I got a screaming deal on a brand new Excalibur 4 tray dehydrator on eBay and over the past few days I’ve been dehydrating everything in site. The bottom tray has black trumpet mushrooms and the top tray has orange slices (I want to see how long the quartered slices take rather than the round slices…..I have a ton of oranges at the house so why not try it all).
I pickled some ginger the other day….then I dehydrated it!
Shiitake mushrooms stems…oh sure you betcha.
Anaheim chillies? Yup.
Eric
My assault on the world of pickling continues. The other day I was reading the ingredients to a Thai sweet chili sauce that I really like and I noticed something amazing…….. “pickled red chili”. TO THE PICKLING CAVE!!!
I made a little base then pickled them there red chili’s. Day 2 and they are starting to get sweeter than the hot fire they were before….I spit hot fire. Anyway, so yes! It pickles!
Such is mango.
I was at Fresh Bistro the other the night and the waiter explained how the mangoes were pickled….well, not the steps but he said enough for me to GO TO THE PICKLING CAVE!!!
30 minutes in and they were all sorts of amazing. Day 2, even better! Ladies and gentlemen, IT PICKLES!
At work I do pickling with red onions, you’ve probably seen that combination a million times. I thought, “how about doing some white pearl onions in a red vinegar sweet pickling base”. TO THE PICKLING CAVE!!!!
30 minutes and the edgyness of the onion was gone and a slight sweet taste was evident. Day 2, the red wine vinegar plays well with the sweet onion taste better….coloring should change after a week.
I-T P-I-C-K-L-E-S!!!
I had some carrots lying around, a chipotle pepper, that new pickled crushed red pepper, and access to a pickling cave so I was off TO THE PICKLING CAVE!!
My goal with this one is to have the sweet chili taste infused with the carrots sweetness then bring back a little smokey chipotle flavor into the mix. I’m on fire……IT PICKLES!!!!
Having a pickling cave is awesome.
Eric
“Eric, that doesn’t look like powder.” Stop interrupting me, voice(s) in my head. Once I throw it in my spice grinder you’ll stop interrupting me then I’ll show you!!!!
You know when you make a puree of some sort then strain it and then you take the juice and make a roasted tomato saffron broth with hamachi (click)? Oh, you don’t do that? Damn! Well, next time you strain something take the strained pieces then lay them flat on a silpat (silicon mat) and place that in your oven at it’s lowest setting until it’s dried out completely. These roasted tomatoes? 22 hours.
What to do with the powder? You’ll see!
Eric
Peel some ginger, slice it thin, place it in a glass container, pour some oil over it, use it on stuff. What stuff will I be using it on? You’ll see!
Eric
I’m going to infuse everything. Why? Because saying the word “infuse” sounds like I’m doing something hard when I’m doing something simple. “Infusion of this this and this”. You say, “Oh wow, sounds amazing”. See how that works?!?! 
Here is a little infusion of extra virgin olive oil and roasted garlic. Toss peeled garlic in a little bit of the oil then slow roast it at 250F for about 45 minutes, let cool, then toss it in a jar with more extra virgin olive oil. It will keep for a few days. Use it in a vinaigrette, finishing move on a dish, or just drink it….it’s good!
Eric
I have a few different things planned for these little guys. I’m going to make a small saucher cake infused with meyer lemon then use the pictured lemon as a topper. I have a ton of strips that I will use in a bunch of different dishes throughout the year. The good thing is that once you candy them and store them properly they can keep for a long time.
The process to make the strips is easy!
Then cook them in a sugar, sucrose, and water mixture until translucent. Let dry then cover with sugar
Eric
A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from a dude named Jethro that was addressed to me and Scott from (Seattle Food Geek). Jethro asked us if we knew if there was a club or group of people that would like to do experiments with food. Who the hell knows…..let’s start one, is the conclusion we came to.
Tonight was our first meeting. I felt like I was going to a dungeons and dragons meet up but instead of thousand sided dice and more pimples than I know what to do with I brought as many books, equipment, and cool ingredients as I could possibly carry over to Jethro’s house. After lugging around 50+ lbs. of books I said, “alright meeting is my place next time….haha”. Get back on track….
So we met up and I am happy to report that I have found another group of people that have a crazy addiction for food just like me.
Our first experiment was a spherification of rootbeer (pictured above). It took a little work but we got to a few shapes we were looking for. Now we have to focus on flavor, thickness of sphere, and if we need to introduce flavoring components to give us a much more intense rootbeer flavor.
Next up was a spherification of blueberry juice. We fooled around with it a little bit and finally find what we were looking for.
We were missing a few key pieces of equipment but I think the next time we meet up we’ll have that addressed. This is extremely exciting for all three of us. I think there is a lot bad press with this type of cooking but really at the end of the day it’s about fun. Each little sphere that came out was like receiving a Christmas present. Now we just have to make those little Christmas presents taste good.
Even if we have a bunch of failure we still have a cool name: Jet City Gastrophysics.
Eric
I would go into more detail about what we did but the first rule about food science club is that there is no food science club.
Rootbeer noodle……
I visited the Seattle Food and Wine Experience (click) and Cafe Campagne had this oil working on their plate. I thought it was great so I decided to steal it…hey o! I am going to turn this oil into something else but I just wanted to show you how vibrant it is. It would be a great plating option or a great mix into a vinaigrette. The fried parsley is fantastic!
Click for fried parsley recipe. Don’t add the meyer lemon juice. Place fried parsley in food processor then slowly pour in extra virgin olive oil then strain over 4 layers of cheesecloth.
Eric, it doesn’t stand up like Cafe Campagne’s oil. I’m not sure what they did to do that but I am going to use Agar Agar when I am ready to serve it. I am also going to do a spherification of it once the UPS guy gets here. Stay tuned.
Eric
According to the book, Modern Cafe, this is one of Salvador Dali’s favorite dishes. In the book it is served with regular lemon but this is MEYER LEMON WEEK so I had to adjust and what a fantastic adjustment it was. I have never tried to fry an herb before but after this little experiment I am going to fry the hell out of every herb I see. The crunch, the taste, the bright green color, and getting the crap scared out of me when it popped on entry into the deep fryer (wasn’t thinking about the whole water content of parsley and hot oil thing…..be careful!).
The following recipe is an adaptation of Modern Cafe’s Fried Parsley Recipe. I have broken it down further and I suggest you try it but be very careful.
Equipment:
Ingredients:
Procedure:
Notes: It’s great to eat alone but I plan on serving this over a fish or chicken dish next time.
Eric
Yes, yes it will pickle…..duh. I started with Momofuku’s recipe for this and it has become a monster of my own. I add a touch of tarragon to the mixture and instead of using rice vinegar I go with white wine vinegar, it opens the flavor up a ton. I always make two batches…..one with the Momofuku style and then my own. My sister tried these for the first time yesterday and she said she is going to bring me a whole bunch of cucumbers to pickle. Good stuff.
I’ve done shallots before but this is the first time I will be doing it with Sherry. We’ll see how it turns out. Also, I have brown and yellow mustard seeds that I still need to pickle….I have done yellow before but not brown. So excited!
Eric
I’ve been working on this for a few weeks now and I am very happy with my results. I took some lemon slices and covered them with kosher salt and rotated them every few days. My goal was to have the lemons 35-40% dehydrated with the juice being extracted infusing itself into the salt. This gives me two things….
Lemon wedges that I can place in a food processor (yikes) and create a powder. The remaining part that isn’t dehydrated I will toss out, the rind is the most potent part for what I’m looking for. Then I will take the leftover salt and it will be the first layer of salt that I will do a salt crusted fish with. I’m hoping that when I salt crust the fish with the lemon infused salt it will add a little lemon aroma/taste to the outer later that is being cooked, if not then I have other uses for the salt too. We’ll see what happens.
I have other things I’m going to cure with salt but I wanted to start out with something cheap. Onto bigger things!
Eric
More cucumbers!!!
Shiitake Soy Pickling!
Yellow Mustard Seed!!!
All pickled quickly for use in this coming week’s recipes. Watch out now!
Eric
I’ve been wanting to try sous vide cooking myself for quite some time. The only thing that has been holding me back is the cost of the equipment. The immersion circulator from Polyscience is over $1,000……The Sous Vide Supreme machine is $449 and isn’t available yet (still can’t afford that)……and there is another system from Auber Instruments that is around $150, but right now, that is still too much (student/blogger/chef in the making/all-round nice guy’s don’t make much money). So I scrapped the idea until I read David Chang’s Momofuku book. They suggest using “ghetto sous vide” which involves a large stock pot with hot water being controlled by running hot water……too much maintenance for me right now with this one hand thing…….Eric adjusts.
Huh, I wonder what temperature water would be on the low setting for my crock pot? Oh sweet, 130F. How about the high setting 150F….huh, interesing. A medium rare steak is 130F……so I can get the bags, remove the air and then cook a steak at……wait, let me try something else first to see if I can pull this off.
White Asparagus Sous Vide
Ingredients
White Asparagus
Smoked Paprika
Clarified Butter
Kosher Salt
Black Pepper
Procedure
Yeah, it works and it’s awesome. A simple technique that can be achieved by using things you have around the house. It’s still a work in progress for me so don’t get crazy and start asking a bunch of questions yet.
I will be saving my pennies for one of the professional machines but I can’t wait for things to happen right now….I have to make them happen for myself.
Eric
“What the hell is sous vide?” Wait for it….or just google it If you’re one of those people that think this is a trend that is going to go away then continue thinking that while the rest of the world moves ahead.
(lots of typos and words scrambled around….welcome to the world of prescription pain killers….yikes)
Definitely going to be a menu item one day.
Ingredients:
Pork Tenderloin
Cilantro Oil
Procedure
Pork Tenderloin
Cilantro Oil
I am obsessed with David Chang’s Momofuku book. I am learning so much great stuff and it’s written in a language that I can understand easily…….lots of cusswords! I was reading the section about how if you want to take your self seriously as a cook/chef then you need to start doing this technique. I read it and said, “MUST TRY NOW!”.
I think the best part about this is that when you have a bunch of vegetables or fruits you have lying around the house you can pickle them to extend their life. It doesn’t have to be the formal canning process either. The book says the food can keep up to a month so that’s great with me. I intend to try a few recipes of his so I can see the light for myself. I used his quick pickle recipe for the base liquid but I intend to use a bunch of different vinegars to see how that will change things. I think this will turn out to be one of the best things I have done…… Thanks Momofuku cookbook!
Red onions…..they will look awesome in a few days
Pickled mirepoix…..I don’t know….we’ll see what happens!
You’re probably expecting a recipe now. I say to you…..go buy the damn book like I did!
Bonus item!!!
The 5 10 egg from Momofuku!
Things that resemble Pacman………
Eric
