A New Mountain Cookery

Aw, sheet

Terrible pun, amazing food product. I unfortunately have no access at home to squeeze bottles, pastry bags or anything like that so I was only able to use methocel to make sheets of sauce.

Hot mozzarella sheet:

Salted melon sheet:

Olive oil...sheet:

Methocel has an awesome mouthfeel. I thought it would be a lot tougher and gel-like, but I was surprised to find that the additive didn't alter the product at all, once I started eating whatever was sheeted, it immediately went back to the true flavor. Delicious.

Advanta Gel

I got a sample from National Starch of a new product they have called Adavanta. It's a modified potato starch that can create firm gels without heat. Intrigued to find out how it holds up, I made a simple mixture of water and 5% Advanta. Provided literature said firm gels would be formed with 3-7% concentration.

After a whole night in the fridge, this is what came out:

It was interesting, to say the least. I think it would make a very cool fluid gel type puree, but I did not have a chance to try that out. It's hard to say what the consistency was like...I guess a very light agar blend that stands up better on a plate, I'm not sure.

I'll be trying it out soon with flavored liquid, so I'll see how that holds up.

Ultratex...

...is the shit.

It's a modified tapioca starch that imparts zero flavor into food and is a great thickening agent without the gross mouthfeel one can get with too much xanthan gum. Grant Achatz of Alinea has a seminal story about Ultratex where he discusses his way of making a parsley puree.

The French Laundry’s [Thomas] Keller is not only the current arbiter of what counts as good food, he’s also [Grant] Achatz’s mentor and he catered Achatz’s wedding. Still, there’s no real secret to a Keller parsley sauce, Achatz explains. He’d puree parsley and oil in a blender and strain it.

“Then he’d have parsley oil,” Achatz says. “It tastes like parsley and oil.” Achatz instead starts with parsley juice, maybe a little water and salt. “That liquid is going to taste intensely of parsley, because that’s all it is. Then I’d thicken it with Ultra-tex 3, a modified starch that imparts zero flavor but gives it the same viscosity as oil.”

Keller, in other words, would have compromised the flavor of the parsley. Achatz believes that technology can actually deliver a purer dish.

You can take pure, unadulterated flavors and thicken them without the use of anything that will impart anything else, so that you just get the true essence of what you wanted in the first place.

Take tomatoes from Red Hill:

Peel them, puree them in a robo-coupe, hit it with a little salt, and then add Ultratex until you get the consistency you want. Voila, tomato puree that is nothing but the taste of fresh tomatoes picked that day:

After you have made a puree, you can take it and spread it out thin on a Silpat and let the mixture dry out, aided by either a low oven or stovetop. Voila, tomato "paper":

National Starch should give free samples, I would check them out if you want to get some Ultratex. If not, check Le Sanctuaire.

Uncooking

Saw compressed strawberries on a local menu the other night.

Check out this link to Ideas in Food's discussion about it:

Compression

Sous-vide cooking

Thanks to companies like Sous Vide Magic and Auber Instruments, it is now fairly easy to have a inexpensive sous-vide cooking set-up at home.

For those unaccustomed to sous-vide cooking, it is a cooking method that arose in France in the 1970s. It translates as "under vacuum," although one can do it simply in a zip-loc bag. It is a very precise method of cooking food, and it allows for new textures. Restaurants around the world now use it to cook proteins and vegetables, and it is becoming more common place in home kitchens.

That very brief synopsis is the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to this cooking method, for more information, read these excellent resources:

"Under Pressure" in the NY Times-an excellently written overview of the method and its followers
A Short Guide to Sous-Vide Cooking-a detailed, scientific approach to the science behind the cooking.
eGullet Thread-a 65 page (and growing) thread about both home and professional cooks' use of sous-vide cooking. Really helpful information.

Anyways.

I have a home set-up with a 22 quart roaster oven, an Auber controller, and a water pump. The volume is really nice to have, and once the controller gets calibrated to the oven, it works great.

I cook all pork sous-vide, and I've had great success with beef and a lot of vegetables as well. If you don't have one of these set-ups, you can still cook sous-vide with a pot of water, a thermometer, and a watchful eye.

My question to everyone in VA is this:

Where have you seen sous-vide cooking in the state? I know that the Health Department is very strict on guidelines for restaurant use, but I know of several places that have it. If any chefs would like to comment, I would be interested as to how your restaurant uses it and how certification was approved.

Goodies

Like any good food blog, this one needs lots of pictures, so I went out and got a brand new camera.

Behold the first pictures taken with it: