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Jet City Gastrophysics

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Jet City Gastrophysics

Tag Archives: Dinner

Gastropocalypse 2012: First Stop: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by jethro in i ate there

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Dinner, gastropocalypse, Heston Blumenthal, London, meat fruit

Outside Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

I just came back from a two week jaunt through Europe.  I hadn’t been on a two week vacation in over two and a half years, and hadn’t been to Europe in six years, so I was determined to pack in as much excitement as I could.  And boy, did I.  I decided one aspect of this vacation was to be a culinary exploration, and I managed to score reservations at some of the best places on the continent.  I named the whole excursion Gastropocalypse 2012.  The first stop on the culinary map: London.

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Feasting with Son Of Ssäm and the Blade Man

08 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by jethro in blow shit up, uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dinner, kramer knives, momofuku, ssam bar

A headache and leftovers.  If it sounds like last night was a lot of fun, then you would be correct.

Knife maker extraordinaire Bob Kramer was delivering a new custom knife to a customer and thought it would be fun to get the Jet City Gastrophysics crew together and make up a little meal.  We were up for it and invited them down to Gastrophysics Labs for an impromptu meal.  The customer?  Matt Rudofker, the sous chef of Momofuku Ssäm Bar.  The meal? Whatever was found at the market.  Yeah, let’s do this.

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Beef Marrow, Beecher’s Veloute, Caramelized Cippolini, and Ciabatta

21 Tuesday Jun 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in brining, curing, gels, pressure cooking, sous vide, starches, thickeners, vacuum sealing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cheese, Cooking Blog, Dinner, Flowers, Food, Forage, Marrow, Morel, pressure cooker, Recipe

Additional ox tail/morel broth served table side.

Eric

Stop being so serious and have a freak out moment…

31 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Blog, Cooking Blog, Dinner, Food, Grant Achatz, Recipe

THAT’S CHEF GRANT ACHATZ!!!!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I MET HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JETHRO HAD HIM SIGN A BOOK FOR ME BEFORE I WENT TO NOMA (CLICK)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE TOLD ME AND LUKE (FROM FRESH BISTRO) THAT WE COULD COME TO ALINEA TO WORK FOR A WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ERIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fruit Leather, Flowers, and Glass

11 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in starches

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Blog, Cooking Blog, Dinner, Food, Pure Cote B790, Recipe

Work with pure cote-b790 and ultra tex is starting to pay off.   Traditional fruit leather on the bottom flavored like a candied apple.  Flowers are from my garden.  Glass is made of fresh orange and pear juice.  Sauce is an urfa biber and orange zest syrup heated to collapse the glass tableside.

Eric

The Thesis Dinner, Take One

14 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by jethro in blow shit up, recipes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dinner, Jet City Gastrophysics, menu, thesis dinner

Our First Dinner Taking Shape

Our First Dinner Taking Shape

Back in December, we wrote about a special project we chose to embark on.  We decided we would take all of the knowledge we’ve gathered over the months working together and actually apply it to a full blown meal.  We christened it “The Thesis Dinner”.  Last week we finally got together and served a multi-course tasting menu to some close friends and family.

Eric And Scott Cooking Up A Feast

Eric And Scott Cooking Up A Feast

I don’t have any pictures of the dishes, as my camera (that is to say, iPhone) became the de facto DJ of the evening, playing a variety of Latin music, from Ranchera to Tango to Spanish rap.  Luckily, it was documented by a couple of attendees, and you can see the fruits of our labors here and here.

It was great fun serving the meal, and took all day to make it.  We arrived at Scott’s at 9am and left around 10pm.  My feet were killing me by the end of it.  I used to bartend and I forgot about how it is to stand the whole time.  But I suffered through it, poor little old me.

We’re making adjustments to the menu for a very special luncheon version coming up.  It’s an exciting step forward and I can’t wait to see – and taste – the final result.

Pressure Cooker and Ice Cream

Note To Self: Move The Ice Cream Station Away From The Pressure Cooker Station

Jethro

Gazpacho

27 Sunday Feb 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in centrifuge, gels

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Tags

Blog, Centrifuge, Cooknig Blog, Dinner, Food, Iota Carrageenan, Recipe

Starting to work with iota carrageenan, which is pretty fun.  Also, a bit of work with Jeth’s centrifuge.  We’ll see what happens.

Eric

Under Pressure

28 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in pressure cooking

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Tags

Cooking, Cooking Blog, Dinner, Food, Pressure Cooking, Recipe

I finally had a chance to use my pressure cooker that I bought about a year ago.  I purchased it for two reasons:  #1 In Heston Blumenthal’s “In Search of Perfection” he suggests using a pressure cooker more often……SOLD! #2 I wanted to do a bunch of canning (never got around to it).

I purchased two 3.5# pieces of pork belly that I brined (one in Chinese 5 spice and the other in a smoked paprika/chili oil blend) then braised, then pressed.  The process when it comes to preparing pork belly is time consuming but with a few different pieces of equipment I was able to do this in record time….for me anyway.

The brining process took me the same amount of time….about 4 hours.  Luckily, Jethro has a vacuum chamber sealer so next time I’ll go that route and save even more time!  The cooking time of the pork belly is what really changed things.   Normally, a 3.5# piece of pork belly would take about an hour to an hour and a half to braise properly in the oven.  I knocked one out in 20 minutes then the other piece in 18 minutes.  The pressing and cooling process took another 45 minutes.

The next time around is what I’m excited about.  Essentially, I could have a piece of pork belly brined, cooked off, and ready for pressing in under an hour.   Time is everything in a kitchen and space is a concern at home.

The great thing is that I was able to dehydrate tapenade ingredients in my oven overnight then cook the pork belly in the pressure cooker. Once all of the tapenade ingredients were ready I placed them in my spice grinder then emulsified them with extra virgin olive oil then slowly worked in tapioca maltodextrin to create that pavement effect you see in the picture above.

After I made the two pork bellies I made a beef stock in the pressure cooker.  Traditional French style beef stock with all the bells and whistles in 45 minutes instead of 8-12 hours.  The only problem I had was that the stock was cloudy but I cleaned it up by cooking some egg whites in the stock which cleaned it right up.  I talked to Jeth and Scott about this and Jeth suggested after I make the stock to use the centrifuge so I will have a super concentrated stock…..genius.

The picture above is the 5 spice pork belly, tapenade “pavement”, and flower.  With a few more adjustments and tinkering I think this will turn out to be a world class dish.

Eric

15 p.s.i. ’til I die!

Soy Glazed Mackerel, Honey Roasted Root Vegetable Puree, Macadamia Extraction, Herb Salad.

20 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in centrifuge, sous vide, vacuum sealing

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Tags

Blog, Cooking Blog, Dinner, Fish, Food, immersion circulator, Mackerel, Recipe, Sous Vide

Equipment:

Centrifuge
Homogenizer
Chamber Vacuum Sealer
Immersion Circulator

Our first main course dish. Good things are coming…..stay tuned.

Eric

Cookbook: Herve This-From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism

20 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by ericriveracooks in cookbook

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Blog, cookbook, Cooking Blog, Dinner, Food, Herve This, Molecular Gastonomy, Recipe

A book from the father of molecular gastronomy.

I’ve been kicking around this whole “molecular gastronomy” thing for quite some time.  When I first heard about it I was reading about at all the cool presentations, shapes, and textures that were being displayed by chefs at numerous restaurants around the world.  I thought, “I want to cook like that one day…..I want to create art through food”.  I didn’t realize what these chefs were actually doing. I just thought it was for presentation purposes only.  I saw a video on youtube that showed Jose Andres hanging out with Ferran Adria and Chef Adria was explaining his spherification of olive puree,  I was amazed.

A few months later I saw Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain talk in Seattle.  Mario Batali called molecular gastronomy fake, I was confused.  I respect all these chefs and what they do. I’m so far down the totem pole in this chef world that I’m a random bush that is hanging out across the field from the chef totem pole.  What to do?

Looking back at the whole thing I realize one thing. Mario Batali wasn’t talking about molecular gastronomy at all. He was talking about the chefs that turned “molecular gastronomy” into elaborate presentations, shapes, and textures. He had no issue with Ferran Adria but he had a problem with the guys trying to be like Ferran Adria without understanding the science behind what Chef Adria was doing.

Heston Blumenthal set me straight when he had Harold McGee on his show, “Kitchen Chemistry”. Harold McGee wrote a book called:

(I have more information on the book coming shortly….not finished yet)

and Heston Blumenthal said that this book changed cooking for him. It was written in 1984, I have the revised version that was written in 2004. This book answered the why’s, how’s, and debunked all those things you have probably heard growing up, “sear the meat it traps in the juices”……these book say, “no, that’s not true”……the books are correct, you are not (I believed the same thing, I suck…haha). Chef Blumenthal listened, learned, and innovated so did Ferran Adria….look where they’re at now.

I did my research, bought my books, and started to read them (I have a lot more on the way). I began reading Harold McGee’s book and then I started doing more research about how the term “molecular gastronomy” came to be.  It was an easy way for Herve This and his science partner to market this science of cooking easily.  What you have probably heard from the mainstream is that molecular gastronomy is the crazy presentations, shapes, and textures of food. The mainstream doesn’t get it…..it’s like Elvis when he first came out.  The teenager’s loved him and parents immediately thought he was the devil. We often shun the things we do not understand or feel uncomfortable with.

My ignorance lead me to this world of molecular gastronomy………OH PRETTY COLORS!!!! My curiosity has lead me to understand and respect it.  Herve This’s book, “Building a Meal from Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism” has broken down all of these things into plain English for me.  Call it stupid, call it ridiculous, call it what you want.  There is a science behind cooking. The days of me looking at something and saying, ‘it’s done”, are over.  The days of believing someone simply because they have been doing it that way forever are over…..if they can’t tell me WHY then I will question them…..woo hooo I’m 4 years old all over again!

Herve This labeled it molecular gastronomy to make it easy to understand and market but he has also debunked over 25,000 culinary beliefs since he has started his research.  This book shows how to boil an egg to perfection, you might say, “well you just boil it for 10 minutes with a soft boil/hard boil/or whatever technique I’ve been using for years”.  Do you want to perfect this process? I do, so I listen.  Chefs have listened to the words of Herve This and they have become extremely successful in the culinary world, I want the same.

Full speed ahead, let’s build a meal “molecularly”!

BUY THIS BOOK…………..now!

Eric

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