chadzilla

jaded by green

We recently came across an interesting term born out of the current eco-craze... greenwashing.

I think it is very important to keep ourselves in check during this world period.  We are increasingly being bombarded with green claims by everything from cars to restaurants to pet food to anything that utilizes marketing to sell.  Unlike other 'trends,' we cannot afford to allow ourselves to become jaded by green.  The underlying necessity to fix our ill planet (or more directly... to stop inflicting illness upon our planet) cannot become a mere marketing ploy, attacking consumers from every direction and making them oblivious to the truth.  Dishonesty in claims through greenwashing may cause consumers to associate anything labelled eco-, all natural-, green-, etc. with falsehoods or uncertainty.

There is a great downloadable article by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing titled "The Six Sins of Greenwashing."  It only takes a minute to read the shortened version, and 5 minutes to read the full article.  Before marketing your restaurant or hotel or resort, determine what shade of green you are, how green you are, and be honest.  There should be no shame in whatever shade you are.  Honesty before green!

83C

This was a test run at the magic cooking number of 83C.  The controlled cooking yields incredible textures with vegetables (especially potatoes) because it breaks down the starch while leaving vital structure-maintaining pectin intact.  I tried a variety of starches that we normally utilize... the most exciting part of the results was that even after a long 7 hours of cooking, the potato texture was never compromised.  Overcooking was virtually impossible... perfect potatoes in 2 hours or 20 hours.

These are bars of sweet potato cooked with orange juice (a typical Peruvian application).

Some boniato with roasted garlic oil and salt.

Yuca cooked with mojo... this was unfortunately the big dissappointment of the trials.  I really wanted to achieve a firm texture of yuca with all of the starch broken down into creaminess... didn't happen.  After 7 hours of cooking, the yuca was still too hard and had a raw bite to it.  I fried a piece for a short time afterwards out of curiosity.  The result was so/so, but not 'get all your hopes up' promising.  The idea was to achieve a great texture through sous-vide (with mojo flavor infused) and keep the pieces in mis en place to fry a la minute.

This next photo was an attempt to create a solid Peruvian causa, which is a cold potato dough.  I bagged the Yukon gold cubes with aji amarillo, lime juice, olive oil, and salt.  This method would allow 'causa' to be made out of whatever shape we decided to cut the potato and use it in ways that typical causa could not be used.  Just chill after cooking.  The result... very good.

The very last trial was not based on potato, but on corn.  After seeing Bruno Bertin make polenta with sous-vide cooking (of course, he used a CVap), I could not get the idea of cooking grits out of my head... for professional and personal reasons.  After gaining the benefit of waking up to perfectly cooked eggs, I felt that waking up to perfectly cooked grits would be like the gap-toothed dixie fairy paid us a visit overnight.

The results of the grits were simultaneously promising and dissapointing.  If you want the most creamy melted down grit feel, then it's a dissappointment.  The promise was an entirely new texture.  I modified Bertin's recipe a bit to be more compatible with the American southern palate.  The texture was soft, but pliable.  These were grits that you could scoop up with your hands and shape like clay.  Chef K mentioned that it was reminiscent of cornbread to an extent... perhaps with some ingredient changes this direction could be interesting.  He is right that the texture is of a batch of cornbread that did not fully cook in the center.  I did learn that (as much as I want to thrown it into the mix) butter doesn't fair well in the bag at 83C... it broke down, and had to be re-kneaded in afterwards by massaging the bag.

We'll see where we go with this in the future.  At 7 hours of cooking time, these definitely are not the instant grits that no self-respecting southerner would ever admit to eating.

vegetable sous-vide

We constantly focus on temperatures for the breakdown of proteins and collagen when we utilize the sous-vide method for cooking meats.  Some of these temps have become chiselled into our brains after so many trials that an educated guess has become an experienced guess...  Still, there is no substitute for cold scientific knowledge.  This bit of information came along with an epiphanal mental 'hallelujah' chorus singing in the background.  The information was delivered in the broken English of Bruno Goussault with Bruno Bertin in the DVD series of workshops from the 2007 Star Chefs Congress.  (This disc set is an incredible investment... even if you were in attendance and you are the king of note-taking, there is always missed information that comes to you later.)

The epiphany was Goussault's recitation of the cooking temperatures associated with vegetable matter, not animal matter.  True, I have cooked vegetables in the bag before but it was like shooting mice in the dark without having a knowledge of breakdown temperatures.

Chef Bertin was cooking polenta in a vacuum sealed bag in a CVap.  Goussault explained that all vegetable and fruit product should be cooked at a temperature of 83C.  Why this temperature?  Let's look at the components of plant matter.  There is obviously sugar present depending on the ripeness and the plant itself and there is also cellulose matter which does not breakdown at normal cooking temperatures.  The other 2 components that must be respected in relation to texture are starch and natural pectin.  Starch will begin to breakdown at temperatures of 78C or 80C and above.  Natural pectins, which are the molecular glue holding all plant cells together, do not begin to break down until 85C.  This knowledge along with a controlled method of cooking allows some great new textures to be achieved.

The polenta recipe used was interesting, but I wanted to give it a run on a smoked potato component in a dinner we had scheduled last night.  I tossed the potato in olive oil, salt, and pepper and let them smoke for awhile.  Once the smoke flavor was fixed on the surface of the cubes (along with the oil which will act as a vehicle to bring the smoke flavor through and through), the potato was bagged up and thrown into an 83C water bath for 2 hours (the top most picture is of the potatoes out of the bag after cooking).

The result was a potato texture I have never experienced before.  The completely broken down starches yielded a creamy texture while the potato still had a slightly crisp bite from the intact pectins.  Obviously, the texture was uniform throughout the cubes.

The next question (and one that I will discover today) is... will this texture remain if cooking is prolonged another couple of hours or indefinitely.  I plan to play around with soft grits cooked in the bag, and I'm going to drop some more potatoes in the water bath as well... they both cook at 83C.  Chef K suggested that this could be a great cooking method for yucca as well (the extremely high starchiness of yucca has always turned me off to it, so it will be exciting to examine it's controlled cooked texture).

raw food

We handle quite a variation of groups and events throughout the various outlets in our resort.  Food allergies are one and special diets are another, and it's beneficial when someone contacts us ahead of their arrival allowing us time to communicate the situation to our staff.  I was put on the spot last night by a different sort of dietary request.

The raw food diet has been around for a few years now.  Despite it's fair existence, I have never personally had to deal with it.  I guess that by keeping myself ignorant (even with great books such as the Charlie Trotter Raw book which has been our for a few years... and which I have never purchased or read), I left myself open for a spontaneous challenge.  That challenge came in as part of a party of 20.  Two women in the group claimed to be on the raw food diet, and I found out with less than 30 minutes to their reservation time.  Even worse, they were owners of a condo next door... who are famously high-maintenance and we can never seem to please for some reason... despite our best efforts.

So with a quick and fruitless internet search, I cursed our slow network and found a morsel of information.  People choose the raw food diet because they believe that vital enzymes and other nutritional goodies are lost when food is taken above 116F... that's just a little over room temperature in south Florida!  Also, 75% of their diet must consist of raw foods... that makes sense considering that certain flavorings and oils must undergo a good deal of processing (usually involving heat).  Dairy (considering the pasteurization process) I was not sure of, so I avoided it.  Raw meats... well, they fit the bill, but I wasn't sure on their acceptance.

Here was my submission to "Battle Raw Food."  The tuna component on the right is there only because I found out (again, only 10 minutes before dishing) that although the girls were on the diet, they absolutely allowed themselves the vice of seared raw tuna and soy sauce... whatever.  So the tuna went on, cold smoked with the new smoking gun, and topped with soy-infused shaved red onion.

The rest of the plate was my spontaneous creation... compression-braised watercress (smoked with peach wood, then compressed with grilled peanut oil), vacuum-infused eggplant with white anchovy oil, garlic, and preserved meyer lemon dust (compression technique again), slow-warmed teardrop tomatoes, and shaved pecans.

The watercress was interesting... allowing smoke and wilting without heat.  Strong meaty flavors there.  The eggplant was also interesting.  My train of thought was that although the dieter could not enjoy anchovies themselves, I could use the oil with compression to offer a similar flavor to the diner... this falls in accordance with the 75% rule in my book.

Next components.  To add more umami, I threw some tomatoes in the Alto Shaam for a short time on low temp.  This slow-ripening or pulling of flavor reminded me of MFK Fisher's story of placing orange wedges over her radiator in her French Apartment.  It's a slow dehydration and glutamate builder.  Taking something naturally good, and making it incredible with very little effort... only patience.  The shavings of pecan are just for extra flavor dimension and texture.  I wanted to incorporate some sort of nut shaved on the microplane, but which one could I use without toasting?  Maybe it was conceived years ago by growing up with a pecan tree, but the flavor of raw pecans are much better than toasted pecans.  I'm not sure if I'm the only one out there who feels this way, but it makes the pecan an anomoly among nuts.

So what's the conclusion here... when I offered to answer any questions about what they were eating, both ladies declined.  They also both ate the tuna from the plate and did not even touch the rest of it... insult to the chef!  I try not to let such things get to me, but I did run around hyped up for a good 40 minutes on this dish while organizing the rest of the parties food.  It wasn't a masterpiece, but I was momentarily proud of it (at least in technique and flavor... not in presentation).  Miami is full of trendy wannabe nobodies without a freakin' clue.  Rise above, Zilla!  The bright side is that it allowed me to educate myself on yet another ridiculous food diet and its unnecessary rules.

upgrade

Had to finally do it.

It took some time to arrive from Polyscience, but here it is.  This means I'm retiring the DIY model for use at home.  Although I haven't really ran it through a test yet, I did fire up one bowl of persimmon wood splinters.

Thumbs up for ease of use.  Thumbs up/down for smoke effect... I expected more smoke than from the DIY model, but the volume is about the same.  The thumbs up here is for not having to repack the bowl as often.  Hopefully it will receive more thumbs up in the future for durability.

tropical delights, pt. 3

Here is the wrap up from the walk about at Tropical Delights.

I guess I assumed that the micros we get grow in green houses.  Wrong.  There are no glass walls or ceilings here... just rows on tables and a brief shading from the sun.  The rest of it grows almost wild... or as Andre pointed out new terminology to us, wild crafted... like the celery growing wild below the micro celery and cilantro.

These are what we call pea tendrils, as Andre also pointed out to us is wrong horticultural terminology.  Chefs and growers have different ideas about what a tendril is.

Bulk organic soil.

White sapote.  Abundant.

Lo quat tree.  This brought back more childhood memories.  We called them Japan plums.

The appropriately named ugly lemon.  Imagine how much zest you could get from this thing.

A super-potent South African pepper.  Can't remember the name.

Cuban long neck avocados... very Salvador Dali.

Sweet little tomatoes.  Some of these came home with us.

Mango tree.

Papaya tree.

A wild black raspberry.

Jack fruit.  Female on the left.  Male on the right.

A long mulberry before ripening.

Andre climbed this tree to pull some wax jambu (or java apple) down for us.  What generosity.

This is supposed to be like the tallest carambola in the whole freakin' world or something... not sure.  I just know it's pretty damn tall.  Check out the hyacinth bean flower vines in the forefront.

And some green carambola from a different tree.

And a palm (or palmetto... is there a relation) that is used to make beer somewhere.  I don't know the name of it, or the type of beer made, or what part of the world this happens but just the beer factor alone warranted a picture.

~fin~

tropical delights, pt. 2

... continuing on our trek through the farm at Tropical Delights with Andre.  There were so many pictures and names that I'm going to categorize a little here.  This post will consist of herbs, floral, and aromas.

Rosemary flowers.  Floral sweetness and pine flavor.

Cat mint and sage.  I had never heard of cat mint, which is different from catnip... but then again, there were many things here I had never heard of.

Rose grass.  This grass had a scent and flavor like rose petals, just not as intense.  Supposedly, this is used in the manufacture of perfumes more than actual rose petals are... makes me wonder about the rose water in our pantry.

I can't remember the name of these, but they are a rare sunflower.

Marigolds.  A substitute for saffron... although not a very good one I'm sure.

This is Jamaican mint, an extraordinary herb if you're not familiar with it.  The mint has a great flavor and is sturdier than your average mint due to its healthy thick little leaves and woody stem.

... and to show you how large the shrub can get...

Garlic flowers.  There is something justifiably profound about a flower the smells like garlic.  What a flavor as well.  I could have eaten an entire row of these.  The stinking rose...

Zahtar, the herb.  We have used the spice blend before, but have never come in contact with the herb itself.  The aroma and flavor was bitterly intense.

Thai basil.

and another variety of basil from the Orient.  I was not aware that basil originated in Indonesia (probably of a similar variety to this one).  It makes you wonder about Italian cuisine as we know it... if basil comes from the east, tomatoes from Peru, noodles from China (ok, that one is a fight-starter).  What was Italian food like before Marco Polo?

Wild mountain arugula.  This is an ancestor to modern arugula.  The bitterness reminded me of the first time I ever tasted arugula.  After years of loving it and eating it, it somehow seems like the flavor has mellowed.  This variety brought that 'ka-pow!' back... like a junkie looking for a stronger fix.

Micro cilantro... the same ones we get every week.  Notice the seeds hanging on to the tops.  Andre simply sprinkles his seeds over the top soil, not buried... maybe that's the mistake I'm making with some of my horticultural endeavors.

Mexican tarragon.  I was not aware that there was a Mexican variety of tarragon, but Andre assured us that it was not related to common tarragon.  This sparked an entire conversation on how finite and infinite flavors are.  How plants that are not related can have similar flavors.  I guess it's the randomness of nature... why else would combinations like white chocolate and caviar share similar dominant flavor molecules?  It's like we are putting together pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Chicory.

Hyacinth bean flower.  Roll that beautiful sweet bean footage...

Shell ginger flowers.  They'll be plucked once they open a little.  Vibrant colors inside.

A red leaf hibiscus, although not actually related to the hibiscus (another odd piece of the jigsaw puzzle).

Micro shiso.

... to be continued one more time.

tropical delights, pt. 1

One of the local growers that we depend on had invited us over to the farm many times.  We finally took up that offer and made the 1 hour drive (which got extended to about 2 hours when we got lost) to Homestead, Florida... land of farms, feed stores, and taqueria's.  Tropical Delights grows and delivers the microgreens that we use regularly between the restaurant and catering.  We are fortunate to be able to support them.

The farm consists of the rigging that makes a happy home for the micros, but even moreso the rest of the land which is a botanical zoo.  Andre walked us around the trees and garden beds and showed off his many rare specimens like a proud parent.  It was like taking a stroll with a living horticultural encyclopedia.  Like other growers in the area, Andre can point to any plant there and give you its name, scientific name, origin, and some fascinating story about it.

This will be a photo essay of the wonderful things we saw and tasted.  Most of it is Andre's words and descriptions within a margin of error equal to the capacity of my tea-stained memory.  Let's walk...

We started with a beautiful scent from a flower (and I cannot remember the name) whose sweet odor is one of the main ingredients in Chanel #5... and if it isn't, then it could be.

Baby Florida avocados... these are everywhere in Homestead.  We have been blessed to get some in season and fresh picked a couple of times.  The flavor is sweeter and lighter than the California variety, and although not as popular, equally good.  Imagine cutting into an avocado so fresh that it could sit in your fridge for almost a week before beginning to brown.

Mamay Sapote (sah-POH-tay)... Andre has at least 3 varieties growing here including the white sapote and the chocolate sapote... which is the flower in the following picture.

There is a grove of lychee trees scattered about the land.  Chef K volunteered us to help with the picking come harvest time for the lychees.  That should be interesting.  Here are some baby lychees in various stages (one covered in spider's web which insures there will be no bugs in them).

This is what a lychee tree looks like, to give you an idea of its size.

Andre speaks of the volunteers on his farm.  These are not extra hands that willingly come over to help with the chores... they are plants that decided to grow here on there own.  Sometimes he transplants them and helps them to survive.  Some of the volunteers are not native to south Florida and are not supposed to be capable of surviving the hot climate... but they grown anyway.  Maybe they're just happy living here with Andre.  He jokes about growing up with tropical fruit like mango, sapote, carambola, lychees, and how it gave him a love of 'plain' fruit such as apples and pears... which were appropriately exotic to him.  Here are some of the more ordinary specimens...

A peach tree... which is not supposed to grow in such hot weather.

Asparagus... these tasted so sweet... the best I've ever tasted.  Of course, it was only out of the ground for about 10 seconds which obviously had a lot to do with it's amazing flavor.

Wild celery.  The flavor of this variety is much more astringent than the supermarket type.  Great to chew on while walking around.  These grow out of the ground under the table rows where the microgreens grow.  These are also not supposed to survive here which probably partly accounts for their bitter flavor.

Brown Turkish figs.  Just being around a fig tree and smelling the aroma it gives brought back memories of my childhood.

And finally modern traditional fennel...

... growing right alongside a fennel plant that is the ancestor of the modern day fennel.

And an X-rated carrot...

The carrots are usually fed to the 2 dogs, Jack and Jill.  For some reason they love these.

To be continued... there is much more to see...

don't read this

Do not read this blog right now.  Grant Achatz's web-based portion of his Alinea book is out.  If you have pre-purchased the book... check your email for the password.  If you have not already pre-purchased, now is the time.  Mosaic, the web-site, will be updated regularly and is a pre-view of what we can expect from the actual book which will come out in the Fall.  Let's hope that the website also has a feature which will archive material after it has been posted and changed.

Woo-Hoo!

electrolyzed

We took a little step towards being a slightly richer shade of green.  Well actually not we as in the kitchen (it's our housekeeping department), but we as a hotel.  A trial basis set-up for producing electrolyzed water for cleaning was installed.

This is going to replace a lot of the chemicals that the housekeeping department uses to sanitize rooms.  I filled up a few spray bottles of it to use in the kitchen for spraying down work areas and tools.  Aside from not putting harsh chemicals into the ground, it's efficient and economical... it's just water.  It's pretty mind-blowing how the stuff smells like bleach and if you stick your head to far under the top lid and take a deep breath, you will get knocked on your ass.

I've read a little about the benefits of it, like how it kills salmonella, e. Coli, and many other potential harmful little critters.  Supposedly you can fill a bucket with it, and wash your lettuce in it.  It's completely food-safe.  The guy installed it drank a glass of it... I tried it myself too... what the hell?  I've put many far more harmful things into my disgestive system.

Has anyone out there had much experience with electrolyzed water?  I'm wondering how long the water stays that way before it returns to the state of being plain old water.  I even brought a bottle home.