PLUS some chopped
PLUS a few slivers of...
PLUS a list of other delights = ?
Tuesday, June 27
Wednesday, June 21
Gelee revisited
By now you have probably figured out that accuracy is not my cooking method of choice. I use (I once thought everyone did-) a recipe as an armature to tweak and mold according to that day's whim or cupboard's contents. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose but the results are almost always intriguing not to mention edible. I have taken to writing loose instructions on this blog, probably also as a direct result of my communication style with my attendants. In fact one has mentioned from time to time, that I really need to let my readers know about this tendency. I don't think she is amused when I hand her a list of ingredients with questionable measurements on the back of an envelope-sans instructions, and try to pass it off as a recipe. I also try to use simple directions along with collapsing several cooking steps into one in order to not overly complicate the process. (As I have not figured out how to link to past posts, please refer to "Ecru Brute" in my archives for a better understanding on the issue). Going deeper, I feel that the cooking process is an experiment and a sensory experience. I think you need to really involve the senses and pay attention (end of lecture). The adaptions that I made to this Epicurious gem are pretty basic, a few adjustments to the fat and sugar content. The big departure was in the final presentation. They set the gelee while tilted in the refrigerator creating an elegant diagonal within the dessert. This involved elegant tapered glasses propped up within an empty egg carton. I set my dessert in opaque plastic molds. However, had I known how utterly outstanding this dessert would be, I might have rushed out to purchase some beautiful glasses. In any case, this creation deserves a mental asterisk next to it. This is a winning collaboration between taste and texture. Gelee has a barely set quality to it. It instantly dissolves in the mouth leaving behind a shock of flavor. The passion fruit has a bright pucker to it which is mollified by the cream. Surprising basil comes in mid taste and lingers on. I believe that you will raise your eyebrows in delighted approval like I did. Passion Fruit Gelee with Basil Cream- Adapted from Epicurious
4 (6-8 oz) attractive servings
Ingredients for Passion Fruit Gelee:
1 3/4 tsp unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup water
2 cups Passion Fruit Nectar (I used Ceres brand, Epicurious recommends Looza)
Basil Cream:
1/2 cup loosly packed, chopped basil
1/3 cup sugar (this is a reduction from 1/2 which I found too sweet).
1 1/2 cup half and half or heavy cream
1 tsp unflavored gelatin
2 Tblsp water
pinch of salt
Instructions: In preparation of the passion fruit gelee, place the water in a saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin to soften for a minute. Heat on low for about 2 minutes to dissolve gelatin completely. Turn off the fire and slowly pour in the juice to cool. Pour evenly amongst 4 glasses and refrigerate until set. If you want the "diagonal" I would suggest clicking on the hyperlink I've included at the recipe title. Next, sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining 2 Tblsp of water in a saucepan. Once again allow this to soften and separately mix the basil, sugar, half and half and salt into a bowl until the sugar is dissolved. Heat the gelatin and half and half mixture on low for 2 minutes. Turn the heat off. I tasted the mixture from time to time to make sure the basil didn't become too overpowering. Once the desired flavor is met, strain out the herb and allow the mixture to cool. Once room temperature, distribute evenly over the 4 set glasses and chill for a few hours.
Saturday, June 17
And On the Sixth Day God Made Umami and It Was Good
The living and writing of my last post took a tiny chunk out of me. I was on an enthusiastic Jell-o crazed roll, internally compiling my recent adventures and documenting the dance with this most highly temperamental partner. By the time gelatin fantasia appeared, I was beginning to worry about the longevity of my shrimp. I had a short health service movie projection going on in my head showcasing two lab technicians nervously swabbing microbial cultures onto rounds of gelatin. Was my lovely tomato aspic plan B really a live breeding ground for voracious organisms? I really needed some down time- with all my fretting and jelly rigging. Over the weekend I hit a low and skidded out into food oblivion; eating off the remains of almost-expired food products with the exception of a carefree toss-in-the-blender pesto sauce. Empty stomached and uninspired, I began to fuss again. Since the start of FOODChair, I have wanted to remain as fluid as possible, allowing the food muse to sound off and simply follow with knife and fry pan in tow. But last night, I began to wonder if the muse was going to show up at all. For the love of my blog, what was going to happen if I kept turning out poorly executed meals out of questionable produce? Before I could adequately respond to my own query, I thought about Umami, the je ne s’ais quois of taste.Umami, the Fifth Sense, I learned on Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words, is a more recently accepted term used by western food scientists. If we were to look at the pantheon of understood taste: sweet, sour, bitter and salty; we could brazenly foist umami on top to newly create a pyramid. Well that is what Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University did in 1908. He surmised after slurping up a bowl of good dashi, that some palatable secret was locked within the kombu flavored broth. His research to uncover the nature of this “deliciousness” led to the finding of glutamate, an amino acid within the kombu. He coined the word umami to describe the subtle synergistic taste that rounds out other flavors. According to the Umami Information Center, umami can be detected within meats, fish, dairy and vegetables, wherever glutamates and ribonucleotides can be found. Finally in the 1980’s umami was proven to be a legitimate taste (the appropriate receptors to the amino acids were located within taste buds) and recognized by international tongues. I figured the seventy some years between initial discovery to concrete proof must have generated a lively discussion between individuals who seek to quantify taste and those who see flavor as a composite of more intangible qualities such as emotions, memory and food experience (for example: the way food feels and sounds while being chewed). It is understood that taste attracts us to certain foods and repels us from others for survival. Generally, the desire for sweets keep us pumped up with carbohydrates, salt cravings keep us sated with necessary sodium chloride, bitter and sour flavors warn us away from poisons and rancid foods, and umami draws us towards mandatory proteins. With my logic, deliciousness is mandatory.
Growing up on miso soup and practically having soy sauce flowing through my veins, this elusive savory taste is indelibly imprinted upon my being. I like the way umami fills my mouth when I pronounce it, sounding as luscious as it tastes. But I like “the fifth sense” most as a metaphor for all that is meaty and appetizing. And just like that, the muse has spoken- I now have a better understanding of what has been invisibly driving me in my culinary adventures. I cannot always create what I want, how I want. But I always look towards that which flavors my world a little more vividly and adds more depth and character.
Imagine my delight when I read that bacon is an Umami-rich food. For this post, I offer Spinach Salad. This is an updated version on the classic. It is so simple that no recipe need be given, just a cheer or two of encouragement. First, find your nicest large shallow bowl. I am imagining a ceramic cobalt blue one. Place a bounty of baby spinach leaves intermixed with a handful of torn radicchio leaves (Belgian endive is nice too) for great color and bitterness. Slice thinly (but not so thin as to be considered shaved) pure white button mushrooms and toss into the greens. Fry until crisp and crumble your pork protein of choice: bacon, pancetta, spam, Canadian bacon. Scatter abundantly and ceremoniously over the other ingredients. I do steer you away from turkey bacon which for this project I did purchase and found the chew to be wholly dissatisfying (similar to fruit leather). Crack, peel and quarter the eggs which have been previously hard boiled. Artfully arrange these around the perimeter of the growing umami delight. I like to fry up an onion in some of that abundant bacon grease until caramelized. Once cooled, they will go into the mix. Now here is where we take a major detour from the classic recipe. I am partial to a fruit item making its appearance at this point. I like it as a contrast to the saltiness of the bacon. Usually I go for something relatively innocuous like a dried cranberry. Shavings of tart apple would also work nicely. But today, I am thinking blueberries, probably because I have a bunch waiting for me in the refrigerator and I am working the visual color palette in my head. At this point I like to whip up a mustard vinaigrette but I make the inclusion of about a teaspoon of jelly. This is a terrific tip passed onto me by J-Bird of V-8 Jell-o rescue fame. While this sounds bizarre, the fruit preserves really serves to support the sweet undertones of the balsamic vinegar in the dressing. Drizzle and toss gently right before serving. Shave crumbly shags of your best parmesan cheese on top and enjoy.
Wednesday, June 7
When life gives you tomato, make V-8 Jell-O
If you stepped into my kitchen over these past 6 weeks and pried open the refrigerator door, there would be a good chance that you’d see gelatin flexing its mass in some form or another on a plate. During this short span of time, this glutinous protein kept infiltrating my thoughts and reinventing itself in my mind before making its final appearance in physical form. Going further back to childhood, Jell-O mesmerized me. It is cheery kinetic food sculpture and one of my first realizations that food can engage on many levels. Jell-O is a sort of beginner’s sensory tutorial. The bright colors generally evoke a pleasing mood, it can be molded into many different shapes, it wobbles, rolls and tumbles at various tempos; it can be juggled, caught and eaten. It is a protean substance that has many gustatory possibilities.
The first time around, it started with the faint remembrance of Knox Blox, those fruity pre-gummy squares that kids would bring to school for snack. I imagined an intense blueberry chew with a jammy granular texture resulting from hours of slow cooked condensed fruit. Since I short cut the “bushels of blueberries cooking over a fire in a copper kettle” to one bottle of Knudsen’s juice; I got good color but poor intensity. I learned that gelatin from an envelope is nevertheless a powerful force to be reckoned with. I have the sense that all that fibrous protein rendered down from bone, cartilage and tendon keeps the flavor particles in gluey suspension away from one’s taste sensors. Therefore when working with powdered hooves, flavor really needs to be intensified.
From there I moved on to Tofu Panna Cotta as a good will gesture towards almost sugar free eating. This recipe involved pureeing a box of space age Mori-nu tofu with some soy milk, adding gelatin, a bit of sweetener and flavoring. The whole concoction was then poured into an odd collection of smallish containers and refrigerated until firm. As a result of some shameful dulling of my once killer cooking instincts- 4 envelopes of gelatin were bloomed instead of one; yielding an almost impervious substance. In the effortful gyrations of extracting the tofu mass from a rather dainty tea cup; the dessert broke free, bounced and became air borne before landing in the warm crook of J’s arm. Every attempt to have the obstinate substance succumb to my spoon was thwarted so J, partner-in-crime seized the bounty and threw it into the microwave. Eight seconds was enough to subdue the tofu beast and it partially melted down to a gently sloping mousse mound surrounded by a creamy tofu sauce. It was delicious- even though the whole process felt like something out of a weird science experiment. I must admit that the procedure kind of thrilled me and so the hungry chase began again with ideas involving tomato, dill and some shrimp…
(a momentary interruption)
When I was in college I was fortunate to be seated behind a guy named Dean who happened to be a talented cartoonist. He had a passion for his craft and from an early age experimented with various techniques to advance his skill. His creative self motivation fascinated me since I moved about life in straight angles- uniformly, a strict follower of outside direction. My studio mate would offer up his sketchbook to me with quiet intensity explaining his process. I an eager student trawled for inspirational tidbits to feed my newly discovered creativity. One of the studies that influenced me most was his Popsicle mark sketches. Dean would randomly break a Popsicle stick and plunge it into a bottle of midnight blue black India ink. He would drip, scrape, mark and skittle a page with various lines to instigate a jump off point. With each line, he challenged himself to see an image within and then set off to complete the idea. Not only were the resulting drawings fantastic: pirate skulls aflame with scarlet blooming roses, flying bicycles streaming a banner of stars, a full figured woman jogging in pantaloons and curlers; but the initial lines also were beautifully expressive. Who knew that a generic Popsicle stick could yield a thousand kind of skinny strokes, several hundred angry strokes and six hundred and thirty five curious strokes? Dean’s drawings succinctly taught me through a series of mesmerizing moments, what our design Profs laboriously tried to drum into our close boxed brains over five years-- how to see freshly and follow the elusive scent of inspiration…which gently leads me back into the kitchen and the next incarnation of gelatin fantasia.
In this final rumination, the culmination of my previous lessons: we have a multi layered, texture contrasting, taste exploding nouveau tomato aspic. Picture a velvety red bombe atop a creamy mousseline pedestal with a hard boiled egg poised in perfect pirouette. The gelee would introduce the lemony tang of V-8, the bite of horseradish, the aroma of dill, the delicate succulence of sweet shrimp; which would meld into a pillow cloud of cream and the collapsing rich yolk of egg. I drew diagrams on the side of my grocery list to beef up my confidence in the execution of my creative direction. I carefully purchased all appropriate players for the team. I reviewed the sequencing of instructions in my head and even broke down the tasks into tiers that could be done at earlier intervals. I do not know if I was having an off day or if Mercury was in retrograde but the shrimp looked and smelled kind of fishy and when it was time to pull out the pre-cooked eggs, J pulled out strange bits of yolk and white out of Tupperware. Vision A morphed to plan B which was a consolidation of several hasty rearrangements and reversals of plan C. As you might imagine, I decided against the smoked salmon rose and cucumber leaf garnish for the photograph. V-8 Jell-O Plan B nearly didn’t make it onto the lettuce leaf runway, but finally and alas, we got a hasty appearance. While it wasn’t a raving success, it was neither a horrible disaster. It was simply the coming together of a lot of well intended decisions that never made the mark. I extensively trouble shot the dish with J-Bird one of my keenest taster friends around. I believe she has the answer: V-8 and sour cream horseradish layer on the bottom with a delicate seafood white wine consommé flecked with fresh tomato bits and the encased shrimp on top. While this idea gestates on the back shelf with all the other half baked plans for awhile, I did see a simple recipe for passion fruit gelee with basil cream-- and so it goes.
The first time around, it started with the faint remembrance of Knox Blox, those fruity pre-gummy squares that kids would bring to school for snack. I imagined an intense blueberry chew with a jammy granular texture resulting from hours of slow cooked condensed fruit. Since I short cut the “bushels of blueberries cooking over a fire in a copper kettle” to one bottle of Knudsen’s juice; I got good color but poor intensity. I learned that gelatin from an envelope is nevertheless a powerful force to be reckoned with. I have the sense that all that fibrous protein rendered down from bone, cartilage and tendon keeps the flavor particles in gluey suspension away from one’s taste sensors. Therefore when working with powdered hooves, flavor really needs to be intensified.
From there I moved on to Tofu Panna Cotta as a good will gesture towards almost sugar free eating. This recipe involved pureeing a box of space age Mori-nu tofu with some soy milk, adding gelatin, a bit of sweetener and flavoring. The whole concoction was then poured into an odd collection of smallish containers and refrigerated until firm. As a result of some shameful dulling of my once killer cooking instincts- 4 envelopes of gelatin were bloomed instead of one; yielding an almost impervious substance. In the effortful gyrations of extracting the tofu mass from a rather dainty tea cup; the dessert broke free, bounced and became air borne before landing in the warm crook of J’s arm. Every attempt to have the obstinate substance succumb to my spoon was thwarted so J, partner-in-crime seized the bounty and threw it into the microwave. Eight seconds was enough to subdue the tofu beast and it partially melted down to a gently sloping mousse mound surrounded by a creamy tofu sauce. It was delicious- even though the whole process felt like something out of a weird science experiment. I must admit that the procedure kind of thrilled me and so the hungry chase began again with ideas involving tomato, dill and some shrimp…
(a momentary interruption)
When I was in college I was fortunate to be seated behind a guy named Dean who happened to be a talented cartoonist. He had a passion for his craft and from an early age experimented with various techniques to advance his skill. His creative self motivation fascinated me since I moved about life in straight angles- uniformly, a strict follower of outside direction. My studio mate would offer up his sketchbook to me with quiet intensity explaining his process. I an eager student trawled for inspirational tidbits to feed my newly discovered creativity. One of the studies that influenced me most was his Popsicle mark sketches. Dean would randomly break a Popsicle stick and plunge it into a bottle of midnight blue black India ink. He would drip, scrape, mark and skittle a page with various lines to instigate a jump off point. With each line, he challenged himself to see an image within and then set off to complete the idea. Not only were the resulting drawings fantastic: pirate skulls aflame with scarlet blooming roses, flying bicycles streaming a banner of stars, a full figured woman jogging in pantaloons and curlers; but the initial lines also were beautifully expressive. Who knew that a generic Popsicle stick could yield a thousand kind of skinny strokes, several hundred angry strokes and six hundred and thirty five curious strokes? Dean’s drawings succinctly taught me through a series of mesmerizing moments, what our design Profs laboriously tried to drum into our close boxed brains over five years-- how to see freshly and follow the elusive scent of inspiration…which gently leads me back into the kitchen and the next incarnation of gelatin fantasia.
In this final rumination, the culmination of my previous lessons: we have a multi layered, texture contrasting, taste exploding nouveau tomato aspic. Picture a velvety red bombe atop a creamy mousseline pedestal with a hard boiled egg poised in perfect pirouette. The gelee would introduce the lemony tang of V-8, the bite of horseradish, the aroma of dill, the delicate succulence of sweet shrimp; which would meld into a pillow cloud of cream and the collapsing rich yolk of egg. I drew diagrams on the side of my grocery list to beef up my confidence in the execution of my creative direction. I carefully purchased all appropriate players for the team. I reviewed the sequencing of instructions in my head and even broke down the tasks into tiers that could be done at earlier intervals. I do not know if I was having an off day or if Mercury was in retrograde but the shrimp looked and smelled kind of fishy and when it was time to pull out the pre-cooked eggs, J pulled out strange bits of yolk and white out of Tupperware. Vision A morphed to plan B which was a consolidation of several hasty rearrangements and reversals of plan C. As you might imagine, I decided against the smoked salmon rose and cucumber leaf garnish for the photograph. V-8 Jell-O Plan B nearly didn’t make it onto the lettuce leaf runway, but finally and alas, we got a hasty appearance. While it wasn’t a raving success, it was neither a horrible disaster. It was simply the coming together of a lot of well intended decisions that never made the mark. I extensively trouble shot the dish with J-Bird one of my keenest taster friends around. I believe she has the answer: V-8 and sour cream horseradish layer on the bottom with a delicate seafood white wine consommé flecked with fresh tomato bits and the encased shrimp on top. While this idea gestates on the back shelf with all the other half baked plans for awhile, I did see a simple recipe for passion fruit gelee with basil cream-- and so it goes.
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