Bite Catering Couture Featured on Food Network Catering Challenge

Executive Chef Elizabeth Goel of Los Angeles-based Bite Catering Couture competes on Food Network’s “Big Bash Catering” Challenge. Bite Catering Couture specializes in catering Signature bite-sized tasting menus for weddings, parties, and special events. The Food Network contest has 4 teams competing for $10,000 and airs August 24th at 8pm EST/PST.

Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) August 13, 2008 — Executive Chef Elizabeth Goel of Bite Catering Couture will lead one of 4 teams on Food Network Challenge: Big Bash Caterers airing August 24th, 2008 at 8pm on the Food Network, competing for a $10,000 prize.

Known for her elegant presentation and signature bite-sized foods, Chef Elizabeth is quickly gaining a Southern California following as a unique caterer. A newcomer in Los Angeles, Bite Catering Couture was founded in late 2007 as Chef Elizabeth brought her small foods philosophy from New York. The approach of the signature Bites line differs from traditional catering in providing more of a tasting menu format. This allows guests to try many more types of foods while having more freedom to mingle and enjoy a variety of conversations as well. Early recognition by C Magazine and the Food Network attests to the buzz building around this talented young chef.

“Starting out in pastry shaped a lot of my expectations of food. The pastry chef has one chance at the end of the meal to make the impression that the guest carries with them,” states Chef Elizabeth about her approach. “We bring that approach to each of our Bites…we eat with our eyes first and then the taste leaves the lasting impression. Each of our Bites may be small but we expect each to wow a guest with both its look and its flavors.”

Client Pat Gibson describes the Bite Catering experience for her son’s wedding rehearsal dinner, “Everyone loved the idea of nibbling tasty morsels all evening long and not having to break up their conversations to sit down to a formal dinner. It made for a very congenial and friendly evening for 75 people who were just getting to know one another. Each lovely item was delicious, inventive and strikingly crafted. The milkshakes that ended the evening were a triumph.”

Bite Catering Couture is excited that our Executive Chef Elizabeth Goel has been recognized by the Food Network to compete against an experienced and talented group of chefs. We look forward to bringing innovative cuisine into homes and events across Los Angeles, serving weddings, parties, and other special events. Please visit our website at http://www.bitecatering.net for pictures, sample menus, client reviews, recipes, and more.

We published this to Google previously but thought this might be helpful for people looking for catering.
The choice of a caterer is an important step to setting the tone of your event. Food is so intimately tied into our experiences– it impacts us through sight, smells, taste, and touch. Its important to have a caterer who can understand the feel of your event and help you put together a catering menu and sequence that fits its tone and tempo.
Thinking through your requirementsBefore you start looking for a caterer, lay out the basics for the event:

• Occasion: What is the occasion? What elements need to be included? (toasts, themes, bar, etc)
• People: How many people will be present? How long will they stay?
• Location: Where is it being held? What are the constraints of the space? Does it have a kitchen?
• Service: Are you looking for waiters to pass food? Service stations? Buffet?
• Food: What types of food are of interest? (Healthy, comfort food, elegant, etc). Are there special requirements for your guests? (kosher, allergies, religious requirements, vegetarian)
• Budget: What is your overall budget for the event? Costs will need to include food, staff, space, rentals, and bar.

Finding the right catererUnderstand who the options are in your community. You’ll want to start with the right type of caterer for your event, based on type of food, number of people, budget, and level of service desired.

• Types of caterers:
  • Catering specialists: These catering companies bring chefs, food, specialty equipment, and/or wait staff to your location. This allows for more customization, better food presentation, higher service levels, and better integration into your event. These are the best choice when looking for specific foods, high level of presentation, passed items, and a certain level of elegance. For an example, take a look at Bite Catering Couture’s sample menus.
  • Restaurants: Catering is often a side business for restaurants and this allows them to bring their service to your space. In most cases, this is a buffet style service or delivery of transportable food items. They allow favorite entrees to be available at your location.
  • Grocers: Many specialty grocers offer cost-effective food trays suitable for simple events or small numbers of people. Costco and Trader Joe’s are chains that can offer some interesting selections.

Once you’ve selected the right type(s) of caterer, you can look to find the right caterer to fit your needs.

• Reputation: Look for a caterer with a reputation of being reliable, easy to work with, and professional. Some things you can look for include:
  • Client testimonials/reviews: Look on the company’s website and search for them by name on the internet. Ask to speak with a previous customer — a caterer with happy customers should be able to quickly put you in touch with one or two who can speak to their experience
  • Chef credentials/reputation: Has the chef been featured by the industry? An appearance on the Food Network, a popular cookbook, etc may indicate a higher degree of creativity and skill
  • Press: Local media coverage may be indicative of local buzz in the community
• Menu options: You’ll need food that makes sense with your event. Find someone with experience in catering the types of food you’re interested in, whether that be miniatures, kosher, buffet, seafood, etc.
• Services: Ensure that your caterer will provide (or coordinate with another company) the services that you want to help pull your event together. If the caterer works with the vendor often, you may find better coordination and sometimes even discounts that can be passed on.
  • Coordination/Planning: Some caterers will just show up with the food. Do you want help laying out the space, coordinating rentals, coordinating staff, putting together an event timeline, arranging displays, and ensuring plates/glassware/utensils are all where they need to be? Ask how the caterer can either help put it together or work with you to ensure a smooth event.
  • Kitchen/ Wait Staff: Wait staff, chefs, bus people to do on-site preparation, get the food out to guests, and keep the surroundings clean
  • Bar: From providing a bartender only (if you want to provide the alcohol yourself) vs. bringing in full bar packages including alcohol
  • Rentals: Glassware, dishes, kitchen equipment, food warmers, display pieces, tables, chairs, trash cans, etc.
• Presentation: Look at the caterer’s website or photo albums showing what they do. These are likely to be the best examples of the company’s work.
• Budget: Overall budget can vary significantly between caterers based on the typical price per guest and size of event that they focus on. Find someone who’s interested in the type of event that you do…some caterers like small, intimate parties and others focus on events feeding many hundreds of people.

As you’ve seen with our website redesign and addition of new components (sample menus, recipes, tips from our chef, tips on party planning, and favorite drinks) we’re trying to do a bit more at Bite Catering Couture. Please let us know if you like the changes (you can see the original website at archives.org) and let us know what you’d like to see. We plan on highlighting some of our favorites places as we come across them in Los Angeles (and we’re rooted in the Westside in Santa Monica) so your suggestions to two foodies would also be greatly appreciated!

We wish you the best in your lives and celebrations. Let us know if we can be of help.

All the best,

Vijay

I just can’t believe my last post was all the way back in the fall! I apologize…between getting married, honemooning and getting my business up and running, it has been very tough for me to find time to do some writing! Time to get back to it!

In my last post I talked about warm chocolate cakes and a sure proof method of insuring molten chocolate goodness when baking a molten chocolate cake. Well, for all of you who are not up for making indiidual cakes, how about the perfect molten chocolate cookie? These you can bake, freeze or eat right away – and all they require is a few seconds in the microwave for a yummy molten cookie! I have shared this recipe with all of my past clients as something they may want to make for Super Bowl or Valentine’s Day and now I will share it here. This is one of the first cookie recipes I did in pastry school and now it is a regular part of my baked goodies repertoire. Enjoy!

Chocolate Heaven Cookies

Ingredients
½ pound dark (not unsweetened) chocolate
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 ounces butter
3 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon coffee extract (can substitute instant espresso/coffee powder)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ ounces all-purpose flour (about ¼ cup)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup pecans (optional)

Instructions

1. Melt chocolate, unsweetened chocolate and butter over a bain-marie (double boiler or a heat resistant bowl places over simmering water) – cool slightly
2. Whip eggs, sugar, coffee extract, vanilla extract, and salt together until light and fluffy.
3. Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
4. Fold flour, chocolate chips, and pecans into batter
5. Place small mounds of batter on a parchment lines sheet pan and bake at 350F for 7-9 minutes.

You KNOW you do it. You go out for a fantastic meal and finally it’s time to look over the dessert menu. You are looking for that one dessert, the only one which will satisfy your decadent craving, and it HAS to come with any of the following adjectives: “warm”, “gooey”, “fondant”, “lava”, “molten”, “pudding”, “moist”, “decadence”, or “flourless” and they all have to either begin or end with “chocolate.” To titillate us even further, we are made to wait an additional 20 minutes while the pastry chef works his or her chocolatey magic.

So why, with all the fuss surrounding this dessert, and the additional time put into it, is it so hard to get a really good warm chocolate cake? As recently as last week (honeymooning with my new husband in Hawaii!) I was presented with what was described as a “warm chocolate molten cake” in what is notably Kaui’s top restaurant. Nevertheless, the dessert was dry, lacked chocolate flavor and the only thing molten about it was the purchased ice cream that was mounded on top (my poor hubby, I am not easy person to partake in dessert with!). I was disappointed to say the very least – this woman needed her chocolate fix! While I can’t go around complaining to waiters that their pastry chef’s version of molten simply is not molten enough for me, I can, at the very least, talk about how to go about achieving success with this mysterious dessert.

There are two ways to get a gooey center. One way is to simply underbake, what is basically a flourless, or nearly flourless chocolate cake so that a crust forms on the outside and the interior cooks just enough so the eggs, sugar and chocolate become a sort of custard or liquidy pudding. The second method, and perhaps the best method for those who worry about over or under-baking, if to insert a ball of ganache (infused cream and chocolate) or some chopped chocolate into the center of the unbaked cake so the center remains soft and molten. Personally, I like this second method as it takes out some of the guess work during baking and it means adding MORE chocolate to an already chocolatey dessert – I’m all over that! The following recipe does include flour. That said, you could reduce the amount of flour if desired and, while the recipe is large, it can easily be divided.

Warm Chocolate Molten Cake

Cakes:
11 ounces butter (2 3/4 sticks)
10 ounces best quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
6 ounces best quality bittersweet chocolate (cut into 1/2 ounce chunks) – you may also use ganache balls here if you prefer
6 eggs
6 egg yolks
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Brush 12 ramekins with butter – swirl sugar around in each ramekin so that the sugar sticks to the butter – make sure you tap out any excess sugar. This will help create a sweet, crunchy crust on the outside of your cakes.

In a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate together, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, using a beater or mixer, whisk together the eggs, yolks, and sugar until light and frothy. Fold the egg mixture into chocolate mixture; then mix in the flour.

Fill the ramekins with the batter. Into the center of each filled ramekin insert the chocolate chunks or ganache balls. Bake for 4 to 5 minutes. (Alternatively, refrigerate the cakes until ready to bake, up to a day in advance. If baking cold, do so for 5 to 6 minutes.) Using an offset spatula or sharp paring knife, run along the edges of the cake before tipping it onto the plate for service. Or, alternatively, serve the cake in the ramekin with your topping of choice.

BREAD

What comes to mind for you when I say “bread”? Visions of fluffy, flavorless wonderbread spread with peanut butter and jelly? Or, perhaps, does bread and all of its carbohydrates conjure up something forbidden, even evil for you – has the deceased Dr. Atkins truly brainwashed you? Everything in moderation, my friend and, for me at least, when I think of bread and, certainly, when I choose to indulge in bread, it is something dense, flavorful and wonderful – something to be savored and not fluff to be inhaled.

Sure not all breads are meant to be the same. Take brioche, for instance – it is buttery, light and wonderul served warm with butter and jam. But for me this is not “bread” – this is brioche! The same can be said for American-style breads. My own secret guilty diet-breaker? Potato bread, warmed but not toasted, smothered with butter and gobs of Nutella. But enough of that…I speak of real bread.

When I attended the French Culinary Institute, one of the best parts of the day was that everyday leftovers from the artisinal bread kitchen would be sent to us as our late afternoon snack before class began that evening. A little olive oil with a pinch of sea salt and we were in heaven. I miss that more than I can express. Good bread is just so hard to come by – even in some of the fanciest, quality-obsessed grocery stores I am faced with the same fluffy, tasteless dry breads. I miss the crisp crusted sourdough boules that, when broken into, actually smell like sourdough and have a dense, chewy crumb. So, for those of us in areas that lack good bakeries, we have two choices: 1) accept our plight and eat the bread before us or 2) Make our own bread. I opt for #2 and, for those of you who are up for the challenge, I give you a wonderful recipe for sourdough. Yes, it takes a little planning and waiting but you can always save extra bread by freezing it – hey, you can even parbake a couple of the loves by taking them out of the oven 20-25 minutes early and then freezing them. Then, once you need the extra loves, pop them in the oven, finish baking them and you have fresh bread hot out of the oven whenever you need it!:

Sourdough Starter:
Dissolve 1 tablespoon dry yeast and 2 tablespoons honey in 2 cups warm water in a glass, plastic, or crockery bowl. Stir in 2 cups unbleached white flour; cover with a towel and let sit in a warm place for several days, or until foamy and soured. Store in a covered jar in the refrigerator. Warning: Use a bowl big enough to contain what may be a startling degree of expansion.

Sourdough French Bread
Yields 4 small loaves or 14 rolls
6 cups unbleached organic whole grain white flour, divided
1/2 to 1 cup coarse whole-wheat flour
3 teaspoons salt, divided
23/4 cups warm water, divided (at about 100 degrees F)
1 cup Sourdough Starter
1 teaspoon baker’s yeast (if you have trouble finding this, ask your local bakery to sell you some – it generally comes in 1 pound blocks – way too much for the home-baker)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup cornmeal

Mix a sponge the night before you plan to bake, by combining 3 cups white flour and the whole-wheat flour with 2 teaspoons salt, 2 cups water, and the sourdough starter. Mix. Cover with a towel and let sit for 10 to 18 hours.
The next morning, prepare the final dough by adding another 3 cups of white flour, 3/4 cup warm water, 1 teaspoon salt, and the yeast.
Using a mixer with a dough hook or food processor with a metal blade, mix at low speed for 2 minutes and then at medium speed for 6 minutes. Turn out onto a floured board and knead by hand until the desired consistency is obtained. Add flour as necessary during the mixing. Place the dough into a large bowl that has been coated with olive oil, making sure that the top of the dough is also coated so that it does not become dry. Cover the bowl with a towel, and allow to rise to two or three times the original volume. The speed of the rise can be altered or halted by changing the ambient temperature; the cooler the temperature in the rising area, the slower the rise. The dough can also be placed in the refrigerator to finish rising at a later date.
Punch the dough down briefly. Dump it again onto a floured board. Cut into loaf-sized pieces. You’ll learn to form the loaves or rolls that suit you best. You can bake two small round loaves and about eight rolls, or whatever you like. I place the loaves on an oven sheet sprinkled with cornmeal, cover with a towel, and allow to rise a second time, at least 1 hour.
Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Slash the top of the loaves with a razor or scalpel blade. Place into the preheated oven. Spray every 2 minutes with water until the bread has baked for 10 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 350 degrees F and bake another 15 minutes. Remove the bread from the sheet, and allow to cool on a rack.

Well the blueberry pie was a success – I served it with vanilla ice cream (Brigham’s which is a popular and very tasty locally produced New England ice cream that my parents always have on hand) and I even boiled down some of the blueberry sauces to make a thick sauce to decorate and accompany the dessert.

As we were doing the dishes I told my Mum that she should save the blueberry sauce for ice cream later on. She turned to me and said something that I thought was worth sharing: “Elizabeth, that’s really what distinguishes a good cook – somebody who can identify and make use of what’s on hand, and knowing what’s on hand to make something wonderful versus going out an buying something premade and ordinary.” That was a nice Mum moment for me at least – good, home-grown, common sense thinking.

I despise waste. The funny thing is that some of the best dishes of the world have come from foods that would have otherwise been thrown away. Case in point – Coq au vin (one of the most played-up classic French dishes of all time) came about because a farmer couldn’t figure out what to do with a Rooster who, well, wasn’t doing much roosting anymore – he was old, tired and had lost interest in the lady hens (poor fella). The solution? Take the rooster meat, dump a bottle of wine on it, add some veggies and cook it on low heat for a few hours et voila! Dinner is served! I love the French – at least when it comes to food.

Even in pastry there are great uses for scraps and leftovers:

Making a pie? Have a bunch of extra dough scraps? Freeze them until you want to make a fruit cobbler. When you are ready, just grind them up with a little extra flour, butter, oats, nuts, sugar – whatever you like – and you have a seriously tasty topping.

Have leftover puff pastry dough from the hors d’oeuvres you made for a party? Cut up the scraps into strips, toss them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture and shove a few pieces into each of a few muffin tins – they will puff up, bake off and get all gooey and you’ll have a decadent breakfast cinnamon-sugar pastry bomb! It’s sort of like gorilla bread but with just a hint of class. This was a sensation among my classmates in culinary school – and that’s really saying something considering the number of fancy desserts we were churning out at the time.

I think this is one of the really beautiful things about learning to cook – that you learn to contextualize many uses for a single ingredient or see many meals springing from a single prepared dish. Not wasting, planning ahead and using what we have available to us generally means we waste less and eat better. And what’s not to like about that?

My fiance informs me that, at some point, I have to stop thinking of this as my first great novel and just start writing. So here it is! Disappointed? Me too – especially as an English major – but there it is. I’m clearing the cobwebs, hammering through the writer’s block and, tommorrow, I promise that I will do better.

Oh, by the way, this really is all about the food.

What I made today – Pie crust (pate brisee) for a blueberry pie tommorrow night for a small dinner party. My mum asked me to make something and I just love a good blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. No pastry chef I know would insist that they go home and constuct a bunch of fancy desserts in their own kitchen with dehydrated mango, brown sugar foam and hazelnut tuille. No way – the simple things, when done right, are always the best. So I guess you could say that I am going back to the beginning – the base crust – and very likely the mother, or, at least, one of the mothers of French pastry. Somehow, that just seems beautifully appropriate for my very first scribblings.

My secret for a good crust? Not really much of a secret – really cold, basically frozen butter, a combination of cake flour and all-purpose to ensure both tenderness and structure and freezing cold water. Here’s the recipe:

2 2/3 sticks unsalted butter cut into small 1/2-inch cubes and frozen (Plugra/European Style is best)
1 1/3 cups AP flour
1 1/3 cups cake flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp granulated sugar
4 tbsp. ice water

Combine butter, flour, and salt in food processor (you can also do this in a large bowl with a pastry cutter) and process (pulse) until butter is pea-size. With blade turning, add water, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough holds together. If need be, using the palm of your hand, smear the dough to bring it together (in fancy-pants French Pastry Chef lingo this is called “fraisage”…but I just love the word schmear – even if it does generally refer to some sort of cream cheese concoction). Divide dough into two equal disks, wrap in plastic, and allow to rest in refrigerator for at least one hour.

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