Reverse Engineering Or …Imitation Is The Greatest Form Of Flattery

I really enjoy having a dish at a restaurant and then trying to replicate it at home. In fact most of my “Original” dishes are the result of this process. It is also a great way to come up with ideas for a supper club menu.

I started this process with our friends Debby and Marc Waldman when we lived in Dover Delaware in the late 1980’s. Mark and Debby lived across the street and our routine was to go out to a restaurant on Friday night and then I would replicate dishes on Saturday night at home via reverse engineering.

I’d better explain, “Reverse engineering”. It is a standard practice in the food business. It is very common for a major manufacturer to spend a lot of money developing a new product. If the product does well in the market, competitors, particularly private label manufacturers will develop a “knock-off” product. Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing the ingredient line and researching manufacturing options to come up for a match of the successful product.

Early on in my career, a representative of a private label manufacturer propositioned me. He said I could make a lot of money by helping him to develop a knock-off of Post’s Grape Nuts. The guy was a sleaze ball and there was no way I was going to help him. Divulging trade secrets is certainly unethical, but I have no qualms about replicating a dish I enjoyed at restaurant.

To be honest, not all the recreations that I made for Marc, Debby and Susan were stellar. Today it is a lot easier. There is a wealth of information available on the Internet. You can Google steak au poivre and come up with several recipes. Or better yet, you can search YouTube and get a few videos with step-by-step instructions. Back in the day, my victims were stuck with my rudimentary culinary skills. I learned a lot and Marc, Debby and Susan survived. You should never question wine’s medicinal value.

One of my early attempts t0 recreate a dish was Roasted Peppers. I can remember buying roasted peppers in the Lake Farms Italian Market in Silver Lake NY where I grew up. Mr. Belmonte would bring a tray of freshly roasted peppers from the kitchen. They had a wonderful smoky flavor from the roasting married with the garlic and olive oil.

Check out the recipe

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If You Are Scared Say You Are Scared

In writing Supper Club menus you have to take into account that some things you think are easy can be really challenging for others. I once wrote a menu that including steamed lobsters. I grew up on the east coast where boiling a lobster was considered simple. For others it was a real challenge.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw my friend Kathy having a panic attack in my kitchen. Our neighborhood Supper Club is large and involves 5 dinner parties of 4 couples each. To make it a little easier I ordered the 40 lobsters and arranged for the hosts to pick them up at my house.

Kathy stopped by to pick up the lobster and her anxiety started to show. Let me say that Kathy is a very clever lady. She grew up in Kansas City and had never cooked a lobster. Seeing the squirming lobsters in the bag set off a look of panic that reminded me of a lady I had seen having a panic attack in the Shannon airport in Ireland. Fear of flying is a real phobia. Fear of cooking lobster was apparently just as real.

I felt really bad. Kathy is one of my favorite people and I was the cause of her anxiety. My initial answer was to offer to cook the lobster for her. She would never have to see an uncooked lobster again.

Somehow we talked Kathy down off the panic level. I took her through the simplicity of boiling water. Dropping the lobsters in head-first. Cooking for 7 minutes. Checking for the lobsters to turn red. Explaining how lobsters have built in doneness devices. Sort of like the pop-up device in Roasting chickens that pops up when the chicken is done. Lobsters turn bright red when done.

She got through the evening and her Supper Club was a huge success. Has she cooked a lobster since? When asked her response was: “NO WAY!”

When faced with a Supper Club challenge, do a little research. You can get a video on YouTube or several “How-to’s” via a Google Search. Another tried and true method is to invite the person that suggested the menu and tell them: “It was your idea so you can cook the Lobster”.

Better Than McDonalds.

Just about everyone loves good French Fries. At the same time there is nothing worse than bad fries. The secret to great fries is simple:

YOU HAVE TO COOK THEM TWICE.

I will never forget my first trip to France when I was in high school. The first night in Paris we had dinner at a small bistro. I ordered “steak frites” and had an epiphany. The French Fries were better than McDonalds. Both at that French bistro and McDonalds they go through the extra step of cooking their fries twice.

What they do at McDonalds is they have their potato supplier pre-cooked the fries by blanching them in oil and then freezing them. At your local store they then flash fry the potatoes at high heat to crisp them up.

Growing up my mother made fries and she always struggled to get them crispy. She tried different oils and different potatoes but could never get them consistently crispy. No one told her the secret.

I am amazed at how often French Fries are soggy at restaurants. There is nothing worse than a soggy/oily fry. And there is no reason for it.

People love a good homemade fry. To the inexperienced cook making a good fry is a challenge. Again the French have the answer…Mise En Place. Precook your fries in advance and then flash fry them for second cooking and serve. Voila!

My neighbor and I host an annual Oktoberfest where we serve grilled Brats and coordinate with the rest of our neighbors to bring side dishes. One year I had some extra potatoes so I brought out my fry station and made fries. Using two baskets I would pre-cook one set potatoes in basket one and then let it cool. I would use basket two to do the second cooking. The fries were a big hit and a bit of work. The next year I tried to get away with not making the fries much to the disappointment of the crowd. From then on French fries have become a tradition.

Watch the video of my propane burner and large pot

French fries are easy for McDonalds and me as we have a fry stations and have been making them for years. Not every supper club host has the luxury of a fry station. If you ever do make fries remember the key:

YOU HAVE TO COOK THEM TWICE.