Valentines Day, the one that got away.

For a while back I had been working on the Valentines Day Dessert Menu (and this post as you can see by the date) we were having at the Club on the Friday before the 14th but sadly no one booked in and we had to pull the plug on the Special 'Aphrodisiac' based menu.

I had done a bit of back ground and ‘in the field’ ;-) research on aphrodisiac foods and herbs before the cancellation had happened.

It really is quite interesting all the little things that surround us day to day and the from far off distant lands witch doctor remedies which all have special properties that have interesting effects on our bodys. One that caught my attention was Maca Root from up in the Andes in Peru. It is meant to have quite stimulating qualities from libido, balancing hormones and a tasting quite good on my morning porridge! 

It tasted quite ‘malty’ and pleasant-ish, so I mixed it up with some Bananas and made a Banana and Maca Root ice-cream to go with liquid chocolate and nutmeg sponge. Quite happy with the result.

I also come across Horny Goat Weed, supposedly a poor mans Viagra. Now that’s what I was looking for in an aphrodisiac based menu! Hmmm…Something that actually kind of did something. So off to Holland and Barrett and picked some up. Well one small taste and I couldn’t get this leafy burnt ash flavour out of my mouth. I don’t think anything could make it taste nice. Gonna have to use that one at home….

After going off into unfamiliar territory I thought I better come back to some not so customer scary ingredients.  I planed to incorporate every day Aphrodisiac foods Sweet Basil, Nutmeg, Coffee, Chocolate, Almond, Banana, Passion Fruit, Champagne and Maca Root into the different desserts I had planned.

For one of the special desserts the challenge of pulling off the liquid chocolate from the almighty Alinea cook book was put in front of me and thought it would be fun to do.

After banging out the mix word for word from the book at the end of the day so it would be good to go for the morning the next day.

The morning after....

I was quite excited to pull out a square to defrost and see the chocolate ooze out and cover the plate. 1 1/2 hrs later I gently probed the centre of the block of chocolate to see if it had defrosted completely. 3c, it was ready. I carefully broke off the corner and..... 

a soft solid block of chocolate was waiting for me.

Not exactly what I was expecting but should’ve seen it coming, seemed all too easy. Previously I have had quite a bit of success with the recipes from the Alinea cook book with only minor adjustments to correct slight changes between different ingredients and my personal taste.

The recipe does have a few issues you could say, which will show up in the final result.

First up the recipe calls for “bittersweet chocolate, 75 percent cacao, chopped” and the same for the milk chocolate but 33%.

Just from the top of my head I can think of several different brands of chocolate that have the same percent chocolates in their range. The thing is not all chocolate is the same even though the percentage may be. Some have a higher sugar content or higher cacao butter content, for example Valhrona tend to have a higher percentage of cacao butter content which gives them a lower viscosity or thinner consistency than most other brands which helps with enrobing, dipping and of course taste.  Most decent chocolate companies have different couvertures (32-39% cacao butter) for different purposes and tastes, all featuring their own individual characteristics to that company’s specifications, which gives a few variables which could impact on the finial result.

Well with the result from the first test I had, I went about making the recipe 'wetter' with more honey, milk and cream so it would be liquid upon defrosting.

Six test batches later and numerous cleanings of the chocolate spray gun (which is the worst part of the job and takes two times longer to clean than the time your actually using it) all for 1 or 2 little squares at a time….  I finally got want we wanted all along. A good flow and stability with out the sides giving away under there own weight during transit from the fridge to the plate to the table.

Still even after the relief to getting it right, I also had another potential problem which I noticed around test 3 or 4 that the defrost time also played an important part in the finial result.

The longer it was left in the fridge in its defrosted state the firmer it would get eventually seizing up the flow and becoming just goo. Seems like the chocolate was doing its best to crystallize and annoy me again.

This could have been solved by looking at the bookings and pulling out portions in intervals through out the night and guessing how well it would’ve sold to get the best result…..

Then I had the idea how to completely solve all my dilemmas. Which sadly I didn’t get to put to use.

The easy way -

Make up a tasty chocolate liquor / sauce with a very thin consistency and freeze in gastro tray.

Cut to desired size, place back in freezer. Place a couple of needles into block.

When making up chocolate spray mix, set aside some and then take the frozen block and dip up to the top of the sides evenly along the edges. Place back in freezer.

Set up chocolate spray gun. Spray blocks well and evenly on all sides. Refreeze.

Defrost and you should have a very liquid and manageable liquid block of chocolate.

Technically cheating but allows quite a few more possibilities to be achieved with a bit less trial and error.

Have fun with it!

Basil tapioca, tomato jelly and rock oyster

Been skimming through Johnny Iuzzuni's dessert fourplay book this week, visually stunning however sad to say whilst the ideas and inspiration come thick and fast in this book, the ability to try a recipe and it work are impossible. I have tried a few this week and it has taken all my cooking savvy to stop horrific errors due to incorrect quantities, sorry but this book is off my birthday list.

however, there is one lovely looking 1/4 on a strawberry page, had to see where this could go in the savoury world

Tomato fluid gel, rock oyster, basil tapioca

Got it!! the Anything molten cake

In my last post I showed a celeriac fondant, made primarliy from the vegetable only. from this continued the technique through carrot, fennel and a most excellent banoffee fondant, thought I would show the last one though as it is probably the most visually contrasting one from the original, Beetroot.

am happy with the technique now, and am pretty happy that with minor alterations to the ratios on each can produce a molten cake out of absolutely anything!

and the moment of truth...again

this one is cast from a different mould to above, but my poor phone camera had a real moment and lost a number of snaps from today

Classic Fondant well nearly.........

I love it when a thought becomes something lovely at the first attempt

especially when that is so rare

CELERIAC FONDANT

and the proof of the pudding is..........

as Hannibal would say, I love it when a plan comes together. now just the beet jus and the beef elements left to go

Roast quail, puy lentil and parsnip consomme

Woke up a couple of days ago with a need to cook parnsip

humble vegetable adaptable for so many different methods, boiled, roasted, puree, even cereal at a certain favourite restaurant.

sat on the end of the bed thinking if it would consomme, so went downstairs and googled it, found a couple of references where a puree is added to the egg white to create flavour from the 'pack'

recently I have abandoned egg white clarification in favour of agar filtering, firstly with accurate scales it is so much easier, no more stove watching and that small possibility of fried egg running through your stock. secondly I feel the flavour is purer with not so much taste and flavour lost to the clarification, but with picture perfect clarity every time.

during preparation was not sure of the parsnip as the starch contained could affect the final dish, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, I started by roasting.

this was to draw out the flavours, I de-glazed the pan with some simple chicken stock and blast chilled.

Then moved on to vac-packing the parsnips and stock and finished cooking in a pan of boiling water until quite tender, didn't want to stew the parsnips, but was using the veg as a puree.

For the puree, I took all the washed parsnip trim (peelings, tops&tails) and cooked in a bag with full fat milk.

Once tender, passed the stock off and chilled, pureed the veg with a bit of the parsnip milk

Once the liquid had cooled, weighed it and whizzed in 0.2% of agar for the clarification, heated up to >90C and chilled to set in the chiller once more. once chilled cut into rough chunks and froze overnight.

following day, laid the frozen stock cubes to defrost on a holy gastro tray, with a solid one underneath, left to drip through, this took most of the day to get the maximum yield.

Once this was complete, season to taste and heat for each order, We are serving with roast quail breasts, confit quail leg, puy lentils and vegetables bound in a little parsnip puree, thus:-

Great flavour, nice dish but a bit brown. need to sort some colour.....next time!

Guest piece on Herve This by Peter Crosskey

Well G has stolen my thunder, for a few days have been thinking to wake the blog up after an extended break, and log in today to find our first post of the year, ah well the hydrocolloid thing is nice to look at and playing is much easier now.

A short while ago after joining the UK food bloggers association I was emailed by Peter Crosskey who showed an interest in this post on alternative fish preparation. we got chatting about modern techniques and I found he had recently attended a lecture by the almost legendary Herve This.

I was far too jealous before I read the piece below which he has produced for this blog, and even more after! Any way, without any further ado I hand the floor, nay the screen, to Peter, many thanks for writing this.







The scientist who gets a cubic metre out of one egg white

Fresh from the Eurostar, Hervé This was in his element when he arrived at Imperial College to address a lecture hall full of chemical engineering students in London on November 30 last. With a twinkle in his eye and a playful smile that flitted across his lips between sentences, he was fulfilling his vocation: sharing his knowledge of the science that underpins cooking.

The co-founder of molecular gastronomy wears the weight of his learning lightly: March 2010 will see the 30th anniversary of a sunken soufflé. It was this which propelled Hervé to map out the scientific principles that underpin what happens in the kitchen.

He opens with an obligatory PowerPoint slide to introduce himself. Then he announces that on the train here he changed his mind about what he was going to do in this lecture.

"Let us make a simple experiment," he exclaims, much as his late colleague Nicholas Kurti would have done all those years ago when no-one had heard of molecular gastronomy. His approach is direct and engaging: he takes an egg out of its box and separates the white into a bowl.

"You say 'egg white' and yet it is yellow," he observes as he works. "But don't worry: in France we make the same mistake, too." He explains that there are about 30 grams of egg white in the bowl and that 90% of it is water.

"When the water is taken out, you are left with about 3 grams of protein – and it is yellow!" he exclaims, pulling out of his pocket a glass phial of dried egg white, like a stage magician. The phial is stowed as rapidly as it appeared and he is holding up two egg whisks: "Which one is better?" he asks, before grasping them both firmly in a single hand and using the two together.

Now an egg whisk is nothing short of "...medieval..." for This, who constantly challenges old ideas. "I hate tradition. Slavery is traditional," he interjects.

What distinguishes humanity from animals is an ability to consciously change the world around us, This argues. The mastery of fire and cooking food gave humans a decisive advantage in a hostile prehistoric world.

Society is constructed by human endeavour, This reminds his audience. "When it is built, it is beautiful," he says, pausing long enough in front of a Powerpoint slide with a restaurant plate shot to make his point.

He has been whisking steadily all the while, so the egg whites are firm now: he inverts the bowl abruptly just to make the point. So far This, who thinks nothing of generating a cubic metre of foam from a single egg white, has added only sugar.

He reaches for a bottle of water: this is his secret weapon that transforms the contents of his three-litre bowl into the magic cubic metre. "Of course it is very difficult to measure a cubic metre of egg foam at all precisely," he adds, returning to the scientific business in hand.

"Now, water has no taste, but you can use green tea, fruit juice, olive oil, anything you want." He crosses the boundaries between science, technology and cooking with ease, but never loses sight of his own role, even when pouring his egg white foam into a beaker and transferring it to a microwave.

"You see, I am a scientist and my job is to create knowledge: technologists use knowledge to make tools like this microwave, while chefs use their skill and equipment to make people happy at the table." He pauses, flings open the microwave door, withdraws the beaker and up-ends it with a vigorous shake, turning out the soft set foam.

He challenges the next generation of scientists to lay the foundations for greater things. He does it with such style and enthusiasm that we are all inspired to return to our laboratories, workshops and kitchens with raised expectations of what can be acheived.

Hervé was in the UK for a two-day whistle-stop tour to promote the English translations of two of his books. Earlier this year, Columbia University Press (CUP) published Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism, being a translation of his 2007 book Construisons un Repas.

The most recent CUP translation is The Science of the Oven, a translation of his 2007 publication De la Science aux Fourneaux. Intended for a scientific audience, it remains an engaging read for lay readers, shot through with candour and Hervé's gentle humour.

Every month. in addition to contributing to the journal Pour la Science, This writes about a scientific insight for the website of his friend, the chef Pierre Gagnaire ( http://www.pierre-gagnaire.com/ ).

For readers of French, Hervé This has a blog at http://hervethis.blogspot.com/ which is well worth following.

Finally, anyone can sign up for the lectures that Hervé This gives at AgroParisTech ( http://www.agroparistech.fr/-Annonce-Cours-de-gastronomie-.html ). Both the page and the lectures are in French, but the inspiration is universal.
--------------------
About panel:
This post has been contributed by freelance journalist and blogger Peter Crosskey who was fortunate enough to attend a lecture given by distinguished French scientist Hervé This, the surviving co-founder of molecular gastronomy. My thanks go to Alex for letting me submit this article. A more general piece, along with reviews of two English translations of books by Hervé This can be found at:

http://www.crosskey.co.uk/index.php/2009/12/05/science-that-is-good-enough-to-eat/

Hydrocolloid Heaven

It won't happen over night but it will happen....

I guess you’ve heard that before.
But over time and our shared love of the manipulation of textures and everyone's favourite the fluid gel, we have built up quite a handy collection of Hydrocolloids, Sugars and flavourings.
Previously we had them hidden away in a dark, hard to get to top shelf cupboard where you had to play musical Sosa tubs to find to one you were after.
After stripping the kitchen down for our Christmas break, Alex had the great idea to put them on the shelf behind me in the Pastry section and we've never looked back.
It's a good start towards setting up 'the lab'.... well one can dream can't they?

As I said before, 'it won't happen over night...

Pumpkin risotto with feta cheese

Ever since I began in this business there are a few jobs that have eluded me to get 'just so'

Bavoirs, since college where my lecturer would give me the same bavoirs recipe time and time again, only to be startled as to what it had turned into by the end of the day, sometimes even he could not explain what I had managed to do to it.

Turning mushrooms, thankfully a pretty much dead art, sorry I cannot get to grips with the sharpest of turning knives, my mushrooms just seem to resemble over zealous road-kill after I have tried.

and then this, cubing or slicing Feta cheese evenly, I have had chef after chef show me different tricks with hot knives to no avail, I simply end up with a pile of usually 'OK' cheesy bits. that is until now

a while ago I wanted to put a risotto dish on with feta cheese, simple, seasonal and quite lovely. I wanted it to look like we tried so the cheesy bits had to be sorted, so I thought if it was possible to make a cheese gel, without losing the trademark flavour elements to the cheese, so off I went.

I took a blind guess at a 2:1 ration of water to cheese and set about melting it.

Sitting on the edge of the solid top, I watched eagerly, hoping it would melt smoothly and not curdle and go grainy

It quickly arrived to the boil, hanging it nearly off the solid, I held my breath as things were not looking particularly good.

but hey presto, it melted into a silky liquid. stage 1 complete

I then weighed the resulting liquid and mixed in .19% xanthan (to restrict syneresis) and 1.1% Agar for the gelling. these ratios are what I commonly use for my fluid gels so don't set very firm, as I didn't want it to be small solid cubes, it still had to have the same mouthfeel as a cheese when warm

I brought the cheese and agar mix to just over 90C (to fully hydrate the agar) and poured into my chosen container, placed into the blast chiller and waited eagerly.

soon it was set, and as is usual with agar gels, came out of the container without any hassle, I had to prompltly chop some up

Result, perfectly clean no crumbling shows up any knife skill errors but hey, perfect diced feta. woo hoo. stick some in my mouth as a well done treat and......................

Mild cheesy gel, bother, bother and other words unpublishable.

but look at how clean,

left is normal cheese, not bad but wouldnt like to handle it much more, and you can juggle with the gel, BUT it doesnt taste like feta.

Anyway, I got busy for the rest of the day and resigned my cheese gel to the fridge whilst I actually did some work. 2 days passed..................

That afternoon, I had a bit of time to kill and was sorting the fridge, I came accross the gel and still cross that I had a failed product I started to think along the lines of increasing the feta and lowering the water. as I did this I stuck a couple of cubes in my mouth as thought fodder, and low and behold, the gel had started to take on a dry acidic flavour synominous with the feta and thought what will another day do. I re-wrapped and left it, and on day 4, perfect feta cheese, but gelled. The Agar had firmed slightly, as it does, and the flavours were much more pronounced and most acceptable for the dish. All's well that ends well, we now use 1.5 water to 1 feta to intensify the flavour and so it can be prepared closer to the time, any lower a ration to this and the cheese wont melt properly and is unpleasantly grainy.

But happy me, pumpkin risotto, feta cheese

risotto

flavoured with roasted pumpkin puree

pumpkin gel sheet over

pumpkin fluid gel

microplaned feta gel

amaranth

Next post will be a short photo journal of 2009 and my last post for the year, we close on the 23rd for the christmas break and return on the 4th of Jan, lucky us. To all other cooks out there having to work the holidays, have a great time and hope that business doesn't always get in the way of festivities, just remember 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'

Seasons Greetings

back to fillets, well this week I call them medallions

A while ago in This post I promised to follow up with the technique for the salmon fillet, well eventually have got round to preparing and photographing it.

I won't bore with any further 'fillet' comments so without further ado here goes, am thinking of serving with a simple risotto milanaise and a herb/tomato oil.

1st trim up 2 sides of salmon, removing the skin and scraping the worst of the meat from the skin, ensure all scales are removed, thus

do the same with the other side, roll cling film accross the board from top to bottom, leaving it attached to the roll, arrange the sides to be dusted with activa transglutaminaise

slightly overlap and lay on the film with each 'head' side on the tail of the other to maintain an even size

pulling away from the roll, roll as tightly as possible, going around the salmon about 10 times, refrigerate for at least 6 hours to allow the enzyme to work.

set up clingfilm as before and cut your skins in half, dust liberally with activa and pat the loose dust off

remove the cling film from the roll, which should now be held together, place on the skin and roll carefully ensuring no gaps, again roll tightly many times

trim the ends cleanly and vacuum pack for at least 6 hours again to allow this bit of the enzyme to do it's thing

measure a scallop from top to bottom and cut that thickness of salmon fillet, you can just cut fillets from here, but this week we are going to do a salmon and scallop medallion. Using a cutter slightly smaller than the diameter of the scallop, cut a 'polo' hole out of the centre

leaving this, the cut out piece can either be served as an aside to the dish, or reserved for canapes

push the scallop into the centre and reserve in the fridge for service, sear quickly on both sides, finish for about 3 minutes under a salamander grill and finish with a lemon beurre noisette, when I have the dish up I will post a pic of the finished dish.

quite a lengthy process but very simple to prepare, just need to allow the times between when preparing as rolling the skin in the first roll is hellish to do, so I opted for this method and definitely gave me a cleaner product at the end of the day.

Oh what a night, Birthday factor the results

Well, the weekend is all done and dusted, and would love to post a long list of pictures and comments now, but have to report that the whole day didn't go exactly to plan and as for photos, well they never stood a chance.

So will sum the day up quickly as promised and then soon move on to something more visual.

Let's start with the not so successful, beginning with waking up, not a happy moment in my day, was sick as a dog, to the point of very nearly calling the whole event off, I spent the fist couple of hours wandering round (and occasionally running for the smallest room in the house) in a complete daze.

But eventually pulled myself together, finished off the last touches and got my mis organized, most things were fine except for a quick change of plan with the spherification.

The evening before I got distracted by my kids and left the spheres in the fridge setting, and of course forgetting until the next day, I was left staring at a completely set alginate baths of olive puree and strawberry juice, many things crossed my mind including cutting them out but in the end decided to drop the introductory olives and make a fresh strawberry jam for the semolina, off to the shop I went.

As for the rest of the menu, all went as planned, the whisky sour knocked everyone for 6 to start, the surreal moment of piping my meth cel potato underwater to set them was a new experience (and quite a warm painful one) but the dish pulled off well, and most importantly my sorbet flamed up a treat.

There were a suitable number of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' in all the right places and everyone had a great evening, I was glad to see the cheese crackers and petit fours go so I could finally sit down and join in but was satisfied to pull off this menu in my shoebox of a kitchen, and bless my eldest boy Cameron for digging me out with the washing up the next morning, thank you son.

Anyway, back to work and whilst we don't have a huge amount of time to play the next post should be a more visual affair with more playing and much less working.