IDEAS IN FOOD

Smoked Phyllo

It's about time we put this idea into action.

Watermelon Ribbons

The internet is a tool. It allows information to move quickly, for ideas to evolve, and for techniques to be shared. I can remember hearing, well reading, about an ingenious technique of Andoni Luis Aduriz of restaurant Mugaritz. He was freezing and thawing watermelon in order to dehydrate it while keeping the flesh moist. The idea bounced around our minds for some time and we never thought to try it, until we did. Andoni's execution created a carpaccio which looked like meat, had a unique texture and was playful in that it was nothing like meat save for it's appearance.

We were revisting a watermelon salad and figured why not try freezing and thawing the watermelon. We cut relatively thick slices of watermelon, seasoned them with salt and cayenne, vacuum sealed to compress the fruit, and then froze and thawed the slabs of fruit. The first freezing and thawing produced a ton of syneresis. The cell walls of the watermelon were ruptured and the water leaked out in generous amounts. We repeated the process several more times and the fruit soon took on the appearance of sliced slabs of tuna. We had cut the watermelon too thick for carpaccio and stumbled into an exciting variation based on the process. We sliced the slabs into strips and the watermelon now looked like the tuna ribbons served at Jean Georges. If we were going to borrow, we might as well tap more than one source. The technique of one, the aesthetic of another, together they allowed for something we find original. We dressed the watermelon ribbons with celery leaves, olive oil and grapefruit juice. We complement the toothsome ribbons with watermelon poached shallots, a celery sheet, and honey infused grapefruit. Inspirations come from everywhere and meld to form something new in our kitchen.

Blown Up Brie

Texture is important. Particularly with high fat and decadent ingredients. We have explored the process of powdering: lardo, olives, foie gras. The use of liquid nitrogen helped the cause. In order to lighten ingredients like chocolate, avocados, and brie cheese we have taken another approach. Initially we used the combination of a whip cream canister and a vacuum sealer to draw a large vacuum on these ingredients in conjunction with a few hydrocolloids to stabilze the delicate structure of bubbles. Recently we have eliminated the vacuum sealer step. Now we are just putting our mixture, warm, into an insulated whip cream canister and extruding it into mason jars. We seal the jars while the mixture is warm and as it cools it draws a vacuum in the jar, increasing bubble variance and allowing the mixture to set and stabilize. Once the mixture is cooled, we open the jar and pull out the lighter decadent ingredients. Today we were working with brie and berries. A few mustard greens and stems and a bit of juniper aged balsamic balanced the dish.

Aero Avo

Aerated avocado, really guacamole, is a work in progress. Several trials continue to show promising results. What is interesting is that recipes do not always easily adapt when main ingredients change. Sure, you think it should work and then in application not so much. Of course it would help if we did not alter the initial recipe before changing ingredients. It is important to keep a constant. We know this and still I do not listen to what I know. I hope to make monumental improvements when in actuality all I need is small ones.

Back to work, back to the tested, time to refine.

Chicken Ceasar

Inspirations and evolutions come directly from what we already know.

Potato Chip Flour

Using dark roasted instant mashed potatoes we create the flavor of fried potato chips without the fat and the starch. Potato chip gnocchi are being worked on as are cavatelli. Potato chip vichysoisse is also planned as is a refinement on potato chip ice cream. Potato chip bread would also be quite tasty along with potato chip noodles. The rich flavor of the roasted flakes is something we have experienced in past preparations using them as a breading. Their new integration into our cooking refines the steps we have previously taken and reminds us the pleasure of revisiting ideas, ingredients and innovations.

Buffalo Wing Stock

Stocks are traditionally building blocks. If we are in search of focusing flavors we should create stocks from "bones" with taste already infused in them. In practice, stocks are the backbone which many sauces and preparations may be built upon. However, if we look at the final product, the flavors we are looking for we may save time and increase flavor by narrowing our focus. Today we started with buffalo wings. The flavors of wings come together and their popularity is not do to randomness. Wings are tasty. Why would we not try making a stock with finished wings? This idea has been executed in some of our other explorations in sauces and what they are. The use of this iconic barroom staple as a stock begins to open doors to how we develop and define dishes.

Aero

We have been chasing the idea of aerated for a long time. My first hopes were for aero foie, which we worked on for the dinner with Sean, and just could not get it right. Our caramelized white chocolate and foie was initially planned as an aerated preparation. Once again, failure. In that time we saw aero foie executed brilliantly at wd-50. We let the idea rest and percolate and finally it dawned on me. We needed a means to capture the aerated foie or chocolate or lemon curd in full aeration and keep the vacuum drawn so that we could cool the product and preserve the bubbles. This was not an easy task. Actually, it is much easier than we imagined. What we needed was a micro vacuum chamber. Something which would hold a vacuum even after the vacuum in our chamber machine was filled with air. Whatever could we use? Duh, mason jars. They are designed for preservation and holding a vacuum. They have been around for years and successfully done their job, just not in the actual capacity we were planning.

Today I had the opportunity to run our ideas through to execution. I spent the day doing a workshop with Shola and guess what, he had a full pantry of mason jars. With them in hand, we ran two full tests one using grapefruit juice, versa whip and xanthan gum, the other, chocolate set with agar and gelatin, (our LBG is still in storage). Both preparations were frozen and then plated and they not only showed promise, they proved absolutely serviceable, delicious, and spot on. The grapefruit aero-snow is to be paired with mozzarella soup and pistachio smoked shrimp. The chocolate, well I'm not quite sure what to pair it with, though the formulation will work quite well when we revisit foie gras and chicken liver preparations. The texture of the aerated chocolate is light and delicate with the first texture of mousse melting into the mouth-feel of pudding.

*thanks to Shola for the picture of the aero chocolate

Soft Boiled Eggs

A beautiful soft boiled egg is not that easy to come by. A soft boiled egg served out of the shell, an even rarer experience. A soft boiled egg, out of the shell, served warm with crisp fingers of buttered toast, ahhhh the heavens sing. I have been lucky enough to experience versions of this egg respectively at: per se, elements, and momofuku ko. Each preparation and presentation inspired me and raised the question of how to consistently serve this elusive culinary delight. We have worked with eggs cooked without their shells in our twice cooked eggs, though there is something mysteriously exciting about cooking an ingredient precisely in its natural form. Nothing beats a Sunday morning to work on egg cookery, even mistakes will find an open and a receptive mouth. Something we should have done since the begining is to weigh our eggs in the shell. Why? In order to get consistent results we need to start with a constant. If eggs are of different sizes they will cook at different rates. It's a pretty simple idea that we have not utilized to our advantage. After my first round of cooking eggs this morning and the subsequent failure of inconsistent results, Aki asked if I realized that all my eggs were different sizes. How different? It turns out I grabbed and cooked a combination of large and extra large eggs. Two different sizes with two different results. For the next set of eggs Aki drove the bus. She picked only large eggs and started the cooking process. Unfortunately, Amaya was not that into egg cookery and the soft boiled eggs turned into perfect hard boiled snacks.

Back to me. This time I weighed the eggs, really just to see if all large eggs were the same size. They were close, about a two gram differential in our sample. I put the pot of water on to boil and added the eggs. We cooked the eggs for five minutes and fifteen seconds in getnly boiling water and then placed them into an ice bath. The eggs were cooked the way we wanted them and were relatively easy to peel. Paying attention to the details in cooking is easy to talk about and much more difficult to consistently execute. Deciding which details are important and paying attention to them is essential to consistent cookery.

How's Your Noodle

As we get ready for warmer weather talk of BBQ keeps popping up. These conversations were the perfect spark to get us into action. We have discussed a desire to make BBQ noodles for some time, though we continued to procrastinate. The dinner at Elements with the buckwheat pasta further pushed us forward. It took a bit of time to fine tune the dough and the end result produced powerfully aromatic noodles with a sweet and intense BBQ flavor. Tonight the noodle is still in the raw, resting quietly in the background as its place in our repertoire is still to be decided.

Potato Chip Praline

In looking to accent and boost the flavor of our potato chip ice cream while adding some texture to the dish we opted to make potato chip praline. The inspiration for the praline came directly from our pretzel praline. The process for making the praline is also the same. The flavor of the caramelized sugar in conjunction with the toasty potatoes, salt and pepper makes a snack which is hard to put down with a texture that makes crispy potato chips seem limp. In all honesty we were quite embarrassed with how long it took us to get to potato chip praline from the initial pretzel praline. Thankfully we got here and the time between then and now has made the discovery all the sweeter and delicious in the execution and eating.

The Importance of Photography

The Kindai dinner at Elements was incredibly inspirational, from the design of restaurant itself, to the collaboration with Scott & Joe, to the team we got to know intimately, to the incredible fish we got to work with and learn more about, to the creative juices we all drank like kool aid. With all of the fresh and fond memories of the event it would be nice to relive things, to be able to look back and have a reference for the stories and the dishes. Photography is growing ever more important in the kitchen, both as a recording device and as a tool for improvement in cooking, working, and creativity. Thankfully, Shola was able to attend the dinner and capture the behind the scenes photographs of the event. He has posted a few shots from the evening and we look forward to his commentary on the evening as a whole.

In Their Skin

Peeled citrus fruit is pretty delicate. Knowing this and still wanting to see if vacuum compression would benefit the fruit we opted to compress a variety of citrus from ugli to tangerine. The change, the difference, the benefits...are small and significant. It is the tiny increments, the delicate adjustments which are often overlooked that allow for innovation and evolution. The skin of the fruit protected the fragile citrus flesh while still allowing the cells to be compressed and the juicy factor to be increased. The tangerine on the left has been compressed the one on the right, simply sliced. We look forward to applying this approach and utilizing its benefits.

Butter Service

We have been looking at how butter is served at the table. With the help of liquid nitrogen we have created some fun textures for serving salted and sweet butter side by side. The broken and powdered butters are fun to both serve and eat, and the visual cue keeps me from getting confused.

Vegetables are the Cure

We explored using salumi to cure fish and other meats. In the same vein these well rounded, highly seasoned meats may be used in different forms to flavor vegetables: powdered, as a marinade, and as an accompaniment in a composition (really who sells plain salad anymore?) Now flip the idea. Let's start using just picked, seasonal vegetables to infuse and/or cure fish and meat. We have often worked with herbs and spices, although the vegetables themselves are sometimes overlooked. What about a carrot and cardamom cured kampachi, a celery seasoned salmon, or a turnip infused trout? These particular examples are aquatic in nature, meats from rabbit to venison would also work well using this approach. If we start looking at how we season the vegetables with miso or spices to harmonize the flavors, we can then use the combinations with different proteins, which in turn creates a layered dish that allows for a blend of subtle and bold flavor profiles. Vegetables may occasionally be an afterthought, by allowing them to be part of the foundation of a dish we are able to build something truly delicious from the ground up.

Cryo-Blanched Fava Beans

My on again, off again, love affair with cryo-blanching is back on. The process of vacuum sealing, freezing, and then thawing raw fava beans allows for them to be peeled easily, tenderizes the vegetable, and keeps the raw, green flavor of the bean intact. As you can see by the photo the peeled beans are quite juicy and colorful. A simple salad would be delicious, although I think a fine powdering with liquid nitrogen will allow us to revisit fava bean crusted sweetbreads of old or reinvent it with something more delicate like oysters and foie gras.

Participation

Are you really paying attention to what you do? If you walk down the street, do you remember what you just passed? When butchering the fish are you drawn into the moment of working with a beautiful fish or are you working on autopilot realizing that once again you are behind schedule and have too much to do? As you work with ingredients and interact with the people around you, remember to open up your mind because active participation is essential. If you are bogged down with texting and emailing and surfing the net rather than being in the here and now, most likely you have missed something. There's no point in being absent from your own life. You only get one shot at each opportunity. If you don't actively participate in what you're doing, you may not even realize when the next one passes you by.

Spiced Nuts

How often do you sit around mindlessly eating nuts, either as a snack or a catalyst to drinking more beer? We have not made a batch of spiced nuts recently though their allure reaches beyond the bar and thoughtless snacking. Spiced nuts can have impact. They have a purpose. They weave spices and seasonings, sugars and even acid with rich toasty nuts. Flavors we would not think of eating come together deliciously in the nut bowl.

Borrowing from the bowl of nuts we have rethought the delivery of spiced nuts. Sure snacking on just nuts can be good, though what if we were able to integrate the complex flavor into a dish? Our leap into revisiting spiced nuts started with cashews. We seasoned them with smoked paprika, honey, salt and sherry vinegar. We Added some water to the  mix and cooked the nuts to blend the flavors and soften the nuts. Once the nuts were tender we pureed them into a smooth paste. After passing them through a fine mesh sieve we spread the mixture onto acetate sheets. To add another element, we zested cashews on top of the paste and then placed the sheets into our dehydrator. Once the paste was dry we ended up with a thin delicate crisp of spiced nuts, a far cry and still close relative to the inspiration of spiced nuts. While this scenario had us making a thin crisp I can think of numerous other extrapolations with spiced nuts: a fine powder, as a "butter," a soup, and of course an ice cream.

Bowl of Onions

Twice Poached Egg

In an effort to bring efficiency, functionality and a more appealing texture (we both like a slightly firmer white with a soft yolk) to the hot spring egg we took a step back and started with a poached egg. While poaching eggs in boiling, vinegared water produces good results  I have been inspired by the aesthetic of the Arzak egg. This egg is wrapped in plastic wrap which is seasoned with goose fat and truffle oil. The egg is steamed and when it is unwrapped the  white is ridged like a beggars purse, the tender runny yolk inside. I wondered if we could borrow this aesthetic and integrate the consistency of onsen eggs? I brushed plastic wrap with truffle oil and seasoned them with salt. I placed a raw egg on the plastic and wrapped it into a tight bundle. My plan was to cook the parcels for three minutes  in simmering water to set the whites and then finish cooking the eggs in a water bath set at 63.9 degrees C for an hour. I set about preparing the eggs, cooking them and finally cooling them in an ice bath. This is where the functionality comes into play. I wanted to be able to heat the eggs in a water bath at any time and in any amount necessary. From outside the plastic my eggs looked to be correct: a wonderfully set white with a tender and soft yolk. Unfortunately, upon heating the eggs and unwrapping them, we discovered that the white was not completely set. Close is just a polite word for failure.

Sometimes not so polite, I mentioned that we seemed to be going to a lot of trouble to reproduce a 3-minute soft boiled egg. Admittedly there is no way to incorporate truffles and goose fat into a sealed egg shell, although they can be added later. On the other hand I have no solution to serving them whole and perfectly peeled or to the easy reheat so our experiments continue in spite of my occasional curmudgeonly grumbles.

Two changes need to be made as we refine this approach: weigh the eggs for the sake of consistency and cook the same sized eggs for four minutes in simmering water and then forty five minutes in the water bath set at 62 degrees Celsius. 

Carrot Sheet

What is the best way to cook vegetables? This has been a big question in our world. We have been taught and have ourselves taught a variety of techniques for cooking vegetables. Recently we have been re-examining why we've cooked vegetables in certain ways.

Let's take a look at carrots. For the longest time we would peel carrots, then cut them into shapes from brunoise to macedoine to oblique. We would place the carrots in cold water with a sugar and salt, slowly bring them up to a simmer, cook them to desired tenderness, and shock them in an ice bath. Upon reflection it seemed clear that we were washing away a good percentage of the flavor in both the boiling water and the ice bath. It seemed apparent that we needed to experiment with carrots cooked sous vide. Eventually we determined that cooking whole, medium sized, peeled carrots at 84 degrees Celsius for one hour rendered them tender with a bit of structure, much like the texture of a bar of good milk chocolate. For us this is a perfectly cooked carrot. During the process we discovered that the carrots were easier to peel and slice after cooking and that they cooked more uniformly than did the pre-cut versions that we began with. Cooked in their skins they developed a sweet earthy flavor which was like carrots on steroids and overall the sous vide technique simply produced a better ingredient.

The picture shows carrots cooked sous vide, sliced on a mandoline, impregnated with calcium, brushed with pectin, and vacuum sealed to enhance the bond. The carrot sheets are functional, beautiful, and delicious. We'll see what vegetable talks to us tomorrow.

Pistachio Smoked Shrimp

Pistachio smoke rocks. Our first use of the process was with shrimp. The shrimp picked up both the aroma of smoke and that of roasted, toasty smoky pistachios. The quality of the smoke and its intricacies surpassed my initial hopes. We found that smoking the shrimp and then letting them rest allowed the volatile  aromas and flavors to increase and balance with the crustaceans sweetness. We complimented the tender shrimp with our newest use of  fruit glue, pineapple-pepper, and a fresh zesting of pistachios.

Seared Feta

We are working on feta noodles. Our first run led to a detour and some tasty results. We ended up with cubes of feta which could be seared and served warm. One issue was their size. We ended up cutting them in half to make feta tablets. These caramelized bites will be great in a soup or part of a salad or even in a calamari and cock's comb dish we are fine tuning. For now they work well with a touch of fig jam and a torn piece of baguette.

Melon and Urchin

Another sea urchin dish we are working on marries our two melon terrine with beautiful sea urchin. A few sliced chives, some allspice salt and a splash of olive oil rounds out the dish. The components are delicious, though we may work on its delivery a bit.

A Thinner Skin

While we were happy with our gellan skin for encapsulation and the results produced excellent results I felt we could tweak and refine the thickness of the skin formed in the process. The initial ratio had us using .5 percent low acyl gellan and .05 percent sodium hexametaphosphate. This morning we reduced the gellan to .3 percent and the skin is still sturdy though with a more delicate nature and a feeling of more flexibility. We were also able to control the shape of the encapsulated substance , in this case we were looking for a shape similar to a giant lima bean. Once again we are shown that while something may work, tweaks, analysis and some refinement may produce better results or lead to new paths to travel. Time to go and get some oysters, I have a few thoughts to work through.

A Taste of Winter

Shaved black truffles are one of the great rewards for cold nights and icy roads. They certainly hightened the earthiness of our original parsnip porridge.

Puffed Cilantro

We have received a number of questions about the dinner we prepared for New Years Eve and some of the components on the menu. The ingredient or item which happened to stand out was the puffed cilantro. We paired it with a chicken liver and kimchee terrine. The cilantro acted as a fine vehicle for transporting the terrine to the mouth. It was also quite tasty and not overpowering.

Think Like a Baby

Feeding a baby makes you look at food in a whole new way. Babies eat when they're hungry and understand how to listen to their instincts because there are no outside influences to distract them. It's hard to believe that once we were all purely instinctual because as we grow older we listen more and more to others and let a variety of different influences affect the way we look at the world. Imagine if we could recapture a bit of that original instinctiveness today. Today as I watched and listened to the baby try to communicate her needs I considered the fact that we often second guess our ideas and temper our natural inclinations to avoid censure. All she knows is how she feels and what she needs and her only goal in life is figuring out how to communicate those things to us. Communication is rarely easy under the best of circumstances. On the other hand, the rewards for putting in the effort are great. Our goal for the new year is to learn how to communicate better with her and with each other and to recapture some of that innocence in our approach to food and cooking.

Smoked Lobster

We first smoked lobster when we were in Maine. In fact, that is where we picked up the smoking bug. We used to use old linen to make a tent over a barrel smoker to create a larger space to smoke in. It must have looked pretty funny watching me duck under this table cloth with smoke billowing out for guests to see. Since these first days smoking lobsters and working with makeshift smokers we have tried numerous methods to produce a delicious smoked lobster. Recently we started brining lobsters in smoked water, then bonding the meat with Activa and finally cooking the meat sous vide at 51.5 degrees for thirty minutes. The end result is the smoked lobster I was chasing under my make shift smoking tent. We paired the lobster with nutmeg seasoned papaya, lime-peanut puree, celery leaves and a charred grenada pepper viniaigrette.

The Cooked Yolk

The egg yolk encased in a gellan skin cooked up wonderfully. The yolk is easily handled and in this form it allows us to cook an extremely runny egg yolk and not have to worry about it breaking during plating. The next evolution is encasing the egg yolks in a smoked skin. Those should be ready by the new year.

Onion Flour

Realizing that anything can be flour and looking at your cooking with the hopes of producing and creating useable flours is the difference between an idea and execution. We were making onion syrup and a bi-product of juicing a kilogram of onions is five hundred grams of onion pulp. We spread the pulp out and placed it in a low oven to dry out. It turned bright pink, a result of oxidation. The flavor of the onion is intense and rich. We ground the dried onion pulp in the blender to create a fine powder and then added some cornstarch to give it stucture and dilute the bold onion flavor. The initial plan is to use it in a tempura batter for onion rings, though it might be nice in a fish and chip batter or even in an onion brioche.

Sweet and Sour Potato Noodles

 The evolution of white yam sweet and sour noodles took longer than I had planned to revert back to the original concept of sweet and sour potato noodles. Procrastination and an ever churning and changing mind led me astray. Over the past few days we have been able to tie down the noodle preparation as well as complete the dish they belong to. The noodles are made using a sweet potato and a vegetable sheeter. We marinate the sheets in a mixture of Dr. Pepper, lime juice and salt. The sheets are cooked in this marinade for thirty minutes at 83 degrees Celsius. Once the sheets are cooked, we cool them down, pat them dry, and then cut them into tagliatelle shaped noodles. For the dish we warm them in a steamer which allows the noodles to heat up in a gentle environment which does not dilute their flavor. The result is a supple, tasty noodle filled with sweet potato flavor and balanced by a hint of tang and complexity.

Celery, Raisins and Timing

What if there was no Thanksgiving? What if there were no taste memories associated with stuffing and family? What does pumpkin pie mean to someone from Spain? What if "Ants on a Log" was not a staple snack both after school and gussied up for holidays? We work in a realm of constant comparison and association. What if we tried to strip away some of these thoughts and just looked at the ingredients by themselves? Is this even possible?

 As timing and coincidence are kissing cousins, these questions came about after I worked out a new sauce. The sauce consists of celery leaves, golden raisins and Chartreuse. In the first version of the sauce, I soaked the golden raisins in Chartreuse and then pureed the mixture with blanched celery leaves. A pinch of salt brought out the flavors and married the sauce. Unfortunately, the raw Chartreuse ended up being a bit hot. The alcohol on the palate became distracting and if that was not enough of a sign, the sauce began to darken the alcohol actually caused the celery leaves to discolor changing from vibrant green to olive. In order to polish this sauce, we made a few adjustments. We made a chartreuse syrup which is a slow reduction of Chartreuse which cooks out most of the alcohol and concentrates the essence of the herbal liquor. We blanched the celery leaves and then reserved the celery infused blanching water to both hydrate the raisins and loosen the puree so it became a smooth vibrant sauce. In order to keep everything well chilled during the pureeing process we actually freeze the raisins and some of the celery water so that the entire mixture stays ice cold. To finish the sauce, we strain the mixture and then just before serving it we add a few drops of the Chartreuse syrup. The Chartreuse is the key. The trick is to add it at the end so that all elements of the sauce come together at their peak.

Small Adjustments

As my hand writing has become so illegible, that even I have trouble when I go back and look at things I have written it is clearly time to take technology in hand. Our label maker is now my (Alex's) personal scribe so that ice creams and all of the ingredients prepped as we work through recipes will all be easily read and recognizable to us both. We have not let the blue tape go as it makes removing the labels from the containers much easier, cleaner, and quicker. In fact, another benefit of the label maker and blue tape combo is that I will have less ink smudge marks both on my hands and on our containers. Sure, this is a small adjustment, though once adopted it can only make cooking a more pleasurable experience.

The container pictured is our newest ice cream, part of a new ice cream and caviar combo now that wild char roe is available.

Not Happening

At first the ingredients sold me on the dish. The pieces were solid, all strong swimmers, yet as a team they simply could not come together. The dish, as planned, was pumpernickel gnocchi with pastrami bolognese, and crispy cabbage. The cabbage is great, crisp and fragile, seasoned with yellow mustard and an incredible garnish. The gnocchi are delicate and tender, rich with the flavor of pumpernickel. They are glazed in a light yellow mustard sauce spiked with parsley. The bolognese, oh that pastrami bolognese, how I adore its flavor. The shavings of cheese acccent individual bites and add a bit of gaminess and creaminess to round things out. Together the dish is tasty. Still, it does not quite succeed. There are too many strong flavors fighting for the spotlight. The gnocchi will find a home elsewhere as will the cabbage crisps and the bolognese. In fact, the flavors we have brought together here will be rejoined someday soon with a few modifications and adjustments to balance out the flavors and fulfill its potential.

Kimchee Crackling

What is better than kimchee? Deep fried kimchee, of course. We made ramp kimchee cracklings years ago and until recently we had left well enough alone. When asked to resurect the crispy bites we happily revisited the technique. Since we did not have any ramp kimchee on hand, we reached for the next best thing, true kimchee. We pureed the kimchee into a paste and then added an equal amount of tapioca flour by weight. Once a dough was formed we rolled it out, steamed it and dried it to produce the shiny cracker pictured. When this cracker is broken into pieces and dropped into hot oil it puffs and resembles true cracklings. The flavor captures the essence of kimchee in a light and crispy texture, which slowly dissolves on the palate. We paired the kimchee crackling with grass fed beef, though they do just fine by themselves as a snack or even as a vehicle for carrying a bright and clean fish tartare.

Hot Yogurt

In our continued explorations with Activa and dairy we ventured into the world of yogurt. I was hoping to make almost pure yogurt spheres. It turns out that Activa works quite well in bonding yogurt into a perfect orb. And since we had the honey flavored yogurt spheres on hand, I tried heating them. The spheres held beautifully and the yogurt in its warm state was silky and decadent. Now we need to find a use for this new addition to our repertoire.

Steamed Brioche

Why don't we steam more doughs? Seriously. Not everything needs a crust. Aki was working on a brioche recipe whose size allowed for many modifications. One of the batches humored my question. Can we steam brioche? The answer is yes and the results have changed my world. It is that good. Tender, buttery, soft, with a bit of chew. What about the crust that is usually cut off when the brioche is toasted and served in fine dining restaurants? It simply does not exist with steamed brioche. Wait, no cutting off crusts, instead we have a completely usable bread with great texture and flavor. We steamed it as buns today, tantalized by the idea of various decadent fillings: foie gras, charred scallions, hoisin, pickled cucumbers...look out taste buds.

What about other steamed breads? Traditional Chinese steamed buns employ a simple, slightly sweet white dough, changing the flavor profiles can take things to another level. Sure crust is important, though perhaps it's not always necessary. In steaming the different doughs a whole new set of textures and tastes are now available.

Shoulder Chop

Classes are great because we are exposed to the viewpoints of others in an open forum. While we brought the Turducken terrine to the class, the class gave us the shoulder chop. Take one pork shoulder, bone it out, clean it up, and put it back together again. Simple, beautiful, and  ready to roast.

TurDuckEn

Just in time for the holiday, we are talking T-day preparations, are our thoughts on the TurDuckEn. In our first rendition we used the thighs of the requisite birds, bonded with Activa, flavored with chermoula. The results were just down right tasty. Two evolutions to consider: a roulade of stuffing down the middle or perhaps a stuffing flavored ravioli dough encasing a giblet gravy--a soup dumpling of sorts. Today we simply served it sliced to conclude our Activa class at Astor Center alongside a few ricotta gnocchi. Because tasty doesn't always need to be complicated.

Mussel Mosaic

This one is quite exciting.  Once again I kept us on the sidelines based on what I thought rather than what I had tested.  It turns out that mussels, cooked mussels, may be bonded into sheets with the help of Activa.  For the longest time I just thought cooked shellfish could not and would not be able to be formed into a mosaic.  Thankfully I was able to let inspiration push us through those preconceived ideas.  We steamed fresh mussels in a dry pan, allowing the moisture in the shellfish and the heat from the flame to cook and concentrate the flavors in the mussels.  We picked the tender meat from the shells and then let the nuggets cool.  We then mixed the mussels with 1% Activa RM and vacuum sealed them in a large bag.  Once the mussels were vacuum sealed, we pounded them into a uniform sheet, spreading the seafood to the boundaries of the vacuum bag.  Once the mussels were in a smooth layer from border to border, we placed the bag in the refrigerator to rest and give the bond time to  activate.

The following day, we tentatively opened the bag and were ecstatic to see and taste our first mussel sheet.

Ricotta, Honey, Figs and Form

We often bring together flavor components without knowing the form in which we wish to present them.  We have been working with the combination of ricotta, honey and figs.  The goal has been to bring harmony between ricotta and honey.  The key is great cheese.  We use Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta.  This product is like nothing else that we have ever experienced.  It is as dense as mascarpone with a lighter feel on the palate and a lemony tang on the taste buds.

We coated the ricotta in a honey jelly.  My mind went in two directions.  The first thought was to create a fine film of honey around an orb of ricotta.  The second approach was to set a sphere of ricotta in a cube of the honey jelly.  We worked on both forms of the dish today.  The final dish will incorporate at least one texture of figs.  In our trials we worked through several preparations of the figs: frozen and shaved, compressed and pounded, and cut like a slice of pie.  These figs help highlight the flavors of ricotta and honey.

Another new element to our repertoire which may or may not end up on the plate are brown mustard seeds cooked and glazed in balsamic vinegar.  These tangy, spicy seeds worke well in our initial extrapolations although their inherent bitterness make their role in the final dish questionable.

Upon reflection, the thin skin of honey around the ricotta is most likely the direction we will be going in.  Though, the orb of something set in a different translucent base will certainly be incorporated into an upcoming dish of a different flavor.

Learning,

it does not stop.

If it does, remember it does not stop.

Tonight we were introduced to a whole new world of food, wine and approaches to cooking.

Yes, we were teaching a class, though the conversations and questions during and after the class along with the idea sparks generated by being exposed to different approaches has filled our minds with, ideas. 

Just when we thought we were getting a grip on learning new seeds have been and sewn. 

With questions comes the opportunity to explore, uncover, develop and learn.

Crispy Cream of Coconut

I am really excited about our crispy ribbons of  coconut cream.  My initial attempts produced coarse and unpolished results.  It was a frustrating process, yet the failed crisps may end up in another preparation.  I knew what I was looking for, it just took some time to step back and figure out how to tackle the problem.  I am finally satisfied with my results.  Any guesses as to what I was chasing?

Shrimp Powder

We had another simple breakthrough yesterday.  While we've looked at using liquid nitrogen to finely grind nuts, grains, legumes and vegetables, we overlooked proteins.  It turns out that powdered shrimp is not only promising, it is achievable. Our first tests, tastes, were with a shrimp sheet flavored with bush basil and cayenne which we ground into a light powder with the help of liquid nitrogen and a blender.  The fine and uniform quality of the pulverized shrimp is amazing. It is also exciting to note that there is little to no syneresis in the powdered shrimp as it thaws from frozen to cold.

Of course if it works with shrimp it will work with other proteins as well. Imagine being able to use strongly flavored proteins as the final seasoning for a dish.  You could accent dishes with intense flavor without using large amounts. Years ago we would freeze smoked foie gras and use a hand-held Mouli cheese grater to flake it over a cube of seared, center cut ribeye. Now we can think about an even more refined presentation and we may branch out to powdered uni or aged cheddar or chorizo. This is especially intriguing in the summertime when courses are smaller and meals are lighter in general. It also makes sense in this economic climate, as the price of luxury ingredients edges ever higher. Freezing and grinding with liquid nitrogen may be a very useful technique in the modern kitchen.

Chocolate Pudding Pieces

We recently adjusted our slice-able chocolate recipe and eliminated the additional calcium.  We've also changed the mixing process.  We now heat the water, add the pectin and hydrate it and then add the chocolate to the hot pectin water.  The hot solution melts the chocolate and allows it to become fully incorporated.  Once the chocolate is melted into the pectin water we pour the mixture into a plastic wrap lined container and chill it for several hours, preferably overnight.  The simplification and adjustment of the recipe came about because we were looking to streamline the process and eliminate any superfluous ingredients or steps. 

Initially the calcium was added to ensure the pectin would set.  After making the chocolate base several times we decided to ask the question, is the calcium actually necessary?  It turns out that the answer is no.  The second change came in the hydration process.  What if we could just melt the chocolate in a hot pectin bath?  Originally we felt a need to heat everything together and then add the pectin.  Taking a moment to step back and examine the process allowed us to see the technique from a different angle.  Thankfully we were open to the change.

While slicing this intense chocolate is useful, I believed we could serve it in a more unusual form, a chocolate rubble, so to speak.  The pectin in the chocolate should, in theory, prevent syneresis if the base is frozen.  This idea was first discussed during one of our classes when we were talking about ice cream stabilizers.  All we needed to do to test the hypothesis was to freeze the chocolate and thaw it.  In order to freeze the chocolate we first cut it into slices and then dropped it into liquid nitrogen.  When the slices were rock solid we pulled them out of the nitrogen and placed them in a bowl.  A light tap with a spoon caused the chocolate to break into numerous irregularly shaped pieces.  With the chocolate in a new shape we needed to see how it thawed.  We placed a few pieces on a plate and and left them at room temperature to thaw.  We put the rest of the now broken chocolate into the freezer for future use.  The chocolate pieces on the plate slowly warmed and returned to their original texture, which was dense and smooth. Upon tasting the results they melted nicely on the palate into an intense interpretation of a rich chocolate pudding.

Vacuum Sealed Cookie Dough

I think that everyone in the city has read last week's article by David Leite on the Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie. One of the main tricks from the article is to rest your dough for 36 hours before baking the cookies in order to improve the flavor. In my work as a chef I have often made cookie dough in advance and baked to order. I knew that refrigeration had beneficial effects although I had never tested the theory to the extent that David Leite did for the article. I just knew that well rested and chilled cookie dough made better cookies.

Now that I no longer have cookie dough at hand, when the craving hits I look for more immediate satisfaction. The article succeeded in awakening my craving for warm, soft cookies, I just wasn't entirely sure I wanted to go through the process of making the dough and then have to wait 36 hours to bake off the cookies. Fortunately I remembered the vacuum sealer in our kitchen. In the past we had used the vacuum sealer for pasta doughs. The process sped up the process of moisture absorption, allowing us to create silky doughs with less liquid. This seemed similar to the process described in the article of allowing the flour to fully absorb the liquid from the eggs during it's resting period. Perhaps if I vacuum sealed the cookie dough I could speed up the entire process and end up with better cookies in less time.

I used my standard chocolate chip recipe. I did not make a test batch of cookies with unprocessed dough so this was an entirely unscientific experiment. What I can tell you is that the dough darkened and became fully saturated, similar to the way that the dough usually looks after a couple of days in the refrigerator. It also changed the texture of the dough, making it a bit more elastic to the touch. The just made dough was too soft to shape and needed to chill, so I left in the fridge for about three hours before baking.

The resulting cookies were pretty damn good. They had a slightly cakey texture in the center with chewy yet crisp edges and rich buttery, caramel flavors. It was impossible to eat just one and I was thankful that I had not baked off the entire batch. Were they better than David Leite's? I really couldn't say. On the other hand I think it was clear that vacuum sealing did have a positive effect on the process, and from now on plastic wrap is out and vacuum bags are definitely in.

*This technique opens doors for other dough preparations from pie to biscuit to cracker to puff dough bases which would be able to be made and formed with very little working of the dough, just compression and nearly instant hydration.  In fact, in looking just at the process of hydration perhaps compression can and should be applied from nuts to legumes.

Pumpernickel and Summer Squash

It was time to revisit our pumpernickel gnocchi.  We were successful in making the gnocchi with the aid of Methocel.  Unfortunately, do to the nature of Methocel the gnocchi were reliant on thermal stability which detracted from their all around functionality.

With our continued use of Activa Y-G we felt we might be able to re-work the approach to the pumpernickel gnocchi and create a product which remained true to the term gnocchi while increasing the functional and textural properties.  In fact, when making our new gnocchi we were pushed in a slightly different direction than we had planned.  Our initial goal was to make a gnocchi base which we could extrude and once it had set, allowing the bond to occur, we would cut the dough into individual pieces, gnoccho.  However, when we made the puree of pumpernickel and ricotta a dough developed.  We took this result as an opportunity and rolled the dough into logs which we cut into pieces and finally shaped into gnocchi.  We let the dough, bound with Activa, rest for eighteen hours in the refrigerator.  Once the dough had rested and the bond was fully activated, the gnocchi were ready to heat and serve. 

To serve the pumpernickel gnocchi we sauteed them in butter and paired them with a squash blossom puree and a zucchini puree.  A few shavings of aged Gruyere seasoned the dish and some nasturtium leaves from our garden added a spicy note to the dish.  The gnocchi were crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, a hybrid of gnocchi and just baked bread.

We are looking forward to carrying this technique through the seasons, varying what is paired with the pumpernickel as well as working on other bread dumplings, bound with the combination of Activa and their own gluten.

French Toast Bread Pudding

The trigger was in our notes.  I was going through our notebooks, culling through ideas and I stopped on our bread gnocchi.  Actually, what kept my attention on the gnocchi was Aki’s insistence that I‘ve been using too much pumpernickel and that perhaps we could step back from it for a while.  Aki is a ruthless editor.  I want to try and incorporate everything, Aki makes sure we only include what is necessary, so that our food is pointed and accurate, leaving the muddled excess on the cutting room floor.  Currently she is cutting the gnocchi, or perhaps simply the pumpernickel.  In either scenario the idea of using bread-based dumplings was at the forefront of my thoughts.  We originally made our pumpernickel, and later brioche, gnocchi utilizing the hot gelling effects of Methocel Food Gums.  The use of Methocel in our recipes allowed the gnocchi to be formed hot and then as they cooled, they would melt upon the palate releasing flavor and yielding a tender bite.  The flaw with these gnocchi is their functionality.  If we used them in a dish and a diner ate too slowly, then the gnocchi would degrade on the plate before they could be consumed and became mushy and unappetizing.  In fact, our evolutions with potato and ricotta gnocchi had similar issues.  At first, we utilized Methocel to form hot dumplings.  Though, once we began using Activa Y-G instead, we were able to create a product which while delicate, were also temperature stable and could withstand the rigors of a day in the kitchen.  In other words, we thought if we could do it with A, could we do it better with B?

 I did not stop there.  Once we realized we could use the Activa to make savory bread gnocchi, I switched gears and thought of bread pudding gnocchi.  If we decided to sauté these sweet dumplings the result would be quite similar to sautéed French Toast.  A tasty dinner at Tailor pushed me further to extrapolate on the initial idea.  Sam makes a delicious piece of French Toast, crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside.  The French Toast is cut into a beautiful rectangle and caramelized evenly on all sides.  I thought about our Activa bound bread gnocchi and simply increased the size.

For our first run at French Toast Bread pudding the results were incredible.  The Activa allowed the raw bread pudding to be cut, shaped and cooked individually.  We are able to flavor the dessert from the inside out.  The next sweet evolution will be individual cubes of croissant French Toast with warmed apricots and cultured butter ice cream.

With the positive and delicious results of this experiment, the next couple of steps are integrating a liquid center and bringing the technique back around to the savory side, where we will be able to make a spice bread pudding with a molten foie gras center.

Pineapple-Tomato

This is a beautiful and surprisingly harmonious combination. Years ago we paired the tomato and the pineapple together as a condiment and discovered  that the two different levels of of acidity and sweetness balanced each other quite nicely. This time we decided to compress both fruits without applying any heat to preserve the natural juices and flavors. We then used our fruit glue (aka pectin/calcium blend) to assemble the layers pictured to the right. The only question now is what to pair with this early summer terrine.