Cooking with BIN

(The Corzetti Stamp)

Hey y’all...

Just a few words of what we will be doing in the next few days. Both Phil and I are going to teach a couple of classes.

Starting off this saturday july 24th we will be teaching at the Green City Market in Lincoln Park. Beginning at 10:30am we will be doing a 40 minute or so cooking demo using ingredients from the Market. I was out at the GCM scouting ingredients yesterday and it looks like we will show two different and simple light summer pasta sauces along with two pasta shapes.

One of the pasta shapes I am excited about is the Corzetti. An ancient cut with historical significance from the Genoa region of Italy. I have been in search of the Corzetti Stamp, which is needed to make this pasta cut, and about a week ago I finally found a local artisan who is hand making this wooden stamp. Local in this case is Sonoma County, California, since the only other person I could find making these stamps is Franco Casoni who is practicing this little appreciated art in his small village in Italy.

In the pasta vein, we are also doing a cooking class and at the bin wine cafe this coming monday july 26th beginning at 7pm. The basis of the class is Pasta and Pizza. We will be teaching the basics of making both doughs. Showing how to make a pizza dough, how to get it rise properly and how to throw a pizza dough.

We will be also teaching how to make a pasta dough, the uses of semolina in pasta dough and how to roll out the dough. We will also demonstrate a “raw” pizza red sauce, and a couple of pasta sauces.

The course will also come with a three course dinner. Pizza will be served during an Hors d’oeuvre hour. First course will be Phil’s Heirloom tomato and watermelon salad, two different pastas with corresponding sauces will come as the entree and our new chocolate semi freddo popcicles will be dessert. Of course wine will be poured all for a $38 ticket price. Please call us for reservations.

Bon appetito, we hope to see you at both events.

New Summer Menu at BIN

(The new CLT at BIN—read on for more...)

Recently we completed our summer menu changeover. In general, entrees and appetizers have been lightened, and of course seasonal products are highlighted.

Some of my favorites are...

Pork Ribs from Swan Creek Farm. We first put a dry rub on them overnight and then the next morning we slow roast and smoke them for four hours. Then they are lacquered with our house made Blackberry-espresso BBQ sauce and served with a refreshing watermelon-mint salad.

(Slow Smoked Stack of Pork Ribs, Blackberry & Espresso BBQ Sauce, Watermelon-Mint Salad)

I also like our wood rotisserie chicken. It picks up great flavor from the slow cooking over the sweet smokey wood and we are serving it with jalepeno cornbread, a corn and arugula salad and we sauce it with a light vinaigrette I am very proud of. We call it a lobster vinaigrette, and we make it by roasting lobster shells and pouring oil over them and lightly heating the oil for a few hours to pick up that sweet lobster flavor. Next, we reduce red wine vinegar to almost a syrup so it has a different weight than the oil. We mix the two and serve it with the chicken for a nice light sauce on a hot summer night.

Chicken with a lobster sauce is an old school french combination that we have lightened and modernized. And in the seafood category, well, what everyone is ordering is the Halibut dish. We get these beautiful halibut from Alaska and poach them in butter—decadent! We are serving it with a sweet fennel puree, tempura fried asparagus, and this great light lemon confit broth-like sauce. It has already been getting great reviews. But though I can’t argue with the many who are enjoying the halibut, I personally would prefer the soft shell crab that we've been previewing. We call it the open faced “CLT." Crab, lettuce, tomato. Semolina crusted soft shell crab, red mizuna lettuce from Growing Power Farm and nice, sweet and acidic heirloom tomatoes. We serve it with a corn and bacon butter!

(Butter Poached Alaskan Halibut, Fennel Puree, Tempura Asparagus, Lemon Confit Jus)

Enough said, time to cook. Come in and taste some summer.

This Week's Market Menu at Baby bin

(by Phil Rubino)

(Working the ravioli!)

Last week Dan did me the favor of introducing something I'm super pumped to be doing at bin wine cafe—a weekly pix-fixe menu inspired by my morning trip to Green City Market every Wednesday. For a chef, it doesn't get much better than this. The menu is seasonal, affordable, and by ordering it, you're doing your part to help the small family farmers that continually put out some absolutely incredible product for restaurants to work with—it's a moral battle these farmers are fighting against the big corporate farms, and something as simple as a dinner out helps the cause!

And does it get much better at the market than these few weeks in July?

Yesterday morning I was really impressed by the beets at Green Acres Farm. I realize beets are an acquired taste, but I think a part of the reason so many people have a strong dislike for them is because at some point or another, they'd been exposed to canned beets—and honestly, who would ever choose to eat those? Fresh beets, with the soil still caked to the roots... man, now you're talking about something special. And when those beets are roasted? Get out of here! And that's what we did, which just brings out a wonderful sweetness to balance the earthiness of the beet. I was in a pasta kind of mood, and with our upcoming Pizza and Pasta Cooking Class at bin wine cafe on July 26, I thought there was no better way to open the menu than with a ravioli—which we're doing with house-made ricotta and spiggarelo, and finishing with a parmesan foam.

(Homemade riccota and pasta dough makes all the difference...)

I also was impressed by the beans from Nichols Farm and the tomatoes at Iron Creek—a tomato jam is a simple way to highlight the tomato in a light way, preserving it's natural sweetness while introducing new flavors too, hence the saffron. And hanger steak being a more lean cut, the dish really just reflects the way I like to eat at this time of year. With the crunch of those fresh beans, this dish hits complimenting elements in different ways and people really seemed to enjoy it last night.

(The plated dish!)

Rounding out the meal with a choice between our killer gelato or creme brulee just accentuates what I think is a picturesque Summer dinner—outside of eating on the farm, it doesn't get much better!

And here's the menu...

1st

Housemade ricotta and spiggarelo ravioli, green acres farm warm beet salad, and parmesan foam

2nd

Hanger steak, nichols farm wax and green salad and iron creek farm tomato and saffron jam

3rd

Gelato or creme brulee

Because I'm shopping for the menu on Wednesdays, we're only able to offer the prix-fixe on Wednesday and Thursday nights—and at $25 for all of this, is there a better place to be mid-week?

Hope we'll see you tonight, but if not, I'll be back soon with the next menu!

(Phil Rubino is Chef de Cuisine at bin wine cafe and taking Wicker Park to a whole new level!)

Green City Market Chef's BBQ

(The BBQ is this Thursday!)

Each month we get asked to do a huge variety of charity events. It is impossible to participate in them all and run a successful restaurant simultaneously. So we pick a couple each month to participate in, where we feel that it is a not only a worthy cause but also where we can get good exposure with other great restaurants and chefs.

Coming up this Thursday is my favorite charitable event of the entire year. It is the Green City Market Chef’s BBQ. Why my favorite? Well, let’s see: It supports local small producers of sustainably grown foods, it’s outdoors in Lincoln Park and there are over 95 restaurants and chef’s preparing dishes made from some of the highest quality ingredients available to us in the Chicago area.

(Interactive at the market via greencitymarket's photostream)

Both of our restaurants will be represented this Thursday, Phil Rubino at the wine cafe will be assisting along with his brunch cook Zach (speaking of brunch cook, did you all remember we just changed the brunch menu at bwc, and I am very proud of it), and, Willi Hewitt, my chef de cuisine at the downtown restaurant will be in attendance along with Tom Laurell, our pastry chef.

We will all be preparing a peach panna cotta with peaches from Seedling Farm with a prosciutto foam and prosciutto dust prepared with prosciutto from La Quercia (made in Iowa) and lastly garnished with mizuna greens from Growing Power Farm.

So if you think that sounds yummy, come by Lincoln Park this Thursday from 6pm until 8pm and taste not only our dish but the food of all of chicago’s culinary world. You won’t be disappointed. You can get tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com. They cost $100 for all you can eat and drink and it goes to a very worthy cause. See you there.

The mini-bin

(A play on rosé via honeybear16's photostream)

(by Jan Henrichsen)

What is a mini-bin? Simple. It's a half-hour class that focuses on one discrete topic—essentially, it's the shorts and sandals, less glorified version of a BIN School class. This past week's discussion and tasting covered wines for grilling and outdoor entertaining, and this coming week's topic will be pink wines.

Rosé wines from all over the world enjoy high esteem, because they are exceptionally food-friendly and delicious. Made from the same grapes as red wine, these juicy, dry wines are not your mother's white zin. We're going to taste through four fantastic pinks, and explore the wide range of flavors, styles and weight that these exceptional wines have to offer, along with some good old myth busting and figuring out how to choose the right rosé for your meal.

(A vineyard in Chinon, whose Caberenat Franc makes some of the

most celebrated rose in the world via epeigne37's photostream)

We'll hold a mini-bin class once a week all summer long. They are $15 at the door, and $10 in advance. Seating is limited, so I highly suggest purchasing in advance. And added bonus is that we will offer all of our students an additional 20 percent off any purchase, retail or otherwise, after class.

But the best part? Anyone who joins us for just five of the many classes we'll be offering through September gets rewarded by us—a $25 gift card. That's half off the total amount you'll have paid for the five classes back in your pocket!

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to tasting with you in the coming weeks and can't wait to push on with the mini-bins!

(Jan Henrichsen is Beverage Director for BIN 36 and hosts the mini-bin classes. After years spent at Pastoral, Jan has a bevy of knowledge on cheese and wine: the heart of BIN.)

Things Are Happening at bin wine cafe!

(English peas via geekspeaklic's photostream)

A few weeks back, the wine cafe welcomed a familiar face to its kitchen: Phil Rubino. Phil is young, energetic, and the ladies might say he's easy on the eyes—you see, we can have fun with Phil! But he's also a damn talented cook—we know this because he once served as a Sous Chef to our own Executive Chef John Caputo. After he left BIN 36, Phil spent time with Laurent Gras at L20 and more recently as Executive Sous at 33 Club. So what does all of this mean? Well, Phil has taken over the kitchen at bin wine cafe.

With a transition like this in any kitchen, the new Chef brings his approach to the food—and working with John, Phil has certainly left his thumb-print in Wicker Park. Here's a sample of his new dishes at the cafe:

smoked trout salad

growing power farms red mustard leaves, pine nuts and creme fraiche-chive vinaigrette

hiramasa crudo

lemon peel puree, radish, wild watercress

hand-cut tagilatelle pasta

heirloom tomato salsa crudo, torn basil leaves, shaved parmesan

alaskan halibut

bacon "dust," potato gnocchi, manhattan clam chowder

oven roasted lamb

chick peas, roasted red peppers, crispy panisse, growing power farms red mizuna

A keen eye might catch something of a pattern in this menu... Phil's working closely with seasonal product, and doing so with Growing Power Farms. As so many of you can attest to, there's a definite movement within urban areas to source food from the surrounding rural farms. This is something we've written about before with our partnership with Nichols Farm at BIN 36—and restaurants everywhere are also diving into. Farms have become something of brand names for Green City Market shoppers and foodies in this city. That's why we're so thrilled to have a guy like Phil taking over the cafe. Wicker Park is the perfect neighborhood to continue spreading the knowledge and product of these local farms...

(This isn't Phil Rubino, but he'll be at the market like these kids, too...

photo via green city market's photostream)

Which is exactly why, a couple weeks back, we decided to give Phil Wednesday and Thursday nights to try something out: a $25 Market prix-fixe menu. The idea is simple... every Wednesday morning Phil shops at Green City for his product, and spends the rest of the day developing the menu—which is three courses. It provides Phil the opportunity to keep things moving, which is always so important for a chef, and gives the neighborhood something to get excited about. Because really, are the cafe's $5 burgers on Tuesdays enough? Okay, maybe they are...

(Harvesting at Mick Klug Farms via Dishes and Dirt's photostream)

But we're rolling with this! In fact, we started last night. And if you didn't join us, there's still a chance to do so tonight... and here's what you'll get:

1st

Seared Diver Scallops

Trio of Mick Klug Farm Cherries , Nichols Farm English Pea Puree and Pistachio Powder

2nd

Roasted Swan Creek Pork loin

Braised Nichols Farm Spigarello, Heirloom carrot salad and a Nichols Farm garlic scape vinaigrette

3rd

Trio of daily gelato or vanilla creme brulee

Between Mick Klug (one of the nicest guys on the planet, with a beautiful family that's at the market every week), Swan Creek, and Nichols, Phil had lots of goodies to play with. And yeah, we're pretty excited about it.

Things are definitely changing in Wicker Park. There's a new energy at the cafe and I'm not gonna lie, we're all a little bit giddy about it—and Phil will be contributing to the blog soon, too. Soon enough, you will see for yourself...