is one of my most popular desserts.  Personally, I like it plain, but is great with a little whipped cream and a cherry on top if serving company.  It is almost better the next day and freezes well.)   

 

What's on YOUR plate today?