Posts Tagged ‘modernist cuisine’

I’m over­joyed to announce that, start­ing in January, I’ll be join­ing the Modernist Cuisine team full-time as the Business Development Manager… and Modernist Cuisine Evangelist! If you’ve been fol­low­ing the blog (or if you’ve ever had a 5-minute con­ver­sa­tion with me) you know that I’ve been a huge fan of Modernist Cuisine since I first heard about the project. From my first inter­view with Nathan Myhrvold in May, 2010 to my recent expe­ri­ence of intern­ing with the kitchen team, it has been my dream to join this team. Now, I’ll have the tremen­dous plea­sure of help­ing Modernist Cuisine grow in new and excit­ing ways, and spread our mes­sage to a much broader audience.

We are for­tu­nate to be wit­ness­ing a world­wide, culi­nary rev­o­lu­tion. Much like Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire for­ever changed cook­ing in the early twen­ti­eth cen­tury, Modernist Cuisine enables con­tem­po­rary ideas, tools and cook­ing tech­niques to spread more widely than any other book before it. In fact, I’ve been infa­mously quoted as say­ing “Escoffier would crap his pants…” at the sight of the five gor­geous, com­pre­hen­sive vol­umes. However, with the U.S. book launch com­pleted and for­eign edi­tions now broadly avail­able, our work is far from done.

More than ever, we are excited about the huge poten­tial we see in the road ahead. We’ll be explor­ing ways for The Cooking Lab to con­tribute to the Modernist rev­o­lu­tion, not only through our books but also through new ser­vices and prod­ucts that we hope to develop our­selves and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a wide range of other com­pa­nies, from food and equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers to chefs and restau­rant own­ers, to pub­lish­ers and pro­duc­ers. We’ve got a list of great ideas to turn into real­i­ties, but we also want to know what you’d like to see from us. If you have an idea, a request, or a part­ner­ship oppor­tu­nity, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Contact us online or email scott@modernistcuisine.com.

I’m incred­i­bly excited about the future of Modernist Cuisine, and I’m hon­ored by the priv­i­lege of help­ing to shape it!

After much ogling, I finally took the plunge and purchased a VacMaster chamber vacuum sealer when I caught an irresistible deal for an older model on Craigslist.  I had known for a while that my FoodSaver was woefully inadequate at sealing wet foods for sous vide, but after witnessing how much of a workhorse the chamber sealer is at the Modernist Cuisine lab, I knew it was an essential missing piece of gear for my own kitchen.  These are the results of my first real experimentation with the chamber vacuum sealer: “quick pickling.”

A chamber sealer pulls a much stronger vacuum than a FoodSaver – so strong, in fact, that it will boil water at room temperature.  When you apply this ultra-strong vacuum pressure to plant foods, you can physically change their cell structure in a way that causes the foods to quickly absorb  liquids that surround them.  Modernist Cuisine explains the phenomenon best:

The cells of plant tissue contain pockets of air and water called vacuoles.  As the outside pressure decreases during vacuum sealing, these vacuoles act like balloons rising up through the atmosphere, and like balloons they eventually pop.  The popped vacuoles cannot reinflate[…] so they collapse under the weight of atmospheric pressure as soon as the sealing chamber is opened.[…]
Incidentally, this phenomenon also is the reason that infusing liquids into fruits or vegetables under vacuum compression works so well.  Once the vacuoles rupture, they quickly fill with any surrounding liquid.

So, I set out to exploit this phenomenon with a bunch of different plant foods.  Here are the results.

Tomatoes

The image at the top of this post shows the outcome of my tomato experiments.  On the left is a raw tomato, sliced 3mm thick.  In the middle is a tomato infused with olive oil.  On the right is a tomato infused with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Since the oil replaces much of the water in the tomato slice, you can safely top these tomatoes with salt without the salt melting, which is a neat trick.

The image just above shows a macro shot of the oil and balsamic tomato slice.  You can actually see the expanded vacuoles, which are now filled with oil.  As the pressure in the vacuum chamber dropped, the tomatoes boiled vigorously in the olive oil – they actually looked like they were being deep-fried, but at room temperature.  I think there’s more to explore here…

Cucumber

[Raw on the left, infused on the right].  These are classic pickles.  I infused 3mm cucumber slices in a brine of rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt, water, coriander seed, black peppercorn and fresh dill.  Because the cell walls are collapsed, these pickles don’t quite have the same “snap” as traditional pickles, but they were still excellent.  Having total control over the flavor of the brine and being able to make pickles in less than 60 seconds more than makes up for the difference in mouthfeel.

Quince

[Raw on the left, infused on the right].  Because the quince was so firm, I sliced it to 3/4mm on the mandoline.  I pickled the slices with Noble Tonic No. 4 and thyme.  Although they are quite acidic as a standalone snack, they’d make a fantastic garnish for something fatty, like a slab of pork belly or a chunk of tuna.  They’re also much more attractive when they turn translucent.

Jicama

[Raw on the left, infused middle and right].  Much to my surprise, the jicama didn’t compress much or turn translucent.  However, it did do a fantastic job taking on surrounding flavors.  My first test was Sriracha and light coconut milk.  This worked like a charm – the liquid was quite thick, but even after I rinsed the jicama, the flavors remained.  The second test was a brine of apple cider and fennel seed.  This has the potential to become a fantastic slaw.  Although I was happy with the flavors, I didn’t compare the results of the vacuum compression to simply soaking jicama in these liquids, so I can’t say for sure that vacuum did any magic here.

Turnip

[Raw on the left, infused on the right]. This was one of the most promising results – I infused 3/4mm sliced raw turnip with Nobile Tonic No. 1 Maple Syrup.  In fairness, I could lick that maple syrup off a cast iron griddle and still love it.  However, the sweetness of the syrup added a wonderful complexity to the bitter, spicy finish of raw turnip.  I could see these infused turnip sheets used as a wrapper for a filling, or perhaps deep fried into chips.

I’m very excited about the results of this first round of testing, and I look forward to more experimentation with the chamber sealer.

I’ve assembled a list of must-have cooking gear, kitchen toys, and foodie fetishes for 2011.  If you have a food geek in your life and you’re looking for gift inspiration, I’m here to help.  They say “‘tis better to give,” but ‘tis best to give to someone who’ll cook you dinner in return!

	Bob Kramer 10" Carbon Steel Chef’s Knife by Zwilling J.A. Henckels® Say hello to the “it knife” of 2011. Bob Kramer is the only Master Bladesmith in the world who specializes in culinary knifes, and his rare, hand-made blades sell for thousands of dollars.  (see my post on touring Bob Kramer’s workshop.)  Now, he’s produced a line of exceptional quality carbon steel cutlery that conforms to his exacting standards, but is affordable enough for the home chef.  $349.95 – Sur La Table $349.95 – Amazon.com
	Skillet Bacon Jam Seattle residents are already familiar with the spreadable jar of heaven known as “Bacon Jam”.  Produced by the same Skillet group that brought us the Skillet Street Food truck and the Skillet Diner,  the jam is a mixture of rendered bacon and spices that adds a succulent kick to sandwiches, burgers, omelets, Ritz crackers, or any other bacon-submissive food.  Makes a great stocking stuffer – just hope you can fit into your stockings after you’ve plowed through a jar. $15.95 – Amazon.com
	Rouxbe Cooking School In this day and age, anything that’s worth doing is worth doing online – learning to cook is no exception.  Rouxbe is the world’s leading online cooking school that teaches people of all levels to become better, more confident cooks.  Focused on techniques, not recipes, Rouxbe offers over 1,100 close-up instructional videos that capture the exact same curriculum found in professional cooking schools around the world. $23.00/month (other packages available) – Rouxbe.com
	SousVide Supreme Any serious food geek cooks sous vide.  And those who don’t?  Well, they’re waiting for you to buy them a sous vide machine… that is, if you’re not up for building one yourself.  By far, the easiest way to get started with sous vide cooking is the SousVide Supreme line of water ovens.  Their machines are available in multiple sizes and colors and they’re currently running some fantastic deals for the holidays, including a Modernist Cuisine gift set! $299 and up – SousVideSupreme.com
	VacMaster Chamber Vacuum Sealer Whether you’re cooking sous vide or tackling a whole slew of other modernist techniques, a vacuum sealer is an absolute necessity.  FoodSaver-style sealers work fine for dry foods, but for wet foods like meat and fish or liquids of any kind, you need a chamber sealer.  Unlike an edge sealer, which sucks all of the air out of the bag from one edge, the VacMaster removes the air from the entire chamber, then seals the bag.  When the vacuum is released, the pressure of the atmosphere compresses the bag against its contents for a fool-proof, air-free seal with no messy liquid sucked from the edge of the bag.  $799 – SousVideSupreme.com $824 – Amazon.com
	Excalibur 3500 Deluxe Series 5 Tray Food Dehydrator If you thought dehydrators were just for jerky and fruit snacks, you’re missing a whole world of possible applications for dried foods.  For example, why not whip up some Shrimp in Cocktail Leather for your next dinner party?  The Excalibur dehydrator is the brand trusted by chefs everywhere.  The rectangular drying trays provide 8 square feet of drying space, and the 85º – 145ºF thermostat let’s you dehydrate everything from soup to nuts (and yes, jerky too)! $189.95 – Amazon.com
	Presto 1755 16-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker/Canner For some reason, lots of folks think of pressure cookers as “your grandmother’s kitchen gadget”.  And, while it’s true that grannie may have reached for her pressure cooker as a way to save time in the kitchen, their usefulness extends well beyond expediency.  Pressure cookers are fantastic for extracting flavors, for example, when making stocks and sauces.  When coupled with a little baking soda, they’re also key to making the best vegetable soups I’ve ever tasted.  I’d recommend purchasing a pressure canner rather than just a pressure cooker.  The difference is the inclusion of a pressure gauge which allows you to can many foods that you couldn’t otherwise safely preserve. $71.99 – Amazon.com
	Noble Tonics: Handcrafted Matured Maple Syrups & Vinegars This is my new favorite breakfast condiment: Tahitian Vanilla Bean & Egyptian Chomomile Blossom Matured Maple Syrup.  Just speaking its name evokes images of meticulous artisans patiently watching over these syrups as they mature in charred American oak barrels. It is to maple syrup what Château d’Yquem is to wine.  The complete line includes two maple syrups, a sherry bourbon oak vinegar, an heirloom lemon matured white wine vinegar, and XO, a viscous, rich “finishing vinegar”.  $22.95 – $69.95 – MikuniWildHarvest.com Disclosure: I received a free sample of Noble Tonic products.
	Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook Although this cookbook was only released a few weeks ago, it’s already one of the most talked-about cookbooks of the year.  And rightfully so – this book is so much more than a cookbook; it is a window into the soul of Eleven Madison Park.  Featuring breathtaking photography and over 125 sophisticated recipes, this will be one of the [very few] cookbooks I reference on a regular basis, both for inspiration and for technique.  $31.50 [hardcover] – Amazon.com
	Momofuku Milk Bar Imagine an incredible collection of desserts that all seem like they were designed by stoners with phenomenal pastry skills.  That would, more or less, be Monofuku Milk Bar.  Written by pastry chef Christina Tosi, the book includes an entire section on cereal milk ice creams.  Other notable dishes include the infamous “crack pie”, “compost cookie”, and “gutter sundae” (directions: Go to the hardware store.  Buy a gutter.  Invite your friends and family over.  Make a gutter sundae to celebrate).  Yet, somehow, the whole thing is irresistible! $20.18 – Amazon.com
	Lucky Peach This has been a great year for chef David Chang and his ever-expanding influence.  Case in point: Lucky Peach.  In an era when print publishing is dying a very public death, Chang had the chutzpah to start his own food journal.  Issue Two’s theme is "The Sweet Spot," and will feature Rene Redzepi on vintage vegetables, Tajikistani apricots with Adam Gollner, a visit to Callaway Golf and Louisville Slugger, time-sensitive fermentation, banana pie with Momofuku Milk Bar chef Christina Tosi, and much, much more. $9.50/issue – Amazon.com
	Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker Top Pot Doughnuts are a treasured part of Seattle’s edible landscape.  Let it be said that no other doughnut pairs as well with a nonfat, fair trade, soy, double, vanilla cappuccino.  Committed bakers, casual home cooks, and sweet-toothed fans will eat up these 50 tried-and-true recipes from classic Old-Fashioneds to the signature Pink Feather Boa and become experts themselves after learning the secrets of doughnut-making tools, terms, and techniques (no, you don t need a deep fryer). $10.98 – Amazon.com
	Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking If you’re searching for a food geek gift that will make all others pale in comparison, look no further.  For the price of a stand mixer and a handful of tasteful stocking stuffers, you can give the gift that will keep your food geek cooking for a lifetime.  I’ve already written quite a bit about Modernist Cuisine, but for the first time ever, you can wrap it in a bow and put it under the tree.  Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a 40 lb. cookbook! $450.84 – Amazon.com
	iSi Professional Food & Cream Gourmet Whipper Thanks to Ferran Adria and others, the term “culinary foam” now means more than whipped cream.  If you’re interested in experimenting with foam-at-home, you’ll need to own a whipping siphon.  A now-essential part of both sweet and savory preparations, whipping siphons are also great for quick infusions and making carbonated snacks.  Unlike cheaper siphons, this model is designed to handle more viscous liquids commonly called for in modernist preparations. $138.99 – Amazon.com iSi N20 Cream Chargers, 24-Pack: $15.75 – Amazon.com
	Krups 203 Electric Coffee and Spice Grinder with Stainless-Steel blades Textural transformations are a hallmark of modernist cooking, and powders play in important role in achieving the correct mouthfeel and presentation of many dishes.  If you’ve ever attempted to turn a solid into a powder using a blender or food processor, you’ll understand why it’s important to have the right tool for the job.  This spice grinder is compact, inexpensive and incredibly efficient at making very fine powders in a matter of seconds. $19.00 – Amazon.com
	Canon EOS 5D Mark II with EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens Modern food-enthusiasts (see how hard I tried not to use the word “foodie”?) never travel without a camera in-hand.  But, approaching your plate of foie gras and truffles with a cell phone camera is as gauche as wearing a sport coat and shorts just to spite the dress code.  If you or the food geek in your life are ready to get serious about food photography, there’s currently no better value than the iconic Canon 5D Mark II.  It shoots 21MP stills and broadcast-quality video, all for less than a bottle of Chateau Margaux.  $3,019.98 – Amazon.com
	Nikon 1 J1 10.1 MP HD Digital Camera System with 10-30mm VR 1 NIKKOR Lens So, you’ve realized that you want to improve your food photography, but you don’t want to lug a giant (and conspicuous) DSLR to every restaurant you visit.  Nikon’s “1” line is a brand new imaging system that’s designed to be highly portable and highly performant.  Featuring interchangeable lenses, a high-speed sensor for great low-light shooting, and the ability to snap stills while you’re shooting 1080p HD video, this is a great camera for the fooderazzi.  $599.00 – Amazon.com

Happy Holidays,

Scott

Man, o man do I love butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, delicata squash… you get the point.  When I was young, one of my favorite side dishes at family dinners was an acorn squash, halved, filled with butter and brown sugar, and roasted until soft and sweet.  It tasted like candy, but technically qualified as a vegetable – a loophole that I still enjoy exploiting.

During my recent, steamy love affair with my pressure cooker, I’ve discovered that it does fantastic things to squash.  For example, last week, Jethro served THE BEST butternut squash soup I’ve ever eaten – pressure cooked, of course.  There are two fundamental benefits to pressure cooking, as opposed to roasting, squash:

1. Speed.  Fork-tender squash takes 15-20 minutes in the pressure cooker, rather than 30-45 minutes in the oven.
2. All-Over Tan.  Put another way, the pressure cooker achieves deep, even browning on all surfaces, with a significantly reduced risk of burning.  Let’s explore that more…

One of the best tricks I’ve learned from Modernist Cuisine is that adding 0.5% baking soda (by weight) to things you’re about to pressure cook results in fantastic caramelization.  The baking soda increases the pH of the food, which allows the Maillard reaction to take place at the the relatively low-temperature environment of the pressure cooker – typical Maillard reactions start around 310F, but a pressure cooker operating at 15 psi only reaches about 250F.  That means that you get deliciously-sweet, browned squash without running the risk of accidentally scorching your squash.

Also, pressure cookers brown more evenly than ovens.  Think of your oven like a cheap tanning bed, with lights above and below the subject (in this case, food).  The top and bottom of the food is exposed to a lot of light and gets nicely tanned.  The sides, however, remain pasty-white because they’re mostly in shadow. The environment inside a pressure cooker, however, is more akin to bathing in a pool of self-tanner.  The heat and pressure generated by the steam come from all sides, and as a result, your cubes of squash are beautifully browned from every angle, not just the top and bottom.

If you’re ready to drink the Kool-Aid, here are some pressure cooked squash recipes to get you started.

Basic Pressure Cooked Squash Recipe

1. Remove the skin and seeds from your squash and cut into evenly-sized 1” cubes.
2. Add 1/2 cup of liquid to your pressure cooker.  I recommend centrifuged squash water (thanks Jethro!), chicken stock, or other flavorful liquid.  Water works fine, too.
3. Toss your cubed squash in .5% its own weight in baking soda.  You can eyeball this measurement – about 1/2 tsp. of baking soda for 2 lbs. of squash.  Add the squash to the pressure cooker.
4. Pressure cook for 20 minutes.  Remove and season to taste.

Pressure Cooked Squash Soup Recipe

1. Follow steps 1-3 above.  For extra richness, add butter or duck fat to the cooking liquid.
2. Check after 20 minutes.  Pressure cook an additional 10-20 minutes if the squash isn’t tender enough to fall apart yet (cooking time will vary by species).
3. Using an immersion blender, puree the squash until smooth, adding additional liquid to reach the desired consistency.
4. Season to taste with salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, roasted garlic, nutmeg, maple syrup, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, apple cider, tarragon, ginger, or whatever else suits your fancy.

Go wild with variations.  Add other stuff like apples or canned pumpkin or bell peppers or carrots or leeks.  I promise it’ll be good.

[BTW, the picture above is an acorn squash, uncooked.]

As you may know, one hallmark of the photography in Modernist Cuisine is their use of cutaway photos that show what’s happening inside your food – and cookware – as you cook.  Since I plan on (eventually) trying to recreate all of the recipes in the  book, I thought it might be prudent to recreate those cutaway shots, too.  Unlike the MC lab, however, I don’t have a waterjet. 

Enter the fantastic folks at Flow International Corporation.  They happened to catch my half-joking tweet asking if anyone had a waterjet I could borrow, and as it turns out, they do.  In fact, Flow manufactures waterjet machines and invited me to visit them at their headquarters in Kent, WA.  When I arrived, they led me – and my box of fully intact cookware – into their demonstration room, an enormous space punctuated by a handful of monstrous waterjets machines. 

Under normal circumstances, they’d load a 3D model of the object we were cutting and the cutting nozzle would follow an exact path through the object.  However, since I just wanted my pans cut “in twain” the operator switched  the machine into manual mode and piloted the cutting head across the surface of the pan like a Jedi.  The video below shows the cutting process. 

Water and abrasive grit forced at 87,000 psi through an opening the size of a human hair is powerful. And, it doesn’t discriminate – it’ll cut paper, tile, glass, stone, metals (including titanium) and just about anything else that gets in its path. As it turns out, water jets are also commonly used for cutting food products.  Since the water jet doesn’t generate much heat as it cuts, it’s perfect for portioning frozen meat and fish or slicing a sheet of nougat into individual candy bars.  Of course, now I totally want one of these machines for home.  Cutting the crust off a loaf of Wonderbread would never be the same again.

The image at the top shows one of my new half-skillets and depicts the problem with cooking a thick steak on a hot surface (see those gray bands of well-done?).  Now I can do my very own cutaway shots, just like the big boys

Huge thanks to the fantastic folks at Flow for helping me out!

Last week, I gave a talk at Seattle’s 0th ever Nerd Nite!  My talk was titled “Food, Science and Electric Bacon” and was a similar history of Modernist cuisine and explanation of geeky food techniques that I presented at the International Food Bloggers Conference in New Orleans a few weeks back. 

I’ll post the video of my “lecture” when it’s available, but in the meantime, give a listen to this Podcast I recorded with he wonderful folks at Nerd Nite.  Unlike the video, this one’s work-safe. 

 Listen at NerdNite.com or download the MP3.

Join Modernist Cuisine photographer, Ryan Matthew Smith, for a hands-on food photography workshop at TASTE in downtown Seattle. Ryan will explain the lighting techniques used during the making of Modernist Cuisine, as well as critical Photoshop steps to make your images pop!

Sunday, September 18th
10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
TASTE restaurant at the SAM
1300 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
United States

$125 per person, includes lunch.  Click here to purchase tickets.  Enrollment is limited to 12 students.

Agenda:

• An introduction to Ryan’s food photography
• Demos of strobe light techniques used in Modernist Cuisine
• Lunch provided by TASTE restaurant
• Hands-on action shooting workshop.  Attendees will learn to shoot food in motion!
• Photoshop Lesson 1: Curves -  The nearly everything tool
• Photoshop Lesson 2: Layer masking techniques -  How to localize your adjustments
• Photoshop Lesson 3: Making a single image from multiple captures
• Q&A session
• Student portfolio critique (optional)

A DSLR camera and previous Photoshop experience is recommended, but not required.  If you have a DSLR, please bring it for the hands-on shooting workshop.  If not, there will be a camera available to borrow.  You will have the opportunity to work with high-end Broncolor lighting equipment and also experiment with budget-friendly Alienbees strobes.  However, the lessons you’ll learn will enhance your food photography skills regardless of the equipment you use at home.

Your ticket price includes lunch provided by TASTE restaurant.  Confirmed attendees will be allowed to upload samples of previous work into a Flickr pool for the student portfolio critique at the end of the workshop.

If you have questions, please contact scott@seattlefoodgeek.com. 

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/193673

My feet hurt, my back is a mess, I’ve got blisters from endless brunoising, and my fingertips are still burning from the liquid nitrogen.  It was the best week ever!

Last week, I spent four days working as a stage (pronounced stahzje, definition: cooking intern) at the Modernist Cuisine kitchen lab in Bellevue.  It was an amazing experience that deepened my respect for the talent and dedication of everyone involved with the book and its promotion.

Dinner was scheduled for Thursday night and prep began on Monday morning.  There were 15 guests and 30 courses.  Each course was broken down into multiple components which were listed on the kitchen’s whiteboard each morning.  I didn’t keep an exact count, but I estimate the number of component dishes to be somewhere around 200.  There were six full-time chefs: Maxime Bilet, Johnny Zhu, Grant Crilly, Sam Fahey-Burke, Anjana Shanker, and Aaron (who transitioned from 4th week stage to full-time employee during my stint).  Maxime Bilet was in and out of the lab Monday through Wednesday, wrangling suppliers and keeping a pulse on progress, but present in full-force on Thursday to lead the execution of the dinner service.  Depending on the day, there were up to three stages (myself included), and of course, the hardest working guy in the kitchen, Tyson, who washed dishes non-stop.

So, with that many hands on deck, how much could we possibly need to prep four days in advance?  A lot, it turned out.  My first order of business was to unbag, thaw, drain and juice 60 lbs. of frozen corn.  This corn would ultimately become corn butter, which was served with the second course, alongside pea butter with thinly-sliced rectangles of toast.  In case you’re having trouble visualizing what 60 lbs. of corn actually looks like, it’s approximately a home-sized freezer packed full.  And how much butter does that yield?  About 120 grams – not quite 1 cup.  It’s roughly equivalent in scale to harvesting saffron, except it requires a massive centrifuge instead of dozens of Italian field laborers.  It took me over three hours to juice all that corn, then divide the juice precisely into 400g bottles for the ‘fuge.  Then, in batches of 6, the corn juice spun at 10,000 RPMs for an hour.  The result was a product very similar to the corn butter I made at home, but with an even greater separation between the liquid and solid layers.  I gently scraped the layer of corn butter out of each bottle, then, like almost every other food in the kitchen, I sealed it in a vacuum bag.

[Hopefully impressed by my lack of complaining] the chefs moved me on to other components that felt a more like cooking and less like panning for gold.  I helped Sam make a praline batter from roasted hazelnuts, and I helped Grant remove the red, outer skin from stalks of rhubarb.  It turns out that if you peel rhubarb to remove its red exterior, it looks strikingly like celery.  The chefs used that illusion to garnish the Fruit Minestra, the first of the dessert courses.  Very clever.

Next, I worked on my first brunoise.  If you aren’t familiar with the term, “brunoise” means little, tiny cubes.  The size of the cubes ranges from 1-3mm (depending on who you ask), and they are generally made by julienning foods with a mandoline, then cutting the food into strips, turning the strips 90 degrees and cutting them into cubes.  It sounds pretty easy, and conceptually, it is.  But in practice, this turned out to be my nemesis.  Because the cubes are so small, a difference in size of .5mm can equate to 25-50%, and it’s that discrepancy is noticeable to the eye… especially eye of a chef.

My first brunoise assignment was a white onion.  I’ve cut onions [at home] for years, and I’ve cut them with roughly the same technique that Sam showed me: cut off the top, split the onion in half, make a few slices with your knife parallel to the cutting board, make some more slices with your knife parallel to the onion root, then cut across the onion to produce little chunks.  The difference was, I had always cut an onion for the sole purpose of turning it into small pieces.  I had never before cut an onion “for service”.  This turned out to be an important distinction.  Foods cut for service had to be perfect… like, take-out-your-caliper-perfect.  “Easy enough,” I thought.  My plan was to take a little extra time and care with my knifework and, presto, perfect little cubes.  Wrong!  No matter how slowly I went, that asshole of an onion would invariably shatter into little round shards, extruded rhombuses, and other quadrilaterals devoid of right angles.  As the week progressed, I found the same to be especially true of shallots, and to an extent, every other food that I tried laboriously to cube: candied orange peel, cucumber flesh, maitake mushrooms, and likely several other ingredients that I’ve subconsciously repressed.

At some point, each chef assigned me something to brunoise, and invariably each of them instructed me, “Take your time, do it right.”  I thought this was awesome.  I hadn’t previously spent much time in a working kitchen, so my expectations were largely based on clips I’d seen of reality TV chefs flipping over pans and screaming at people (often in English accents).  None of this was anywhere to be found in the Modernist Cuisine kitchen.  Even when timing was tight and the pressure was on, nobody lost their cool and not once was I ever made to feel incapable because of my inexperience.  That’s not to say that they relaxed their standards one iota for their stages – “Those cubes are getting a little big, Scott,” was all the instruction I needed to know that I should discard my pile and start again.  If a chef noticed that I was struggling with a task or a technique, he or she would stop me, help me with instructions, tips or tricks, then set me back on course.  It was an amazingly supportive environment… in spite of all those little fucking cubes.

By the end of the first day, I was exhausted and I felt like I had gone barefoot ice skating on a hot lake of Microplanes.  I had bought brand new non-slip work shoes for the internship and, although I had the foresight to equip them with Dr. Scholes, I was not prepared for the impact of a full day on my feet.  It doesn’t happen often in the software world.  When I got home, slipped off my shoes, and sank into bed, the relief was so orgasmic that it put me to sleep. 

I arrived bright and early on day two and got straight to work.  It’s amazing how much confidence you can build in a single day of experience: I knew my way around, I had learned most of the protocols and I had compiled a list of each chef’s known peccadillos (ex. Sam likes the saucepans hung small-to-large from right to left; Max hates it when grocery packaging touches a cutting board; Grant prefers wood boards over plastic).  I marched into the kitchen confidently, grabbed an apron and a stack of towels and got straight to work.  Yesterday’s whiteboard full of components had been replaced by an entirely new list, just as long.

I started on the Gazpacho, prepared in the least traditional fashion I’ve seen.  This soup was made primarily from plums and pluots (a hybrid between a plum and an apricot).  The sliced fruit had been marinating with other components in a vacuum bag overnight.  My job was to blend it in the VitaPrep, then pass it through a tamis, discarding the thick pulp.  Even though the blender did a great job pureeing the soup, the mesh of the tamis was so fine that it took me hours to scrape the soup through.  The liquid that it rendered was bright orange, less viscous than water, and intensely fruit-flavored.  Once I had pressed through all the liquid I could, it went straight into a vacuum bag and into the chamber sealer.

I’m told that all stages make the same mistake the first time they try to vacuum seal liquids.  Some (not all) liquids start to boil and foam as the pressure in the chamber drops.  As this boiling becomes more intense, it’s not uncommon for the liquid to erupt out of the unsealed bag and make a mess of the vacuum chamber.  Grant was kind enough to show me a workaround: if you set the liquid in a regular upright container and pull a vacuum without trying to seal it first, you can boil off most of the dissolved gasses.  Then, when you go to vacuum seal the bag, you can avoid the unpleasant flood of liquid past the sealing bar.  This trick was instrumental to my success vacuum packing – only once did I make a mess of the sealer and that was from learning a different lesson: spot prawn shells are sharp as shit and will poke through a vacuum bag (or five).

Anyhow, days two and three continued at this pace.  We worked from 9 until 5:30 or 6:30, busily knocking out components, vacuum sealing them, and arranging them in the quickly-diminishing refrigerator space.  Some items, such as cryoshattered berries and a vacuum-set green apple foam, went straight into the deep freezer at -60C.  Other items went into one of many sous vide baths humming along throughout the kitchen, and yet other components, such as the house-made cocoa pasta, were left out to dry on sheet pans.

When day four arrived, I knew it would be crunch time.  We were on a great pace for delivering dinner that evening, but there were some components that we couldn’t prep until the day-of, and the tingle of anxiety in the air indicated that it would be a long, busy day.  We started work at 7AM that morning.  The mixing bowls and cutting boards that normally lived underneath the center prep table were swapped out for sparkling, clean dishware.  Any unnecessary equipment was stashed in towering storage shelves to clear floor space for the two round tables and chairs that would seat 15 lucky guests.  The evening before, I had [obsessively and compulsively] rearranged the “spice” cabinets and dry goods storage so they looked organized and uncluttered (I use quotes around the word “spice” because most of the powders on those shelves were unfamiliar food additives, modified starches and powdered dinosaur genitals). 

Johnny had me clean [what must have been] ten pounds of morels for service, explaining how to check for any remaining grit at the end of each wash.  I was told that there must not be any grit; that is, among the miles of folds and crevices surrounding each mushroom, they must be washed so thoroughly that not a single grain of sand remains.  When I was finished I laid the gorgeous morels on a towel-lined sheet tray to dry.  “One more thing,” Johnny said.  “Eat one.”  I grabbed a small, raw mushroom and started chewing.  “Any grit?” he asked?  I thought this would be my Grant Achatz olive pit moment (3/4 down the linked page) where I had proudly returned with my accomplished task, only to be proven incomplete by the experienced chef.  Luckily, there was no grit.  If I had learned anything at this point, it was not to take shortcuts.

By the time we were ready for dinner service, the whole kitchen was electric with energy.  I had the honor of wearing official Modernist Cuisine whites for dinner service, though I tried hard to hide my fanboy grin when I put on the jacket.  It was kind of like getting to visit the set of Star Trek, put on a Lieutenant’s uniform, and fire off a few photon torpedoes.  If that’s your thing, it’s unavoidable that you’ll pop a [metaphoric] boner in the process.

During dinner service, the other stages and I waited at-the-ready on the far side of the kitchen while the chefs, including Nathan, were “asses to elbows” firing and plating each course.  Every now and then, one of the chefs would ask for “hands” and the lucky stage who happened to be closest got to jump in on the action.  I had the privilege of helping plate several courses, including the Beef Stew, Polenta Marinara, Fruit Minestra and Banana Truffles.  I even got to hop on the line for some last-minute morel chopping while the Morels and Cream course.  Although my contributions were minor in the grand scheme of things, it gave me a huge rush of excitement just to be involved.

Watching Maxime and the other chefs in action was pretty amazing.  Since the kitchen is open to the diners and only about ten feet away from their tables, any cuts, spills, burns, mistakes or re-fires would have been particularly noticeable.  However, the chefs worked so smoothly and seamlessly together that their movement appeared choreographed.  Every dish that left the kitchen looked good enough to photograph, even though they were often sending out 15 plates at a time.  The servers, who have been retained through all of the previous dinners, were exceptionally knowledgeable about the menu and their professionalism and poise could make you forget, for a moment, that you were having a three-star meal in the hallway between a machine shop and a mosquito incubator.  It really was a fantastic production, and I can say with certainty that it’s one of the most unique dining experiences on the planet.

Now that I’ve had the pleasure of being both a guest at one of these dinners and helping to prepare it, I can tell you that time does not pass at equal rates on either side of the kitchen counter.  Even thought the dinner I ate was just about the same length as the dinner we served, time flew by when I was seated and eating, though it seemed to crawl forward when I was on my feet shuttling ingredients around.  It was about 10:30 PM by the time we had the kitchen clean and I took off my whites.  By then, we were all a bit loopy.  Maxime poured me a glass of leftover white wine and I nearly chugged it out of thirst and reflex.  We nibbled on bits of leftovers, reflected on the success of the evening, swapped a few sophomoric jokes and finally parted ways.  I cannot remember being more exhausted, nor can I remember feeling as proud for what I had helped accomplish in those four long days.

I want to publicly reiterate my sincere thanks to Sam, Grant, Johnny, Anjana, Aaron, Maxime and Nathan for allowing me this opportunity.  It was an experience that I’ll never forget, and I’m sure it will play a formative role in my future cooking.  I appreciate your generosity of time, knowledge and spirit and have a deepened respect for the work that you do.

If you’re interested in reading more about the meal itself, Alvin Schultz posted a great writeup.  You can also check out the slideshow of my experience as a dinner guest at the lab, which covered many of the same courses.

Many thanks to Ryan Matthew Smith for the action shots above!

Pea butter is one of the primary reasons I was compelled to put a laboratory centrifuge in my house.  It is an iridescent, velvety substance produced in miniscule quantities by spinning peas at high G-forces.  It’s also one of the most vivid flavors I’ve ever tasted, and I needed to make it at home.

The existence of pea butter was unearthed by the Modernist Cuisine team, using a centrifuge the size of a washing machine.  My cooking compadre, Jethro, was the first kid on the block with a home-sized centrifuge (if you’re single, or have a basement) and did a great write-up on his pea butter experience back in February.  Jethro whipped frozen peas into a powder, then centrifuged them for 5 hours.  Contrary to his technique, I found that I was able to extract roughly the same yield of pea butter by blending thawed peas into a liquid and spinning it for 3 hours.  I believe the reason is due to Brownian Motion (see the explanation on the eGullet Centrifuges thread). 

I also decided to try the same technique with corn.  Corn and peas are both wet and chewy, they both contain starch, and they’re both really sweet.  After 3 hours of spinning at 1500Gs, I couldn’t detect a corn “butter”, per se, but I did get a thick, milky corn liquid that was extremely flavorful and rife for culinary applications.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be hunting for ways to use these centrifuged components.  Check back for recipes that will spin you right-round.

In Part 1 of this article, we got a behind-the-scenes look at the equipment, lighting and shooting setup used by Ryan Matthew Smith to achieve the stunning food photos in Modernist Cuisine.  Now, we’ll take a look at the second step in the process: cleaning up your pictures in Photoshop to really make them come to life.

Ryan is amazingly talented with Photoshop and he has shared some of his favorite tricks and techniques with me.  There is a lot more to be learned than what’s covered in this article, but this is a great start for any food photographer looking to squeeze a little more succulence out of your shots. 

The steps below are my attempt at cleaning up the grapefruit picture shown here.  Although my process achieves a similar result to Ryan’s work on the same photo, chances are, an experienced Photoshop guru like Ryan can correct this image faster, cleaner and more accurately.  However, as I was quite pleased with the finished product, so I thought I’d share my steps with you. 

At the end of the article, I’ve listed a handful of other useful Photoshop tips that Ryan was kind enough to share. 

(more…)

Last night, I enjoyed the rare privilege of experiencing a 29-course tasting menu prepared by the Modernist Cuisine team.  The dinner was spectacular and showcased some of the most innovative and sophisticated cooking techniques on the planet.  Often the flavors were new and complex as well, though now and then, a dish would surprise me with a familiar taste from childhood or years past.  I don’t dare try to describe every plate, but the majority of the dishes they served can be found in the book, in one form or another.

I’d like to give a big Thank You to the Modernist Cuisine team for hosting such a spectacular evening, and for their continued generosity.

		Dinner at the Modernist Cuisine Lab VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This week I had the extreme privilege to get a lesson in food photography from Ryan Matthew Smith, the principal photographer for Modernist Cuisine.  We recreated a few shots from the book and Ryan explained some of the techniques he used to create those jaw-dropping photos.  In this article, I’ll give you some of Ryan’s best tips and tricks for shooting food in this style.  We’ll cover the lighting setup for each shot, talk about the equipment that Ryan uses, and even look at some at-home alternatives.  Finally, as a reward for reading all the way through, you can watch gelatin bounce in extreme slow motion   In Part 2 (coming soon), we’ll walk through a set of steps in Photoshop to pull out the hyper-real detail and lighting that make Modernist Cuisine’s food seem to jump off the page.

(more…)

It takes five minutes to unpack the Modernist Cuisine books.  Five.  I know… I counted.

Several weeks ago, when I brought home a review copy of Modernist Cuisine, I was too eager to bother documenting the unboxing process.  However, now that I’ve purchased my personal copy (for-keeps) I thought it would be worthwhile to share the experience of opening it up for the first time. 

The video above shows the process from start to finish.  First there’s the outer box (note the shipping weight on the label).  Then, you reveal the inner box, suspended in air by six rigid cardboard pyramids.  Inside the inner box, there are thick cardboard panels which completely surround a mysterious white package (hint: it’s the books!).  On the other end, the kitchen manual hides in a box of its own. 

Although it may seem like the Matryoshka-style packaging was added to create a tantric unboxing experience, it actually serves a purpose: protecting the acrylic book case from breaking during transit.  One of the reasons that the original shipping date was delayed, in fact, was that the previous version of the packaging had failed a “drop test”.  When you’ve got 50 lbs. of books sloshing around in a box, cushioning counts.

If you’re still waiting on your copy to arrive, I hope this video gives you a moment of vicarious pleasure.  And, in case you’re wondering, yes I saved the box. 

Although the title sounds like the beginning of a bad personals ad, this recipe couldn’t be more innocuous.  I wanted to play with the notion of a classic shrimp cocktail, and somewhat by accident (and inspired by a brainstorming session with Jethro), I realized that I could dehydrate cocktail sauce and produce something that looked quite a bit like prosciutto.  Prosciutto-wrapped shrimp is a great dish on its own, and on first glance, that’s what this dish might appear to be.  However, in a single bite, you’ll quickly identify the unmistakable flavor of cocktail sauce.

Method:

1. Spread cocktail sauce (bottled or homemade – I’ll admit to using bottled) in a thin, even layer on a piece of parchment.  Make the layer just thick enough that there are no holes or gaps in coverage. 
2. Dehydrate in a food dehydrator at 135F for 2-3 hours or until it is dry to the touch.  If you don’t have a dehydrator, you may be able to achieve similar results in a low oven with the door cracked slightly.
3. Carefully peel the parchment away from the dehydrated cocktail sauce.  It will peel away just like a fruit leather.  Place the cocktail “leathers” on a silpat or another sheet of parchment – they will stick to counters and cutting boards.
4. Cut the leather into strips, 3/4” wide by 7” long (for medium shrimp – adjust the size as needed). 
5. Cook shrimp using the method of your choice.  Refrigerate until cool.  Wrap the shrimp in cocktail leather.  Serve, and watch for the look of surprise on the faces of your guests.

Nathan Myhrvold’s presentation on the Modernist Cuisine book is loaded with astonishing facts and figures: over 2400 pages, 46 lbs., 4 pounds of ink… the list goes on.  But, he leaves out a great deal of the behind-the-scenes facts about  the book and the process of its creation.  As we enter early April, just under a month after the first copies shipped, we are finally uncovering details of the real story behind Modernist Cuisine.  Below are a a few little-known facts that I was able to gather from members of the kitchen team who have asked to remain nameless.

1. The working title of the book was How to Boil Distilled Water At Sea Level Using A Conductive Heat Source and a Wet Bulb Thermometer.  It was later changed to Modernist Cuisine to conserve ink.
2. A month before the book went to print, the team decided to cut a 6th volume that described  the physiology of the human body’s digestive process.
3. As lifelong fan of hidden clues and puzzle-solving, Nathan has placed a secret clue inside the printed pages of book 5. If you cut off the book in half vertically down the exact center and view each half from the side, the interior edge of the stacked pages reveals the recipe for Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum.
4. The book originally included a recipe for Coca Cola, which the Modernist Cuisine team reverse-engineered using a mass spectrograph. However, efforts to recreate an edible aluminum can were problematic, and the recipe was ultimately discarded.
5. The iconic “cutaway” photos in the book were actually created using a prototype device that resembles a light saber.  Intellectual Ventures has several working “light sabers” which it uses for testing defenses against (according to a research assistant) “pests significantly larger than a mosquito”. 
6. During the book’s production, photographer Ryan Matthew Smith was asked to leave a Seattle restaurant after connecting a fiber optic strobe flash to his cell phone camera and tossing his meal in the air.  Ultimately, the restaurant owner apologized and asked to purchase the photo.
7. One of the more famous recipes in the book is the Modernist Hamburger, which requires over 30 total hours and a bowl of liquid nitrogen to create.  Unfortunately, the team decided to exclude their recipe for “2 AM Mini Hamburgers”, which was inspired during the teams extensive experiments with methods of smoking herbs.
8. The recipes in the book have clearly undergone rigorous testing.  However, the extent of the tests is often greater than we realize.  For example, one member of the culinary team spent four days measuring the number of licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop.  He concluded, applying the central limit theorem, that the number is three.
9. Although it is true that the genesis of the book was Nathan’s desire to understand sous vide cooking, it is not widely known that Nathan turned to sous vide because his microwave had broken and he needed a reliable way to reheat frozen taquitos.
10. If you were to sum the cooking time for all of the recipes (not including parametric variations) included in the books, the result would be 8 years, 2 months, 15 days and 9 hours.  However, the book was completed in fewer than seven years, leading some to conclude that Nathan Myhrvold has secretly developed a time machine.

I hope these facts have given you an inside look at the creation of Modernist Cuisine.  And, as always, happy April fool’s day.