IDEAS IN FOOD

The Substitution of an Ingredient

When you go to the store shopping for ingredients and they do not have what you are looking for do you panic or look at as an opportunity? We often look for variations and substitutions in recipes particularly classics to spark ideas and explore tastes. The question arises, if you substitute ingredients can you still call the dish by its classic name?

For instance, we just made an herb paste to marinate fish with. The inspiration and driving force was the classic Italian salsa verde. Except instead of anchovies we used XO sauce. The flavor profile is similar, the result is delicious, the sauce is green. Whether or not we actually made salsa verde is questionable. In that case, what do we call the sauce? Because we often looks for points of reference we call the paste XO salsa verde. It combines a taste with the classic.

Root Beer Shortribs

The brine and the braising liquid emphasize the flavor. It has been fun fine tuning the cooking of this wonderful cut of meat.

Hazelnut Crust

 

Grilled Fish

I have not grilled a fish in a long time. I believe the time gap in my fish grilling is due largely to the patience and skill required to grill well. Cooking meat on the grill is certainly not easy and still it has plenty of wiggle room for mistakes. Crustaceans are also a bit more forgiving above the lapping flames of a grill. Fish is fickle. It points out the cooks mistakes immediately and makes even the skilled question their abilities. Yesterday morning I was faced with the task of cooking breakfast. I figured a few grilled fish, some toast and homemade butter would do the trick. As I readied the grill and looked at the fish I traveled down memory lane. I paid closer attention to how clean the grill was. I lightly brushed the fish with olive oil to prevent the inevitable sticking of skin. I adjusted the heat. I placed the fish gingerly on the grill, listened to the sizzle and walked away. Fish needs time to cook and any movement prior to the right time leaves flesh or at least good skin on the grill and serves the cook up a hefty slice of humble pie. 

I faired pretty well my first time back in who knows how many years. What I do know is that cooking is about ingredients as well as the steps we take to prepare them. Sometimes a bit of sticking sparks solutions into more efficient, functional and better ways to prepare what is at hand.

Right Cut Wrong Animal

In my quest for a first cut blade chuck roast I came across some beautiful lamb shoulder chops. These chops were in fact the cut of meat I was looking for, just from the wrong animal. The individual pockets of meat, divided by connective tissue, called out and I took pause in my need to procure the chuck roast. Instead we were treated to a delicious cut of meat which I ordinarily would have passed over. A brief bath in feta brine and a pita crust did not hurt the cause.

Lobster Shells

Why not?

We hydrated dried pasta shells in an intense lobster stock for four hours and then cooked them in a lobster bisque.

Broken Beets

Rather than dicing the beets we had some fun with liquid nitrogen and an overnight marinade. The cryo-blanch and the infusion allow us to bring the often overlooked beet back into the limelight.

Nothing

There are days when nothing goes right. Nothing, it speaks of emptiness of misfortune of times to avoid. And still nothing can be wonderful. When nothing goes wrong everything goes right.

Nothing, like everything is all about context and application. The key is getting everything out of nothing. Turn ideas and approaches on themselves and see something different. These observations may provide insight and they may waste time. It all depends on what angle you are looking from.

Everything

What is everything? It's an interesting question. Funny since we often talk about giving everything we have. An everything pizza does not contain everything nor does the everything bagel. Sometimes the term means whatever is necessary to achieve an ideal and bountiful balance. A burger on a bun is not an everything burger. It is what it says it is. A burger with bacon, guacamole, cheddar, pickled jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, onions and smoked ketchup for the fries may well fit the bill as an everything burger. (Could we really fit anything else on it.) In any case, the term everything is often as diluted as it is all encompassing.

Creamed Spinach

An issue we have with creamed spinach is the inevitable water weeping out of the spinach into the cream component and creating a mess. Traditional creamed spinach is made with bechamel, relying on the hydrocolloid flour, to keep everything together. We borrowed from tradition and created an excessive gel with milk and gellan, our interpretation of bechamel. We then vacuum sealed spinach and blanched it. When the spinach was cooked and cooled we pureed it with the bouncy milk gel. As the puree came together we added some cayenne, salt and nutmeg. The end result is a silken puree of creamed spinach which shows no signs of syneresis. The puree can be spread thin and frozen to drape over presentations. It may also be simply reheated and served with pita points as a decadent spinach dip. When dried this spinach becomes wafer thin and crispy, the essence of creamed spinach. With all of these options at hand, our main goal was to make an intense creamed spinach filling for our preserved lemon pasta. The results show promise for many more extrapolations.

Lobster Parts

Seeing the parts to work with opens up limitless paths to take.

The greatest question to answer is what will be delicious today?

Cocktail Sauce Cavatelli

Why not make the sauce the pasta?

Lobster never had it so good.

Cucumber, Mint and Yogurt

 

The Cure

Methocel and the aroma of corked wine often go hand and hand. This affinity to a terrible aroma and smell has led us to often overlook it on the shelf of ingredients on hand. Thankfully a fine chain of events has happened. First, we are putting the finishing touches on our book and therefore are knee deep in everything. Second of all we still make time to read. Unfortunately, we were preoccupied when this article on wine, written by Harold McGee , first came out and had to wait until recently to read of using plastic wrap to cure corked wine from the adventures of Cooking Issues and Harold McGee.

 

The essential quote is here:

 

“Mr. Waterhouse said that the obnoxious, dank flavor of a “corked” wine, which usually renders it unusable even in cooking, can be removed by pouring the wine into a bowl with a sheet of plastic wrap.

“It’s kind of messy, but very effective in just a few minutes,” he said. The culprit molecule in infected corks, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, is chemically similar to polyethylene and sticks to the plastic.”

The idea mulled in our head because we have certainly poured a number of corked bottles down the drain.

As we said, we are doing a lot of writing and cooking. The trigger was the article. Something about the aroma of corked was bothering me. I was refining our Methocel recipes. I came across that stupid corked aroma.

 

Ah ha!!!!! Let’s see if the old corked aroma plastic wrap trick works with Methocel. I took our base, wadded up some plastic wrap and mixed the two together. Slowly it went away. The aroma, that obnoxious taste was no longer there. Methocel with the addition of the cure is now high up on the list again.

Lobster Jaccard

 

Thoughts?

Olive Brined Artichokes

We continue to be amazed at how flavors that we are surrounded with are often overlooked until the right time. As we have been looking to simplify the process of cooking artichokes while accentuating their flavors a jar of olive brine took charge and solved the problem. Green olive brine and artichokes are a match we should have been working with for years and have only just recently experienced. Now we have tasted and there is no looking back.

 

Smoked Hazelnut Zest

 

Oftentimes it really is this simple.

Perfectly Cooked For Us

The term slow cooked has become synonymous with well cooked. We have certainly fallen victim to the curse of wanting to cook slowly because it is the perceived way to get optimum results. Thankfully our book writing is pushing us to expand our boundaries and question our believed approaches. In questioning what we think we know we are able to improve our cooking exponentially.

 

Most recently we have been able to cook a hot spring egg, not in a microwave, in thirteen minutes. The results are a cooked white, really the white is cooked and not a translucent membrane. The yolk is viscous and runny. This is the egg we have always wanted to achieve, yet we were stuck in the rut of shared knowledge worn deep by what was believed and spread rather than what was tested.

 

We have now removed a good amount of time off of our circulators to do list while producing an extremely delicious egg.

2.0 does not always mean better

The second version of something does not mean it is going to be better. We were reworking our smoked pasta recipe and I was committed to the aesthetic of a black dough colored and eventually seasoned with roasted barley. Unfortunately, no matter how I tried the roasted barley and the smoked flour did not get along. The dough is beautiful and as far as aesthetics go 2.0 is the way to go. As for taste 2.0 has to go. No matter the beauty without the taste the dish fails. 

 

Back to the original. It works, it stands the test of time and it is really good. Sometimes the first version is the right version.

Cool Tool and Adaptations

The link to this kitchen tool is not for those faint of heart. It is a device used for the quick and painless killing of fish and we believe might be really good for working with lobsters. When Dave and Nils from Cooking Issues became obsessed with the Ike Jime fish preparation technique and, as they do, went to extremes to refine and document the process, including locating and utilizing fish anethesisa, we sat up straight and began extrapolating ideas. Their research sparked ideas of what other fish and crustaceans could and should benefit from this sort of handling. My first thoughts were to lobsters and crabs. It turns out that they too had similar thoughts and have refined a technique, which they hang before us like a carrot tantalizing a horse here.

In any event, we have been working on lobster cookery and investigating a kinder killing method. The tool which caught my fancy is the Iki Jime tool, a curved spike used to totally destroy the brain of a fish instantly. If the spike works and can easily be applied to a lobster we may have a better way for killing lobsters for cooking. The technique is intended to delay rigor mortis, which in lobsters would include tail curling and flesh tightening. This may then allow for an incredibly succulent raw lobster preparation and excellent benefits in low temperature cooking.

*edited to add here is another piece of kitchen equipment which might do the trick as well

Smoked Hazelnuts

With the smoker perfuming the air like the wood burning fire place we wish we had, all kinds of foodstuffs were getting there smoke on. While we have enjoyed Smokey Blue, a cheese smoked with hazelnut shells we have  continued to leave smoked hazelnuts off our to do list, until today. We had some space in the smoker and some hazelnuts in the cupboard. The smoked nuts are great as is. Thankfully we cannot leave great alone and looked to further uses for this delicious nut. The hazelnuts worked out wonderfully zested over raw fish as well as tenderized in a pressure cooker and mimicking the aesthetic and place of chickpeas. These are our first encounters, we are looking forward to the growing relationship.

 

Triple Crust Pie

The idea for the triple crust pie came about by accident. We thought we saw a baked apple pie with streusel baked on top of the top crust. How cool is that? It turns out we saw what we wanted to see. The glorious inspiration was really a coffee cake with a streusel topping. This closer examination did not deter us from chasing down the unheard of triple crust pie.

 

We found it and devoured it in our kitchen. Now we need to fine tune the ginger ice cream to go along with it.

Break an Egg

 

We have had the pleasure of working with Stove Monkeys in creating and designing an Ideas in Food shirt. Stove Monkeys is a t-shirt company created by cooks, really stove monkeys, for cooks. Our first shirt is exciting on many levels. First of all it is the first. The design process was not easy and that is a good thing. It takes time to take an idea, plant the seeds, let it grow and harvest it at the right time. The shirt will be sold through Stove Monkeys website and they will begin taking pre-orders shortly. In fact, lets get the ball rolling, email them if you are seriously interested. Realize that in being serious they will most likely expect you to pay for your enthusiasm upfront.

In actuality we have to thank Bob for the phrase "Break an Egg." We were headed off to do some cooking and like the theater's catch phrase break a leg, he joyously chuckled "break an egg." The saying took and has grown into more than just a few words strung together. Ideas and innovations come from breaking the eggs, not just waiting for them to hatch.

 

Sourdough Spaetzle

The idea has been growing on the counter for about a month. It just took a different angle to see it in front of us.

 

Reading Boxes

Recipes and ingredient lists are constantly printed on packaged goods boxes and wrappers. The information contained there is often glossed over and even thought of as fruitless or at least pointless details. I regularly read boxes and packages, not specifically to gain insights, rather I get bored standing in line at the grocery store. While my motivation may be skewed, the results are not. This mindless reading of lists and simple recipes designed by manufacturers regularly sparks thoughts and begins idea avalanches. Today we were working with non-fat milk powder and it was Aki's turn to read the box. She read a recipe for whipped milk using the non-fat milk powder and water. The results were astonishingly good. The ideas, well you may imagine what we are thinking. Besides being pleased with the results it started another conversation about the proteins in non-fat milk powder and the hows and whys of whipping and furthermore our options for utilizing this knowledge.

 

All of this from a box of dried milk before breakfast was even over today.

Butternut Squash Salad

A composition of butternut squash raw and cooked complimented by bananas powdered and whipped. The burnt marshmallow is seasoned with Szechwan peppercorns for an aromatic tingle on the palate.

 

Turkey Roll

 

Thanksgiving looms on the horizon. Each year we try and improve on what and how we cook. Last year we took a Turkey hiatus and prepared traditional raclette. It turns out Amaya loves turkey and with that love cancels all my plans for Chinese take out on Turkey Day. Instead, we are working on new turkey preparations and presentations. One which recently passed muster is a turkey thigh, boned, seasoned with harissa, bonded back to its bone and wrapped in thick cut bacon. The roll is then cooked sous vide and finally roasted to crisp the bacon.

Chips and Cheese

 

The laminated pasta of potato chips and cheddar cheese took a break over the summer. With the weather cooling off again and a growing hunger in our bellies this delicious pasta is due to make a return. In a straightforward application we have accented the noodles with bacon, parsley and cheese. The combination is tasty and its apparent flaw may be its simplicity. On the bright side if flaws taste this good we are game to try a few more.