salmon pumpernickel leek

A variation of the previous dish with salmon sausage, chocolate rye pumpernickel (in pudding form), micro leeks, and oca.

pumpernickel pudding

50g charred leeks, cooked through
30g pumpernickel bread, trimmed of crusts and crumbled
50g kefir
35g water
20g beer
2g salt
15g neutral oil

Place all of the ingredients except the oil in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Slowly drizzle in the oil with the motor running. If necessary, add more oil to thicken, or water to thin. Adjust seasoning.

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) is a species of oxalis that has long been cultivated in the Andes, where it is the second most popular tuber next to the potato, and more recently in New Zealand. Unlike common oxalis (wood sorrel), oca forms prolific fleshy tubers that can be eaten raw or cooked. In its raw form, they are crisp and moderatly acidic, like an apple without the sugar.

Oca contains fairly high concentrations of oxalates, an organic acid that can lead to kidney stones. Because the oxalates are found mostly in the skin, they can be diminished by peeling, cooking, or by exposing the tubers to direct sunlight for several hours.

Cultivating oca requires a long growing season. To get a headstart, they were sprouted in a bright, moist environment. And now that they're off to a good start they'll go directly into pots, where they'll live until the ground warms up. By late autumn, I hope to have a new crop of these delicious nuggets.

salmon hot dog

There's a virtually untapped world of specialty malted grains made for the beer brewing industry that can be used to add unique flavor to baked goods. Two stand-outs are: smoked barley (gives Rauchmalz its smoky aroma) and chocolate rye (contributes nutty, caramel notes to dark stouts and Porters). Over the past year, I've tested them in everything from laminated pastries* to cookie doughs** with great effect, but it is the realm of yeasted doughs where they seem most at home. The robust complexity that chocolate rye adds to pumpernickel makes the original pale in comparison.

The virtue of making condiments lies in customization and enhanced flavor. Commercially made Dijon mustards taste flat and boring in comparison to the ones you can make yourself. The process starts with shallots and garlic simmered in Chardonnay. The reduced infusion is strained and blended with brown mustard powder, olive oil, and a few drops of honey. Sometimes, I customize it with various herbs and aromatics, but I always let it sit at room temperature for at least 2 weeks to ripen the flavor before storing in the refrigerator, where it will keep for three months or longer. It's a small effort for a big flavor; too big, it turns out, for my delicately flavored salmon hot dog.

Coincidentally, I was working on an orange horseradish*** puree for a pork dish that needed a nudge in the flavor department. A whole orange and peeled horseradish root had been steamed in a pressure cooker with white wine, then the whole lot pureed. Pressure cooking removes the acridity from the horseradish and softens the bitterness in the orange's pith, producing a puree with a mellower flavor than you would think possible from the raw ingredients.

For the salmon hot dog, I punched up the puree by blending it with an equal amount of homemade Dijon, and— because I love citrus with salmon— I added microplaned orange zest. Mixing horseradish with mustard made sense because they both belong to the Brassica family, a simple observation that opened a new pathway to a great condiment.

salmon sausage in leek casing
chocolate rye roll
horseradish orange mustard
kefir fermented daikon
fennel sprouts

* croissants made with smoked barley flour and smoked butter are revelatory.

** see pepper cookies

*** please, no comments about the horseradish root. I only photographed and cooked the thing, Nature did the rest.

kasu bread

Leavened bread is probably the last thing anyone would associate with washoku tradition. Indeed, when we take a protracted view of Japanese cuisine, bread is a johny-come-lately.

It was late in the 16th century when the first Europeans—the Portuguese—settled in Japan, bringing with them Western religion, science, technology, and food. Although the Japanese quickly assimilated cake (bōlo) and fried food (tempura) into their cuisine, the Portuguese bread was too sour and chewy for their taste and not widely adopted. Nonetheless, it captured their imagination and the word pan (from the Portuguese pão) stuck.

Fast forward 300 years to 1871: the samarai Yasubei Kimura opens a bakery, Kimuraya, in Tokyo, with the aspiration of producing baked goods for the Japanese palate. Kimura realized that making European-style bread in Japan would be challenging. Leavened doughs were a new concept and wheat flour and yeast were scarce. After many failed attempts using alternate sources of yeast, Kimura hired Kodo Katsuzo, who developed a dough leavened with kasu (sake lees), giving birth to anpan, a hybrid of manjū (a Japanese derivative of Chinese mochi) and light, cottony, Dutch-inspired bread dough, encasing a filling of anko (sweet red bean paste). After the emperor gave it his seal of approval, anpan became the first widely accepted Japanese bread.

It was kasu's potential to leaven bread that first drew me to it. I found many references to sakadane, the liquid kasu starter used in the original anpan, but couldn't find a recipe or process, so I developed my own. Using wild cultivated yeast as a model, I made a starter from rice flour, water, and kasu. It took 8 days of feeding and stirring for it to become fully active— a considerable effort for what turned out to be a less than remarkable loaf of bread.

I suppose I could have started over and tweaked the recipe, but with all of the lengthy fermentation processes that I have currently working, I wanted something more immediate. I wanted bread— conspicuous with kasu, and mellow with rice—that I could make start-to-finish in a day. To that end, I made a new dough, adding yeast to hasten the process, and folded bits of kasu and fragrant basmati rice into the risen dough. For that shortcut, I make no apologies— to you, or to myself— because the bread was truly remarkable.

kasu bread ✢ kombu butter ✢ salt ✢ kinome

Kimura's anpan is but one example of how cross-cultural influences inform and develop cuisine by borrowing ideas, processes, and/or ingredients, and tailoring them to the tastes of the people that it will feed.

My kasu bread goes one step further; it closes the circle.

The Japanese were inspired to create a national bread from their introduction to leavened bread via the Portuguese. Inspired by sakadane, I borrowed kasu from the Japanese and applied it to a bread from my own heritage: Portuguese pão.

How does it taste?
It tastes richly personal,
sweet with history,
seasoned with a touch of irony.

kasu bread

starter:
54g compressed kasu
180g water
100g bread flour
.4g active dry yeast

dough:
175g bread flour
1.6g active dry yeast
5g salt
5g rice bran oil
5g mirin

solids:
100g cooked, drained, and cooled basmati rice
40g compressed kasu, cut into small bits

starter: In a blender, blend together the kasu and water until homogenous. Place the flour in a bowl and stir in the yeast. Pour kasu water into center and stir with a spoon to form smooth batter. Cover loosely and set aside at room temperature for 2-3 hours until batter forms bubbles.
dough: Place flour, yeast and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix on low speed to blend dry ingredients. With the mixer still on low speed, slowly pour in the active starter. Turn speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes. Add the rice bran oil and the mirin and mix 2 minutes more. Replace paddle with dough hook, turn speed up to medium high and knead dough for 5 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl. Scrape dough into bowl and turn upside down, so that top of dough is oiled. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperate until doubled in volume, about 1 1/2-2 hours.
solids: Punch dough down to deflate and turn out onto floured board. With fingertips, press dough into a rough rectangle, about 1/2" thick. Evenly sprinkle rice over dough, followed by bits of kasu. Starting at wide end of rectangle, roll dough in a tight spiral to form a log, and seal the ends. Cover dough with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 1 1/2 hours, or until nearly doubled in size.
40 minutes before baking, place a baking stone on floor of oven and preheat to 232C/450F. When dough has risen, transfer it to a floured baking peel and place on heated stone in hot oven. Mist the oven 3-4 times with water in a spray bottle during the first 10 minutes of baking. After 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 204C/400F, and continue baking for 15-20 minutes longer until deep golden brown. Remove from oven with a peel and allow to cool on a rack.

grapes cheese bread

I keep a running list of plants that I'd like to breed. I do so because I have this fantasy that one day I'll have the time and space for an experimental garden where I can play with plants in the same way that I play with food.

Somewhere on that list is purple peas (merely for the novelty), but it looks like someone 's already been there, done that.

Elsewhere on the list is champagne grapes. I'm besotted by their diminutive size (tiny ones look like caviar, big ones like the aforementioned purple peas), but their one-dimensional flavor needs some work.

Champagne grapes, or Black Corinth, are an ancient seedless variety of Vitis vinifera. They are not used in the production of Champagne (that's just a marketing ploy), though they were once used to make wine in Ancient Greece. I can't imagine that the wine was of recommendable quality because they are so overtly sweet (sweetest grapes on the market) and low in acid. In terms of flavor, they aren't even very good table grapes (but they make good currants). They do, however, have other redeeming qualities: their size is irresistible, their skins are thin and burst pleasantly in the mouth, their stems are edible, and (best of all) they're seedless. These grapes are primed for cross-breeding with a foxier variety— I'd choose Concord (Vitis labrusca).

But until I (or someone else) can alter the plant, at least I can alter the product.
Champagne grapes infused with Concord grape juice, in an iSi whipper, charged with N2O.
Now, that's a great grape!

Vitis vinifera x labrusca • taleggio
flavors of bread: malt, yeast, almonds, mushrooms

(Apologies for all of the asides. Somedays I can't figure out how to blend facts with thoughts without parenthesis. Or italics.)

bread and tomato water

While it's true that fruits and vegetables are often at their best at a certain time and place, I'm not a slave to eating seasonally or locally or [insert buzzword]-ly. There are so many opinions and discussions on the topic, but as far as I'm concerned, quality gets the final word.
Right now, on my patch of earth, there's a whole lotta quality to be found.

In late August, the local tomatoes clearly demonstrate the tenet of simple preparations. They are of optimum quality and so abundant that they make their way into nearly every meal. A quick and satisfying lunch involves nothing more than thick slices, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with good olive oil. The best part comes at the end— the umami-laden tomato water that collects at the bottom of the bowl. When meals are that casual, etiquette is tossed aside, and the savory juices are noisily slurped directly from the bowl.

If there is good bread at hand, a hunk is used to mop up the juices. The yeasty, malty flavor and chewy texture changes the taste entirely— transforms it into something else. If I had been brought up in an Italian house I would compare it to Panzanella, but my bread and tomato association leads to Açorda.

Açorda is a rustic bread soup from Portugal. At its most basic, it's made by pouring a water, garlic, cilantro, and olive oil broth over day-old bread. Typically, the bread used is Broa— a dense, round loaf made with wheat flour, enriched with cornmeal.

There are gussied-up versions of Açorda; my favorite involves prawns cooked in the broth with tomatoes. For today, I've ignored the prawns and the cooking, but kept the impression of the dish with a hunk of my mother's excellent Broa soaked with seasoned red and yellow tomato water, olive oil, garlic bulbils, green coriander seeds and sprigs.

Outside of summer, it would never occur to me to attempt a dish whose sheer simplicity relies entirely on an ingredient used at its pinnacle of flavor. Like it's inspiration, it's a humble dish— the food of peasants. But it's also profoundly good and begs a revision to an old adage:

[wo]man can live [happily] on bread and [tomato]water alone!

artichoke pizette

After working through piles of tough scales, we arrive at the tender heart of the matter.

Continuing with the artichoke-as-flower theme, rosettes of thinly sliced artichoke hearts were arranged on top of crisp olive oil-enriched dough. I've used a mayonnaise based sauce, knowing full well that it wouldn't be heat stable— unless, of course, it was held together with copious amounts of cheese.
The sauce— which is really a garlic, parmesan, and thyme flavored mayo— also makes a fantastic garlic bread when slathered on thick slices of baguette and glazed under the broiler.

Download recipe: artichoke pizette

bbq cornbread

The step from bbq grits to bbq cornbread, while by no means a leap of imagination, was simply another exploration of the marriage of bbq sauce and cornmeal. I was curious to see what a sweet and acidic medium would do to a product that is typically coarse and dry. The flavor was predictably good, the reward came in the moist and tender crumb that I have not been able to achieve with dairy products alone.

I also wanted to explore the notion of folding chips of dehydrated sauce into a batter. This worked out quite well as they rehydrated in the moisture released in baking and formed soft, melting pockets of flavor that were well defined– not unlike chocolate chips. In that context, the doors of extrapolation have swung wide open.

Download recipe: bbq cornbread

eggs benedict

Some dishes have stood the test of time by honoring tradition. Innovative chefs seek to redefine these classics by examining the flavors and textures that make the dish appealing and attempt to give us a purer, focused version. When successfully executed, the new dish feels like a rarefied distillation of the old. I think this is called refinement.

Eggs Benedict certainly falls prey to this category and I have yet to taste a better interpretation than the one served at WD-50. So good, in fact, that I had it twice on the same day.

Every component on Wylie Dufresne's plate is beyond reproach: Wafer-thin slices of crispy Canadian Bacon. Toasty English Muffin crumbs holding together a mind-bending cube of liquid hollandaise. But it was the egg yolk that did me in. Cooked sous vide at 70C for 17 minutes, egg yolks are transformed to the texture of soft, dense fudge that coats the mouth and leaves the tongue happily lapping over and over it like a dog with peanut butter. (OK, that was just me. That, I'm certain, is not called refinement.)

left: seasoned and whipped egg white quenelles, poached in barely simmering water.

center: seasoned egg yolks in sealed piping bag, 70C water bath.

right: piping cooked yolks.

Eggs Benedict v.1.1

70C egg yolks

brown butter hollandaise

whipped egg whites

crispy serrano ham

bacon curls

crispy ciabatta

plantago

Eggs Benedict v.1.2:

egg yolk wrapped in serrano ham "cooked" in dehydrator at 150F for 45 minutes.

brown butter hollandaise

mini English Muffin

plantago

raspberry kaffir shortcake

brown butter biscuit

raspberry

kaffir cream

brown butter biscuit

When I was learning to bake, I was limited to my mother's repertoire of eggy desserts and cookbooks from the local library. These were either the Americana "Joy of Cooking"/Betty Crocker genre or the French Julia Child/Jacques Pepin variety. Unlike savory cooking, baking humbled me with its exactitude and thrilled me with the unlimited variations that could be coaxed from a few common ingredients: butter, sugar, flour, eggs, leavening.

It also confounded me with its nomenclature.

It took me awhile to figure out that beignets, fritters, crullers, and churros were all essentially the same thing. Or that a profiterole is a petite cream puff, which has nothing to do with puff pastry. Or that a torte is just a cake with a pedigree and a galette is a free-spirited tart. And one that confuses everybody– macaron/macaroons— though they differ by just one letter, they are worlds apart.

What really boggled me is the distinction between a biscuit, a scone, and shortcake. In Britain, a biscuit (from the Latin bis cuit, meaning twice-cooked) refers to what we know is North America as a cookie or cracker. In the US, particularly in the South, a biscuit is a round scone or a shortcake (to "shorten" a dough is to make it tender and flaky by the addition of fat, unlike bread, which has long glutinous starch fibers). A shortcake is a biscuit (or scone) that is split and filled with berries and cream, not to be confused with the sponge-like "shortcakes" that are sold in grocery stores.

Don't even get me started on shortbread.

To add to the confusion, Wiki defines shortcake as: a sweet biscuit (in the American sense: that is, a crumbly, baking soda- or baking powder-leavened bread, known in British English as a scone), and a dessert made with that biscuit.

See what I mean?

What I'm not confused about is why I like biscuits and their ilk. First, there's the contrast between the dry, crunchy exterior and the soft, moist interior. It's like eating cake seamlessly wrapped in pastry. Then there's the flavor alchemy of butter and flour, boosted by buttermilk– sweet and tangy inside, toasty and nutty outside. In the past, I've made biscuits with conventional brown butter (beurre noisette) in an attempt to exploit the toasty flavor. While the flavor was good, the texture seemed to be missing something– the milk solids, no doubt.

And, there was certainly no confusion over what to do with the new brown products: butter, cream, buttermilk. In fact, they seemed custom-made for my favorite buttermilk biscuit recipe that I have tweaked over the years. While I was at it, I fully committed to the power of brown by toasting some of the flour (toasting destroys the starch molecules in flour, leaving it inert) and incorporating piloncillo (deeply-flavored unrefined brown sugar). I was sure that after building such a strong team of Maillard players, that they would tackle the taste buds upon contact.

They didn't.

What they did was play slowly and methodically, overtaking me when I stopped looking. And long after the game should have ended, they were still playing on and on and on…..

Download recipe: Brown butter biscuits