Foodie Chap With Chef Tim Kaulfers At Arista Winery

KCBS radio "Foodie Chap" and KPIX 5 television "Eye On The Bay" host Liam Mayclem introduces us to the culinary stars behind the food and wine loved by so many in the Bay Area.

KCBS Foodie Chap Podcast:

Being a chef at one of Russian River's hidden gems is a wine and food pairing experience many dream about.

For New Jersey native, Chef Timothy Kaulfers, falling in love with Arista Winery began when planning his wedding on site to his college sweetheart, Nicole. It was the first step to living the dream of growing and using fresh ingredients in his cooking that come from the same terroir as the wines that accompany them.

"Every chef likes a chance to express their own style," says Tim, "and I'm very drawn to the familial atmosphere that that the McWilliams' have created at Arista."

Growing up with a backyard garden while working in front of the house service, Tim was naturally suited for his current career.

He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, and transferred to the Greystone campus in St. Helena, graduating in May 2011. After Tim and Nicole made Sonoma their home, Tim worked his way up through every station at Charlie Palmer's Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg. His culinary inspiration intersects classical and modern techniques with a strong international influence.

He describes his style as "grandma cooking" - creating a heartfelt, comforting experience with food that people have "when someone who really cares about you is cooking for you," he says.

Today, Tim enjoys creating fresh, local selections for special visitors to the Russian River from the garden and grounds at Arista that highlight the value of terroir expressed both in wine and food. Chef Tim's desire to harmonize food, wine, gardening, entertaining and teaching converge at Arista, and he hopes to create a vibrant program there that will encompass all of these qualities. "I look forward to building upon a dining program centered on education, intimate experience, and the freshest ingredients available, all paired with unforgettably elegant wines," says Tim.

Chef & I met in the Arista Winery as we began our Foodie Chap chat.

We continued in the kitchen where Tim prepped a knockout dish and share the recipe with us on our Foodie Chap Page.

Enjoy!

"5 Tasty Questions with Chef Tim Kaulfers"

1) Being a chef to you is about...
I'd like to say education. I'm really interested in getting people to be aware of what they're eating and I have a really great hands on experience here where we can kind of go through the garden and pick what they see with their own two eyes and pick it up, put it on a plate and really show them what real vegetables are all about.

2) What dish reminds you of home?
My grandmother's soup, arcava d'ailego, which is a really nice, hearty, winter stew from Northern Spain. It's just something that really makes me think of my grandma's cooking.

3) It's midnight, I go to your fridge at home, what would I find? What's always there?
There's always some ice cream, right now its some Strauss vanilla. And there's always beer. I have a lot of Lagunitas, and Bear Republic beer, and sometimes some beer that I've made myself.

4) In a second life, you come back as something other than a chef, what might you be?
I'd probably have to say I'm gonna lean on my second strength right now and that would be farming. I really get a kick out of being out in the garden and growing my own vegetables, so I think that's what I would want to be.

5) Last supper, couple of guests, dead or alive, famous or not, who will they be and what will you eat?
I'd have to say it would most likely be my family, with my father included. My father passed away several years back and I'd just like to show him where I am now as a chef and the kind of niche I've made in my life. And what would we eat? Probably just go out in the garden, pick something together and kind of come up with a dish on the fly.

Lamb & Eggs

SERVES 6

Lamb Confit Cure Mix:
1 cup kosher salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1T each black pepper and coriander seed
1 sprig each fresh thyme and rosemary
1 each green and black cardomom pods, star anise

1. Toast all the whole spices and grind them with the fresh herbs.
2. Add the spices to the salt and sugar and integrate fully with a whisk.

Lamb Confit:
Lamb Shoulder (ask your butcher if they cut one in half for you)
1 recipe of Confit curing mix
Oil blend (oil and canola 50:50) enough to submerge shoulder

1. For the sake of the recipe, lets use Ω of a lamb shoulder (yields roughly 12, 3 ounce portions).
2. Coat lamb liberally with curing mix, reserve any extra. Allow the lamb to cure overnight, roughly 18-24 hours. Remove from fridge and rinse clean, pat dry and place in small oven safe braising pan *add enough oil blend until lamb is completely submerged*, very important or the lamb will burn!
3. Cover with lid and braise at 325F for 3.5 hours, *remove and allow to cool at room temp* also extremely important.
4. Remove from oil allow to slightly drain over, pack incryo vac bag (or Ziploc) and pound the meat flat into a æ inch flat brick, and allow to cool and set up firm in the fridge.
5. Remove from bag and portioning into equal size squares, and to cook place in a cast iron pan with oil at smoking point and crisp both sides 45 seconds to 1 min. Place on tray and reheat right before plating.

Kohlrabi Meyer Lemon Slaw:
1 medium sized Kohlrabi (shaved and julienned)
1 Meyer Lemon (juice and zest)
1T extra virgin olive oil
1T fresh tarragon (chopped)

1. Add all ingredients together season with salt and pepper and allow to marinate up to 2 days.

Brown Butter Turnip Puree:
1 medium sized Turnip (peeled and cubed)
1t butter
2 cups half and half

1. In a sauce pan, allow butter to brown, add turnips, cover with half and half cook for 15 min on low until turnips are soft.
2. Strain and reserve liquid, transfer turnips to a blender and puree, adding reserved liquid as needed, season with salt and pass puree through a fine mesh sieve.

For the plate up:
6 stalks broccoli rabe, blanched and shocked
6 Arista farm eggs, fried in a small amount of butter and cut out with a cookie cutter
Meyer lemon leaf dust (burnt leaves ground and passed through a sieve)
Rosemary Meyer Lemon Lamb Jus (lamb demi glaze reduced with lemon and herbs)

Enjoy!

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services may have contributed to this report.)