25 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in combi oven, cookbook
Foie gras after a stint in a combi oven
So a few weeks ago I totaled a gorgeous hunk of foie gras while attempting to make WD-50’s famous Knot Foie. I failed the first step – making a traditional foie gras terrine, and then in my second step – trying to make my leftover foie stretchy to make a knot. I referenced my copy of Larousse Gastronomique
21 Thursday Jul 2011
Posted in blow shit up
Scott, the big TV star, at the Skillet Diner
Our very own Scott Heimendinger, aka Seattle Food Geek, made his television debut Tuesday night on the Food Network’s Monster Kitchen. Scott functioned as – what else – a geek. His job was to do the calculations on how to bake a doughnut that was six feet in diameter. This included filming a guy named HEIMENDINGER locating a HUGE OVEN and then filming HIM INSIDE of it. I don’t think the Food Network thought that one all the way through. Uh, yeah.
Friends and family descended upon the Skillet Diner to watch the debut on their flat screen TVs. Food and drink and laughs were served up in great quantities. Everytime Scott came up cheers came from the peanut gallery, with hisses and boos when the opposing team came up. It was a lot of ridiculous fun.
If you missed it, you can catch it at the following dates and times (on the Food Network, of course):
See if you can’t spot the Modernist Cuisine books laid out at one point.
Congrats, Scott, and don’t forget about us little people.
07 Thursday Jul 2011
Posted in blow shit up
When exploring cutting edge cooking techniques, it doesn’t always work out. For example, you can take a gorgeous, pricey lobe of foie gras…
…completely trash it as a terrine…
…and finally turn it into a ill-flavored goop.
Ah, the learning curve. I’m finding a sense of humor to be essential in times like these…
Jethro
13 Monday Jun 2011
Posted in brining, combi oven, MC at home, recipes
The Cast Of Characters
The title of this dish is misleading. I mean, how easy is it to steam broccoli in a combi oven? Set the settings, put it in, wait a few minutes. No, that would not be satisfactory in the least. We’re trying to do something different here. And certainly, so are the authors of Modernist Cuisine. Turns out it is better to call it Broccoli Three Ways. Or The Broccoli Trinity. Power Broc Triple Threat, perhaps. With our humble plant from the cabbage family, we are going to not just steam it, but fry it and pickle it as well. And throw some cured fatback on top for good measure. OK, now we’re talking.
01 Wednesday Jun 2011
Posted in cookbook
Roll Over, Escoffier, Dig These Rhythm And Blues...
In this last post of the covering the actual cost of investment in cooking Modernist Cuisine (having already covered tools and specialty ingredients), we’ll now turn to the actual recipes and where to find them. The end game is just eating a mouthful of delicious food, yes? These resources will get you started recreating the Michelin starred dishes of the world, plus help you gain the skill set to create your own unique dishes.
28 Saturday May 2011
Posted in gels, sous vide, vacuum sealing
TGIF. Thank God It’s Friday. A long week, and now the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend. So, what to do. Camping? Happy hour? For Eric and Jethro, how about some cooking? Scott sadly had another engagement to attend.
There’s no specific agendas to our meet ups anymore. Sometimes we watch food documentaries or go to restaurants. This time, we just wanted to cook something and eat the thing. We bandied about some ideas via text and started thinking about salmon wrapped in pork skin and deep fried. The conversation continued:
26 Thursday May 2011
Posted in emulsions, foams, gels, hyrocolloids, maltodextrin, spherification, starches, thickeners, transglutaminase
Having gone over the price ranges of the tools and gadgets of Modernist Cuisine, let’s look at specialty ingredients next. The food additives used in Modernist Cuisine are considered safe. The names might be ‘science-y” and therefore unpalatable, but if you have no problem with sodium bicarbonate (baking powder) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C), you should be fine with these.
19 Thursday May 2011
Tags
dewar, digital scale, immersion blender, immersion circulator, induction cooktop, ISI ThermoWhip, Modernist Cuisine, pH meter, pressure cooker
“Modernist Cuisine” is not for most home cooks.
– Michael Ruhlman“[Modernist Cuisine] looks cool and would be fun to flip through,” he said. “But I don’t need to spend six hundred dollars on a cookbook — I already know how to cook.” This led to my next question — in his opinion, were these techniques even appropriate for the home cook? “Sous vide is great for cooking vegetables and meat,” he replied. “But home-cooked meals are home-cooked for a reason. They’re meant for the home.”
– Domestic DivasThe truth is that this stuff is for the pros.
– New Yorker
Man, do these people bore me. How uninspired. How defeatist. How sad, pathetic, and totally lame.
I started to cook in December 2009 – about 18 months ago. I had no knife skills, didn’t know anything about Anthony Bourdain or Iron Chef, much less Mugaritz. My refrigerator was empty save for old condiments. I didn’t even notice the front right burner on my stove was larger than the others because I had never used it.
But once I started, I got way into it. Within weeks, I had discovered avant-garde food. By February 2010, I had ordered my first ‘molecular gastronomy’ kit and contacted Scott and Eric to form Jet City Gastrophysics. By March, I spherified my first liquids. By August, I made the red cabbage gazpacho from The Fat Duck. And in October, just 10 months later, I began cooking from Modernist Cuisine, which wasn’t to be published for another five months. I used their PDF excerpt.
14 Saturday May 2011
Posted in MC at home, recipes
When creating the striped omelet recipe from the Modernist Cuisine cookbook, a pastry comb is dragged through the mushroom puree to create the stripes. I had leftovers, and was making another omelet, when it hit me – why just do stripes? So I put the puree in a squeeze bottle instead.
As my cake decorating skills are non-existent, my first attempts were amateur indeed but promising. Another idea would be to use a pastry bag. Because of the egg powder mixed in, the mushroom puree firms up just like eggs. You can create spirals, filigrees, quotes and messages (“Good Morning!” would be funny), even roses rising from the omelet. I’m looking forward to seeing what crazy icing designs people come up with.
Jethro
06 Friday May 2011
Posted in foams, gels, liquid nitrogen, recipes, sous vide
The Cast Of Characters
So I’ve been going through a lot of Modernist Cuisine
Jet City Gastrophysics 