Fun Artical about Chef Hakan

To see artical in Pioneer press follow link.

Enjoy
www.twincities.com/life/ci_17519806?nclick_check=1

Cosmos featured in a cook book

Pastry Chef Khanh and Chef de Cuisine Hakan was asked by Geri Wolf to be part of a cook book that she wanted to do for a long time. Without hesitation they gladly joined in. The whole thing didn't take more than maybe two months to complete and the book turned out amazing. It,s called the "The Culinary Mistress" and the thing is because Geri did in sucha short time all the dishes and restaurants are very relevent right now, the dishes that Cosmos are featuring in the book are currently on the menu and there are some restaurants that people havent even be able to visit because they havent even opended yet!

The photography is done by our friend Chris Bohnhoff that have done work with Cosmos before (see previuse postings), and if you like "food porn" then this book is a must, the pictures are world class. The Culinary Mistress is not only a picture/recipes book, it has nice personal stories about each chef so not only do you get to know the food better but you get a little behinde the scene knowledge about the chefs here in the Twin Cities

Fall Items 2010

New Foie Gras dish, Pan seared foie gras and a Foie Gras tourchon, the theme is Glögg. A Swedish muled wine that is traditionally served with almonds and raisin. We turn the Glögg into Spaghetti, the tourchon is getting crusted with almonds and the raisins are turned into puddings. This is the best Foie gras dish ever served in Cosmos,

Hudson Valley Foie Gras, Tourchon, Glögg Spaghetti, Raisin Pudding, Foie Brioche Crumbles, Lemon Infused Honey dew.

Another dish is roasted beets served with whipped goat cheese and spiced pecans. we like to use all of our produce so in this dish we Incorporated the beet greens and the beet stems, we even used the pickling liquid from pickling the beets. this dish has turned none beet lovers in to beet fans.

Roasted Baby Beets, Goat cheese, Spiced pecans, Compressed beet stem, Fried beet greens, Arugula, Pickled Beet Sheet.

Farm to Table Event 08-15-2010

The line never stoped

Toyota was sponsoring a Farm to table event that Cosmos participated in. It was a perfect day for it, sunny and warm with a slight breeze but no humidity. We were featuring one of our new dishes at the event. A lemon roasted Wild Acres Chicken breast, with a corn (from The farmers market) and Wisconsin cheese

risotto. We served over 400 people in one hour. Pat from Wild Acres joined us to talk about his farm and we had really great reviews

Tuna Poke

New dish on our Tasting menu.

Tuna poke mixed with Yuzu kewpie Mayo. Habanero Grilled (and Brulled) Pineapple.

Puffed rice and a sea weed sheet.

Restaurant Week 08-01 thru 08-06 2010

Another successful restaurant week down the hatch. The picture shows about half of the amount of Beef Tenderloin we went thru this week.
Thanks For everyones hard work.

Tasting menu 07-2010

A few pictures of some new tasting dishes

Heirloom Tomatoes, Fried Mozzarella cheese Curds, Shaved Balsamic, Bloomed Basil seeds, Tomato Blossoms.

Five Spiced Squab Breast, Squab Leg Confit, Butternut Squash Ravioli, Cinnamon-Date Foam, Sage Brown Butter

Wagyu Striploin, Tempura Fried Rice Cake, Curly Spinach, Asian BBQ Sauce, Lemon Infused Honeydew

Lemon Infused Honeydew

Wedding Table

On Saturday June 19th we had a newly wed couple that joined us for a kitchen table. The bride did not shed a tear during the ceremony but as soon as she was surprised with a kitchen table by her romantic husband she started shedding some tears. We all had a good time and we would like to share some pictures from that night.

Enjoy

Apricot Stuffed Foie Gras Mousse

Here we have a Foie dish we came up with for a kitchen table.

Make a very plain foie mousse and stuff it with apricot puree that's been spiced with apricot brandy. We designed the plating to look like a dessert, instead of having chocolate tuilles we used crispy duck skin, we burned sugar in the raw on top of the foie and finished up with a very tart pickled ginger foam. So you have All the elements in one dish:

Salt=Duck Skin

Sweet= Apricot Puree

Bitter= Burnt Sugar
Tart= Pickled Ginger

Umami= The Fatty Foie of course

Hudson Valley Foie Gras Mousse, Apricot Puree, Foie Powder, Duck Skin,

Pickled Ginger Foam, Lemon Balm

Roof Top Graden (Step two)

Roof Top Garden...

Last year about this time we threw around the idea of creating a garden on our roof top at the hotel to produce some herbs and tomatoes. Being chefs, there's a certain fulfillment in not only understanding a product from seed to harvest, but also seeing product make it all the way out to a guest's table as well. We had some decent results last year, but more so learned a lot about what we needed to do this year in order to be more successful.

This year the process has been a lot more involved, and started with some friends of the restaurant working on four 3'x4'x1' beds for us to fill up. Our engineering department set up protective mats and weight dividers for us as well so as not to damage our roof top. Next thing we knew we got the okay from all the powers that be and it was off to Home Depot to haul the 1400lbs of dirt it would require to fill our beautifully hand crafted beds. Once that dirt got in there, you could feel this little bit of excitement in everyone, ideas churning with the endless possibilities of what we could grow. While the kitchen was daydreaming about heirloom veggies and herbs, our engineering department was creating an irrigation system taking water run off from the hotel's air conditioning system and running it down to our summer project. We were all amazed at the amount of water we were able to gather, and thankful that they made watering so easy for us.

Now comes the fun part. We still had the pots from last year, and filled two with tomatoes and devoted one to chives which we hope will come back perrenialy. One bed was devoted to our sister restaurant in the hotel, Bradstreet, where Chef Jesse hopes to become self sufficient with arugula. He's off to a great start with two rows of sprouts, and just planted another row yesterday. Another one of our beds was filled with veggies of all sorts including kholrabi, banana peppers, fennel, radishes, and we even slipped two watermelon plants in there while crossing our fingers. Our other two beds we focused on various herbs that we'll be able to harvest continually throughout the summer, hopefully becoming a little more self sufficient. We've got both purple and regular basil, mint, dill, marjoram, and of course nasturtium. We've developed a fondness for nasturtium over the years, and use it quite frequently for it's nice peppery flavor, and it's bright and flavorful flowers are used for garnish quite often. We also planted a row of cucumbers in our sunniest bed with the idea of setting up a trellace to create a little shade. Those cucumbers by the way, have already sprouted, and and are steadily growing everyday.

We're very proud of what our roof top project has become and look forward to sharing it with all of our guests at the hotel. Even though we're still at the sprout stage, there's a certain excitement in knowing the process has begun, and in a few short weeks we'll be putting the fruits of our labors onto a plate. It should also be said that this project would not have been possible without the support of the rest of the hotel. Our engineering department has been incredibly helpful in ensuring we go about this in the most correct and safest way possible, and without our irrigation system we'd still be breaking our backs hauling stock pots of water back and forth. Our executive commitee has been supportive also, and without there guidance and approval we'd still be working with just those three pots. It's also great to see the support from the rest of the hotel employees, asking if they can go see, offering gardening tips, and their excitement adds to our own.

So if you couldn't tell from this novel, we're a little excited over here at the Graves 601 Hotel, and encourage all interested to join in our excitement. We'll try to keep the updates and pictures coming!