Yolk Drops, asparagus, Meyer lemon, black pepper

I may have committed Alinea blasphemy with this plating. You see, the relationship between Grant Achatz and Charlie Trotter is shaky at best. Grant worked at Charlie Trotter’s for a few months before moving to California to work with Thomas Keller at the French Laundry. If you read the chapter regarding his time at Trotter’s in Life on the Line, you can tell that Grant was not a fan and ultimately quit. Trotter’s parting words to him were “[i]f you do not stay at this restaurant for a full year, you will simply not exist to me. Period. That means don’t ever call me. Don’t use me as a reference. Don’t put Charlie Trotter’s on your résumé.” Charlie Trotter has lived up to his word; Grant has stated recently that he has never visited Alinea and they haven’t spoken since.

So what does this all this have to do with my plating here? You see, the plate I used is from Charlie Trotter’s. After Charlie Trotter’s closed last year, everything in the restaurant was put up for auction. I ended up buying a set of 6 of these plates for under $20. Aaron and I were lucky enough to dine at Trotter’s about a year ago and I remembered eating off these plates back then. We were served Lobster with a beet infused spaetzle, fermented black garlic, and horseradish vinaigrette on them.

I thought the design was pretty cool. Basically, it’s an off-set large shallow bowl standing on a small pedestal. I’m hoping the design will work well in presenting some future Alinea dishes.

Anyway, onto the yolk drops. What we have here are yolk drops mixed with asparagus buds in a lemon vinaigrette with a lemon puree and asaparagus foam on the side.

I started with the lemon vinaigrette and puree. Please note that the recipe calls specifically for the sweeter and more cook-friendly meyer lemons. I couldn’t find any meyer lemons yesterday, so I decided to sweeten each of these elements with simple syrup, which cut down on the sour and bitterness excellently. The vinaigrette was exceptionally easy to prepare; I just mixed some lemon juice with grapeseed oil, salt, and simple syrup.

The lemon puree was a little more interesting. I literally quartered 3 lemons and threw them in a blender with simple syrup. I was worried that this would not turn into a puree, or that if it did, it would be disgusting. Thankfully, I was wrong. It took some time, but eventually those lemons turned into a liquid that was later strained through my chinois.

Next, I worked on the asparagus. I started by cutting the bud off from each stalk and then cutting the stalks into roughly one inch pieces. I then broke up the buds to make a nicer presentation. I blanched the stalks and buds separately and let them sit in ice water both to quickly end the cooking process and preserve the bright green color.

I juiced the asparagus stalk and added some soy lecithin so that it would foam up when I dipped my immersion blender into the juice.

Lastly, I worked on the eggs. Could we all take a moment to appreciate how I separated the yolk from the white of a dozen eggs without fucking up any of them? I’ve learned that the best method of separating egg whites and yolk is by cracking the eggs whole into a bowl and gently pulling out the yolks with your hands. Messy and gooey, but it gets the job done.

To turn the yolks into yolk drops, I first had to make some clarified butter. Once that was done, I whisked the yolks with some salt and funneled the mixture into a squeeze bottle. I then squeezed single drops of egg into the heated clarified butter and scooped them own when they began to float. For the record, this took way longer than I initially imagined and my first few attempts to make “drops” were more like blobs, but I improved. Before plating, I drained the butter off the eggs.

Finally, plating. I mixed the drained yolk drops with the asparagus buds, lemon vinaigrette, and black pepper. The recipe does not actually mention black pepper except in the title, but where else would it go? I then added some lemon puree to one side and asparagus foam on the other.

Turned out pretty well. The lemon vinaigrette got a little lost in the mix, but the puree made up for it. I would probably make this again, maybe for brunch.

Bean, many garnishes

Making Bean was such a laborious process that I didn’t take too many photos. So instead of describing every step I took to make everything, I’ll just show you what the end result was and tell you what everything is. Plus, I need to share some lessons I’ve learned working through the book in general.

In the center is a white bean puree topped with crisp pancetta and Guinness bubbles. Clockwise from the top center is:

1. Apple sphere cooked in white wine with molasses
2. Lemon marshmellow with lemon zest
3. Vanilla and bay leaf cube
4. Fried almond and green bean salad with almond-lemon vinaigrette
5. Roasted garlic clove with pink peppercorn skins
6. Parsnip chip with parsley
7. Ball of tomato and mango leathers
8. Mung bean sprouts with sesame and “yuzu” vinaigrette

I have to confess, I just couldn’t be bothered to make the “pillow of nutmeg air” that this dish is supposed to rest upon. As much as I like to tell people that the recipes in the Alinea cookbook can be made at home, that’s true only to a certain extent. Don’t get me wrong, I could have bought some pillow cases, some plastic bags, a heat sealer and a Volcano vaporizer and put it all together (I wouldn’t have been the first person to do so), but I have to accept the limitations of my budget and the practicalities of owning a Volcano Vaporizer. I’ve been learning to cut corners when necessary. I’d rather just go ahead and make a dish than spend hours and tons of money seeking out a rare ingredient that isn’t even a highlighted in the dish.

Another example of cutting corners here is with the mung bean sprouts. In the book, I’m supposed to top them with “sea grapes.” Sea grapes are an ingredient that is found in one small region of Japan and for all I can tell, isn’t really for sale in the US. I also wasn’t prepared to spend a lot of money ordering yuzu juice online and decided to make my own. I used equal parts grapefruit juice, lime juice, and mandarin orange juice to approximate the flavor of yuzu juice.

I’ve also learned that I might need some help with these bigger dishes. Near the end, I became overwhelmed with the number of components in front of me, panicked, and began throwing stuff on the plate without any attention to detail. Because of that, the maple sauce I had made didn’t make it onto the plate. For some reason I thought that if I didn’t get everything on the plate right away, something would melt or the kitchen would catch fire. I forget sometimes that Alinea has a huge line of experienced cooks working on these dishes. Next time I make something this big, I’m going to make an event out of it and invite people over to help me.

And ultimately, I’m learning that not everything has to be perfect. An example here is the parsnip chip. In the recipe, the parsnip chips are lightly crumbed up and mixed with parsley dust. Because I couldn’t cut my parsnip chips to 1/16″of an inch, they wouldn’t dry up in the dehydrator to the point where they would crumble. And I don’t have the knife skills to turn a bunch of parsley into “dust.” I feel that despite these imperfections, a suitable substitute was achieved by just topping a dried out whole parsnip chip with a sprig of parsley. Plus, the curve of the chip made it look pretty cool without being crumbled up.

To end, here are some photos I got of the cooking process.

Tomato Leather

The veggies going into the bean puree

Mise-en-place for the Bean Puree (the bottom right cup holds an assortment of herbs)

Lemon Marshmellow gooey-ness

Sweet Potato, brown sugar, bourbon, smoking cinnamon

A couple of the more frustrating parts about cooking from the Alinea cookbook is that sometimes I put a lot of work and money into a dish and either 1) the individual component recipes produce way more than I need for the final product, resulting in a lot of stuff being thrown in the trash, or 2) I just can’t quite master one part of the dish and end up with only one or two presentable servings. I suffered both of these unfortunate events with Sweet Potato.

What we have here is a cinnamon skewer with a fried, non-descript, ball at the end. Inside that fried ball is gooey sweet potato, bourbon, and brown sugar candy. The cinnamon stick is lit at the end briefly before serving so you get the scent of cinnamon as you eat.

Brown Sugar Candy

I started with the brown sugar candy a few days ago. I began by blending some yellow pectin into water. Then I added some sugar and citric acid and brought it to a boil. Once it was boiling, I added some Trimoline, corn syrup (the book calls for glucose, but corn syrup hasn’t made a difference yet), and the brown sugar and I brought it 230 degrees. Finally I set it into a pan to cool down and set.

One thing I’ve learned in the process of working with these recipes is to be extremely patient and attentive when making any sort of candy. When sugar reaches certain temperatures, it goes through some sort of chemical change that I do have the education to adequately explain. But when it’s going through those changes, the temperature will not rise again until it’s “ready.” At the beginning, I thought I had done something wrong or that my thermometer was broke as I sat there just waiting for the temperature to rise again to the degree I needed. I fretted about the possibility that I was overcooking the sugar. Now I know that I just need to wait a little longer and appreciate how cool sugar looks when it’s boiling.

Two Technical Notes: 1) The book is extremely vague when it says “yellow pectin.” Research indicates this term is not even widely used. I read somewhere that yellow pectin is the stuff you can find at the store, but I didn’t find that advice helpful because I know that most pectins sold at the grocery store have varying additives in them. I did some more research and concluded that I should be using slow set high methoxyl pectin. Seemed to work well here. 2) Trimoline is an invert sugar syrup readily available in mass quantities to professional bakers and chefs, but not to lay people such as myself. I found a recipe that seemed to do the trick well. I would advise against buying the $20+ “home chef” tubs that you can find in some online stores and follow that recipe instead.

Sweet Potato Gel

Next, I worked on the sweet potato. I peeled two sweet potatoes and sliced them to 1/2″ pieces. I then cooked them in heavy cream until they were tender. I strained the potatoes, reserving the cream, and pureed the potatoes in the blender with a little bit of the reserved cream. Finally, I mixed in a lot of gelatin, strained the puree again to make sure it was really smooth, and poured it into a pan to set and cool.

Bourbon Gel

Lastly, I made the bourbon gel. This was the easiest part. I only had to mix the bourbon with gellan gum, bring it to a simmer for a bit, and then let it set at room temperature. I didn’t realize it until I was done, but I essentially made bourbon jello shots (and had a lot left over.)

Technical Note: The book calls for Kelcogel JJ gellan gum. As far as I can tell, this particular variety of gellan gum is no longer made, but was a mix of low acyl gellan gum and high acyl gellan gum. I ended up buying each and mixing them together in equal quantities. This worked.

Finally, it was time to put this all together. The book calls for Ceylon cinnamon sticks. I bought some of these but they were far to delicate, once trimmed down, to support the component parts. Instead, I used some generic cassia cinnamon sticks.

I thread my gels onto the cinnamon sticks, starting with the sweet potato, followed by the bourbon and brown sugar.

To cook them, I heated some canola oil. I dredged each skewer in flour and dipped them into a batter made with sparkling water, flour, cornstrach, and baking powder. This is where stuff started to fall apart a little. As you can see, I started out with 6 skewers, but ended up with only three presentable ones. I learned that it is very important to make sure that flour covers the entire edible part before dipping into the batter, or else the sweet potato will melt and ooze out of any uncovered part. I also learned that if your skewers aren’t long enough, you’ll risk burning yourself over the hot oil. And unfortunately, the brown sugar candy was prone the falling off as I dredged the skewers in flour and dipped them in the batter. So in the end, I only had 3 good servings (one of which was missing the brown sugar candy and another which had sweet potato oozing out of the underside, to be completely honest.)

All in all, I enjoyed making this. I know if I tried it again, I would do better since I know now what not to do. And the skewers that did survive the cooking process were very good (even though I forgot to season them with brown sugar and salt before eating).

Idiazábal, Blis maple syrup, smoked salt

Ah, my first post of 2013. It feels like it has been too long but holiday craziness and lack of funds necessitated a small break.

Here, we have what is essentially an adult cheeto made out of idiazábal cheese, coated with the most phenomenal maple syrup, smoked salt, and maple sugar. I never before could have guessed how a cheeto is made, but apparently it requires steaming, dehydrating, and frying!

Idiazábal is a Basque-Spanish sheep milk’s cheese know for its smoky flavor. I’ve read conflicting information about whether the smoky flavor naturally occurs in the cheese or whether the cheese is smoked in the production process.  No matter what the true case may be, the smokiness is undeniably present.

To start, I made a dough of cheese by grating the idiazábal with my Microplane and tossing it in the food processor with tapioca flour, a small bit of salt, and water.

I then flattened the cheese dough with a rolling pin between two pieces of plastic wrap until it was about 1/8″ thick.

I steamed the flattened dough on each side for about 12 minutes to “cook” the cheese, ripped off the plastic wrap, and transferred the cheese-sheet to my dehydrator for a few hours.

The recipes instructs one to dehydrate the cheese until it’s crisp. Mine never reached that point all the way through, so I ended up breaking the sheet into pieces and letting it dehydrate a little bit longer while my boyfriend made hamburgers for dinner. I think breaking it up helped a little bit, but I still wouldn’t call the final product “crisp” out of the dehydrator.

The final step in the cooking process was the frying. The recipe calls for heating canola oil to 425 degrees, but my cooking thermometer only goes up to 400. I believe 400 worked just fine.

Once they were fried, I coated the chips with Blis Bourbon Barreled Maple Syrup, sprinkled some smoked salt and maple sugar on them, and grated a little bit of more cheese over the top. I put them in the oven for a couple minutes just to let the cheese melt over the maple syrup.

How did it taste? All four tasters liked it!….I may have eaten 4 of the chips while offering little in terms of seconds to any of the others.

Winter Rundown

The seasons have changed, which means that I can turn to a new chapter of the Alinea cookbook. The following five recipes are those I hope to complete in the next 3 months or so.

Yuzu, pine, black sesame, shiso: This recipe presents both odd ingredients and techniques that I do not feel very confident about. On the ingredient side, I need to find pine scotch oil, yuzu juice, and micro shiso (or perhaps just regular shiso). On the technique side, I need to perfect my abilities as working with, presumptively very fragile, frozen strands of food. You read correctly there. Frozen strands of food.

Niçoise Olive, saffron, dried cherry, olive oil: This recipe is essentially an elaborate pastry. I do not think I’ll have too many difficulties in completing it, so long as I practice the pastry making bits of the recipe enough, but I definitely need to get myself a kitchen torch and a spice grinder first. I’m excited for this one because it’ll also give me an opportunity to try making an invert sugar at home (Trimoline, specifically). I believe the biggest obstacle will be finding freeze-dried cherries.

Bean, many garnishes, pillow of nutmeg air: Bean will be the most labor intensive and complex recipe I’ve made so far, should I actually be able to complete it this season. One of the major difficulties will be producing the aromatic aspect of the recipe. I know very well that I will not be able to create a “pillow of nutmeg air” just yet, but I have various theories of how I could create the same effect in other ways. Once I figure out the aromatic component, there are nearly 15 other components of this recipe to figure out. Most of them seem to be fairly simple in execution, so the daunting aspect of this dish is the labor and time management inherent in the process. I also need to get my hands on a pressure cooker and a tamis. But seriously guys, I am so excited as the prospect of completing this recipe.

Sea Urchin, vanilla, chili, mint: I feel like I’ve already done a lot of recipes in this cookbook that, at their simplest manifestation, are flavored gelatins with something else in it. See Green Almond; Blackberry; Pear. This is another one of those recipes.  This time, however, I’ll be using a relatively exotic filler ingredient (sea urchin “roe”). I can’t wait, especially since I feel very comfortable now with working with gelatin in this fashion.

Sweet Potato, brown sugar, bourbon, smoking cinnamon: This recipe is a combination of flavors that I love without qualification. It might as well be called “Happiness, rainbows, sunshine, glitter” in my mind. I need to track down a couple special hydro-colloids first though. And I might want to purchase the unique serving piece that it’s presented on, because I don’t think I have any adequate substitutes laying around for this kind of dish. Oh, I should mention that in case the flavors didn’t get you excited already, this dish is fried. Deep fried.

There are, of course, more Winter recipes that I may complete but these ones are my priorities. And I still have some Autumn recipes that I want to try before too much time passes.