Everything from a rabbit

This is how most rabbits come in. The liver, heart, and kidney are included. I was fortunate enough to work at Dreamdance under Brandon Wolff. We had a duo of rabbit on the menu. I started as an intern and worked my way onto the regular crew.  I did a rotation through all the stations veg prep, starch prep, garde manger, sauce, and butcher. All of the prep and cooking at the restaurant was very simple and basic. i mean that in the best possible way. We got 90% of our produce from farmers around madison. we choose to show off those flavors and stick to the seasons. We used asparagus for two months, that's it. Since we  chose to show off local produce (poultry and meat when available) we generally didn't manipulate the proteins to much. Most of the meats and fish were cooked very straight forward. Rabbit was cooked two different ways. The hind legs were braised with white wine. The loin was wrapped in bacon and roasted. This is still my favorite way to cook rabbit.

Rabbit isn't featured much in Milwaukee. A lot of cooks have not worked with it. I showed Kurt and Chelsea how to cut one, then let them practice.

First remove the hind quarters.

Next, cut through the top of the loin.

Cut the loin away from the bone while keeping the flank attached

Cut off the fore quarters

Split the rack. French the rack. Very tedious.

                                                                    Aromatic Salt


North Shore Distillery Cocktail dinner was 5 courses. Upon tasting the spirits we thought a lighter hand with everything would be a good fit to the spirits. Mathias informed me it was easier for him to match the cocktails to the food.
1 Aquavit. Very Scandi in tradition. Aromatic with caraway, cardamom, and other spices.
When I think of Aquavit my mind goes to where it is traditional. I think one of the more common food pairings with it  is smoked salmon or pickled herring. Since this would be a part of a welcome cocktail  I thought light seafood would be a nice fit. I like oysters. I have also been in the habit of asking people i work with what they would like to learn and work with. This menu is a reflection of that and also how we can manipulate this thing to compliment others by different techniques.
Cocktail- Aquavit, Koval Rose Hip, Lemon, Orange Bitters, Sparkling
The Amuse

                                               Penn Cove Oyster, Finger Lime, Spiced Seawater For the Seawater I infused bottled water with seaweed (Kombu, Wakame, hijiki, and others) After a few days I brought this to a simmer then strained it over the aromatics I tasted in the spirit. For service we frothed it up and add the juice from the shucked oysters. The finger lime brought a little acid to the dish to help wake up the taste buds. They have a natural "caviar" in them that pops in your mouth. The salt on the bottom of the plate helped contribute to the aroma of everything.

2 Sol Vodka. Infused with citrus and chamomile.
Cocktail-   Sol Vodka, Melon, Mint, Lemon

The Dish

                                                    Iberico Ham, Summer Melon, Chamomile

Ham and melon is a very classic combination. I wanted to showcase the fact that we have one of the world's finest hams. Jamon Iberico Bellota. Yup, the acorn fed pig became legal to import in 2007 or 2008. i first had it at Avec in Chicago. The meat is sweet and nutty. To my knowledge we are the only restaurant in Wisconsin to have it. (I'm sure I'm wrong) I can never leave well enough alone so we made a melon terrine (the checkerboard) It was a long process involving Calcium and LM Pectin. We have an idea to make it easier which we will be testing in the future. After we got the look, I infused all the melon with a light Chamomile syrup. The dish also consisted of pickled watermelon rind, olive rock (dehydrated olives make into a cake, then dehydrated again) Burt orange coulis, iceplant leaves, Olive Oil chamomile Powder, and fresh chamomile.


3 Gin #6- lots of herbs and botanicals, light on the juniper
Cocktail- Gin #6, cucumber, tomato, lime, sugar, celery bitters

The Dish                                                Poached Halibut, Braised Octopus, Cucumber

 Lots of herbs and a protein that can carry flavor was what we came up with. the herbs are ones I could pick out from the spirit and also that could compliment the fish. this dish is very light and refreshing. The halibut was cooked Sous Vide in Olive Oil to keep it very delicate. lots of places in Milwaukee Sear this fish but I think that it masks the flavor and texture. The Octopus was braised in white wine and tomato sauce for a few hours until it was tender. The final dish was made up  with these components and Cucumber "noodles", Borage (cucumber flavor), Thai basil, celery leaves, flowering dill, squid ink tuile (water, squid ink, gellan gum, made into a fluid gel, then dehydrated) cucumber broth.


3 Gin #11- London dry style= very heavy juniper
Cocktail- jasmine tea infused #11 gin, Fennel Syrup, egg white, lime, plum bitters

Rabbit is a less popular chicken.(Kurt says everything is a less popular chicken) The taste is mild but a little sweeter than chicken. It takes on flavor very well, anything you can do with chicken tastes better with rabbit. (Kurt thinks I'm an idiot for that one) We used every bit of the rabbit. The saddle was stuffed with greens from the farmer's market (Chard, Beet, shallot confit, rabbit liver) then wrapped in bacon. The hind legs were braised. the forelegs were cooked confit, then stuffed into squash blossoms and fried. The racks were frenched and poached in Olive oil.(the racks were cleaned by Kurt and Chelsea, this is very tedious and painstaking work. Neither are interested in doing it again, but both are glad I showed them) The kidney's were seared and sliced. A jus scented with juniper and dried plums was made from the bones. The accents to the dish were Gin compressed plums, summer squash, fennel fronds, and nasturtium leaves ( think peppery)

4 Absinthe - crazy bitter from the wormwood with big anise flavor
Cocktail- Sirene Ansinthe, cardamom, lemon, egg white, chocolate bitters


At first I was thinking of a dessert with fennel to match the licorice flavor of the spirit. Kurt had the idea of making the spirit's flavor a counterpoint. Why accent the powerhouse flavor? He was right. Coffee, Chocolate, Lemon. It turned into a game of how many different textures and technique we could come up with while maintaining the integrity of the dish. Here we go:
Carbonated Lemon- segment, pack into ISI with simple syrup, charge with 2 nitrous and leaves overnight. They are now fizzy.
Lemon Sorbet
Coffee Caramel- infuse cream with coffee, make a salted caramel sauce
Coffee Custard- infuse cream with coffee, add Iota and Kappa carrageenan (Irish moss that have thickening and gelling properties. In most dairy product you consume at your house so don't hate on the "chemicals") This produces a custard with a flan texture that you can easily slice, brulee, serve hot, etc...
Coffee Milk Meringue- coffee infused milk with glucose. Foamed and dehydrated. Very tricky to get right. original idea is from paco torrebanco from spain... lots of pastry chefs from chicago rock this technique but no one to our knowledge have flavored it. Without the flavoring it is very subtle, light milk flavor, almost boring and not worth it. Very interested to see how this will evolve in our ideas and transfer to the savory world.
Coffee ice cream
Chocolate/Coffee Biscotti - made sense in the fact that it goes with coffee, need to refine our recipe for next time
Chocolate Tuile- Crispy, one of our favorite snacks
Aerated Frozen chocolate- Foamed out of an ISI and frozen. These look like moon rocks with an intense chocolate flavor. We used Manjari Chocolate.
Lemon Balm

Ramos Gin Fizz Marshmallow
French 75 jello

Inspired by Eben Freeman (who we got to meet a few weeks ago. So jealous of Mathias for taking him out on the town