Day In the Thermador Test Kitchen, Winner announced & Recipes!!!

Chef Kyle

Our day in the Thermador test kitchen started out with the professional chefs giving us instruction on plating food and how to proceed with our preparing our items for our lunch menu.  

Speaking of menu, here is what we prepared:

Organic Baby Beets & Heirloom Tomato, Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese Crèma, 

Toasted Marcona Almonds, Micro Basil

Serves 18

5 bunches Organic Baby Beets, cleaned

3# Hierloom Tomato

2 ea Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese

1 C Heavy Cream

1 C Marcona Almonds

1 C Micro Basil

1 C White Wine

2 ea Thyme sprigs

Olive oil

Salt & Pepper

Procedure

1. Turn the combi-steam oven to combi-mode 375 degrees, fill the solid insert with the beets, 

wine, thyme, 1 oz olive oil, and salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes and cool down. 

2. Rub the beets between a kitchen towel to remove the outer skin and then trim the ends.

3. Heat the oven to 400 degrees; coat the almonds in olive oil and season. Spread on a sheet 

tray and roast for about 6 minutes until golden.

4. To make the goat cheese crema, cut the rind from the Humboldt Fog and crumble into a 

blender. Add half the cream and begin to buzz together. Add extra cream as needed and 

season.

Pan seared tuna with sweet corn coulis & cucumber-jalapeno relish

Serves 18

Sweet corn coulis

5ea yellow corn ears (shucked and kerneled)

½ ea White Onion, large dice

1ea Garlic Clove, minced

½ C chicken stock

½ C dry white wine

¼ C heavy cream

1T Avocado oil

Salt & White Pepper

1. Shuck and kernel (remove the corn kernels off the stock using a large knife), dice the onion 

and mince the garlic.

2. Heat a large sized sauté pan to level 8 on the freedom induction.

3. When the pan is hot add the avocado oil, onions, garlic and corn, sauté for 2-3 minutes 

(onions should be soft and semi caramelized).

4. Add the white wine and reduce until almost all liquid is gone.

5. Reduce heat to level 5 and add the chicken stock and heavy cream, let simmer for 3-5 

minutes. Turn off heat.

6. Transfer remaining mixture with liquid to vita mix blender and puree until smooth. Season 

with salt and white pepper.

7. Place coulis into shallow half pan and chill in refrigerator.

Tuna

3 # Grade A Tuna, cut into loins (1.5” x 1.5”)

2 Tbl Vegetable oil

Salt and Pepper

1. Heat oil on teppanyaki (high heat) until whispy

2. Sear tune on all sides, set aside and keep cool.

Cucumber-jalapeno relish

1ea cucumber (seeded, peeled and cut into brunoisette)

1ea jalapeno (seeded and minced)

1ea shallot (minced)

1T cilantro (finely chopped)

1T rice vinegar

1tsp fish sauce

Salt to taste

1. Complete all knife work on the vegetables and herbs

2. Place ingredients into medium sized mixing bowl and mix together.

3. Set aside wrapped in plastic and allow relish to marinate for at least 5 minutes.

Petite grilled filet mignon with baby carrots & foraged mushroom glaze
Serves 18
Petite grilled filets 
18ea 3.5oz filet mignons
½ C clarified butter
Salt & Pepper
1. Heat grill insert to 500 F.
2. Brush both sides of filets with clarified butter and generously sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Grill filets no more than 9 at a time, for about 3-4 minutes on each side.
4. Set aside on sheet pan lined with a baking racking
Sautéed baby carrots
5 bunches baby carrots
2 Tbl European style sweet butter
¼ C white wine
2tsp sugar
Salt and Pepper
1. Set steam oven on Pro Grand range to full steam setting, place carrots on perforated steam 
pan. 
2. When steam oven has reached full steam setting place carrots into oven and let cook for 5 
minutes.
3. Heat a large sauté pan to medium heat.
4. When carrots are done in steam oven, add butter and sugar to sauté pan and place carrots 
into pan and sauté for 3 minutes, add white wine and turn off heat. 
5. Season with salt and pepper
Foraged Mushroom Glace
3# assorted foraged mushrooms
2T garlic (minced)
2C veal glace
2T avocado oil
1. Heat a large sauté pan to extra high heat. When hot add avocado oil and mushrooms. Sauté
for 2 minutes.
2. Add garlic and sauté for additional 2 minute.
3. Reduce heat to medium and add veal glace and cook for an additional 3 minutes.


Grilled Organic Peaches with Marscapone Ice Cream, Amoretti Crumble, 
Musto
Serves 18
5 # Organic Peaches
5 ea Amoretti Cookies, grated
6 ea Egg Yolks
¾ C Sugar
1 qt Heavy Cream
1 ea Vanilla bean
1 C Mascapone cheese, softened
1 ea Lemon, juiced
½ C Musto
Olive oil
Salt
Procedure
1. Make the ice cream the day before, heat the cream over medium heat until steaming. Add 
the scraped out vanilla bean, cover the cream and let steep for 15 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, cream the eggs and sugar together until pale and thick. Temper in the warm 
cream, i.e. pour in a little bit and whisk quickly, as to not cook the eggs. Strain through a 
chinois.
3. Whisk in the marscapone and lemon juice in the ice cream base, transfer into the ice cream 
machine and mix for up 35 minutes. Scrape out into a container and freeze for at least 6 
hours.
4. Turn the grill onto 500 degrees and the oven onto 275 degrees. Cut the peaches in half and 
pull out the pit. Coat the peaches in olive oil, and a little salt. 
5. Grill the peaches cut side down until seared. Transfer to a rack and keep warm in the oven

The recipes were fairly easy and very delicious!  Did you note any unfamiliar terms in the recipes? Nadia and I were asked to "brunoistte" our cucumbers.  We found out that means to chopped really fine! 

The chefs had prepared our food and had it ready and waiting for us

 on the island in the middle of the kitchen.

And we are cooking...Beautiful baby carrots cooking on the range top.

Grilled peaches with just the right amount of grill marks!!!

Ashlina from The Decorista showing off her perfectly plated

 tenderloin and carrots.

Nadia Subaran was my partner in the kitchen and boy can this girl cook!  We prepared the seared tuna recipe together.  I finally learned how to perfectly sear tuna.  It goes a little like this: buy a Thermador induction cooktop(just kidding), next place a flat pan on the cooktop, sprinkle with avocado oil, then turn the heat up really high, sear by rotating the tuna a quarter turn til each side until all four sides are seared!  The key is for the pan to be really hot which is hard to do with just any range but the induction cook top gets it just right!

Here is our perfectly plated tuna with a dollop of sweet corn coulis. Did you notice we formed our tuna in the shape of Thermador's star burner? Nadia was the clever cookie who thought of doing that!

Thermador had a cute little buffet table decorated with glittery letters which formed "Thermador" for us to place our bounty upon. Don't you love those cheese and fruit boards Traci Zeller and Tamara Matthews-Stephenson made?  Just beautiful!  

After we went into the conference room, the chefs took our dishes and prepared them for serving. This is how our meal was presented at lunch. I thought ours looked good, but after they redesigned the plates the food really looked fabulous and was perfectly portioned to feed our group.  It was simply beautiful! A true feast for the eyes.  

Look what a beautiful plate our individual dishes created for our lunch

when plated together for a meal!

After lunch, we gathered in the conference room to discuss what we liked about using the appliances and also talked about our favorite one.  Here are Molly Hirsch and Tamara Matthews-Stephenson listening intently to the discussion.  It was really interesting to hear what all the designers had to say about their own practices,appliance preferences and kitchen design in general.

You can tell by these engaging faces and smiles that everyone was enjoying the discussions.  Many of the topics we talked about are topics I plan to discuss here on the blog like "how to design a perfectly functional kitchen in a small space".

The perfect ending to a perfect day!

I know you think Nadia and I should be the winners, of the plating challenge, especially since we cleverly shaped our tuna into the Thermador star! DUH!  But to be perfectly honest," the grilled peach group" also presented the peach with glaze shaped in a star, so we weren't the only clever ones.  Of course the judges, Ann Maine, Editor in Chef of Traditional Home and Marsha decided to be politically correct and gave everyone an award so we all won!  I think we were winners before the contest because we had such a fun time.

I was going to share my favorite appliance, but there is so much to share about it,I have decided it deserves a post of its own so you will hear about it later.  I think you will love it as much as I do!

photo courtesy of Thermador

Here is our group photo at the end of our Thermador Experience Day!

  Make sure to follow these this group of fabulous designers

 and read their blogs 

Ashlina Koposta, The Decorista

@thedecorista

Cheryl Kees Clendenon, In Detail Interiors/Details and Design 

@InDetailSays

    

  Molly Hirsch, Molly Hirsch Interiors

@MollyHirschint

  Sara Ingrassia, Sara Ingrassia Interiors / Style Stream

      @SaraIngrassia

Tamara Matthews-Stephenson, Nest by Tamara

@nestnest

      Traci Zeller, Traci Zeller Designs

 @tracizeller

   Vicki Edwards, Kitchen & Bath Images

   Nadia Subaran, Aidan Design

  @AidanDesign

If you haven't read Traditional Homes Great Kitchens Online Issue make sure you read it today!  Click Here!  It's chocked full of beautiful kitchens and lots of interesting information on how to design the kitchen of your dreams. 

     A special thank you to the Thermador Marketing Team, BSH Group and Finn Partners for a Fabulous Day!:

A very special thank you to :

Lore McKenna!