Carnivorous Gastronomy

For the meat dinner, I actually kept some of the courses the same for the sake of simplicity for myself. The first course was the same Caramelized Carrot Soup and Garlic Knots as the vegetarian night, and the second course was an entire serving of the Daikon Paad Thai. After that, however, it deviated a bit.

The main meat course consisted of a culinary pun for those foodies out there.

72 Hour Short Rib "Filet" 

with Potato "Gnocchi"

A very traditional dish is to serve beef short rib (a very lean, cheap cut) served with gnocchi to soak up the sauce of the short rib.

Another traditional dish is to serve filet steak with mashed potatoes.

So, to have a bit of a play on tradition, I used the sous vide machine on the short ribs for 72 hours to break down the collagen in the meat, giving it a super tender and smooth texture, almost like that of a filet. Then, I used mashed potatoes to form little gnocchi-like balls. So while the first look at the dish may have appeared to be traditional short ribs and gnocchi, it tasted more like a filet and mashes potatoes. To finish off this dish, I made a horseradish cream sauce with fresh horseradish root to give it just a little bit of kick at the end.

For the dessert, I amplified my original dessert from the first dinner. Instead of a pure guava geleé, I used a guava reduction and then topped it with an orange juice reduction geleé. Because of agar's heat resistant properties, the two gels formed perfectly distinct layers on top of each other, giving a unique colorful presentation. In addition, I did the caramelized bananas again and gave my guests the opportunity to try caramelizing their own bananas!

It was a great amount of work and a great amount of fun! I hope that everyone present enjoyed themselves greatly! 

Feel free to give me any questions you might have!