peach tomato pie

blushing fragrant peaches

lightly poached in their own esters

orbs of sun gold tomatoes

brazenly liberated from their skins

hesitant at first the duo demurely waltz across the tongue

then break out into an intrepid tango

seamlessly balancing sweet with tart

cinnamon basil ice cream joins the dance

after a cool entry he busts out his spicy warm moves

a chaperone of flaky pastry

moderates the party of eternal summer

in the first days of autumn

insalata caprese

peeled heirloom tomatoes, injected with basil oil

mozzarella balloon filled with tomato water foam

olive oil powder

basil gel "leaves"

balinese sea salt

mozzarella balloon

Back in May, I received an email asking me what I thought about the newly launched Mosaic site from Alinea. Just as I began to fret about not receiving the required password, I found it in a junk folder. I spent the next few hours (and many since) pouring over the techniques and ideas contained in the sampling of the anticipated book.

One of these, the mozzarella balloon, was what prompted me to give fresh mozzarella another try. It was very rewarding to finally succeed at making a high quality cheese that had eluded and frustrated me, but it was really the viable curd that I was after.

A few days ago, while in NYC for the International Chefs Congress, I took a break to visit Kitchen Arts and Letters. I can never resist perusing through their trove of esoteric cookbooks that is full of surprising gems. The biggest surprise awaiting me on this visit was a trail copy of Alinea. I'm here to tell you that it's for real, and it is an opus of a book, more massive and beautiful than us mere mortal cooks had any right to expect. Those of us who pre-ordered it directly from Mosaic will have it in our hot hands as early as next week. Get ready folks–this book is going to change everything.

mozzarella balloon

Break off a 4-5 oz. piece of mozzarella curd that has been acidified and ready to stretch. Place it in a bowl and cover it with water that has been heated to 71C (160F). Allow it to melt for a few minutes, then pull and stretch it to form a disc of uniform thickness that is roughly 6" in diameter.

Form hand into a C-shape and drape the disc loosely over.

Half-fill a whipped cream charger with a mixture of salted tomato water and extra-virgin olive oil that has been set with 1.5% gelatin. Charge with NO₂ cartridge. Chill. Shake charger firmly and place tip of nozzle over the center of mozzarella disc. Gather the disc around the nozzle, wrapping thumb and index finger around to hold firmly in place. With nozzle facing down, slowly discharge foam into mozzarella. While maintaining a firm grip, slowly slide balloon off of the nozzle, pressing and pinching the ends together to seal. Cut off any excess.

Serve immediately.

fresh mozzarella

My first attempt at making mozzarella was a miserable failure. I was overly optimistic. I started with 5 gallons of milk and ended up with 5 pounds of ricotta. It was fine ricotta, but it wasn't the pasta filata that I had hoped for. My family ate lots of lasagna that week.

My second attempt produced the same results. Ditto for the third. And the fourth.

I was obviously missing a piece of the puzzle. The recipe that I used was from a reliable source, complete with detailed, step-by-step instructions, but I could not make it past the second step where rennet was added to the inoculated milk. At this point, it was supposed to coagulate into a solid mass and separate from the whey, instead it formed small curds that would not "spin" or melt together. I tried different types of inoculants from citric acid to buttermilk to yogurt. I tried varying the amount of rennet. I tried different brands of milk–all to no avail. I'm not easily discouraged, but even I know when to let sleeping dogs lie.

I decided that it was time to revisit the mozz when a unique application recently caught my interest. More on that later. After further research, I found the missing piece: raw milk. While I found many accounts of mozzarella being successfully made from homogenized and pasteurized milk, I went directly to the source: real milk, straight from the cow, unhomogenized and unpasteurized.

The real advantage of making fresh mozzarella from raw milk is that I can produce a product that is superior to anything that I can buy in terms of flavor, texture, and nutritional content. On a socioeconomic level, it allows me to lighten my carbon footprint while supporting local farms. An added perk of raw milk is that in the summer, when cows graze on fresh grass and clover, the milk is rich, buttery, and yellow…pure sunshine.

Fresh mozzarella

yields about one pound

1 gallon raw milk

3 Tblsps plain yogurt

3 Tblsps buttermilk

1/2 tablet rennet

Step 1: Inoculation

Pour the milk into a large stainless steel pan. Set over medium heat and bring to 32C (89F). While milk is warming, stir together the yogurt and buttermilk. Add about 1/4 cup of milk from pan and blend well. Cover the pan and maintain the temperature at 32C for 10 minutes to allow the live cultures and bacteria to activate.

Step 2: Coagulation

While the milk is activating, dissolve the rennet in 1/4 cup of tepid water. Stir the dissolved rennet into the milk gently, but quickly. Cover the pan and set aside, undisturbed, for 2-3 hours in a warm, protected place until it coagulates into a solid mass that will pull away from the side of the pan.

Note: I place the pan in a large bowl of warm water and monitor the temperature of the water, maintaining it at 32C. It is important to not disturb the curd while it is coagulating.

Step 3: Cutting the curd

After 2 hours, check the curd for a clean break by poking a finger into the coagulated curd and lifting. If the curd does not break cleanly, allow it to sit, undisturbed until it does. Be patient.

When a clean break is achieved, cut the curd with a long, thin knife into 1/2" cubes. Stir the cut curds gently, breaking up any large curds.

Set the pan over medium heat and bring the temperature up to 36C (97F) with constant, gentle stirring. The curds will continue to break up.

Step 4: Acidification.

In order for the curd to spin, or melt together and stretch, it must be acidified to a PH of about 5.3. To achieve this, cover the pan tightly and set aside in a warm place for 8-10 hours. After 8 hours, check to see if it will spin by removing a walnut-sized piece of curd and dropping it into a bowl of water at 71C (160F). When it is lifted out and pulled, it should stretch without breaking. If it breaks, allow the curds to acidify further.

Step 5: Melting

Once the curds spin, heat a half gallon of water to 71C (160F). Drain the acidified curds in a colander (reserve a quart of the whey to make a brine if you will not be consuming the mozzarella immediately). Break up the mass of curds and place into a large bowl. Pour the hot water over the curds.

Allow them to soften for a few minutes, stirring gently, until they begin to melt.

Step 6: Molding

When the curds melt and fuse together, pull off a lemon-sized piece and with two hands, pull and stretch like taffy. Fold it onto itself and continue the stretching and folding until it is smooth, glossy, and elastic. If it begins to stiffen while working, let it soften in the hot water before molding.

Roll the sheet of stretched curd upon itself, working it into a smooth ball.

If you do not intend to consume the mozzarella immediately (I recommend that you do), the balls can be stored for up to two days in brine.

To make a brine: dissolve 1/4 cup of salt in 1 cup of hot water. Mix in the reserved quart of whey. Cool.

In Watermelon Sugar

Everyone knew about her thing for babies. How living things in miniature form made her stomach dance and her pupils dilate and her voice rise an octave. He, more than anyone, knew how to recognize the symptoms.
The first thing he noticed when she came bounding toward him was the glint in her eyes. Then came the voice.
"Look", she cooed with her hand outstretched, "a baby watermelon".

"Cool…how does it taste?"

"I don't know. Let's find out."

"Here", she said, offering him the small hemisphere "…you first."

"What about the skin?"

"It's OK…it's edible."

"…and the seeds?"

"Those too."

She watched the unraveling through his eyes. The synaptic storm that waged behind them. She put a hand to her mouth to cover her smile as his face contorted.

"Well?"

"Uhm…it's not watermelon."

"What then…?"
"Not sure…something familiar…not watermelon."

"Does it taste of summer? and sunshine? and fruit ripened on the vine?"
"Yes…all of those things…but not watermelon."

culinary discussions

If you will be in or about New York City next month, there are two events hosted by the New York Public Library that may interest you:

On October 10, Ferran Adria will be discussing his book A Day at elBulli, scheduled to be released at the beginning of October. 15$ will buy you an hour and a half with The Man.

On October 29, Grant Achatz and Nathan Myrvold will hold a discussion moderated by Mark McClusky titled The Cutting Edge: Tales from the Culinary Frontier.

See you there?

cold peach hot tomato

harvest

What grows together…goes together?

Are the tomatoes more intense this year because 5 years ago, I built raised beds from recycled lumber and filled them with black gold (black gold indeed…that truckload of compost cost me more than some jewelry)? Or is it because of the soft rock phosphate (so finely ground that the wind threatened to blow it away) that promised to raise the mineral content of the soil and increase the cell density of the crops?

Are the peaches extraordinarily sweet because 3 years ago, I took the time to dig a hole much larger and deeper than I needed to? Or can it be attributed to the carefully blended brew of blood meal (nitrogen), bone meal (phosphorous), wood ash (potassium) and compost tea that I apply each spring?

Or is Mother Nature being extra generous with her blessings this year?

anticipay-ay-tion

If you live on this planet (even if only in a physical sense) and read food blogs, then you are surely familiar with the wildly popular and hilarious French Laundry at Home . If you are not, then you're in for a treat.

FLH is written by Carol Blymire, who described herself as "a pretty good cook" when she decided to cook and blog her way through The French Laundry Cookbook nearly two years ago. Her razor wit and quirky obsessions with 80s music and Mike Bloomberg have garnered her many fans and readers, myself included.

I found the blog, late one night, through an email link to her April 1, 2007 post. The maniacal mess that she created in that post made me laugh out loud. And I don't mean LOL, but the kind of uncontrollable, gut-busting, tear-streaming, soul-cleansing howls that wake your dog and make him charge at you, barking in concern. I've bookmarked that post and refer to it often when food gets too intense and I need to lighten up.

I am not posting about French Laundry at Home merely as a recommendation, although I am glad to do so. Instead, some recent news has piqued my interest, and maybe yours too. As Carol runs out of recipes to cook from the book, she has announced in a recent post her plans to launch a new site this fall. Although she is keeping mum about the specifics while ironing out the details, she promises that it will involve two books that I am eagerly awaiting: Thomas Keller's Under Pressure and Grant Achatz's Alinea, and will go so far as to say: "So, while I may not cook my way through an entire El Bulli volume, I am going to continue to push past my comfort zone to see what I am capable of in some new arenas."

Carol Blymire…taking on Ferran Adria?

Oh baby, this is gonna be good.