Michael Symon's Live to Cook

There is at least one thing that Michael Symon and I have in common, We both "Live to Cook"!
Live to Cook is the Iron Chefs first book. Michael Symon is also the executive chef and owner of Cleveland's Lola and Lolita restaurants. I was able to eat at Lola earlier last year. The open kitchen, lively atmosphere, and a fresh menu is the reason why it is one of America's most sought after reservations. And if you've ever seen him, you would know that insane laugh!

Here is what we cooked:


First course is the soup. Dead simple. The key to this dish are the tomatoes. Canned San Marzano tomatoes. Well balanced, low in acid and sugars. Great for tomato sauce or a soup like this. We sauteed a bit of onion and garlic in oil, added the can of whole tomatoes, simmered a couple minutes, added heavy cream and the blue cheese and puree. Simple as that. For a little added heat, we added in some sriracha chili sauce. The blue i used was a really creamy Gorgonzola. Not to blue as I wasn't sure what people liked. But the soup was very creamy with the addition of whipping cream and the cheese. But I heard no complaints. This soup took all of 15 minutes to make.
Next time I would add a stronger blue. This soup is pretty much what it says. Spicy Tomato and Blue Cheese. Nothing more, nothing less. I really liked the idea of blending in the blue, but it's not really a "new" concept. I do like that this took no time to make. Usually I don't add cream to puree soups either. I'm thinking if you used enough cheese, that would be enough cream. I'll try it and let you know.

Second course. This was a hit. When you mention pork belly, peoples eyes light up! And when they are called pork belly croutons, people start to become hungry. I think I picked this dish for this exact reason. Pork belly croutons are ingenious. Pieces of braised pork belly that are deep fried until golden and crispy. Serve it with some frisee, pickled red onion and a perfectly poached egg and you're in heaven.
This pork belly took a while to cook. The day before I had to salt it and let it sit over night. The next day, I had to braise it for 7 hours. I find seven hours REALLY long. I cooked it for 5 and it was good. 4 would have been fine too. It was braised in aromatic veg, wine and stock. It came out super tender. It had to chill in the fridge in order to cut it into thumb size pieces to fry.
But once they were fried, they were something special. Who can say no to bacon and who can say no to deep fried anything. Put them together and you are at the mercy of the pork belly crouton!
Once put together, the salad was just like the picture. I was happy that I was able to poach the egg perfectly. Not all cooks know how to cook eggs properly. And poaching ten perfect eggs in front of 10 hungry customers is not easy. But they came out perfectly runny. Whew!

Mac and cheese with goat cheese and rosemary was the main course tonight.
A note on this dish. I use whipping cream once in a while. When desserts call for it, whipped cream as a garnish, sometimes in a sauce. But this was crazy. Most mac and cheese recipes call to make a bechamel sauce with cheese whisked in. This recipe called for 1 L of 35% cream reduced to half, infused with some rosemary, and then a lot of goat cheese whisked in. It tasted good though.
Instead of elbow macaroni, we used rigatoni. I also roasted some chicken in a hot oven and shredded it. All tossed together it was amazingly rich. The chicken was really great in it. The goat cheese really came out and gave it the typical sharp goat flavour which I love.
This recipe was pretty simple and straight forward. The only thing that takes a while is reducing the cream. It has to be done at a fairly low temperature or else it will simmer over. Other than that, it was quick.

On the side I figured we needed some sort of vegetables. It's not easy finding fresh vegetables in this book. There is a whole chapter on pickling fresh vegetables. And a lot of meat! But I picked a grilled radicchio dish that is different for a lot of people. This Italian standard is a great way to use radicchio. Usually this purple cabbage like lettuce is used in salads. But on the BBQ, grilled until charred and slightly wilted, makes a great side dish any time of year.
Radicchio can be pretty bitter. The grilling mellows it out a bit and makes it more sweet. Once grilled, it is traditionally drizzled with olive oil and we added on some orange zest and juice. The acid helped cut the creaminess of the pasta sauce. So it went well together.

I can tell Michael Symon is a real cook. There is no dessert section. So we didn't make dessert. The soup, pork belly and pasta pretty much busted every ones gut, so it was not missed. I did whip together some chocolate chip cookies earlier so they could have a little sweet after the meal.
The meal was a winner for sure. Everyone was relaxed, having a good time, and talkative. Good food and good company always makes for a great evening. we all ooed and ahhhhed over the dishes and came out. Excited about pork belly and mac and cheese. At first glance the book was not what I had hoped for. But by the end, I was sold on this book. I look forward to trying out some of the other pork belly recipes like grilled pork belly. I'll let you know how it goes.

Next class: Salt to Taste