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I made some Earl Grey tea "caviar" the other day. Not particularly eventful from an MG perspective, but cute nonetheless. I'd originally made the tea alginate to make ravioli with lemon ice cubes inside a la el Bulli -- but was having trouble with the technique.
Aren't those transparent plastic lotus spoons cool? :)
A small cardboard box arrived the other day. It had been the subject of many calls to a certain shipping company we'll call "FedUPS" trying to bring it through Customs.
Inside was "The Smoking Gun" from PolyScience. Yes, the same people who brought you constant temperature cooling/heating solutions have come out with a new gizmo that I'm pretty sure every chef on the planet will want: The Smoking Gun.
Resembling the marriage of a small battery powered fan and a bong, the Smoking Gun is a curious contraption. It comes with a metal stand which I found invaluable in supporting it while trying to light the sawdust that you place in the bowl. Once you've got the sawdust glowing, you can flick on the power an a concentrated plume of smoke will bellow out of the barrel and into or onto whatever you want to flavour with smokiness.
I immediately decided that cheese and tomato would both benefit from being truly "cold" smoked and made a small salad to test out the theory. The effect is quite ethereal -- the end product looks exactly as it did before smoking, registers no temperature change, but has a distinct and nice smokiness to it. Much better than using "hickory smoke powder".
Below are some shots from the salad experiment. I'm planning on smokin' some ice cream soon!
The Smoking Gun is US$49.95 from PolyScience +1 (800) 229-7569.
Whether you call it candy floss, cotton candy, or fairy floss doesn't really matter: you likely gorged yourself on it at some carnival or fair as a kid and distinctly remember the sugary goodness that melts in your mouth. I recently added a home cotton candy machine to my ever growing cupboard full of kitchen gadgets.
We made regular cotton candy but I'd been really intrigued by a post on ideasinfood where they made foie gras cotton candy. Literally foie gras flavoured cotton candy and not just a piece of foie wrapped with the sugary stuff a la Jose Andres of minibar.
To make foie gras cotton candy:
30g foie gras (grade unimportant)
400g granulated sugar
175mL corn syrup
125mL waterIn a small saucepan, render the fat from the foie gras until only liver type pieces remain. Strain fat and set aside.
Mix the sugar, corn syrup and water in a medium saucepan and heat on medium-high until the mixture bubbles and reaches a temperature of 150-155c (hard rock candy stage). Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes before folding in foie gras fat gently. Pour into suitable metal containers (I used miniature bread pans) and cool in the fridge until fully set.
Break sugar into chunks and place in coffee grinder and grind to a consistency. Store resulting powdered sugar in an airtight container and use as directed with your cotton candy machine.
Below are some pics of the finished product, including a happy accident where the sugar came out as thicker crunchy strands. Next I think I'll try and figure out a process for making a balsamic floss ;)
I'm in love with sous-vide. Below you will find haddock wrapped in bacon done sous-vide over saute'd asparagus with homemade lemon mayonnaise. A bit of rosemary, cracked black pepper and lemon zest complete the dish. Okay, I admit that's a fancy lead-up to saying it tasted damn good. And I'm embarrassed to say this was inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe, so don't tell anyone ;)
I also did lamb chops "sous-vide" which came out defying the logic that everything done sous-vide looks like it was boiled in a bag. The rosemary in the pic was lit just before service, which added an interesting touch.
Finally, there's a nice piece of black cod (a.k.a. sablefish) glazed with white miso before being finished with a blow torch and served with baby bok choy, micro mustard cress, tobiko, cold glass noodle salad on top of lime "fruit leather and with a sake/mirin foam.
I'm still working on the "build your own" sous-vide machine post and also feverishly trying to finish the commercial prototype. Sorry for the delays!
