When Chef Chad Pagano isn’t rustling up wild game for his new radio show, he’s usually elbow-deep in flour, instructing our Pastry & Baking Arts students. But this morning, he rose early to share his talents with another audience, on CBS New York’s “2 In the Kitchen”.

From light and airy vol au vent pastries and brioche french toast, to butter poached lobster with asparagus and poached eggs, Chef Chad whipped up a gourmet breakfast that truly lived up to its 5-star claim.

BUTTER POACHED LOBSTER with POACHED EGGS, SAUTÉED ASPARAGUS, HOLLANDAISE SAUCE and PUFF PASTRY VOL AU VENTS

1. Prepare Vol Au Vents

Preheat oven to 375 F

Place a sheet of commercial, all-butter puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Paint the sheet with an egg wash. Fold in half or layer with a second layer of puff pastry depending how many pieces you require. Cut out desired size and shape Vol Au Vents with a cookie cutter. Within the cut piece press a slightly small cutter halfway through the dough to score a rim. Chill for 20 minutes, arrange on parchment lined pan and bake until golden brown (about 15 minutes depending on size and shape). Allow to cool and scoop out center of dough and fill when ready to serve.

2. Butter Poached Lobster

• 4 pounds unsalted butter, clarified
• 4 to 8 Maine lobster tails
• 4 garlic cloves
• 4 lemons, juiced

Place lobster tails in a large pot and cover with the warm clarified butter. Add the garlic and poach on low heat until the shell turns color and the meat is cooked, about a half hour. Allow to cool briefly and remove meat from the shell. Slice the lobsters’ tail meat about a quarter-inch thick or into bite sized pieces

3. Hollandaise sauce – Yields 2 cups

• 6 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
• 10 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter

Slowly melt the butter in a small pot. Add the egg yolks, lemon juice and salt into a blender. Blend on high until light in color, about 45 seconds. Turn your blender to low and slowly add the warm melted butter to yolk mixture. Blend for about 30 more seconds and taste. Adjust salt and lemon juice and briefly re-blend. Store in a warm spot until ready to use.

4. Sautéed Asparagus

• 1 pound asparagus, trimmed
• 1½ tablespoons olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint

Heat the oil in a wide sauté pan on medium-high heat. When the oil gets hot, add the asparagus and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Cook for about 5 minutes until deep green and fragrant. Put on plate and top with lime juice and fresh mint.

5. Poached Eggs

• Fresh eggs
• 1 to 2 teaspoons white vinegar

In a medium sauce pan bring 2½ quarts of water to a slight simmer. Add the vinegar. Working with the eggs one at a time, crack them into a small cup, and gently drop the egg into the water and with a slotted spoon nudge the egg whites closer to the yolk. Each egg will take 2 to 3 minutes to cook. Remove egg with the slotted spoon and serve.

By Carly DeFilippo

Chad Pagano’s backstory isn’t that of your average pastry chef. Long before he spent his days instructing in the art of kneading dough, he was serving in the United States Army’s 10th Mountain Division, utilizing his recreational hunting skills as a scout/sniper. After leaving the army, Pagano enrolled in culinary school, where he discovered a passion for natural, earthy and organic foods.

Rising through the ranks of the New York restaurant scene, Chef Chad served in a number of restaurant and hotel kitchens, eventually landing a leading role as Executive Pastry Chef at renown New York caterer Great Performances, before joining the ranks of ICE’s Pastry & Baking Arts instructors in 2002.

Ten years of flour-laden work later, Chef Chad is bringing his hunting and foraging past to the forefront. After a guest appearance on Culinary Arts instructor Erica Wides’ radio show, Let’s Get Real, he set his eyes on bigger game, launching his own radio series, Wild Game Domain: from the Hunt to the Hearth, on Heritage Radio Network.

Every Tuesday at 11AM, tune in to hear Chef Chad’s thoughts on hunting, harvesting and the sustainable consumption of wild or foraged foodstuffs. You can also download MP3s of past episodes, including today’s pilot.

Looking for a more hands-on experience? Whip up recipes from Chef Chad’s wild game repertoire – while listening to his favorite hunting stories – in his brand-new recreational class.

The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) hosted their annual conference in New York this past weekend. Each year, the conference brings together culinary professionals from across the globe to meet, network and learn the latest trends and developments happening in the culinary community and industry. Starting last Thursday and running through Monday, the conference was an incredible series of classes, seminars and lectures. Held in a different city each year, this year brought thousands of professionals to New York City to share their passion for food in the culinary capital of America. This year, ICE was a sponsor of the conference. From volunteering to teaching classes, our students, alumni and staff participated in all aspects.

The theme of this year’s conference was The Fashion of Food — Where Food, Fashion and Media Connect. Speakers such as Grant Achatz, Dan Barber, Melissa Clark, Amanda Hesser, Adam Rapoport, Ruth Reichl, Marcus Samuelsson and Kim Severson met to discuss topics such as The Fashion of Food, Is Farm-to-Table Just the Latest Fashion, and Why Isn’t Cooking Enough?.

In addition to these featured sessions, the weekend was filled with smaller, more focused and intimate sessions with an astonishing range of professionals discussing incredibly diverse topics. The classes included How to Write for Online Magazines, Food Festivals as Dynamic Marketing Tools, and The Evolving Pleasures of Chocolates. There was truly something for everyone and endless opportunities to learn more about all aspects of the food industry. More…

ICE Chef Instructor Mike Schwartz Leads a Session on Fermentation

The past four days have been a very exciting weekend for the culinary community. The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) hosted their annual conference in New York. Starting on Thursday, the conference has been packed full of events, seminars and lectures with amazing culinary professionals from all aspects of the food world.

One of the highlights of the conference was a full day of classes here at ICE. This morning the classes with ICE Chef Instructors included Vegetable Proteins: Seitan and Tofu with Peter Berley, Perfecting Your Macaron Skills with Kathryn Gordon, and Fermentation for the 21st Century with Mike Schwartz. Classes with guest chefs included How to Make an Awesome Cup of Coffee with Jonathan Rubenstein of Joe The Art of Coffee, and Whole Animal Butchery with Matt Jennings of Farmstead and Adam Tiberio of Tiberio Custom Meats. More…

Neal from Admissions, Melissa from Career Services, Susan from the Recreational Division, Hillery from Admissions and Jordan from Special Events Enjoy the Party with Guests

Last Friday, ICE held a party like no other at the annual ICE Ball. While the party is usually held in January to celebrate the new year, this year the team celebrated the renewed energy of spring. The reoccurring celebration took over four floors of the school’s 43,000-square-foot facility. During the party, the entire ICE staff and guests enjoy drinks, food and dancing throughout the school.

Needless to say, if ICE is going to throw itself a party, there will be great food. This year, the line-up included four ICE alumni who are all working as chefs or chef-owners of their own business, three ICE Chef Instructors, and two ICE staff members. Here’s what they made: More…

Everyone loves a brownie. Well, maybe everyone except for my kids who would rather have a macaron from Maison du Chocolat. They are the exception who snubbed their noses at the forty dollars worth of free Godiva truffles I recently smuggled home in my purse from an event. I mean come on now, free chocolate is always good in my book. But getting back on track, recently I noticed a new crop of brownie mixes on the market. Now on a good day you can score some Duncan Hines family-sized brownie mix at Target for a mere 2 bucks. Add an egg of two and a little oil and call it $2.50 and you get a nice pan of brownies that taste like mom made and make your kitchen smell like you are god’s gift to husbands (or at least mine). So when I started seeing these new mixes breaking a 10 spot, I knew some serious taste-testing was in order. So this past week I gathered a group of experts, a mixed panel, some honest to goodness pastry chefs (like ICE Director of Pastry & Baking Arts Program Andrea Tuntunjian and Chef Instructors Jeff Yoskowitz and Chad Pagano) and some regular joes, everyone eager to participate in the Great Brownie (Mix) Bake Off 2011.

To start with, let’s meet the contestants. In the line-up, we had Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate ringing in at $3.59 a box followed by Duncan Hines Double Fudge with the extra rich syrup package at $3.89. In the middle price range we had Fat Witch Bakery’s Original Fat Witch Brownie Mix at $6.99. And at the top end was Williams Sonoma Brownie Mix (manufactured by Dancing Deer Baking Company) and Baked’s Deep Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix both at a whopping $16.00 a box.

As far as time and labor, the Ghirardelli and Duncan Hines were simple – add some eggs and oil, stir together and pour in the pan, prepped in under 5 minutes. Both Fat Witch and Baked required you to melt butter and chocolate and then stir in the ingredient packs and the Williams Sonoma mix had you ribbon eggs (highly unusual in the world of brownies) and melt butter. Now to start, if you have to melt butter and chocolate then the only step you seem to be saving with the mix is measuring out the dry ingredients. I would also like to note that I was quite underwhelmed with the quantity of chocolate that was provided in the mixes considering their price. Especially when I had to add four eggs and half a pound of butter to the Baked mix, easily driving up the cost to closer to twenty dollars.

And the results….. More…

Last week, ICE employees were able to step out from our corporate offices into the kitchen. Usually, our Chef Instructors are busy teaching aspiring chefs and culinary enthusiasts about the tricks of the trade, but last week ICE staff made up the students in two special classes. Chef Instructor Nicole Kaplan taught a group about making and decorating cupcakes, while Chef Chad Pagano taught another group about the ins and outs of making pizza. See the photos of what the groups created. Perhaps we need a few more to make the grade… More…

Daniel Executive Chef Jean François Bruel and Pastry Chef Dominique Ansel with Chef Instructors Chad Pagano, Karen Schley and Sabrina Sexton

a
As you would expect, the staff and management at ICE has interest, desire and appreciation for great food. Sometimes great food is simple and inexpensive, and other times it is elaborate, complex and well, not inexpensive. Chef Daniel Boulud’s restaurant Daniel, one of the most celebrated restaurants in New York and America, fills the later category. Among the restaurant’s many accolades, Daniel has earned four stars from the New York Times, three stars from Michelin and four different James Beard Awards. ICE has always had close ties with Daniel. Boulud sits on our Chefs’ Advisory Board and many ICE students have gone on to extern in their kitchens after completing their in-class work.

ICE Chef Instructors Seated at the Table with Chef Daniel Boulud and ICE’s Director of Education Richard Simpson (seated) and President Rick Smilow

a
On the evening of November 30, ICE’s Director of Education, Richard Simpson and I treated eight of our esteemed Chef Instructors to a memorable nine-course, five-hour meal at Daniel. It was a way to say thank you to these key personnel here at the school. At the same time, it was a wonderful opportunity for many of the experts who teach our students to see culinary and pastry and baking arts performed at the highest level. This was a meal where the guests could comment all night about precision knife cuts, delicate flavor profiles, pristine ingredients, gorgeous plating concepts and adventuresome wine and food pairings. More…

Chef Instructor Chad Pagano’s afternoon weekday class is nearing the end of their in-class studies. They’ve graduated from simple cookies and cakes to complex and detailed showpieces and tiered cakes. We’re always amazed by the showpieces the students create and the creative ideas every generation of ICE Pastry & Baking Arts students comes up with. The projects in this class included an Alice in Wonderland theme with detailed characters and pulled sugar curlicues, a colorful under-the-sea scene complete with octopus, a fun Tiki-themed showpiece and an abstract work of art, all made of chocolate. Check out these photos of their chocolate showpieces and get an idea of an day in the life of an ICE Pastry & Baking Arts student.