chadzilla

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.

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!

pot au pho

We just finished a weekend of events to benefit the American Heart Association.  Saturday night consisted of a mystery dine-around in which all participants drew lots at a cocktail reception and were divided into different limo's.  Each limo was driven to an undisclosed participating restaurant for dinner.  Typically, we never pull from our regular menu for such events as they give us opportunity to throw out different ideas... and basically to just play around.  I'll post more interesting points of the event throughout the week.

The wording for pot au pho came from Chef K as we were brainstorming ways to incorporate living herbs or micros right on the table.  The overall focus or chefs from last year to this year went from heart-healthy to just plain green and sustainable and organic with an emphasis on eating what you like, but eating less of it (afterall, what's good for the soul can be good for the heart).  The play on words for the dish was a twist on French pot au feu with Vietnamese flavor (try pronouncing 'pot au pho' with the correct French and Vietnamese accents and it can be a tongue twister).  The pot was further taken to symbolize the living plant instead of the cooking vessel.  We received a great array of micros and herbs from Tropical Delights in Homestead Florida.  Ms. Yvonne and her brother, Andrew, don't take on too many clients so we try to utilize their product as often as possible for support.  She has gone out of her way many times to insure that we are happy with their efforts.

Understandably, Andrew was concerned about having actual 'dirt' on the dinner table... not because of a general concern over accidentally consuming soil, but because his soil is a super organic soil that is the result of lots of tweaking and manipulating (it's top secret and he protects it like his child).  Andrew teaches agriculture and horticulture on the university level and to hear him talk can make your head spin.  Much thanks to him for taking the time to work with us on this project.

The concern over soil on the table required a suitable substitute soil to go on with the initial plan... enter, the spent coffee grinds.

Although definitely gimmicky for your average meal, the chef needs to know how to play to the crowd and stick with a theme.  I think this dish works from this perspective.

The overall concept was a Vietnamese duck pho broth (I smoked both the carcasses and the meat for this to give extra depth to the flavor) to be frenched over sliced duck breast and ginger flower.  The plate consisted of small scissors so that the diner could snip the living herbs (we used some micro cilantro, basil, and pea tendril) and drop them into the hot broth.  Traditional Vietnamese pho comes with a basket of fresh herbs and bean sprouts on the side... this is the 'living' representation of that.

It also goes into a point that we brought up to the table about keeping growing herbs at home.  Recently while shopping around at Whole Foods (which is a sponsor of the event) in the produce aisle, I noticed that a tiny package of basil leaves costs $2.50 while a nice bushy basil plant costs $2.99.  Why pay for leaves that are going to die in your fridge and are 'less green' due to the packaging?  If I do not use all of my basil plant, then I can leave in on the sill, water it every couple of days, and I'll have fresh living basil leaves for a few weeks that look exactly as they did at the time of purchase.

swan & dolphin james beard dinner

The chef team from the Swan & Dolphin Resort at Disney in Orlando recently went to New York's James Beard House for a dinner themed in colors.  The event consisted of passed hors d'ouevres themed in color pairs then plated courses themed in individual colors.  Chris Windus of bluezoo sent pictures and descriptions of the dishes to me.

Yellow and Black

64.5 degree egg yolk, pressure cooked meyer lemon and vanilla puree, meyer lemon oil, golden beets, perigord black truffle caviar(agar and oil method), johnny jump up

Blue and Purple

Brittany

blue lobsters, shaved purple cauliflower hearts, purple cauliflower puree, opal basil,

Adirondack

blue potatoes, we coated them with aspic made from the turbot so they wouldn’t spin on the metal picks

Brown and Gold

Duck demiglace, morel agar disk, golden raisin

Chantilly

, duck croquette rolled in gold powder

Green

Compressed cucumber and honeydew, baby fennel puree, honeydew caviar tossed in mint oil, brunoise fava beans, spring pea puree (under the bruoise fava in a parisienne cut out of the honeydew), micro mint and chervil

Red

Foie torchon, gastrique of zinfandel vinegar with honey then mounted with foie fat, blood orange and strawberry salad, bulls blood, strawberry rhubarb gelee.

White

Turbot (brined, sous vide, cuisine solutions method), turnip gratin, pomme fondant (stuffed with white bean, white anchovy and mascarpone puree), topped with julienne poached hearts of palm, and a micro white carrot.

Pink

72 hr veal cheeks, guava and pink grapefruit vin, guave and beet sabayon, baby candy striped beets, bacon beet powder, micro amaranth

Orange

Orange greek yogurt mouse, confit kumquats, carrot crisps, orange saffron vanilla soup

The Swan & Dolphin Chef Team

Left to right...

Greg Shimoda (complex garde manger chef), Arnaud Violtat (complex executive sous chef of restaurants), Howard Stilianessis (complex banquet chef), Laurant Branlard (executive pastry chef), Robert Ciborowski (complex executive chef), Chris Windus (executive chef bluezoo restaurant).

sous-vide at home

Science versus Tradition.

I finally have my home kitchen set-up for sous-vide cooking.  This is something I hope to see a lot more of in the 'not so far off' future.  Even as chefs, we often draw a distinctive line between the food we can cook at work and the food we cook at home (at least it is if you utilize modern cuisine techniques at work).  Other labels are thrown on home cooked food such as comfort food or just good old home cooking... but what can be more comforting than an incredible piece of meat cooked using sous-vide methods.  Why should this experience be removed from the home.  True... there have been 'meal in a bag' type products in the past, but when we say sous-vide we mean controlled.  The ability to control a water bath to the degree is necessary.

So, what do you need to accomplish this.  Basically, 3 things.

A rice cooker or slow cooker as a heat source.  I am using this Black & Decker Rice Plus which has a great steam-lined look, holds 24 cups (ample water bath is important to control fluctuations in temperature as well as providing room enough to cook larger items when desired), and has a convenient little hole on top.  I tried a 'crock pot' type slow cooker before this one, and the rice cookers work better because the heating element is on the bottom and it can recover temperature drops more quickly.

The hole is important to the 2nd piece of necessary equipment... a PID (proportion, integral, derivative device).  This controls the amount of power going to the cooker while monitoring the temperature of the water bath.  The hole makes for a convenient place to slip the sensor wire.  The set-up allows the PID to keep the water at a constant temperature.  I am using a device called Sous-Vide Magic which I purchased from Fresh Meals Solutions.  Frank Hsu, who is president of FMS, went out of his way to back up his product.  He emailed me several times with information, and called me when I had minor issues with the device.  There is no lack of customer service at FMS.  Mr. Hsu also recommended the rice cooker that I am using above.

The last necessary equipment is a vacuum sealer.  In order to cook in a water bath, you must be able to seal foods in waterproof bags.  The Food Saver has made it's way into the American kitchen by being sold in most major retail stores (places that sell kitchen wares).  Although they promote it as a 'food saving' device (hence the name), hopefully we will see it used more as a vessel for preparing foods for sous-vide cooking.  Although the power on the Food Saver is not enough for compression techniques that we often use commercial vacuum sealers for, it does eliminate almost all of the air from around the food.

There is a certain appeal to what can be done with sous-vide once home cooks become familiar with the concept and practice.  It can even fall into the 'fix it and forget about it' category.  There is the power of control and 'fool proof' cooking that comes with this method.  There is the possibility of really reproducing restaurant food because you reduce certain uncontrollable factors.

This set-up can be added to your home kitchen for a small price.  $130 for the PID.  $50 for the rice cooker.  $100 for the vacuum sealer.  That's $280 for the whole system... when a Polyscience thermocirculator costs almost 3 times that.  It's tax refund time... go for it.  The home system actually does not circulate the water... but I've cooked several things in it already, and it does the job.  Imagine dropping eggs in before going to sleep and waking up to perfectly cooked eggs that only need to be pulled out of the water and cracked open.

So... with this leap, what are some other things that can be taken from the modern professional kitchen and brought into the home with interesting results?

... growing your own micro herbs and other edibles.

sousa phone

I am taking great pleasure in pointing out a promising new chef blog... Salt of the Earth.

We first met Kevin Sousa at a Taste of the NFL event here in Miami a couple of years ago (when the superbowl was last held here).  At first we were intrigued by the guy who decided to haul a 5 foot tall LN2 tank all the way down from Pittsburgh and was using a Home Depot Wagner paint sprayer to make a frozen dust made out of horchata (correct me if my memory fails, Kevin).  The point is that we just had to meet this guy.

Kevin took an interesting route with avant garde cuisine... he explains it in his own words on his blog.  He basically built a restaurant within a restaurant to do the sort of food he wanted to do.  With the right diners supporting him, a great waiter and support staff, and a little press (plus the obvious time and patience), he soon built Alchemy (there was a great website for this venture, but I think it may have been shut down along with the restaurant)... the first stepping stone to where he is now.

So, where is he?  He's currently opening a new restaurant in Pittsburgh called the Red Room with an accompanying lounge, R2.  The expression of ideas and the thoughts behind the food will soon take place in his blog... there are only 3 posts as of now so start reading from the beginning!  It will be interesting to see Kevin's blogging voice develop parallel with the vision of his own kitchen.  He has made a niche by exploring many techniques and creating great food around them.  We met Kevin again last year in New York and he is as humble as he is driven.

Best of luck!

holding a candle

I have an idea that I may or may not be able to achieve... to make an edible candle.  True, there are edible candles in the sense that you can technically eat them (i. e. soy wax), but I want to make a candle that the diner will want to eat, not just have the ability to digest.  To my knowledge, this has never been done before (I'm sure I will be corrected if I'm wrong).

The first seed of this idea was born before chadzilla (the blog, not me!).  We were doing a dinner for the Chaine des Rotisseurs and the main course was lamb.  Being the Chaine, the courses were kept within the borders of traditional flavors... but where to take it from there.  We had the idea (and were able to successfully pull off) a candle made of rosemary mint butter that was lit and served on the plate.  As the wick burned down, it melted the butter into... let's say a 'sauce.'  The plan was to instruct the diners to either dip there morsels of lamb into the flavored butter, or simply pour it onto the meat.  Although we used votive glass holders, it is definitely possible to use a candle mold to create a free-standing candle that would melt onto the plate.  Everything worked out great, the Chaine was impressed (they later voted our dinner 'Best Meal of the Year'), and we all patted ourselves on the back.

Fast forward... present day.

Although the butter candle is interesting on its own, I am still haunted by the idea of creating a candle made from a water-based gel (at this point the gel can be of any flavor within the realm of infusing into a liquid) that would 'melt' into a sauce as the candle burned.

I tried an experiment with 5 different gelling agents (given that they all produce unique textures and have different melting and gelling points).  Sounds good on the surface, but they all just fizzled out when the flame neared the gel.

Is it because the gels are in fact, water based... and fire doesn't like water?  There is water in butter, but also a high amount of fat.  Wax is a lipid (in case you were wondering what in the hell wax is in relation to cooking).  It is sometimes used to smooth out chocolate or coat cheeses.  The simplest forms of wax are actually methane and then octane.  The solid waxes we are familiar with are more complex and take the solid form we all know.  There is also something called gel wax (which sounds like the right road to take here), but it is made from a mixture of wax and mineral oil... still not appetizing when you think about it.  Is there any combination or amount of gel that would work here... a gel mixed with an oil?

If it weren't for the fact that the butter candle actually worked, I would abandon the idea.  Does the candle have to be limited to fats alone (there were also milk solids, water, and flavoring herbs in the mix).  If so, I have some nice snowy white Berkshire fat sitting in the walk-in.  Great possibility, but how would a guest react to having a shot glass of melting lard on their plate?

Where to go next?  Any suggestions?