Tri2Cook

Rob, we already know you're a genius... celery or no celery. The cilantro cheesecake/chocolate air experiment was more than enough proof of that without even getting into all the other cool stuff you've shared with us. The flavors of this dessert are beautiful together. I was borderline on whether or not I loved the edamame ice cream on it's own but in combination with the rest it made me smile. The grapefruit marmalade puree for the tart is a bit on the bitter side to me but, again, when experienced as a whole it worked perfectly. The celery and sesame were the salt and pepper of the dish, they enhanced it nicely without jumping out and shouting at you. I would (and will) do it again.

Great stuff Ilana, hope you have lots of fun at the festival.

More fun with Sam Mason recipes... ...grapefruit tart, edamame ice cream, celery leaf, black sesame seed (except I didn't have black seeds and it was much too late for the store here to be open so I toasted some white sesame seeds and called it good enough).

That sounds really good. I was leaning more in the pastry direction with this round but I'm going to add that to my list of things to try. Of course a smokey orange marmalade could make a pastry appearance as well so maybe I'll be trying it sooner than I thought. I wound up with about 300ml of juice and zest combined (I only did 2 oranges this time around because that's what I had on hand). I'd definitely have to add more zest (smoked or not) to do a marmalade of any useful quantity. I've got a couple other ideas I'm tossing around as well but I'm definitely open to more suggestions/ideas.

I smoked some tomatoes tonight for something I'm working on and the smoke was still going so good when I took them out that I hated to let it go to waste. So I cut some oranges in half and tossed them in for a while then wrapped them and tossed them in the cooler. Tomorrow I'm going to collect the zest and juice from them and then, assuming it doesn't taste like a really bad idea, try to come up with something to do with it.

Mustard ice cream is actually quite tasty so caramels might be tasty as well. I've made Sam Mason's version of mustard ice cream from his Banana-Cocoa Raviolis with Mustard Ice Cream and Coffee Soil recipe. I didn't do the entire recipe (yet) because I didn't have the LM gellan for the raviolis but the ice cream is good. I ate it with sliced bananas and chocolate-coffee sauce just to get the feel of the flavor combination he was doing. Good stuff... eventually I'll do the entire recipe as it is supposed to be.

...and wow again. They just keep coming.

Wow. Just wow.

Beautiful Kerry. I would really like to attempt to learn to do molded chocolates well someday. I've played around with them enough to know that it's not a skill that's going to come easily to me and I'll never be at the level of most of the folks who post here but I still would like to give it a serious go at some point.

Thanks Lior, that's really nice of you but I wasn't fishing for compliments. I've posted a thing or two here that I've been really proud of but I know I post some strange stuff sometimes.

I know what you mean Lior, everybody does such great stuff here that I always feel a touch hesitant to post my (often weird) stuff but it's all in fun so I do it anyway. Rob: "Mr. Tangerine Flan". I love it! That's too cool. SanaaSol and Sif: Thanks for the kind words. That's Sam Mason's creation and I'd be glad to post the recipe but I haven't completely figured out the rules for posting other people's recipes yet. Don't want to create more work for the mods, I've done too much of that already.

Thanks for that information. The PA&D site doesn't have any information on ordering back issues and several differently worded searches here in the forums didn't yield any information but I'll keep looking. I'd like to give it a try a compare it to the Sam Mason version which I've already done.

The recipe for Sam Mason's version with carrageenan and locust bean gum is readily available but has anybody managed to work out the Alex Stupak version with agar and gelatin sheets?

We have a couple regulars who spend quite a bit of money each week with us that do it. We'd lose a lot more than we'd gain by saying no. They just prefer a certain tea, it's not anything to do with being cheap. People who order water and lemon slices then add sugar and make free lemonade are the cheap bastards.

Awesome stuff everybody. I finally got a few pics together. Most of the 20 lbs. of danish dough I made went into variations of these... ...this one is caramel apple. I also did lemon curd and strawberry/pastry cream versions and made a couple pans of cinnamon buns and sticky buns with some of the dough. A recent thread here on firm citrus curds inspired me to play with the idea... ...sliceable grapefruit curd w/ honey gelee and caramelized buttermilk bread pudding. Finally, straight from the brilliant mind of Sam Mason... ...kalamata olive cobbler and almond ice cream. Since it's his recipe exactly, I don't think I'm being immodest by saying it is a thing of beauty. Absolutely delicious.

Nice! I haven't had that book out in years, I may have to flip through it and find some of the things I meant to try and never got around to.

I haven't tried cookies but I did the same for a batch of rose petal ice cream I made. I blitzed rose petals and sugar together, cooked it in the custard, then strained it and I got a nice rose flavor and aroma. I used the ice cream with almond milk anglaise and a raspberry-lychee puree to make Ispahan Sundaes. Not as classy as the P.H. creation but inspired by it. The rose flavor stood out in the mix and, several weeks later when I discovered a small container of leftover ice cream in my freezer, it was still fragrant and flavorful. I don't know if the difference is the fresh petals instead of rosewater or the fact that I was dealing with a frozen product but the flavor definitely didn't suffer much from time.

"Who are you gonna ask? That girl over there. Summer Wheatly? How the heck are you gonna do that? Build her a cake or something." Just kidding, those look great. I wish I had the patience to do things like that.

Food that makes the plate irrelevant. Just kidding, I wish I was that skilled... but I don't use anything specific for decorating plates for any occasion. I just use whatever I think works best with what I'm serving. I don't and, hopefully, won't use writing or scenes/images on plates. I don't think there's anything wrong with it and I've seen it look really nice but I don't like to do it.

Never tried it with vanilla but I do it all the time with chocolate ice cream. I also do it with strawberry ice cream. olive oil and pink peppercorns instead of the salt. I'll have to give the vanilla a shot.

I guess it's all about perspective. I got the opposite feeling. I didn't view it as a lot of things going on, I saw it more as not enough going on. It's like a gathering of tasty garnishes with no focus point to pull them together. That's why I keep going on about ice cream, cake, meringue, etc. I don't see a lot of point to the sauces on the plate (no matter how tasty they are) other than appearance when the fruit is already in it's own sauce in a seperate glass, there's nothing to mop them up with. I just can't picture someone taking a spoon of fruit covered in sauce from the glass and trying to scrape some of the plate sauce into it before taking a bite.

I just saw the perfect thing to add to that glass of fruit. I was on my regular morning visit to Ideas in Food and right there at the top of the page it was staring at me like they planned it. Their latest creation, complete with recipe. Ritz Cracker Ice Cream!

Yeah, I'd reduce it or tighten it up a bit with some pectin or xanthan. I don't think it looks bad partly under the glass though, since it's clear glass the color shows through and is kinda a nice effect. Of course the judges may not agree.

Not entirely true. Working at fast food and chain restaurants may not teach a lot about good cooking but they're often busy places so, if you're actually there to do the job and not just skate along with the minimum required to get a paycheck, those places will teach you to move your ass even when you're tired and don't want to.

Great stuff everybody. David, that tart looks/sounds awesome. I don't have the pics to prove it right now but I've been working on a few things. Last night I made 20 lbs. of laminated danish dough. After closing at work I felt like playing so I locked myself in and started making dough. There are ten 2 lb. pieces that got 4 turns each so it would have been more fun if I had a sheeter but it was still fun. I love doing that sort of thing. Chase everybody out of the building, lock myself in, crank the music and see what I end up with. I think maybe I need to get a life. Tonight after closing I baked chocolate cake layers, made chocolate buttercream and caramel buttercream and made a batch of caramel which will all be assembled into a cake a coworker asked me to make for his mom's birthday. I also made a sliceable grapefruit curd topped with honey gelee which I'm going to plate with buttermilk bread pudding. I'll try to get some pics together in the next day or two.