Chili…with beer and mexican chocolate…

1
October 19th, 2011

When the weather starts to cool down, the food we begin to crave changes. When its chilly out (pun intended), I start eating soups and chili like an animal. Which is exactly why we are going to be introducing more soups and chili on the menu at Food Freaks Grilled Cheese very soon. In fact, this chili recipe will be offered on the cart by itself in a bowl but also in our new sandwich (if you’re curious what the new sandwich is, stay tuned for my next post). I made this chili last year for a Super Bowl party along with this Buffalo Wing recipe. I had never made my chili with chocolate before but I always heard of people doing it and it really adding something special to the flavor. So when I went to go find some chocolate, a package of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate caught my eye. I never had Mexican chocolate before but I knew it was supposed to be some crazy stuff, so I just bought it. Its just got undissolved granulated sugar, cocoa and cinnamon. Adding this stuff near the end of the cooking process really takes the chili to another level. It gives the chili a deeper flavor than I’ve had before. I also wanted to make sure I used a lot of vegetables, definitely makes the chili taste a little better.

Ingredients:

2 lbs Freshly Ground Chuck

1 Large Bell Pepper, diced

1 Red Onion, diced

2 Medium Carrots, diced

2 Jalapenos, diced

5 Cloves of Garlic, smashed and chopped

1 Cup of Tomato Paste

1 Cup Brown Sugar (you could use agave as well but I think brown sugar gives you a better flavor)

2 Tablespoon Chili Powder

1 Tablespoon Paprika

1 Tablespoon Cumin

1 Tablespoon Coriander

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

1 Tablespoon Mexican Oregano (regular oregano is OK as well)

1 Half of a bar of Ibarra Mexican Cholocate

1/4 Tablespoon Cayenne

1 Can of Kidney Beans, drained

8 oz Can of Whole Plum Tomatoes, broken up with you hand

4 Dried Chilis

3 Tablespoons, Vegetable Oil

2 Cups of Beef Stock, approx

1 Bottle of Wheat Beer

Salt & Pepper

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First things first, prep your veg.

Split each carrot in half. Then cut each half of carrot in half again, giving you 4 manageable pieces to be able to cut the way you want them to be cut.

Then take each piece and cut them in to three pieces lengthwise and then go ahead and dice the carrot into cubes.

Take the bell pepper and rid if of all its ribs and seeds. Cut the pepper in half and then into long slices or as a chef would say, “julienne.”

Then dice the pepper.

Cut the red onion in half and peel the skin off. Then make a few horizontal cuts, being VERY careful that you don’t cut your hand.

After that, you make vertical cuts all the way across the red onion and then continue to dice it all up.

Cut the jalapeno in half and get rid of the seeds and the ribs. Then dice it up exactly as you did the bell pepper.

Smash 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and the roughly chop them up.

In a big pot or dutch over over medium high heat, add the vegetable oil and get it hot and then add in all the diced vegetables.

Season them with salt and pepper.

Cook those vegetables, stirring occasionally until…

…they look like this. You want to see a nice amber color and some browning on the bottom of the pan. As I’ve said before, the brown on the pan is what you are trying to achieve, its 100% flavor.

Once the vegetables get nice and brown, add the ground chuck…

…season it with salt and pepper, liberally…

…then stir it all up.

Now add all your spices and tomato paste.

Once you’ve stirred that all together, you should really begin to see the beginning of a delicious chili. It almost looks ready to eat at this point but its still has a ways to go.

Add in your bottle of beer to pick up all that brown stuff on the bottom of the pot. Mix it all together.

Next, add the crushed tomato and stir to combine.

Now its time for a taste test. Check to see if its maybe a little too spicy. If it as, simply add more sweet. I already added brown sugar with the rest of the spices but when I tasted the chili at this point in the cooking process, it was a little too spicy for my liking. You can easily correct that by balancing out the spicy with sweet and in this case, I used agave nectar. It tames the heat.

Then go ahead and add the beef stock…

…then add and submerge the dried chilies…

…then lower the heat to simmer the chili and let it cook for at least 2 1/2 hours. The longer you cook it, the better. You may find that that some of the moisture evaporates during cooking. If this happens, just add a little bit of water at a time while it cooks.

After about 2 hours of cooking, I like to add the Mexican chocolate. As you can see, the inside of it is very grainy from the undissolved granulated sugar. If you tasted the chocolate by its self, its kinda gross. But when you add it to the chili, it really elevates it to something special.

Grate in about half of one of those circular bars of the chocolate.

Continue to cook the chili until desired thickness. After about 2-3 hours, it should be ready to go.

To make the best bowl of chili, its all about getting the cheese melted properly. Bust out a nice handful of shredded cheddar cheese.

Ladle some chili in an oven proof bowl and fill the top with the cheese.

Get the broiler in you oven blazing and then put the bowl directly underneath it.

It’s done then the cheese is bubbling and just beginning to brown. Going the extra mile to brown the cheese really makes a difference.

I’m really proud of this recipe. I definitely think it’s one of my recipes that came out way better than I had imagined it would and I’m real glad that it did. I think you should invite some friends over this weekend for the games, give this chili a try and blow them out of the water. You could use it to make nacho’s OR, you could use it to make a certain specialty of a certain grilled cheese cart that I just so happen to have ties to…shhh…stay tuned to find out what it could be…

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American Food, Beef, Comfort Food, Dinner

Food Freaks at Brooklyn’s Bounty with Adam Richman

4
October 4th, 2011

Yes, that is Adam Richman, star of Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food, eating our short rib grilled cheese…and loving it.

Adam tasting our food after being in business for only 3 weeks is surreal. Look at his face, having a moment, eyes closed…chewing a delicious bite. The picture says it all for me.  The experience was made possible because we were asked to serve our food at the New York City Wine and Food Festival’s first Brooklyn event, Brooklyn’s Bounty, this past Saturday. Unfortunately, I was not personally able to attend the event because, as luck would have it, it was one of my best friends wedding. But the rest of the Food Freak team really rose to the occasion and did a killer job! To have been asked to do such an event after just a few weeks in business is an absolute honor. I am truely blown away! Below are some photos of Adam and our set up for the event…

(Thank you Sarah Mulligan for taking all the photos above, amazing shots)

Our set up…with @foodfreakdave

The Food Freak Hot Sauce Bar

I want to thank my partners John Coppola and Dave Cusato doing such a great job and everyone else who helped in my absence (thank you Chase and Lucy!) Another big thanks to Samantha Seier for asking us to participate in the event. We are really, super appreciative!

And of course, thank you Adam Richman for hosting the event and tasting our food. I really hope you loved it and hope to see you soon!

Dave Cusato, Adam Richman, John Coppola

 

 

 

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Business, Food Freaks, Grilled Cheese, News, Sandwiches

Working out the kinks…

4
September 5th, 2011



Let’s be honest.  There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems.  Business is complicated and imperfect.  Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.  ~Bob Parsons

Opening day was certainly not without its problems. I feel like a I just birthed a child with really bad allergies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so friggin happy right now, we are open. I’m definitely not complaining or saying that the day was not a giant success in our eyes. But as the quote above refers to, business naturally creates problems. In our case, we started off the day early at our prep trailer. Everything was pretty much ready to go, we just had to cook some bacon, make watermelon juice and a few other things, nothing intensive. What delayed us was the setting up the cart at the park. We had never done it before. Our cart weighs about 2,000 lbs. We hitch it to the back of our Jeep Liberty, the one that we got into an accident in about 3 weeks ago after some idiot on Atlantic Ave. ran a red light. But like Bob refer’s to above, we are all imperfect. So when we pull up to our spot at Fort Greene Park, at the Dekalb Ave. entrance, a one way street going west, we need to turn the cart around to face east so our service window faces the customers.  That means that once we pull the cart into our spot, we have to pull it on top of the curb, unhitch the cart from the Jeep, and then with a trolly we have that is the food cart equivalent of golf course pull carts, only your pulling a 2,000 lb kitchen. So once we hitch the trolly to the cart, we then have to spin it around and basically parallel park it in its spot, which isn’t really a spot, more like a general area. As soon as we get it into place, we have to prep our stations, get the grilled at the right temperature, fill the fryer with oil and get that hot and set up our POS system comprised of iPads and wireless 4G Internet devices. Then we realized we forgot a few things that the commissary. It wasn’t ideal, but in our defense, we aren’t perfect either. So John drove back to grab it, only to realize he forgot the keys to the trailer. You try to keep calm because you are already under a lot of stress, but as hard as you try to be perfect, you quickly realize that perfect is still a ways to go. John came back, got the key and headed to the commissary to get everything we forgot. My brother and I were in the cart prepping everything. We were going to open a little later than we would have liked but it wasn’t all that bad, the optimist in me was just glad business was about to begin. John came back, we finished prepping everything and opened up out window for the very first time to the public. It was an excited thing, a life changing moment. And though it may be a mere cart, it is something much bigger to us.

Things were going well, our POS system was working, people walking by asking us questions, overall everyone seemed to be very excepting of us. Then the kinks started to appear. About an hour into service, our exhaust fan stopped working. That may not sounds like a big issue, but for our situation, it certainly had an affect. The temperature inside the cart reached well over 100 degrees, our iPad POS system is only able to withstand temperatures of 100 degrees. Soon after the fan turned off, our main iPad started to overheat which put it out of commission. We still had another iPad that we continued to use, until our 4G wireless devices stopped giving us a signal. I thought that might happen, which is why I requested a back up, but  the back up didn’t work either. Mind you, I tested all of this equipment in advance. In my previous job, I worked with technology a bit. I know all too well the dangers of relying on technology. As far as we have come, as “advanced” as we say we are, somehow, someway, technology always seems to fuck up. And of course that’s what happened.

In the scheme of things, this all wasn’t so bad. We learned a ton. And just like a website launches as a “beta” site before it fully launches in order to work out all the bugs, food businesses do soft openings for the same reason. I think we can all attest to the fact that businesses are complicated and imperfect and that’s largely because humans aren’t perfect and that’s totally ok. That’s a big thing this whole process has taught me. For me, the important thing its all about knowing and focusing on where you want to go. Once you know that, all the other little things will fall into place. Our hood will get fixed, our POS system will be corrected and we will continue to get better, faster, and more efficient.

Apart from all the minor issues we encountered, the day was a great success in my eyes. Food Freaks opened for business and people loved the food. Some people even came even came back for another sandwich. The Fort Greene, Short Rib, Fried Brussels Sprouts and Watermelon Juice were big hits. Daddy’s happy and the future looks bright.

“Like” Food Freaks Grilled Cheese on Facebook

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Business, Food Freaks, Grilled Cheese

It’s a wrap!

0
September 2nd, 2011

Do you know what this is? No, it’s not a stainless steel box wrapped high-tech vinyl. It’s a box of joy. Everyone who touched this cart and got it to the state that it is in has been a skilled craftsman who put care and attention into their respective products and services. From John, our cart builder at Cart Concepts International, to Rich, the pro who wrapped this thing so well, to the guys at Tapviva who are supplying us with our state of the art point-of-sale system and an exceptional level of service, to Zoe, my super-talented and good friend who completely NAILED the perfect logo, cart design and overall look of the brand (If you want design work that’ll make you look legit, you need Zoe, contact her at zoegrfx.com). I’m proud to have worked with these vendors, and as we grow,  I will continue to support them and benefit from their services. It’s not just because they did a good job. It’s because they cared. They had pride in their own work and it showed. They all wanted the end consumer (Food Freaks) to be happy with the finished product. They exceeded my expectations.

Combined, they all delivered us a dream machine. A factory, one in which grilled cheeses are made faster than anyone. And one that enables me and my partners (@foodfreakdave and @foodfreakjohn) to live out a dream.

With this opportunity, we intend to put massive amounts of care, attention and love into everything we do as a company, in the same exact way these vendors that helped get this cart looking amazing did for us. We want to pay it forward not just because it’s smart business, it’s because we want to. That’s called being human, and that’s exactly how this company will act. We want to be associated with quality, care, creativity, hospitality and of course, food. I have all the faith in the world that we will achieve that.

We know we won’t always be perfect but as the great Gary Vaynerchuk says, “effort is underrated.” Just let us know when we falter, we will make it right. And don’t think we are a one trick pony either. I have a big vision beyond grilled cheese but for now, let’s just get this melted party started.

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Business, Grilled Cheese

The Food Freaks Grilled Cheese Menu

5
August 22nd, 2011

Does it? It certainly should.

That is our Fort Greene. Made with creamy fontinella cheese, crispy bacon, ripe avocado and @foodfreakdave‘s proprietary cilantro cream on freshly baked sourdough bread. A stunningly green sandwich that begs to be devoured.  It’s one of 6 signature sandwiches that we created to launch our grilled cheese cart in Fort Greene Park. This post is meant to get you familiar with our grilled cheeses so you know exactly what you want to order when you come to the cart ;) . I will also include the design of our cart below. We would love some feedback on all this!

Below is our full menu. It’s something I’m very proud of. As Food Freaks, caring deeply about the source of ingredients is obviously a big deal to us. With a sandwich like grilled cheese, if you aren’t using the best ingredients, then you have no place selling grilled cheese to the public. Everybody…and I do mean everybody, has made themselves a grilled cheese at some point with some slices of American cheese and some store bought bread. It’s the quintessential classic. But to be completely honest, and I speak only for myself when I say this, I think the classic is really boring. First of all, American cheese is NOT cheese, it is a processed cheese-like product. The reason it is used in a grilled cheese is strictly for its capacity to melt. It also has a distinct mouth feel which I think is the characteristic that make it so comforting. But it is completely tasteless. But American’s don’t traditionally expect much from their food. That’s why its called “American” cheese. I feel strongly about not offering American cheese on our menu. It’s bullshit to me. I don’t mean to offend anyone, I just think if you could create a cheese mix from quality cheeses to create the same texture and mouth feel of American cheese while adding a ton of flavor, why wouldn’t you just do it that way? Well that’s exactly what we did with our 3 Cheese. The fontinella and gouda give it the same gooey texture and mouth feel as American cheese, only with real flavor, while the gruyere adds even more flavor to the mix. To go with the mix, we make it with fresh baked potato Pullman bread from Orwasher’s bakery on the Upper East Side. It is surprisingly similar to wonder bread, but it’s just 100 times better. But the most important ingredient in a good grilled cheese if the love with which that sandwich was made with. It is the number one reason it has the ability to comfort people. The nostalgia of your mother making you a grilled cheese with all that love. It’s important and we take that to heart. We aren’t trying to sell you a grilled cheese, we are trying to make you happy. Aside from the 3 Cheese, our menu is more of an experiment with how far you could push the boundaries of a grilled cheese without loosing its essence. We have a section devoted to the classic but those sandwiches are meant to be paired with our homemade dips. It gives the customer more options. But I could talk all day long about that but ultimately, the proof is in the pudding. You’ll have to come visit to find out. Now onto the rest of the sandwiches…

 

***Note*** Our sandwiches are NOT being referred to as “Grillz” any longer. We ended up thinking it doesn’t really make much sense.

3 Cheese

Fontinella, Gruyere, Gouda mix on Potato Pullman. Like I said before, this one won’t have you missing American cheese. The Potato Pullman is like good Wonder Bread. Our interpretation of the classic.

Garden

Caciotta del Lazo (Italian sheeps milk cheese), shaved raw carrot and zucchini salad tossed in a red wine vinaigrette on Wheat Pullman. This surprisingly crispy and refreshing sandwich is a nice go-to if you want something on the lighter side. It’s kind of our interpretation of a salad in a grilled cheese.

Chicken Parm

Mozzarella (from Arthur Ave), fresh basil, food freaks tomato sauce and a thinly pounded breaded chicken cutlet made with homemade breadcrumbs on Country White. The proportions are what make this one so delicious to eat. The chicken cutlet is fried to order so its always fresh and the tomato sauce is bright and fresh, the mozzarella is amazing and the basil ties the whole thing together. This is my favorite sandwich. Although I’m biased, I created it because finding a good chicken parm in the city shouldn’t be as hard as it is.

Arthur Ave

Herb Ricotta, Mozzarella, Sopresatta, Red Pepper Mostarda on Country White. Both cheeses and sopresatta are all “imported” from Arthur Ave in the Bronx, hence the name. The red pepper mostarda is like a sweet and spicy vegetable jam. Super delicious, it’s a @foodfreakdave specialty!

Short Rib

Gruyere, Slow Cooked Short Rib, Pickled Red Onions, Watercress and Blackberry Jam on Sourdough. Blackberry Jam? Yes, trust us, it works. All these ingredients come together to create a burst of flavor. Ya gotta try it!

Fort Greene

Fontinella, Avocado, Crispy Bacon and Cilantro Cream on Sourdough. Named after our lovely new home Fort Greene, Brooklyn. We figured it would be a crowd-pleaser and it’s super green, so Fort Greene just made sense. The fontinella and the avocado are creamy, the bacon is crunchy and the cilantro cream adds a spicy kick and a lot of flavor. We love this one, we hope Fort Greene loves is too!

Agave Fried Brussels Sprouts

“EWWWW BRUSSELS SPROUTS!” I can just hear people saying it. These sucka’s get a bad rap. Its no different than any other vegetable, in the wrong hands, they can be dreadful. Don’t hate the veg, hate the cook! All we do is throw them in the fryer until crisp and delicious. Brussels sprout are a bit bitter, so to balance that, we toss these in salt, pepper and agave nectar (a yummy natural sweetener, similar to honey, used to make tequila). If you really think you hate Brussels sprouts, these might blow you face right off, resulting in a new found understanding of this tiny relative of cabbage. Another genius concoction by @foodfreakdave.

Watermelon Freak Juice

Made with only 3 ingredients, watermelon juice, lime juice, fresh mint, this refreshment is probably my favorite drink ever. I’ve done the recipe for it on here a few posts ago (Watermelon Freak Juice Recipe). As I mention in that post, real savvy customers will bring a little flask with some rum or some vodka, grab a juice and a grilled cheese and make a little watermelon mojito in the park. That is THE move!

Below is more or less what the cart will look like. It makes me happy :)

As you can see from the menu, there are some more goodies not highlighted in this post. I figured for the sake of your time, we just hit a few of the notables. I hope this tickles your appetite and I really do hope to see you at the cart. We should be open next week…hopefully. I promise, we will make it worthwhile.

Follow Food Freaks Grilled Cheese:

@foodfreaksGC

www.facebook.com/foodfreaksGC

My Food Freak colleagues, follow them:

@foodfreakjohn

@foodfreakdave

 

 

 

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Grilled Cheese, News, Sandwiches