Estia Blog | Recipes & Stories by Chef Colin Ambrose
Tuesday’s on the Trail | The Film
Estia’s Little Kitchen proudly presents “Tuesday’s on the Trail”, the latest film release on our American Rivers Tour series. “Tuesday’s on the Trail” chronicles Chef Colin Ambrose’s bicycle ride from Manhattan to Canada with a focus on fishing for Northern Pike on Lake Champlain.
Visit the americanriverstour.com website to follow Colin along the Empire State Trail
Flame Braised Goat | Chivo Tacos with Colorado Sauce
Ingredients and preparation:
- 1 30lb goat, butcher into large pieces, legs, ribs, back portions, bones in.
Season heavily with salt & black pepper and sear over high heat 10 min per side
Combine in a 50 gallon pot:
- 4 Spanish onions, chopped
- 1 head of celery, chopped
- 2 cups garlic cloves, chopped
- 4 limes, peeled and cut in half
- 12 arbol chili’s
- 18 guajillo chili’s, chopped
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons sea salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 6 sticks of cinnamon
- 1 cup Mexican oregano (dry)
Stir on stove top over medium heat until soft. Add all seared goat & move pot to the fire.
Estia’s is Proud to Present “Lunch on the Deck” on WLNG 92.1
When WLNG owners, Bill Evans and Sandra Foschi, first purchased the station in 2018, Evans was sitting at the counter at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor lamenting that there were only male DJ’s working at the station. So he asked Estia owner, Colin Ambrose, where he should look for some female radio talent. Colin directed him to his wife, Jessica, who had been a DJ for 20 years on the west coast right after graduating from Boston College.
Read More »Dos Hombres Watermelon Mezcalita
Watch how we put together our famous “Dos Hombres Watermelon Mezcalita”!
Made with watermelon puree, lime juice, a splash of soda & a touch of agave.
Come into Estia’s Little Kitchen and enjoy.
This is how we create our Dos Hombres Watermelon Mezcalita
Vegan Aquachile Rojo Salad
Serves 2
For Salsa Rojo:
- 1 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup lime juice
- 2 cups extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small roasted beet, skin removed, diced
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 jalapeño (seeds removed), diced fine
- 1/8 cup cilantro, chopped
- 2/3 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup cold water
Combine vinegar, lime juice, olive oil and beet in a blender and run until smooth. Transfer pureé into a jar.
Vegan Paella: Estia’s Earth Day Dinner
Serves 4 people as a main dish
Ingredients:
- 1 large artichoke – heart removed, sliced into 8 sections
- 1 cup sugar snap peas – chopped
- 1 small fennel bulb – sliced thin
- 1 cup sweet corn
- 1 carrot – peeled and diced
- 2 celery stalks – diced
- 1 cup zucchini – sliced
- 1 small Spanish onion – diced
- 4 garlic cloves – diced
- 4 tomatoes – canned, cut into ¼ pieces
- 10 green olives – sliced
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon of saffron threads
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- 1.5 teaspoons sea salt
- 1 large orange – juiced
- 1.5 cups jasmine rice
Preheat oven to 400° degrees.
Start by stirring saffron, salt and paprika into the vegetable stock, set aside for a few hours.
Hibiscus & Ginger Margarita
Ingredients for Jamaica juice:
- 2 cups hibiscus flowers(dried)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 gallon water
Combine hibiscus, sugar, 1/2 gallon water in a pot and simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside until cool then strain.
Read More »Roasted Crescent Duck Tamale with Mole, recipe for Cinco de Mayo at Slow Food East End
Ingredients for tamales
- 30oz. Cornmeal (foster farm, Sagaponack)
- ½ Spanish onion, diced
- 10oz duck fat
- 1 cup shredded duck (cooked dark meat from 1 bird)
- 1.5 tablespoon coriander seed powder
- 2.5 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 tablespoons agave nectar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup duck stock
- 8 corn husks
First time visitor at The Center For Discovery: Hurleyville NY
In response to last year’s Covid lockdown my wanderlust kicked in hard this February so I decided to commit to getting on the road inside the quarantine zone. Starting in early March I initiated a personal challenge to ride my bicycle north from Manhattan to Canada on the Empire State Trail with my friends from New York. The plan included inviting as many chefs as I could to join me. I sent an early note to Cesare Casella whom I’d met 15 years ago at his 22nd street restaurant, Beppe.
Although Chef Casella couldn’t join me on the trail he was quick to respond and invited me to visit him in Hurleyville, while he didn’t provide more details than a dinner invitation, I didn’t care. My goal is to spend time connecting with like minded people in New York State this spring so Cesare’s invitation was like gold. He suggested I touch base when the trail ride reached New Paltz. That time has come and contact was made last week and a dinner plan in Catskills was scheduled.
Read More »Slow Food East End
We Are Slow Food East End
We bring the food community together on Long Island. Join us!
Slow Food East End’s mission is to seek to create dramatic and lasting change in our food system; we connect communities on the East End with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that create our food. We inspire individuals and communities to change the East End of Long Island through food that is good, clean and fair for all.
Slow Food is an international movement with chapters in more than 160 countries; Slow Food East End is a chapter of Slow Food USA, and is one of the largest chapters in the country.
This video highlights interviews with East End farmers, producers, chefs and educators:
Read More »Roasted tomato and basil pasta sauce: The A.Sisters Christmas giving
It’s been 8 years since the A.Sisters have made a batch of pasta with our machine at Estia.
Now that each of my daughters has their own kitchen and more of an interest in cooking (Mansell especially), we thought it was time to put together a Christmas gift of red, white, and green pasta with a simple tomato sauce and a chunk of cheese. We gifted these to family friends and a few hard working chefs that I love, too.
Thanksgiving story & Turkey Roulade
After a traditional Ambrose family Thanksgiving day breakfast of roasted pork loin and sweet corn hash with red skin potatoes and poached eggs, Mansell and I stuffed the turkey that we’d boned out on Wednesday morning.
All of the vegetables we used came to us in a farm box from our friends at the Foster farm in Sagaponack.
We diced carrots, chopped green onions and garlic, rosemary, arugula and 4 lovely dried Shishito peppers. Then, in a sauté pan the vegetables were softened with Cromer’s Italian sausage. After the mixture cooled we rolled it into the boneless bird and tied the roulade off with sage.
Read More »Cornbread for the Thanksgiving table
My corn crop was destroyed by birds this past summer. It was coming in strong, 6 feet tall with a wonderful showing of several cobs on each plant in mid July. The bed I set wasn’t large, about 25 feet wide and 40 feet long. Then, late in the month a freak hurricane named Hanna ran up the Mississippi River and turned right mid way through the country, we were hit with its tail end. Just enough force to mess with my corn, twisting it up and opening the tightly packed rows. This in turn provided the birds access to each Cob which are generally buried tightly in the mass of plants that I refer to as my wall of Oaxacan green “Indian corn”. The birds ate all of my corn this year, it was hard to watch nature take her share.
Boneless Beef Short Ribs
Sunday night dinner with all 3 of the A. sisters home. That is a special night. We had planned on dining out at the Main Street Tavern in Amagansett, 177 Main Street. This is a special address for my family as we spent 16 years in that space running it as a coffee shop and restaurant. It would be safe to say that our family was born out of this coffee shop which started in that address in 1981. It was commonly known as Estia.
Jessica and I purchased the lease for Estia in 1991 and maintained a business there until 2007. Since selling the lease, 3 different operators have worked the space. Presently Main Street Tavern which has been open since the spring. Challenged by the Covid pandemic it’s been a struggle for them and I’ve chosen to wait to visit. Tonight’s reservation was canceled, apparently they have plumbing issues. Chalk it up to growing pains. Operating a restaurant in Amagansett is not easy in any business climate. We can wait.
With tonight’s plan for dining out off the table, I volunteered to cook (my daughters are all good cooks now) and I decided to let a walk through Citarella steer my menu. As I looked in the butcher case, braised short ribs were the easy choice, 3 1lb boneless short ribs to be exact.
Chef Colin Ambrose of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor on ‘Long Island Talks’
Host Kevin Woods of ‘Long Island Talks’ interviews chefs in a pandemic.
Estia’s Taco Dinner to heat at home
Matty Boudreau, Sag Harbor neighbor and chef at Green Hill Kitchens is giving the “Estia’s Little Kitchen Taco Dinner for 4 to heat and serve at home” a test run.
Carmelita with ice cream
Serves 12
1/2 sheet pan, butter pan, preheat oven to 350°.
Bake in two layers.
Layer #1
- 3 cups A.P. flour
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 2 cups brown sugar
- Pinch salt
- 1 1/2 cups melted butter
Combine in a bowl and spread evenly on 1/2 sheet pan.
Bake 10 minutes.
Mexican Sweet Corn Chowder
|serves a crowd|
Add ingredients in a large pot:
20 corn cobs – ( remove corn from cobs first and save kernels for later)
Bring 2 gallons of water to a simmer then add:
- 1 lb unsalted butter
- 1 quart 1/2&1/2
- 1 large white onion – chopped
- 3 bunch cilantro, stems included (rinsed twice)
- 20 poblano chilis – (cut peppers in half and don’t remove seeds or stems)
- 2 tablespoons sea salt
- Add corn cobs