Thursday, June 2, 2011

Cochon 555 New Orleans

Stephanie Hua has a nice post on her blog about Cochon 555 New Orleans. You can see the food, people, etc.

Here's her description of Erick and what he served:

Representing the Besh Restaurant Group, Erick Loos blew us away with his creativity. He presented a mini four-course meal, showcasing a spectrum of techniques and thorough use of the animal. First up was the Pork Liver Parfait (a cool and savory concoction of liver and blood mousse, whipped lard, house-preserved peaches, and muscadine wine gelée). Admittedly, it was a little disorientating for my taste. Next came the Head to Toe Salad, composed of a terrine of the pig's head, tongue, skin, heart, tail, shanks, and trotters, topped with heirloom tomatoes and sugar cane vinaigrette. For our main, we had Slow Cooked Leg, Shoulder, and Loin served with porcini mushrooms over panisse, a chickpea fritter traditionally from the South of France. The real stunner, however, was dessert. The Porked Alaska, bacon pecan crunch ice cream and amaretto cream melting softly inside a crispy meringue, was my favorite bite of the entire evening.
Apparently he's been serving Mangalitsa bacon ice cream for the last few years at La Provence. People love it.

I'm thinking next year if he wants to compete, he might want to work it out with his slaughterhouse so that he could be the guy that stuns, sticks and guts the pig too. Then he'd really do it start-to-finish.

I talked with Erick. He said that they used the one pig and only the one pig (despite them having lots of other Mangalitsa around, they didn't cheat). So, for instance, the bacon ice cream was made with a quick-cured bacon. Also, he said they did a great job utilizing the one pig; when they were all done, they had a few pounds of lard (of course), but that was it.

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