raclette potato

I have a confession to make:

I am a sucker for babies. They reduce me to a pile of cooing, quivering jelly. When I encounter a neonate, i have to fight the urge to stuff their pudgy cheeks, fists, and feet into my mouth. This may seem bizarre, but I'm willing to bet there are some of you that are nodding in recognition.

This same compulsion applies to baby vegetables (just ask Sid Wainer). These, I recognize, are OK to put in my mouth.

My first vegetable garden was largely dedicated to the cultivation of baby root vegetables. I planted miniature varieties of white turnips, red and yellow beets, cylindrical and round carrots, and red and white pearl onions in neat rows. It was a garden fit for a dollhouse.

I also planted Yukon Gold potatoes that were intended to be full size, but when I prematurely dug them up, I was delighted to find tiny, marble-size potatoes clinging to the roots. Within minutes, I was in my kitchen, rinsing off the still-wet earth, their skins so thin that the force of the water nearly peeled them away. After a few minutes in boiling, salted water, they went into a saute pan with fruity olive oil, smashed cloves of garlic and sprigs of thyme. Heavenly, they were; creamy inside, crisp and earthy outside. Later that day, I made a simple dinner of roasted baby potatoes with melted raclette cheese, good bread and wine. I will never forget those humble meals; they rekindled my love affair with the potato.

Nowadays, I seldom grow potatoes, mainly because I don't want to sacrifice the space in my garden required to grow and hill them. At this time of year, I am on the lookout for new crops of spuds that appear at the market and will rummage through bins and baskets, picking out the tiniest specimens.

The newborn fingerlings that I found, just hours old I was told, were prime for simple preparations. But, of course, I had to play.

raclette potato

Methocel SGA forms a firm gel when heated and reverts to it's original state (here, a soft puree) as it cools. For best results, allow it to hydrate overnight.

160 g hot potato puree

75 g milk, cream, or buttermilk

15 g butter

salt

100 g water

5 g methocel SGA150

raclette cheese, cut into thin slices.

To make potato puree: Peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Drop into boiling, salted water and cook until very tender. Drain and pass through a ricer, tamis or sieve 2-3 times or until a very smooth texture is achieved. This is best made just before proceeding with recipe, while still hot.

Combine hot potato puree with milk, butter, and salt, stirring vigorously until butter melts.

Add methocel to water and blend it in with an immersion blender. Combine gel with potato mixture, stirring until well blended. Cover and chill overnight in refrigerator.

The next day, preheat oven to 250F. Fill molds with potato mixture and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until firm. Remove from oven and unmold onto baking sheet lined with silpat.

Lay slices of cheese alongside potatoes and return to oven just until cheese softens and begins to spread.

Peel cheese off silpat and drape over potato. Lift potato and mold the cheese around the bottom, pressing into place.

If desired, the raclette potato can be painted with strongly-brewed, finely-ground coffee. Serve warm.

instant chocolate cake

At Madrid Fusion 2008, Ferran Adria demonstrated a black sesame cake
baked in a plastic cup in the microwave. It took 40 seconds.

As a card carrying member of the National Society of Cake Whores, the technique tickled my C-spot. Recreating it in chocolate is…well…let’s just say it’s good. Toe-curling, basking-in-the-afterglow good.

OK, now that I’ve regained my composure, let me tell you why this cake has me purring. If you’ve ever made a sponge cake, souffle, or any hot egg foam, you have witnessed first-hand the unfolding and bonding of egg protein molecules. If your attempts have been successful–Congratulations! (maybe you would like to join the NSCW?). If you have failed, it may be because you didn’t follow one of the many rules: overbeating, under beating, introducing fat, sugar, salt, acid at the inappropriate time, folding, not stirring, cooking too slow or too fast.

Reason #1 why I love this cake: Forget all the rules. This is egg foam anarchy.

Reason #2: Taste & Texture. Don’t let the pale color fool you…it’s because of the aeration. While it’s true that eggs mask flavor, the taste of chocolate does come through and lingers. And just look at the structure. Have you ever seen air pockets that large in a cake? I haven’t, and I’ve been making them since I’ve possessed the motor skills required to put a spoon in a bowl and stir. The only thing that can expand a batter like that is yeast. Or Nitrous Oxide and a microwave.

Reason #3: Ease & Speed. This cake goes from pantry to tummy in less than 10 minutes. The lengthiest part is melting the chocolate. If you use the microwave for that step, it’s even faster. How can instant gratification be bad when it’s this good?

Instant Chocolate Cake
makes 12-15 individual cakes

Put 8 whole large eggs (400 g.) plus 1 yolk (17 g.) into a bowl with 160 g. sugar. and 3 g. salt. Whip with a whisk or electric mixer for 1 minute.

Add 42 g. flour, followed by 210 g. melted, semisweet chocolate. Mix just until blended.

Pour mixture through a fine mesh sieve.

Pour into a whipped cream charger. Fill only halfway. You will have enough batter left to make another batch. Charge with 2- N2O cartridges. Shake firmly 2-3 times. Dispense foam into a 9-oz. plastic cup, stopping when it is 1/3 filled.

Place cup in microwave. Set to bake at 900watts (for standard 1000w microwaves, set at 90% power or power9). Set timer to cook for 40 seconds. Watch it rise before your eyes.

Unmold and dig in.

Yum

blueberry pie

It’s been awhile since I’ve watched a movie. Aside from lack of time, finding one that my husband and I both agree on begins to feel like an enterprise. He likes the kind that entertain with fast cars, impending doom, guns and blood. I like the kind that dig in and stick. Our common ground is the ones that make us laugh.

That’s what I thought I was getting when he dropped a DVD into my hands with a grin on his face. I was nonplussed that he had handed me a romantic film by Wong Kar-wai, a Chinese director known for visually stylized films. Looking over the cast, a name jumped out at me and it all made sense…if there’s one thing that he likes more than cars and guns, it’s Nora Jones.

The movie, My Blueberry Nights, was almost forgettable despite the stunning melancholic atmosphere created by Wong through roving shallow lenses and lush chiaroscuro. The minor key mood was a good fit for Nora, but Jude Law never convinced me as a marathon runner wannabe who settles for running a diner where he makes blueberry pies that no one ever eats. It was the pie, and the way that Wong committed it to celluloid that I will remember: tight macro shots of ice cream salaciously melting into mounds of lurid blueberries. It was so deliciously lascivious that I wanted to avert my eyes.

In the end, it was blueberry pie that brought the characters together and endeared Wong to me as a film maker and food pornographer. And it inspired this dish.

Blueberry Pie

blueberry cheese

When I put raw blueberries through a juicer, something unexpected happened: the juice began to thicken and clot as it poured out of the spout. As it began to turn brown, I heated it to set the color and noticed that the soft clots had broken down into small, firm curds that reminded me of ricotta. I decided to treated it as cheese and let it drain overnight in a cheesecloth-lined sieve. The next day, I had a firm mass that could be sliced or molded and retain it’s shape. After some research, I’m still not clear what caused the blueberry juice to behave this way. I initially attributed it to pectin, but 73 g. of fresh blueberries only contain 0.3 g. of pectin, making them a low-pectin fruit. However, blueberries do contain a significant amount of fiber, which in combination with the pectin, may have caused the juice to clot and form curds

blueberry sauce

Use the juice reserved from draining the blueberry cheese. Ultratex 8 is a modified food starch derived from tapioca that thickens liquids without applying heat.
150 g. reserved blueberry juice
8 g. agave nectar
2.5 g. ulratex 8
Place all ingredients in a bowl and blend with whisk or immersion blender until starch swells and juice has thickened.

sous vide blueberries

Cooking blueberries at a low temperature leaves them firm and intact, yet taste cooked.
1 pint raw blueberries
60 g. reserved blueberry juice
30 g. unsalted butter
10 g. agave nectar
Place blueberries in a vacuum bag and seal. Cook in a water bath at 63C (150F) for 1 hour. Make a glaze by heating the blueberry juice and agave nectar over low heat. Whisk in butter until melted. Remove bag from water bath and toss berries in glaze. Serve warm or at room temperature.

roasted flour nuggets

Roasting flour is a technique introduced by Pierre Gagnaire and Herve This in their collaboration, Art et Science. Cooking flour in this way brings out the toasty aroma and flavor of wheat but it alters its starch and gluten molecules, causing it to lose much of it’s elasticity. While roasted flour may not be suitable for baking bread, it’s perfect for baked goods with sandy textures such as sables.
40 g. all purpose flour
8 g. confectioners sugar
.5 g. salt
13 g. tapioca maltodextrin
30 g. unsalted butter, melted
Preheat oven to 325F (160C). Spread flour in an even layer on a baking sheet and roast in oven for about 45 minutes, stirring often until fragrant and golden. Cool completely. Toasted flour can be made ahead and kept in a sealed container.
Preheat oven to 350F (180C) Place the flour, sugar, salt and TM in a bowl and toss to combine. Slowly drizzle in melted butter while tossing with a fork. Remove rounded nuggets as they form and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes and allow to cool completely before handling.

lemon balm frozen yogurt

Greek yogurt makes a sublime frozen product that rivals the best frozen yogurt boutiques. If it’s not available in your area, plain yogurt can be drained overnight in a cheesecloth-lined sieve with similar results. I’ve found that the best way to infuse ice cream (or any sweetened cream base) with herbs is not in the cream, but by processing them with the sugar. The hygroscopic property of sugar draws out the essential oils in the herbs, making them more available.
30 g. fresh lemon balm leaves
100 g. sugar
50 g. heavy cream
300 g. greek yogurt, well chilled
Place lemon balm and sugar in a food processor and process with 10 pulses or until lemon balm is finely chopped. Working quickly, as lemon balm begins to oxidize and turn brown, empty contents of food processor into a saucepan and add heavy cream. Set over medium heat and cook gently, just until sugar melts. Remove from heat and pass mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. Chill until cold, then fold in yogurt. Freeze in an ice cream machine according to manufacturers instructions.

blueberry cheese

ser·en·dip·i·ty n.

The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
An instance of making such a discovery.

Blueberry juice, when extracted through a juicer, forms large, soft curds that quickly begin to oxidize.

Smaller and firmer curds form after a brief cooking to set the color.

An overnight rest in a cheesecloth-lined sieve drains excess moisture and leaves a firm mass that can be molded or sliced.

benzaldehyde

                          peach leaf blancmange
                            peach whipped gelatin
                            coffee fluid gel
                            sour cherry
                            toasted mahlab
                            coffee oil

Benzaldehyde is the essence of bitter almonds (Prunus Amygdalus var. Amara), which unlike sweet almonds (Prunus Amygdalus var. Dulcis) contain hydrogen cyanide, a potentially lethal toxin. It is a fragrant volatile molecule and a by-product of cyanide production. Pure almond extract is pure Benzaldehyde, without the cyanide. It is used in the making of marzipan, maraschino cherries, amaretto liqueur, and amaretti biscuits and occurs naturally in the fruits, leaves, flowers and bark of stone fruits. It is the eminent aroma compound in the complex flavor of peaches, apricots, and cherries. The highest concentrations can be found in the kernels of these fruits, which must be heated in order to destroy the toxin. Benzaldehyde is also present in beer (216 ppm), apple juice (294 ppm), roasted coffee (2008 ppm), tomato (8501 ppm), and white bread (40903 ppm). [ppm=parts per million]

The leaves of the peach tree, when very young, taste of Benzaldehyde. As they mature, they take on an unpleasant acrid pungency. It took me several growing seasons to figure this out. This year, I got it right.
The only reason that I know this is because I have a habit of tasting plants as they grow–not just the familiar parts– all parts: flowers, leaves, roots, bark. I do this out of curiosity, not hunger, though it feeds my sense of discovery.
All plants are fair game–be they weeds, shrubs, flowers, or trees–if they are not harmful and taste good, then they have culinary potential. I rely on my knowledge of plants to steer me away from the toxic ones but I sometimes think that if I should die an untimely death, it could be attributed to having put something in my mouth that had no business being there in the first place. I could think of worse ways to go.

I also wanted to tell you about the fun I'm having making molds from silicone, but let me just say… get some. Trust me.

flavor

taste + smell = flavor

Taste is often confused with flavor, but it is only a part of the
equation. In fact, it is only a small part. Taste is what we can
identify with the nerve cells
in our tongues and mouths and is limited to sweet, sour, salty, bitter,
umami, and (arguably) fat. Add to that the sensations of temperature
and texture and you will still only have up to 30% of what we can
perceive as flavor.

The rest of the equation lies in our olfactory receptors, which are
located at the top of our nasal cavity, just below the brain. When odor
molecules pass through this area, they find their correlating receptor.
Once this union is complete, information is sent to the olfactory bulb that is located in the central nervous system.

Of all the senses, smell is the most primal. Animals rely on it to survive; it is how they mate and find food. In humans, it is the most evocative of the senses, acting as a memory-trigger (one whiff of Chanel no.5 and I am 8 years old again, transported to a classroom where my teacher liberally doused herself with the perfume). Through memory and association, smell communicates pleasure (freshly baked bread, clean laundry, roses and lilacs, coffee in the morning) and signals danger (spoiled food, burning, natural gas–which has no scent, but is added by the utility companies to alert us).

Our sense of smell is unique and complex. Scent is detected through volatile odor molecules (also known as odorants and aroma compounds). These need to be volatile, or
have the ability to evaporate, in order to be transported into the
nasal cavity and be sorted by the receptors. This is why non-volatile
substances like metal or glass have no scent. Professor Linda Buck, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine along with Professor Richard Axel for their work in uncovering the secrets of the sense of smell, stated that "The discriminatory power of the olfactory system is immense. Even closely related molecules have different smells." and believes that humans can differentiate between up to 10,000 different odors.

Aroma compounds significantly contribute to how we detect and identify flavor. They are present in all foods in varying combinations and concentrations. These compounds are chemical in nature and are classified by functional groups. For instance, the principle aroma compound in cinnamon is an Aldehyde identified as Cinnamaldehyde. The aroma of coffee is very complex and is made up of over 800 of these compounds, as illustrated in the flavor wheel. To view a comprehensive list of classified aroma compounds click here or go to the link on the right sidebar.

Even before food enters our mouth, we begin to perceive flavor. It starts with our eyes, which transmit visual cues to our brain. The statement "we eat with our eyes" emphasizes the importance of eye-appeal and presentation. We are programmed to believe that if food looks good, then it must taste good. Of course, if it doesn't, we are confused and let down. But when it does, our instincts are confirmed and the pleasure is amplified. Next, our sense of smell is engaged as aromas wafting from the food enter our nasal passages and are sorted and identified by olfactory receptors, sending a preview to the brain. Our sense of touch is stimulated as food enters our mouth and we experience temperature and texture. If the food is crisp, then our sense of hearing comes into play. The act of chewing and breaking down food
activates our sense of taste and releases more compounds, which are communicated
to our brains and completes the multi-sensory experience known as flavor.

cake, fashion, and hydrocolloids

Recently, I was asked to make a custom cake, a request that I’ve not accepted for a long time…too many balls in the air, not enough hands. I used to make wedding cakes on a regular basis and I enjoyed it immensely,
until it came time to deliver them. I had a rule in which the only people that were allowed to transport these cakes were: the one who made it or the one who paid for it . Since the latter was rarely an option, it was often left to me. Gratefully, they all arrived intact at their destination, and on time, but I estimate that I’ve lost about 5 years off of my lifespan on the winding, hilly roads of Connecticut.

I accepted this request, mainly because the theme intrigued me; it was to reference the recipients’ penchant for Gucci shoes.

I learned to sew at about the same time that I learned to cook. I never considered either of these skills as something that I could build a profession on…until I discovered haute couture; the extreme form of fashion. It is often the extremities of things that attract me to it, then allow me to find my own ground within it. After high school, I headed to NYC to study fashion design at Parsons, long before Tim Gunn & company put it on the reality TV map. I had high expectations, perhaps unrealistic ones. I went there to explore the extreme, but found
that they were peddling moderation in the form of ready-to-wear. In the ensuing years, I have found my ground in fashion design, even when I started cooking professionally, and to this day, I maintain parallel careers in fashion and food. I have designed and made many things, from dog collars to wedding gowns, but I have never made a pair of shoes…until now. It is not without irony that my first pair would also be edible.

It was through the extremities of avant guarde cuisine that I first learned of hydrocolloids and other chemicals. I don’t deny that I was seduced by their possibilities, but I had questions. First up: "Are they safe to consume?" For answers, I turned to scientific data and independent studies and avoided all information that was tempered by agendas. Satisfied, I moved on to the next question, "What is the point?" Do they contribute to making food better, or are their applications just smoke and mirrors? I reconciled with this by examining the ingredients that I already use in making cakes. Baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, and gelatin are some of the processed additives that are commonly used in baking. The transformative effects that they produce in cake batters and other baked goods are undeniable and have stood the test of time.

The use of rolled fondant to cover cakes is something that I have struggled with. Although it is completely edible, I’ve never found it particularly good to eat…it brings to mind the centers of the drugstore chocolates that were abandoned after the first hopeful bite. It’s only merit is that it provides a pristine and alabaster-smooth surface to apply decoration, acting like the gesso on an artists’ canvas. I always point out these pros and cons to my clients when they request a fondant-covered cake. When they insist on it, I try to find the humor when the plates come back to the kitchen with peeled-away strips of fondant, like discarded rinds.

On the occassions when I am required to use fondant, I choose to make it from scratch. My recipe is based on the one found in Rose Levy Beranbaum’s "The Cake Bible" and contains gelatin, glucose and glycerine, as well as shortening and confectioners sugar. For this cake, I swapped sodium alginate for the gelatin, remembering that it is sometimes used for the commercial production of this product. While it produced a more pliable and silkier fondant to work with, it didn’t make it any more palate-friendly…don’t think I’ll be joining a fondant fan club anytime soon.

workshop

Yesterday, I attended a high-tech dessert workshop at the French Culinary Institute, led by Dave Arnold and Nils Noren. Dave Arnold is a self-proclaimed gadget geek who works directly with Wylie Dufresne and other avant guarde chefs in NYC as their culinary tech support. He is neither a chef nor a scientist, yet his knowledge of food history and chemistry is vast and formidable. Nils Noren is a Swedish-trained chef, former Executive Chef of Aquavit, and current VP of Culinary Arts of the FCI. Together, they form a dream team with chef Noren’s classic background, modern approach, and assured manner playing off of Arnold’s frenetic free-flow of technical information.

The workshop consisted of demonstrations of three desserts and one savory dish, each followed by a tasting. The equipment used included a commercial vacuum sealer,
a pressure cooker, a pacojet, and a rotary evaporator. The vacuum was put into service to quickly remove bubbles from blended hyrocolloid solutions, a process which usually requires many hours of settling time, to fully pickle red onions in a matter of minutes, and to infuse heavy cream with the smoky flavor of Lapsang Souchong tea without the use of heat. The legendary Durian was cooked in the pressure cooker, then processed into a silky ice cream in the pacojet. This ingredient excited me above all others as it was my first experience with "the king of fruits". I found it strangely wonderful, though not everyone present shared this opinion. The rotovap, a piece of laboratory equipment that Arnold salvaged and then jerry-rigged into a distiller that will extract pure, crystal-clear, liquid essence from anything he desires. It differs from a traditional still in that it uses carefully controlled low temperatures to preserve the flavor and aromas of the resulting elixir. The products in yesterday’s workshop were clear brandies, or eau de vies, of two wines: Madeira and Beaumes de Venise. Their flavor and alcohol content (up to 130 proof) were intoxicating. Arnold was quick to point out that the process of privately distilling alcohol is illegal.

Other revelations were puffed pasta, a simple technique that is worthy of it’s own future post, and the introduction of red lime paste (made from red slake lime–the mineral, not the fruit), a product that Arnold recently discovered serendipitously. It is alkaline, like baking soda, and was used to soak under-ripe bananas in order to allow them to caramelize and retain their shape. To me, the highlight was the 15 minutes after the workshop where Dave Arnold allowed me to pick his brain with questions about products, applications, and techniques that interested me. I could not write fast enough to keep up with his onslaught of information. He drew me into his maelstrom and gave me a new horizon of possibilities, leaving me awed by how much there is still to learn and discover.

Time to go destroy my kitchen.

salmon passion fruit hollandaise

My play with Transglutaminase continues after an intensive week of catering. Here I’ve made a salmon ravioli filled with passion fruit hollandaise. When I used to work the line, the hollandaise was made before service and kept in a warm bath. This didn’t make sense to me and I insisted on making it to order, which pissed everyone off. They backed down when I proved that a perfect sauce could be made in the time that it took them to get their pans hot.

My entry into the world of cooking was through the sweet side. The skills that I have learned from baking have eased my transition to the savory side of the kitchen. I look for the moments when the two worlds collide and the transition feels seamless.

One day, while making a lemon curd, it occurred to me that I was essentially making a sweetened hollandaise. Although the cooking methods and proportions varies slightly between the two, the chemistry is the same in forming these egg-emulsified sauces. They share the same trio of key ingredients: egg yolks, fat in the form of butter, and acid in the form of lemon juice. When isolating these ingredients and considering possible alternatives, it becomes easy to imagine flavor variations on the classic hollandaise. Egg yolks are unique in their protein coagulation, but acid can be introduced in the form of any fruit juice that has a PH of 3.0 or lower so as not to over-dilute the egg yolk. Candidates that fall in this range are: grapefruit, lime, cranberries, gooseberries, wild grapes, verjus, raspberries, rhubarb, pomegranates, tamarind, and passion fruit. These are all flavors that I’ve used to make fruit curds, so why not hollandaise? To bring it back to the savory realm, even the butter can be replaced with solidifying fats such as: foie, bacon, duck fat, serrano fat. Can you see where I’m going? Does this excite you as much as it does me?

For this ravioli, the hollandaise posed a challenge because it needed to solidify in order to glue the thin sheets of salmon around it, then to revert to it’s fluid sauce state when reheated. A traditional hollandaise was not stable enough to endure the freezing and cooking process without curdling. I fiddled with a few additives and techniques before hitting on the simple addition of a small amount of gelatin. This allowed the hollandaise to firm up sufficiently without the need to be frozen, which I suspect had destabilized the emulsification, and to remelt in the sous vide bath.

sous vide salmon ravioli filled with passion fruit hollandaise
crispy salmon skin
asparagus ramp puree
spiced rum beads

chicken beef steak

I am a carnivore. I make no apologies, I eat meat proudly.

There was a period of time that I could not eat meat. A few months into my first pregnancy, the act of walking into a grocery store turned me into a hound, complete with a vast network of keen olfactory nerves, all of them finely tuned to one scent; that of blood. Where a hound would have salivated, it turned me wretched from nausea. It was months before I could walk into a store unscathed.

When my appetite for meat returned, it was with a vengeance. I craved bloody rare steak with such ardor that it sent me on a quest for the perfect cut of beef to grill or sear. My search ended when I discovered flat iron steak; a remarkable cut of meat whose tenderness is rivaled only by tenderloin, yet possesses the full-on beefy flavor of sirloin. I ate so much steak at that time that I was sure that my next craving would have been for grass.

Instead, I began reveling in the pleasures of a perfectly roasted chicken: crispy skin, juicy meat, and the liquid gold in the form of chicken caramel that sticks to the bottom of the pan.

There were times when the cravings for chicken and steak were simultaneous and urgent. In those instances, I could only wish that they could be fused together.

Sometimes, wishes do come true.

                  chicken breast and flat iron steak
                  beech mushrooms
                  ciopollini onion
                  potato and toasted almond sand
                  miso chicken caramel
                  spring onion sprouts

Cravings aside, chicken and beef that is Maillard cooked form a synergism where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. They share many flavor compounds and are both full of umami. When combined, individual umami compounds have a magnifying effect on each other and can increase flavor eightfold. Add to that equation potatoes, onions, and mushrooms, all rich in umami, and you can see why these are classic pairings that have stood the test of time.

McDonalds certainly understands the synergism of potatoes and beef. They have built an empire on their french fries which until 1990 were fried in a mixture of about 7% cottonseed oil and 93% beef tallow. They eventually switched to pure vegetable oil after insurmountable criticism about the amount of cholesterol in their fries. But they weren’t about to give up their money maker–now, they add "natural beef flavor" to their oil.

For this dish, fried potatoes are a given, but I’ve presented them in the form of a sand. Micro cubes of potatoes are double fried–the first time at a 275 degrees F. to cook them through and form a skin, then they are cooled and re-fried at 375 degrees F. until golden and crisp. The addition of crushed, toasted almonds accentuates the texture and flavor.