Dinner and Demos at Lexington’s Azur Restaurant and Patio

My holiday gift to myself Thanksgiving weekend was a Wednesday night trip to Lexington, where I attended the first Chef Series Cooking Class at Azur Restaurant and Bar, and what a treat it was!

Lexington is a city I’ve passed countless times traveling between Cincinnati and Knoxville without having a clue what is going on there culinarily or otherwise. Fortunately, that is changing. When I went to the Kentucky Proud Incredible Food Show there in October, I ate at a couple of area restaurants, sampled the wares of some local food purveyors, and was especially intrigued by one demo at the food show, by Azur Chef Jeremy Ashby. I knew right away I wanted to taste his food, and an excellent opportunity presented itself when I read on Azur’s facebook page that he would be doing a cooking class and five-course tasting menu rolled into one for $60.

Among the things at the Incredible Food Show that impressed me about this Kentucky native (he attended Johnson + Wales in Charleston, SC, after UK and worked with Norman Van Aken in Miami prior to returning to the Bluegrass State) are Chef Ashby’s commitment to high-quality, often (although not exclusively) locally sourced ingredients and his inventive preparations. He also has a casual demeanor about him and wants his food to be accessible and fun, which I sensed at the Food Show and saw even more in evidence that Wednesday night. Many long-time friends of the restaurant were in attendance for this inaugural cooking class. But the chef and his staff made me feel welcome and comfortable as a newcomer too. So comfortable, in fact, that – with no disrespect, Chef – I’m going to refer to you as Jeremy in the rest of this post :)

Before the evening’s proceedings got underway, I asked Jeremy if he’d be cool with me taking pictures, explaining up front that I’m a food blogger. He assured me I was welcome to, and even brought some of his demo plates to my table so I could photograph them.

I’m always fascinated to hear how chefs come up with their dishes. Once hooked up to his mike, Jeremy said he would talk a little about plating and mentioned that he tends to write menus as a series of ingredients. The first course: “octopus, shrimp and ahi tuna with Stuarto’s cilantro and roasted onion olive oil, honey ginger balsamic vinegar, baby beets, sweet corn ice cream and chile verde infused sea salt.” That may sound like a lot of ingredients for a salad course, but the clean, well-balanced flavors had me at first bite.

You can see the demo plate at the top of this post, on a slab of Himalayan sea salt. Here’s my diner's plate.

A thin raw slice of bright red ahi tuna forms the base of each plate. The white curvilinear pieces are octopus cooked in court bouillon (which Jeremy said is good for 2-3 uses). The tail-on shrimp were cooked in the same court bouillon, then halved lengthwise. Late-season baby candy-striped beets, sitting upright, were cooked sous-vide. The salad was dressed with a carefully selected, and light, combination of infused olive oils, vinegars, and salts from local Lexington Stuarto’s Olive Oil Company (owner Stuart Utgaard and his products would be featured later in the evening as well). And for temperature and texture contrast, the yellow bit in the middle is sweet corn ice cream, not only whimsical but utterly delicious!

Jeremy had promised a meal that would not resemble Thanksgiving, although he was definitely playing with fall flavors. For his second course, he took inspiration not only from autumn but also from a dish that once failed spectacularly on Top Chef, Butterscotch Scallops.* The menu described Jeremy’s version as “wild mushroom and scallop wellington, fuji apple, butterscotch, rosemary smoke, country ham.”

Demo-ing the dish before us, Jeremy seasoned a day-boat scallop with Stuarto’s Spanish smoked rosemary salt and seared it over high heat. Then he pan-roasted an oyster mushroom whole, which he chopped into duxelles and placed in the bottom of a puff pastry pouch and topped with the scallop to create the Wellington, which would be baked in the oven.

Next Jeremy caramelized the fuji apples with some country ham (from much-lauded Benton’s in Tennessee). For the “butterscotch” (which is just butter and brown sugar, he reminded), he added some butter to the pan drippings (which froths when added to oil and helps deglaze the savory browned ham bits), a smidge of brown sugar, and a touch of chicken stock to create a light apple pan sauce that reminded me more of the woods than of dessert.

To bring full circle the autumn inspiration and the smoked rosemary salt he seasoned the scallop with, each plate featured a quickly torched sprig of fresh rosemary. Not to worry – the mini fires extinguished themselves almost immediately. But they gave off into the room just enough smoky rosemary aroma to add another fun, and complementary, element to experiencing the savory flavors in this dish.

For the third course, Jeremy went old school with pasta carbonara, a dish he introduced as so often being made badly in restaurants that he wanted us to taste an authentic version. I’m not sure I’ve ever had it at a restaurant, although this “bacon and eggs with pasta and pepper” dish is one I’ve made many times at home, doing what I thought was a reasonable job of following Marcella Hazan’s recipe. I now know better.

The demo for this course spotlighted another of Jeremy’s local culinary friends, Lesme of Lexington Pasta Company, who made fresh tagliatelle. This two-year-old company supplies restaurants throughout Kentucky and has a retail spot that offers pasta-making classes where one can also sample wine and local cheeses.

Interspersed with Lesme’s demo, Jeremy rendered some guanciale (a bacon of sorts made from pig’s cheek, which he said is even more savory than pork belly) and added some razor-thin slices of garlic. The fresh pasta tossed with the pork, garlic, a bit of eggs, and some parmesan produced a dish that was one of the most eye-opening of the evening. As delicious as the guanciale was, the star by far was the fresh tagliatelle. Tasting it was a lightbulb moment when I felt like I finally “got” why people make a fuss about fresh pasta. A trip to Italy may not be in my near future, but a pasta-making class at Lexington Pasta Co. definitely is on my list for a future field trip to the Bluegrass State.

As if this dish wasn’t magnificent enough in its own right, if we chose, we could add a bit of truffle salt to cap off the dish. Stuart of Stuarto’s came around to each table with a sample, and how could I resist? The truffle taste sent the dish over the top, although there was already enough salt in this particular dish that the truffle salt made it almost too salty even for my palate. (Note to self: use these delicious salts sparingly.) Before I left that evening, I bought one of the infused olive oils Stuart brought with him, and after tasting Stuarto's espresso-infused balsamic and salt, which Jeremy was kind enough to share samples of with me (I used them in my Thanksgiving dinner here), I definitely want to check out the Stuarto’s shop in person.

Next up: Course 4, “horseradish crusted beef short rib, lemongrass braised endive, celery root, house-made ricotta, and pea shoots.”

Jeremy is a proponent of cooking sous-vide, and my takeaway from the evening is that he uses it because he genuinely likes the results achieved by this technique rather for any kind of novelty factor. (If you’re not familiar with the term, sous-vide – literally, “under vacuum” – means ingredients are sealed in a plastic bag and cooked at a constant low and well-controlled temperature in a water bath, usually in an immersion circulator, although Jeremy pointed out one could use a readily available and fairly inexpensive food-saver vacuum-bag sealer, a pot of water, and a thermometer to achieve the same results.)

An advantage of cooking vegetables like the baby candy-striped beets prepared sous-vide for the first course, he said, is that the vacuum seals in the vegetable’s innate flavors, as opposed to boiling, where flavor and nutrients dissipate in the water. (I’m still not sure the taste is superior to the flavor concentration you can get by roasting vegetables . . . but then sous-vide may work better for cooking veggies whole as he did with the beets, rather than sliced as I usually do when roasting. And it wouldn’t set off the smoke alarms in my house.)

For this course, Jeremy prepared the short ribs sous-vide, emphasizing that it allows even edge-to-edge cooking and that the fat in the short ribs would be evenly distributed in the meat as a result. Although I enjoyed the dish as a whole, maybe I’m just accustomed to a little more fatty gusto when I indulge in short ribs. My note-taking kind of fell off in the midst of the fun and as I was into my fourth taste of the accompanying wine pairings ($35 for 5 pours – all excellent and well matched to the evening’s dishes), but I think the endive (it looks kind of like a tongue in my photo of the demo plate below) was prepared sous-vide as well. Although the bitter taste of fresh endive definitely mellowed during its sous-vide bath, it was a little hard to cut.

One of my favorite components of the short rib dish was the house-made ricotta Jeremy demo’d for this course (you can see it more clearly perched atop the short rib in the pic of my diner's plate farther up). Ricotta is one of the simplest and quickest cheeses to make from scratch (as I learned from an unfortunately short-lived cheese-making group I once joined). Diners were invited to come up to the demonstration table for this one, and I was glad to see I wasn't the only curious onlooker.

Finally, dessert. Jeremy told the assembled group that Azur doesn’t have a pastry chef, so he just likes to play with flavors and textures. And play he did, creating this plate of “pomegranate panna cotta, flexible chocolate, mint emulsion, caramel powder, cinnamon granola soil, chocolate truffle.”

Jeremy demonstrated how to make a straightforward panna cotta, making it look simple enough a home cook could tackle it. At the other end of the spectrum, he turned to some chemical compounds from his “molecular gastronomy” toolbox to turn caramel into powder and crème de menthe into a creamy emulsion (alas, I wasn’t quick enough to get the chemicals’ names written down correctly). For the pièce de résistance, he applied some liquid nitrogen to take chocolate in direction I hadn’t before tasted. A colorful, fanciful course to finish the evening with. Along with the excellent 20-year-old Port that accompanied it, it was definitely enough to keep my tastebuds – and curiosity – engaged, full though I was after the previous four courses.

Chef Jeremy was kind enough to stop by my table, chat a bit, and answer my questions at several points during the evening. When I commended him on his presentation style, he thanked me and said he tries to keep things casual during his demos, but was also finding it a little hard to be out front rather than in his usual spot in the kitchen as the dishes went out. At the end of the evening, he invited his young kitchen staff into the dining room to introduce and thank them, and the diners erupted in applause for the fine meal we had treated us to.

Azur – which Jeremy quipped at the Incredible Food Show stands for come “as you are” – has a loyal following in Lexington. Like the chef himself, the restaurant has a laid-back vibe to it, even as the kitchen is putting out innovative, high-end dishes. The combination is a great recipe for accessible adventure. Although I would happily dine at Azur again at any opportunity, the tasting-menu-plus-cooking-class format (Jeremy said he plans to offer more of these either monthly or every other month) was a great introduction to not only the quality of Azur’s food but also where it’s coming from – both the carefully sourced ingredients themselves and the mind that conceives of how to make them taste good, assemble them in unique combinations on a plate, and delight his diners. Whether he’s exploring modernist techniques or harkening back to artisanal preparations, Jeremy Ashby is a chef with boundless culinary curiosity and an underlying generosity of spirit. I loved the magic carpet ride of my first evening at Azur, and I can't wait to be swept away again.

*Dale Talde’s Butterscotch Scallops got him eliminated on Season 4, although when challenged to redo the dish during the All-Stars season, Talde redeemed himself with a version that guest judge Anthony Bourdain said Talde successfully managed to “un-f--k up” the dish. Jamie Lauren in the Top Chef scallop arena, not so much.

The Voltaggio Brothers and More from the KY Incredible Food Show

Thanks for bearing with my circuitous series of Lexington trip reports. The impetus for my weekend getaway, as you may recall, was the Kentucky Proud Incredible Food Show. It led me to dinner at Jonathan’s at Gratz Park and brunch at Jean Farris Winery and Bistro, but the food show itself was such a full day of inspiration that I’m doubling back to share more. I wrote about a few of the 100+ vendors and their products here, but there were so many activities and demos going on concurrently I sometimes had trouble choosing.

This is just the schedule for the “Culinary Seminars,” in the smaller break-out room.

The Kids Craft Café offered youngsters the opportunity to create their own artwork with painted toast, eggshell mosaics, pumpkin painting, and other activities. “Exhibit Space H” featured cooking demos by Chef Tom Mackinnon of BlueFire Grill at the Lexington Regency Hyatt.

Barnes + Noble turned a section of the show into a cookbook store, with food titles by lots of Kentucky authors and this huge display of advance copies of Volt ink., set for wide release tomorrow, by headliners Michael and Bryan Voltaggio of Top Chef fame, performing at 11:00 and 3:00 in adjacent Rupp Arena.

B+N held book signings by local authors throughout the day, as well as one by the Volt Bros. Yes, I walked away with an autographed copy.

And then there was the jam-packed schedule for the demonstration stage sponsored by Sullivan University’s Lexington culinary program, where I spent a good chunk of my day getting my food geek on.

I decided to skip the potential mayhem of the Voltaggios’ morning show in favor of the Heritage Meats Master Class. “I’m glad you’re here instead of watching those foodie chefs,” said the Sullivan University chef-instructor leading the demo, nodding toward Rupp Arena. “You can see them anytime on TV, but what we’re going to show you here you can see only once a year.” Not quite accurate, but it drew an appreciate chuckle from the crowd.

As three students broke down a Katahdin lamb raised in Lincoln County, KY, before us, I learned that Katahdin, also called hair sheep, is a heritage breed developed in Maine in the 1950s. Rather than being covered in wool, which requires shearing, these sheep develop a heavy coat of hair during the winter, then shed it in spring. Absent the lanolin in wool, which can impart a gamey taste, this breed produces a fine-grained, well-marbled meat that is mild in flavor.

The instructor discussed the different cuts of meat, their best uses, and how to make sausage and stock to utilize every part of the animal. Thanks to the large-screen monitors, we also got to see knife techniques demonstrated, like Frenching the bones of a lamb loin.

A later highlight on the Sullivan University Stage would be a live-taping of a TV program called “Secrets of the Bluegrass Chefs.” While the crew was setting up for that, three Sullivan graduates did a Q+A session spotlighting their different paths in the culinary profession.

Natalie Blake (left), who appeared on “Hell’s Kitchen,” is presently sous-chef at the Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and dreams of eventually having a food truck she can take throughout the state of Kentucky. Allison Davis (center) is the owner of Wild Thyme in Lexington, which does catering and offers cooking classes. The fellow on the right, whose first name is Ryan (alas, I didn’t catch hear his last name well enough to be able to figure out how to spell it), is the director of a school food program. He said the tack he takes is to look at the typical food choices made by kids, throw them out, then figure out how to replicate them more healthfully, like offering panko-breaded chicken tenderloin in place of chicken fingers. He also talked about getting kids involved in the edible garden on the school grounds, which has gotten his students to be more willing to try different foods and is helping them learn to think more seasonally about food. And he touted the advantages of having a culinary position that follows an academic schedule, compared to the hours worked by most restaurant chefs.

Next up was the actual taping of “Secrets of the Bluegrass Chefs.” Host Tim Laird travels throughout the state spotlighting fine-dining as well as casual restaurants. The first segment showed Sullivan chef-instructor John Foster preparing gnocchi (from local Lexington Pasta Company, who’d done a demo earlier showing how to make gnocchi from scratch) with a fresh tomato sauce.

The second featured Chef Jeremy Ashby of Lexington’s Azur Restaurant and Patio preparing braised short rib wrapped in caul fat around goat cheese from nearby Capriole Farm, with maitake mushrooms (found by one of his foragers, he said), mashed potatoes with porcini powder, and corn pudding garnished with pea shoots and “onion glass.”

I was intrigued by Chef Ashby's commitment to local ingredients and his inventive preparations. He joked that “Azur” stands for come “as you are,” saying that while his restaurant offers dishes that may be upscale, it’s a casual environment. Azur is definitely on my list to visit next time I’m in Lexington.

“Secrets of the Bluegrass Chefs” airs on two Lexington channels and, I’m guessing, stations elsewhere in Kentucky too. Videos of prior shows can be found on the Kentucky Proud website here, and here are Part 1 and Part 2 of a 2009 episode that will give you a favor of the show, Azur, and Ashby’s culinary style. What can I say? I was intrigued enough to go google this stuff.

As if all of this wasn’t tantalizing enough, I still had the Voltaggios’ afternoon demo to look forward to. Check out my post on All Top Chef for that report.

All in all, I found the Incredible Food Show to be an impressively well organized event that was fun, informative, and well worth the admission price. It’s great to meet the people who produce your food, and the vendors were very outgoing. The Sullivan University staff and students shouldered a huge role in the day’s events and did the school proud. The organizers also did a great job of enlisting sponsors and making this a very professionally produced event. I came away inspired, and with a long list of Kentucky food producers to keep an eye out for – on restaurant menus, on the web, or to visit in person when I travel through the state. Regardless of who the headliners are next year, I plan to be back.

Lexington Trip, Part 1: The Incredible Food Show

I hit the road early last Saturday morning for the Incredible Food Show 75 miles south in Lexington, Kentucky, so early the Ohio River was swathed in fog as I headed south. But once out of the river valley, it was all blue skies and sunshine. The show opened at 9:00 a.m., and my ticket ($13 with the $2 off coupon I found online) promised free breakfast to the first 300 paying attendees. This was the first year I’d heard of this event, and I had no idea if lines would form outside the Kentucky Center/Rupp Arena venue before the doors opened – after all, the Voltaggio brothers, who placed 1st and 2nd in Season 6 of Top Chef, were headlining.

I managed to park and wend my way through the massive convention center to the Incredible Food Show on the bottom floor before 9:30, and yes, breakfast was still available, prepared and served by students of Sullivan University’s Culinary Program in Lexington (there is also one in Louisville). I was grateful to have something to take the edge off my morning hunger. The smiling Sullivan students and this festive arrangement on the breakfast buffet table set the tone of Southern hospitality I would find throughout the show.

One of the things that sets this event apart from other “fancy food” shows is its emphasis on local foods. Now in its third year, the Incredible Food Show is sponsored by Kentucky Proud, which promotes farmers, wineries, farmers markets, and local food retailers across the state. Under the auspices of the state’s agriculture department, the program also offers incentives to Kentucky restaurants for using Kentucky Proud products, and its outreach efforts include getting local food into schools. Kentucky State Parks also participate in the program by offering local produce and meats in their restaurants.

The 100+ Kentucky businesses with booths at this year’s Incredible Food Show showcased a wide range of locally raised and produced foods, and nearly all were giving out free samples.

There was a quite a line for the goetta sliders from Glier’s, based in Covington, Kentucky, just across the bridge from downtown Cincinnati.

The applewood-smoked bacon and country ham freshly fried up by Browning’s (from Dry Ridge, Kentucky) were so delicious I bought some to bring home.

Not surprisingly, bourbon and barbecue were big themes. There were lots of purveyors of rubs and sauces, including Hillbilly Specialties, whose stall took “Best Decorated Booth” honors. Although based in the city of Lexington, Hillbilly Specialties isn’t afraid to flaunt its country side.

They served up their Moonshine Marinade on chicken and mushrooms fresh off this rig, and it was mighty tasty, y’all.

Louisville-based Bourbon Barrel Brewing does something a little different in the bourbon vein. It micro-brews soy sauce made with non-GMO soybeans from a farmer in southern Kentucky, letting it naturally ferment in bourbon barrels. Its Bluegrass Soy Sauce and Bourbon Barrel Smoked Salt would also be used in the Voltaggio brothers’ demonstrations inside Rupp Arena.

Several booths featured local honey, and there were a number of candy makers in attendance. Lexington Chocolate Company, which earned an Honorable Mention in the show’s Best Sweet category, offered its Bourbon Barrel Fudge (semi-sweet chocolate infused with premium Kentucky bourbon and toffee pieces).

The Sweet Shoppe, which also specializes in fudge and sets up at lots of festivals throughout Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, brought an astounding array of caramel apples from its Hodgenville, KY shop.

I’ve seen Weisenberger grits mentioned on menus of a number of restaurants in Kentucky, and was pleased to find they had a booth at the show.

Turns out Weisenberger Mills, in Midway, Kentucky, also makes mixes for yellow corn muffins, white cornbread, buttermilk biscuits, spoonbread, and more.

With both white and yellow grits available, I asked about the difference. Yellow grits have a more distinctive corn taste, I learned, and white are more commonly used in dishes (especially at restaurants) where they’re combined with other ingredients and flavors. Itching to experiment at home, I bought a package of the white.

I didn’t realize beer cheese was such a big thing in Kentucky, but five different vendors offered it. Other surprises included a bubble-tea booth from Lexington’s Honnah-Lee Bubble Tea . . .

. . . and flavored teas from Elmwood Inn Fine Teas of Perryville, KY, which somehow publishes books too. The chocolate mint variety smelled heavenly.

One of the busiest aisles was dedicated to Kentucky wineries. Tastes were free or at a nominal charge (25 cents); you could also sample a glass or buy a bottle to take home.

If you've been following this blog, you know how much I love cheese. Bluegrass Dairy and Boone Creek Creamery were just two of the cheesemakers present at the Incredible Food Show.

With production facilities in Springfield and Glasgow, KY, Bluegrass Dairy’s cheeses have won awards, at the KY State Fair and the World Championship Cheese Contest. Their smoked cheddar took Best of Show in the Savory category at last year’s Incredible Food Show.

Boone Creek Creamery debuted a new cheese called the Sassy Redhead (a spicy Old English Cheddar) at the show, adding to its impressive line-up of artisan cheeses. The company also offers monthly cheese-making classes (which may provide the perfect excuse for my next trip to Lexington).

In addition to hosting a booth, Good Shepherd Cheese, home of Kentucky’s first sheep’s milk dairy, in Owingsville, KY put on one of the culinary seminars, sharing a slide show of its farm and animals and explaining the process it uses to makes sheep’s milk cheese. I couldn’t resist buying a chunk to bring home.

Other seminars, in a smaller break-out room, covered rubs and marinades, sauce techniques, the basics of home brewing, and jam making without pectin.

More to come from the Incredible Food Show, and about the Voltaggio brothers. Stay tuned.

Lexington Road Trip - Amuse Bouche

Candy corn and M+M caramel apples from The Sweet Shoppe

I hit the road this weekend for a quick trip south to Lexington. The weather was warm, the leaves were turning, and I wanted to check out the Incredible Food Show 2011 sponsored by Kentucky Proud. So glad I did.

More than 100 Kentucky food vendors displayed their wares, with samples available in abundance.

I also got to indulge my inner food nerd by attending demos like the Heritage Meats Master Class, featuring this Katahdin lamb.

At the last minute I decided to stay overnight in Lexington and treat myself to dinner.

Sea Scallop Hot Browns from Jonathan's at Gratz Park

And this morning I meandered into nearby Bluegrass horse country for brunch.

Jean Farris Winery's duck liver pate and blackberry gelee

Oh, and I got to meet these boys, too.

Michael and Bryan Voltaggio

More reports to come. Meanwhile, hope your weekend was as inspiring as mine was.