Faux Gras By Chef Michael Chan

Recently, we attended a dinner where chef Michael Chan of Peake Catering | Events focused on plant-based dishes, including a creative and delicious “faux gras” as the starter dish. Try it at home! —Vita Daily

Faux Gras

At home sometimes I’ll just make the faux foie, bake crostini, and use a nice jam or wine jelly from a farmers’ market.  This is how was typically make it for our culinary operations, but you are the boss of your own kitchen. Note: best to make this at least 24 hours before serving, the flavour will intensify.

150 g raw cashew
20 g refined coconut oil
90 g shallots, sliced
50 g button mushrooms, sliced
110 g cognac
275 g water
25 g white miso paste
15 g tomato paste
8 g kosher salt
2 g five spice
1.5 g black pepper, ground
2 g orange zest
2 g agar
65 g refined coconut oil

1. Soak the cashews overnight.
2. In a saucepan, on low heat, add 20g coconut oil and sweat the shallots, mushrooms, and garlic. Cook without browning for about 5 minutes stirring every minute or so.
3. To the pan, add cognac and reduce by half. Be careful as the mixture may flambe; best practice is to move the pan away from the heat source when adding the cognac and then return to the heat.
4. In a blender, blend water, miso, tomato paste, spices, and agar until fully incorporated.
5. When the cognac has reduced by half, add water mixture, cashews, and remaining coconut oil.
6. Bring to a simmer and remove from heat. Do not simmer for too long as this will break down the texture.
7. In a high-power blender, carefully pour the hot mixture in, blend for a few minutes until smooth.
8. Quickly pour mixture into terrine moulds.

Orange Fluid Gel

250 ml fresh orange juice
15 g sugar
2 g agar agar
1 g xanthan gum

1. Juice oranges until you have 250mL of fresh orange juice.
2. Combine sugar and agar agar in a small bowl.
3. To a small saucepan, add 150 mL of orange juice to a gentle simmer.
4. Add sugar & agar agar mixture, simmer for only 1 minute and remove from heat.
5. Pour mixture into a pan lined with plastic wrap, allow to cool for 2 hours
6. When gel has set, break up into 3 cm rough chunks and add to your blender.
7. Add remaining 100mL of orange juice and xanthan gum, blend until smooth.
8. Pour fluid gel into a squeeze bottle.

Crostini

1 baguette, roughly 20 inch
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Black peppercorn, fresh cracked

1. Preheat your oven to 350F.
2. Thinly slice baguettes across, roughly ¾ of a cm.  We usually get about 40 slices from a baguette
3. On a baking sheet lined with parchment, lay the baguette slices in a single layer.
4. Drizzle olive oil and generously salt and pepper the slice, flip them over and repeat.
5. Bake in your oven for about 7-10 minutes until crispy and nicely golden brown.
6. Allow to cool.