Carino's: Chef's Corner

Today was a very exciting day, I was invited to do a live cooking demonstration on WOAI Channel NBC Channel 4 in San Antonio.  Today, I showed home viewers how to prepare our famous Spicy Shrimp and Chicken as well as talk about our new Holiday Feastival menu items.  These shows are always a blast, however today was a little different.  I was blown away by how professional and hospitable everyone at the station was, and even more blown away by how much they loved Carino's Italian!  Shelly Miles, the host of the show 'San Antonio Living', was great to work with on set and was genuinely interested in our menu and the food.  One of the camera operators was also very excited to tell me that she has had her birthday dinner at Carino's for 5 years in a row!  That totally made my day.  Here are some pictures from today, a shot of Shelly and I after the show and also a shot of the set before we went live.

I have been doing these shows for about 4 years now, and they are still a bit stressful to prepare for.  The biggest thing is that I need to make sure I have all my ingredients and utensils ready to go - I have a phobia of getting halfway through a live segment and realizing that I am missing something to complete the recipe!  Luckily that has never happened.  Other than that, once the camera is rolling it is pure fun.  Cooking and talking about food when you know the people watching at home are truly interested and might even try to cook the recipe themselves!

As most of you know, we host a special four course food and wine pairing dinner at the restaurants on the last Tuesday of each month.  Because of the busy holiday season, we moved our November dinner up to November 17 (next Tuesday) so it doesn't conflict with Thanksgiving week.  We have a lot of fun with these dinners because I get to develop new recipes just for that night.  And since the wine dinners are special occasions, I get to 'play' a little by trying new flavors out on our wine dinner regulars to see what they think.  I have been busy this past week getting the restaurants ready for the November dinner - the process usually starts off with a trip to the market to find what is fresh and in season.  Since this dinner is a special occasion dinner for the holidays, I know I have a little extra room to work with as far as creativity goes.  After the trip to the market, I spend a few days in the kitchen playing and developing the recipes.  I actually just finished my final presentations for the recipes this morning so now it is time to starting typing them up. 

Here are the items for the November dinner:  Baked Mussels on Fresh Greens with Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette, Butternut Squash Tortelloni with Grilled Chicken and Gorgonzola Cream, Prosciutto Wrapped Tenderloin with Asiago 'Smashed' Potatoes and for dessert - Espresso Creme de Caramel.  My favorite is the Butternut Squash Tortelloni - the sharpness of the gorgonzola, the sweetness from the squash puree and the texture of the toasted pecans all in one bite are unbelievable!  And of course, each course is paired with a great wine.  If you haven't been to one of these dinners, come check them out!

So today for lunch I made myself a Caprese Salad - fresh buffalo mozzarella and vine-ripened tomatoes topped with olive oil (extra virgin of course), balsamic vinegar, sea salt and fresh basil.  So simple, so delicious.  It really got me thinking - the art of making and aging balsamic vinegar is so amazing, a process from Modena that goes back to the middle ages.  The main basilica in the town of Modena even has pictures of the balsamic making process etched in stone around its entryways.  If your family was or is from Modena, you lived your life learning about, making and enjoying this wonderful ingredient.  In our restaurants, we use a high quality, three leaf balsamic that we import from our partner Acetum in Modena.  A three leaf designation means that the vinegar is full flavored and smooth, is slightly 'syrupy' and tangy.  We use this in our salad dressing and the popular Chicken Balsamico.  Notice the three black leaves on the gold banner at the bottom of the label.

Now we use the GOOD stuff, but let me tell you about this - Last spring when I was in Modena, I also learned about the SUPER GOOD STUFF - Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale (gold label).  This is a 25-year aged balsamic that is very complex in flavors and is very sweet and syrupy.  You can pour it over a grilled beef tenderloin or pour it over gelato with fresh strawberries.  The flavors are out of this world.  There are two consortia that regulate and produce this fine vinegar.  You will notice it by the small, uniquely shaped bottle below (I pulled this from my own personal stash) - Only the 'Traditional' goes into this type of bottle.  But of course it isn't cheap, it can run as high as $100 per ounce!  Just think, you could FLY to Modena for what it costs to buy a couple of bottles of the 'Traditional' - I would probably even argue that it is worth it!

Our Angel Hair with Artichokes and Shrimp is a great lighter dish with excellent flavors. You can even make it vegetarian by not including the shrimp. Enjoy!

Well, I'm a little full from today's activity so I don't think I'll be eating a big dinner.  We had a potential olive oil supplier bring me about 10 different types of olive oil to taste as potential oils for the restaurants.  Italian, Spanish, Greek, Extra Virgin, Pomace, so on and so forth - they were all excellent.  Olive oils are fascinating to me, they are kind of like wine in the sense that each one is different - the flavors, colors and textures all depend on the conditions in which the olives were grown.  And of course, how olive oils are used depends on what your purpose is.  At home when using olive oil, I typically use Extra Virgin (made from the first cold press, low acidity) for salad dressings and dips while using Pomace (refined and blended) for heated methods, like sautéing.  At the restaurants, we blend Extra Virgin olive oil with our garlic infused oil for the seasoned oil blend that we use for dipping our fresh baked bread in.