Meeting Two: Dry Ice

30 Monday Aug 2010

Tags

Mixing up mysterious wonders, etc.

April’s Fools Day. Was it a coincidence that we had our second meeting on that day? Probably not. But this was no joke – we were diving straight into another contemporary cooking technique – the use of dry ice.

Using a KitchenAid mixer, we started by creating crushed dry ice infused with truffle oil. Now the finished product wasn’t quite there, but just about anything tastes better with truffle oil, so it is definitely promising. We then went with an instant sorbet using coconut milk. Eric threw in the ingredients (I think was just coconut milk and sugar if I recall correctly), and added the dry ice. It was done in minutes. It was fast, creamy and delicious.

Next up was plating the thing. We went overboard and wanted to serve it in a bowl, with small volcanoes made out of sugar that we could place on it with a hot dessert sauce coming out of them. The bowl would sit on a plate with pieces of dry ice on it so vapor would surround the dish. A crazy combination of hot and cold with a winter volcanic eruption theme. That’s how we roll.

We began pouring hot carmelized sugar on a Silpat (at the time, a new discovery for me), trying various methods to create the cones for our volcanoes. We couldn’t quite nail it, and pivoted to an entirely different idea: just pour a random design on the Silpat and use that as the ‘plate’.

A sugar plate for our sorbet

From there we used a dough cutter to form the sorbet, placed it on our new sugar plate, and topped it off with one of Eric’s awesome candied Meyer lemons. And voilà, we had ourselves one frickin’ cool dessert.

Dry Ice Coconut Sorbet with Candied Meyer Lemon on a Sugar Plate

I'd eat this. Yes, I would.

Scott has since perfected the idea as a dry ice Elderberry sorbet:

You can read Eric’s account of the meeting as well. A successful outing to be sure, and something to keep us inspired to delve deeper into the New Cookery.

Jethro

Soda Siphon Experiments Coming Soon……

27 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by ericriveracooks in carbonation

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Blog, Carbonation, Cooking Blog, Drinks, Food, Molecular Gastronomy, Soda Siphon, Sparkling Wine, Wine

I bought a soda siphon and I’m really excited to start working with. I would like to combine some of the work we did with the whipped cream dispenser then turn it over to this apparatus in order to carbonate our drinks……what….I like bubbles!

Another thing I want to start working on is a good base for infused sodas. Most sodas today are flavored with high fructose corn syrup and while there is a segment of the population that has a brain aneurysm when they hear about HFCS I just like the taste of real sugar. If HFCS tasted like real sugar then I wouldn’t care. Most sodas just have a simple syrup mixture which is just a 50/50 of water to sugar then the flavors are infused from there and most of the time they are artificial….I’m looking at you Coke and Pepsi. While there have been the natural soft drinks that have come out (Jones and others) I feel like they have been missing something. If my sodas take off I’ll promise not to burn Michael Jackson……

Another thing I want to do with the soda siphon is make sparkling wines. I realize that this process is achieved through secondary fermentation in the wine world but there are some wineries that do pump in CO2 without worrying about secondary fermentation. I’m not a big fan of wine but wine that bubbles and sparkles?!?!?!?! You have my attention!

I’ll post my findings here over the next week so stay tuned!

Eric

Sous Vide “Raw” Instant-Smoked Salmon

26 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by sheimend in sous vide

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

salmon, smoked salmon, Smoking Gun

Raw Smoked Salmon-1
Low and slow… it’s true for sous vide, and its definitely true for smoking. And, if you live in Seattle, you probably know that one of the worlds best smoked foods is salmon. Smoked salmon has a wonderfully rich and concentrated flavor, but unfortunately it also has the texture of wet leather. For this recipe, I used a Smoking Gun – a remarkable little device that creates a cold, concentrated smoke that can be captured in a container, or in this case, a vacuum bag [Disclosure: the Smoking Gun I used was a demo unit provided by PolyScience.] The result: instant smoky flavor. Then, we delicately cook the salmon to just above rare, which retains the fish’s buttery texture.

Total kitchen time: 25 minutes

Shopping list:

2 salmon fillets, about 15mm thick
1 tsp. smoked salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat your water bath to 45.5°C. [Note: Consuming undercooked fish blah blah blah. Some people will cook their salmon at 39°C, but that’s a little rare even for my taste. If you’re squeamish, crank up the temp to 52°C.]
Remove the skin from the salmon fillets (reserve for frying, if you want.) Divide the salt and pepper between the fillets and coat both sides. Place the fillets, together or individually) into vacuum seal bags, but don’t seal them yet.
Prepare an ice bath large enough for the salmon fillets in their bags.
Load a Smoking Gun with hickory wood shavings. Insert the exhaust hose into the open end of the bag and fold over the open edge to partially seal the bag.
Turn on the Smoking Gun and light the wood chips. Smoke the entire bowl into the bag, retaining as much smoke as possible.
Holding the open end of the bag up, submerge the bag into the ice bath for a few seconds to condense the remaining smoke. Seal the open end in the vacuum sealer.
Cook the salmon in the water bath for 15 minutes. Remove and serve.

Given the soft texture of the salmon, I thought it would be good to pair it with something crunchy. I fried kale leaves in grapeseed oil for a few seconds per side (look out for major oil splatter!) and roasted asparagus with olive oil and rosemary salt. I also fried the leftover salmon skin until it was slightly crispy and used it to wrap the asparagus. This is one of my new favorite salmon preparations, and I can’t wait to see what else I can instant-smoke!

Scott

[Originally posted at SeattleFoodGeek.com]

Meeting One: Spherification

24 Tuesday Aug 2010

Posted by jethro in hyrocolloids, spherification

≈ 2 Comments

A Noodle Made Of Root Beer

And so it began – March of 2010. We all gathered at my place and started on the mysteries of spherification – the process of shaping liquids into spherical shapes. Our choices: root beer and blueberry juice.

So we grabbed them, and followed the basic recipe:

Mix liquid with sodium alginate
Chill for 30 minutes
Drop liquid using a spoon or pipette into a setting bath of water and calcium chloride for a certain amount of time (the longer it sits, the thicker the shell gets)
Pull out and rinse with water

Our results were mixed. As you can see, you can create other shapes than spheres. You can read all about it in detail at Seattle Food Geek and Eric Rivera’s Cooking Blog. But we realized: hey, we’re onto something.

Jethro Contemplates The Future Of Food

From Tweet To Table

22 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by jethro in blow shit up

≈ 2 Comments

Modernist Cuisine, New Cookery, Molecular Gastronomy – whatever you want to call it, one thing that seems elusive is actually doing it yourself at home. Although there are forums and kits available, actually putting it all together by yourself can be quite a challenge. So why not find some others who are interested in doing it as well?

The Founding Tweets

That’s what happened in February of this year in Seattle when myself, Scott Heimendinger and Eric Rivera founded Jet City Gastrophysics, dedicated to exploring the new techniques, flavors and textures of the contemporary food scene.

So we’ve pooled together our collective brains, tools and passion, and have been making the stuff that we see in $300 cookbooks and Iron Chef made on $1000 machines. But at home in our small, normal kitchens. For way cheaper.

I made this coffee caviar - at home!

As Ferran Adria of El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck, Thomas Keller of the French Laundry and Per Se, and writer Harold McGee said in their Statement on the ‘New Cookery’:

We believe that cooking can affect people in profound ways, and that a spirit of collaboration and sharing is essential to true progress in developing this potential.

We couldn’t agree more. So I hope you join us on our journey and learn along with us!

Cheers – Jethro