Adventures in Doughnutland.
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...so I cooked up my own. Then I added a delicate citrus vinaigrette and these golden beets tasted like sunshine too. It's not quite spring here in NH, it's still chilly, raw, and gray. We must create sunshine in our kitchen to brighten up our day.
Yeas Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I had raita on the mind. We blended yogurt with Cabot Ranch Dip. We peeled and seeded a cucumber and cut it into small squares. Then we took the stems from asparagus and cut them into small wedges, discarding the woody ends. We mixed the cucumber, asparagus and yogurt-ranch together. A simple, clean, bright condiment was re-imagined. A few mint leaves and a squeeze of lemon juice folded in right at the end finished things off nicely.
Other ideas worth exploring: cultured ranch yogurt, other fruit and vegetable raitas, Indian spiced ranch, ranch relish...
Years Past
April 29, 2007
April 29, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I'm just over halfway through this book. I am taking my time reading it. I don't want it to end. Franklin Barbecue, A Meat Smoking Manifesto by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay tells a story. It shares a process. It exudes passion and drive. I have not experienced a book like this since The French Laundry. Single minded dedication is an amazing thing to witness. When you get an inside look, really a personalized tour of the whole story, you re-think and re-examine your own path. Tomorrow I'll dive back into the chapter Fire and Smoke. This is a book that will recalibrate your senses. Take your time and enjoy the education.
Years Past
April 28, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I'm often very loose with ingredients. Until I'm not. Ingredients matter. We revisited cavatelli again using ricotta, 00 flour, and pecorino cheese. Strangely we have made blue cheese cavatelli before but not a hard cheese one. Pecorino has a grassy, floral, barnyard saltiness that can hold its own in almost any medium. It seemed a good choice to use to flavor our dough.
I kneaded together 450 grams ricotta cheese, 450 grams of 00 flour, and 50 grams of grated pecorino cheese. Then I vacuum sealed the dough to expedite the hydration. I rolled the dough into a sheet, cut it into strips, and cut the strips into pieces. Then I hand rolled the cavatelli on the gnocchi board. I'm a huge fan of hand rolling cavatelli. I enjoy the process.
The cavatelli retained the flavor and aroma of the pecorino. They were well seasoned. And they were more tender than usual. I believe this is a result of using the 00 flour, but it could also be influenced by the fat from the pecorino. These were exceptional cavatelli with an intense flavor and subtle texture. It looks like we will be looking at all our ingredients more closely again.
Years Past
April 27, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Maple syrup has always been part of our arsenal. Our proximity to sugar shacks increases its presence in our world. We were given a fresh batch of kasu and were exploring ideas. Kazu-zuke came to the forefront. We combined New Hampshire with Japan, blending maple syrup with the fresh sake lees and salt. We will now let the base combine for several weeks. Then we shall explore using it as a pickling bed and a catalyst for fresh ideas: ice cream, bread, and butter.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We started with the Everything Spice Blend from Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work. We added some yeast, specifically pressure toasted yeast, because it is a staple flavor enhancer in our kitchen. We put the mixture in mason jars, closed their lids, and pressure cooked them in a water bath for 90 minutes. The result was a toasty, heady, intense Everything Spice Blend. Now the difficulty lies is editing ourselves and not putting it on everything.
Years Past
April 25, 2011
April 25, 2008
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Watching dough rise and seeing the various bubbles throughout, sparks an interesting illustration of how we integrate ideas in our kitchen. We don't knead them in. We let them slowly ferment and develop, as bubbles do in no-knead breads. We reserve an old idea (old dough) and at an opportune moment we fold it into the mix to provide a more complex and developed flavor. And as time progresses, ideas continue to meld and grow and the framework, much like the gluten strands align. Eventually the idea has character, body, and is ready to portion, proof, and bake. On a good day the bread that emerges from the oven is worth the time and effort that went into creating it.
Years Past
April 24, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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The key is the word and. A last minute marination of cucumbers in kimchi juice allows the incredibly green and floral small cucumbers to meld with the funky spiciness of aged kimchi. The flavors combine while still retaining their individuality. Think of leftover brine as as dressing with impact. Technology allows us to create these combinations. The willingness to see what is possible allows these simple breakthroughs in the kitchen.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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When we begin to see soft shell crabs in the market we begin to realize that spring really has arrived. They are a sign. No more big snow storms (knock wood). Root vegetables can begin to take a break as radishes, ramps, and rhubarb begin to show up in the produce department. The best part is that as these ingredients appear, they almost naturally begin to combine themselves in our kitchens. Spring awakening has begun.
Years Past
April 21, 2009
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We took the components of our radish and rhubarb bites and reworked them. First we made a rhubarb puree flavored with grenadine and honey and then brushed it onto slices of nori. We dehydrated the rhubarb coated nori strips to turn them back into crisp sheets. We took thinly sliced baby radishes and seasoned them and their greens with olive oil and salt. We arranged them on broken pieces of nori to create small "tarts". The thin, savory tarts were crisp, spicy, fruity, and fully seasoned. The rhubarb added a light acidity and soft earthy flavor to the dish. It's presence comes at the end of each bite, rather than being front and center. It was exciting to retool an idea and see how we could make it better.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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It dawned on me that our set cauliflower custard had roughly the same viscosity as ricotta cheese. I wondered if we could use the carrageenan based custard in place of ricotta in a cavatelli pasta dough? I took 200 grams of the custard and 200 grams of 00 flour and kneaded them together. The dough came together. It was a touch wet so added a sprinkling more flour on the counter as I kneaded the dough to completion. I vacuum sealed the dough and refrigerated it for an hour.
During my time away from the dough I thought about adding some pressure toasted yeast to the mixture. I felt it would accentuate the cauliflower and increase the savoriness of the pasta. I cut open the vacuum bag and sprinkled some of our roasted yeast on the dough. I kneaded the yeast into the dough and then I started rolling it into cavatelli. It worked beautifully.
Then came the moment of truth. How would the dough cook? The cavatelli were tender and rich. We coated them with a quick glaze of pasta water and salted butter. We topped the cavatelli with our cauliflower crumbs and micro basil from Fresh Origins. It's looks like simple, elegant dish, and when you taste it, the cauliflower impact is enormous.
Years Past
April 19, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Coming back to the complete cauliflower it seems we left a few rocks unturned. We started again. We took the cauliflower and used a mandoline to shave off the fine textured florets. We put them into the dehydrator until they were a coarse crumb. We melted a large piece of butter in a medium pot and added the cauliflower crumbs and an equal amount of non-fat milk solids. We seasoned the mixture with salt and cooked the crumbs until they were a rich golden brown. We removed them from the heat, cooled them down on a tray. The crumbs are toasty, buttery, rich and full of cauliflower flavor. They are packed with potential.
Years Past
April 18, 2009
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Every time we make noodles I am fascinated by the entire experience. The inner chamber of the machine as it mixes and extrudes. The bronze dies with their series of holes, that magically transform the shape of the kneded dough into perfectly sculpted pasta. The noodles as they comes out of the die in special shapes, ready to be cut down to size. The combination of flour and water (or other liquid) and their seemingly infinite combinations.
And then I wonder what questions someone asked themselves to create these dies and machines. And I wonder about what questions we should ask ourselves to further explore that sense of wonderment. I know that to get the right answers, we must ask ourselves a lot of wrong questions, and hopefully strike gold along the way
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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In case you missed it, we're in the April issue of Bon Appetit talking about how to perfectly cook a 2-inch thick porterhouse steak. While there are a few extra steps involved, the active cooking time is minimal and the only special equipment you need is a digital thermometer. If curious about whether or not the recipe actually works, wander over to The Bitten Word and see how they did with it.
Years Past
April 16, 2011
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We made an interesting discovery after we moved to NH, there's no income tax here unless you're self-employed. That was a rude awakening. Fortunately a little something from Arcobaleno showed up in the mail to cheer us up. These dies are for people who like a sturdier pasta. The noodle walls are 1.2mm thick. As soon as we fire them up, we'll give a sneak peek at the results.
Years Past
April 15, 2010
April 15, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We were looking for an elegant and functional way to add nori to dishes as a final seasoning. The simplest solution made the most sense. We rolled sheets of nori into a tight tube and tied them with twine. Now we can zest nori over everything from salads, to scallops, to butter to well you get the point. We now have a formidable means to fuel my nori fetish.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We thinly slice rhubarb and dress it with salt, olive oil and honey. We let the rhubarb marinate and the seasonings blend. A dressing forms. We slice a wedge out of each radish and put a piece of nori in the incision. We add a piece of the marinated rhubarb and spoon the dressing over the radishes. The bites are crisp, sharp, acidic and savory. These amped up radishes bring spring into full swing.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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When I was down in Miami I came across olives marinated in Indian lime pickles. I thought the idea was brilliant. The acidic spiciness of the lime pickle dressing olives. When I opened the package the olives were broken and hacked apart. The flavor was great. The aesthetic was not. I had octopus on hand. Octopus and olives is pretty classic. Octopus and lime pickle olives not so much. I tossed the octopus with the lime pickle olive mixture. I was onto something. I refrigerated the octopus overnight. The following day I added the octopus and some water to a pressure cooker and cooked them for 45 minutes. The result was tender and flavor permeated octopus. The lime pickle and olive were a new found match for the octopus. The couple of small connections made for a delicious end result.
Years Past
April 12, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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After making eggplant parmigiana, we are always faced with leftovers. And then the leftovers unveil potential. We can slice the chilled eggplant like a terrine. We are then able to sear the eggplant on the sliced side adding a fresh caramelized element to the reheating process. And after that we begin to look at other cut and shaped possibilities for the eggplant: from tots to tortellini filling.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We find it essential to feed creativity. For a recent workshop Aki put together Rolo blondies. We needed a pick me up so she went though the cupboards to see what she had to work with. The creation of these down-home, chocolatey, chewy, caramel treats were a delicious and inspired sugar rush. And they fueled a series of discussions about what is possible, as we explored ideas and techniques in the kitchen. Sometimes the most useful ingredients are the ones hidden in plain sight.
Years Past
April 10, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We found racks of lamb ribs at our local supermarket. We seasoned them with salt and then braised them in a stew of lima beans enriched with soffrito, tomatoes, and wine. When the ribs were tender we pulled them out of the beans and grilled them. As they charred on the grill we glazed them with Luchito Honey. The savory, meaty, tender, sweet, and spicy ribs were a hit. And worth looking at again in the near future.
Years Past
April 9, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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With Corn Pops still on the brain we looked to get more of them into our lives. The cold winter brought freshly popped popcorn back into fashion for us. The proximity of the two snacks in our kitchen counter made connecting them easy. And their similar names and yet different flavor profiles made the connection more intriguing. The two together became a sweet, salty, richly aromatic snack. Kettle corn gone wild.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pasta water is often added to a pan of pasta as it is finished with the sauce. Pasta water is a variable. How much salt is in it? How many orders of pasta were cooked in it? How much water has evaporated? When cooking pasta at home, pasta water only contains a small amount of additional starch in it to thicken a sauce. A more intense pasta water adds thickening power, filled with dispersed hydrated starch, it is a often the base for simple sauces, as in cacio pepe or pasta aglio e olio. It also is used to thin out thicker ragouts as the pasta and sauce cook together. It is thickening water. We wanted to control this element in pasta cookery and increase its value.
The flavor of toasted flour is smooth, nutty, and rich. We took a dried pasta and roasted it for 30 minutes at 250°F. Then we cooled it down. We brought 1000 grams of water to a boil and added 150 grams roasted pasta and 5.57 grams of salt. The roasted pasta took longer to cook. It did not want to overcook. It retained its snap even as we thought it would break down. After cooking the noodles for 15 minutes we strained and reserved the water and the pasta separately. The pasta was plump, snappy, and seasoned, with rich and toasty flavors. And it did not stick together, even after cooling. (More investigation is needed into what is happening here.)
The pasta water was seasoned, nutty, smooth, and savory. We put the pasta water into the blender and added 0.05% xanthan gum to the water and sheared it into the liquid for about 15 seconds. We added the additional hydrocolloid to add a bit of mouth feel and to help keep the starch granules in suspension.
We cooled the roasted pasta water down. Now we have it on hand for making pasta dishes or thickening pan sauces. It is a flavorful element to have on hand in the refrigerator and perhaps even in the freezer. It sparks the idea of making and having other roasted grain waters on hand for specific applications: rice, barley, oat, etc.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Seven parts later, the entire cauliflower used, we have a dish. We sauteed the cauliflower scallops in salted butter and placed them on the cauliflower custard. We seasoned the encapsulated cauliflower with cauliflower charcoal and salt and put it on the custard. We added the crispy leaves, the cauliflower stem kimchi and the feta brined cauliflower core.
Years Past
April 6, 2006
April 6, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We took all the trimmings and odd bits from the cauliflower That we couldn't use for any other application and decided to make charcoal. We set them on a sheet of foil and put them on our grill to carbonize. We cooked them until they had burnt through and become cauliflower charcoal. We let it cool and pressed it through a sieve. The resulting charcoal powder delivers flavors of the grill exactly where we want it. Next time we will smoke the charcoal too to add another level of flavor to it.
Years Past
April 5, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We started with the reserved dairy from the encapsulated cauliflower. We weighed it and seasoned it with 0.5% salt. We also calculated 0.4% iota carrageenan and 0.1% kappa carrageenan. We sheared the carrageenans into the dairy in the blender. After 15 seconds we poured the mixture into a medium pot set over medium heat. We cooked the dairy, stirring, till it reached 80°C to fully hydrated the carrageenans. We strained the cauliflower base and dispensed it into bowls. We cooled the cauliflower at room temperature for 15 minutes and then refrigerated it to set the gel. The texture is smooth, rich and creamy. It is reminiscent of a baked egg custard with all of the richness and no eggs. After tasting our sample we reserved the remaining bowls of cauliflower custard to finish the dish.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We put the cauliflower florets in a pot and covered them with just about equal parts whole milk and heavy cream. We simmered the cauliflower until it was tender. Then we drained it and put the tender florets into a blender, reserving the liquid for another application. We weighed the cooked cauliflower and added 0.5% salt and 1% calcium lactate. We pureed the mixture until it was smooth and then chilled it down. When it was cold we dropped spoonfuls of the puree into a gellan bath. The bath consisted of 0.5% low acyl gellan and 0.05% soduim hexametaphosphate sheared into cold water in a high speed blender. The gellan formed a beautiful tender gel around the cauliflower. Once the spoonfuls of puree were encapsulated, we pulled them out, rinsed them off, and stored them in clean water until we were ready to serve them.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We trimmed the leaves from the cauliflower stems. We blanched them in boiling water, iced them down, and laid them out on a dehydrator tray. We covered the leaves with a teflon sheet to keep them flat. We dehydrated the leaves for about an hour. They became dry and crisp. They had a slight vegetal undertones. Next time we will take them a step further and deep fry them to further enhance the crispy and delicious nature of the leaves.
Years Past
April 2, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Small stems and attached leaves surround the central stalk of the cauliflower. We separated the leaves from the stalks. We reserved the leaves for another preparation. The cauliflower stems are fickle. Tasting each stem as we sliced them gave us a greater appreciation of the qualities of the cauliflower. Some tasted bright, sweet, green, and crunchy. Some were bitter and tasted like dirt. The sweet green slices we put in the good pile. The dirt flavored stems we put in the "use later" pile. We put the sweet stems into a vacuum bag and added the liquid from a traditional batch of kimchi. We vacuum sealed the two together and let them infuse for 10 minutes. We tasted and then added a bit more salt. Our cauliflower stem kimchi was crisp and juicy. It absorbed the kimchi juices while retaining its earthy, cauliflower undertones.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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