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TheSwede

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Posts posted by TheSwede

  1. When using roux, you add fat to the liquid. That will affect the taste and viscosity in itself.

    You can of course add some butter to your cornstarch thickened liquid too. The result won't be the same as with roux, but probably more similar than when comparing roux to plain cornstarch.

  2. Just to add a genuine Swedish recipe:

    Makes 2,25 litres (three bottles)

    8 dl water

    11 dl sugar

    9 dl 40% neutral alcohol (vodka)

    35 cl Batavia Arrak

    37 cl white wine

    (or lemon juice to taste)

    1 dl strong tea

    Dissolve sugar in water while heating. Let cool. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Taste while adding wine/lemon juice/tea. Bottle, let rest for a couple of weeks.

    I haven't made this particular recipe, so beware, although it looks perfectly fine to me. Note that the recipe both contain acid (wine or lemon juice) and some bitterness (tea) which I think is common characteristics of swedish punch.

    My mother sometimes made punch, but I think her recipe is lost. I'm quite sure her recipe contained an extract of some bitter herb instead of tea.

  3. Be extremely careful with liquid smoke - it is usually very concentrated. So concentrated that it might be hard to dose the undiluted stuff.

    I think a better idea would be to use the bacon salt (or ordinary smoked salt) and sprinkle a little on top of the macaroon.

  4. The problem is that everything except possibly the dessert sound absolutely disgusting...

    It would ruin the joke but result in infinitely better food if you just used dirt cheap ingredients cooked in haute cusine way (potatoes, leeks, chicken liver, beef cheeks...)

  5. Yep, I can buy Danisco organic refined white beet sugar in my local supermarket here in Stockholm. Not that that is any help to you...

    Not directly helpful, but the first direct confirmation I've had about its availability. Have you used it? Does it seem to be the same as other white sugars in color and flavor?

    I have a bag in my pantry. Indistinguishable from my ordinary white sugar, exactly the same.

  6. Liver do have a particular taste and texture. Not everyone likes it. I do, but if I were to serve it at dinner, my girlfriend would run screaming from the room.

    Sweetbread on the other hand is distinctly inoffensive and can be as good as foie gras if prepared properly. Any aversions there is probably bad produce or mental blocks.

  7. Wow. This sounds amazing and I'd love to try it! Is there a vegetarian alternative to using gelatine or eggs to clarify? Would agar agar do the same thing?

    Agar wouldn't work. I guess you need a gelling agent that is thermo reversible, ie melts when the temperature gets higher and sets when it gets lower.

    Anyone have suggestions?

  8. I do find that truffle oil lose it's flavour/aroma after after a while once it is opened. It will probably keep better in the fridge. But on the other hand it is a bother to warm the whole bottle to room temp if you want to use it....

  9. Just a quick note that Alex and Aki at Ideas in Food mention, in this post, that they put buttermilk in their white chocolate consomme, to balance it.

    I don't have a lot of experience with the gelatin filtration process, so I'm watching this thread eagerly! I'd love to hear more about the dark chocolate consomme, too. Can Sam Mason's recipe be found online somewhere?

    Basically, he just dissolves chocolate and cocoa in hot water:

    http://www.foodite.com/foodite/2006/10/pushing_chocola.html

    As for the gelatine filtration, it is pretty simple. Dissolve 0.75% gelatine by weight in the liquid, freeze, and thaw in a fridge over a colander. There is a NY Times article on the subject by McGee. Perhaps someone has a link?

  10. I did something very similar to confit of pork belly. While the belly still was hot, I put it between two cutting boards and a (modest) weight on top, then into the fridge.

    Once cold it was very easy to cut into pretty squares and then heat and crisp for serving. But getting perfect pieces is always a trade off against wastage since you have to trim and pretty up.

    But how someone manages to get perfect serving pieces out of eg beef cheeks is more of a mystery to me. Probably a variation on the same method?

  11. Interesting. I've done regular chocolate consomme several times and I've been happy with the results but I use Sam Mason's recipe or variations on that (except that I clarify it with gelatin instead of a raft). For some strange reason, I haven't used it in sweet applications much. The last time I made it, I used it and a grapefruit consomme with fish.

    Ok, thanks. Will try again with some other chocolate (think I used Lindt the first time) and no milk and sugar.

  12. A concrete suggestion: Start playing with new textures. Perhaps familiar tastes but presented in a new textural form. Combine that with some unusual flavour pairings and some new tableware and you are halfway there. :wink:

    I don't really know if there is a thing like molecular gastronomy cuisine. Rather it is a range of techniques that you can use for whatever purpose suits you.

  13. I've tried doing something similar, "brown" chocolate consomme. I basically did a classic drinking chocolate (receipe from one of Steingartens books, cocolate, cocoa, milk, sugar, heat/blend/froth - tastes wonderfully) and then did a gelatine filtration. The end product was clear, light brown and didn't taste very good.

    The taste was a bit harsh and chemical, even though I used reasonably upmarket ingredients and the chocolate tasted good before filtration. There was definitely a chocolatey taste to the consomme, but not a nice one.

  14. Esperanto

    I had the tasting menu at Esperanto yesterday. Esperanto is one of Stockholm's one star resturants and is known for their innovative/cutting edge food. In general, it was an excellent meal. Not all dishes was top notch, but it was never boring.

    I didn't take notes or photos so I won't attempt a real review. However, I can give you some impressions.

    Here is what I had:

    ---------------

    Amuses (three different, lobster, eel and ??)

    Frozen white onion with apple, celeriac and dried beef

    - Very good. Creamy onion ice cream with condiments.

    Octopus pressé Méditarranée

    - Tender but not all that inspiring tastewise.

    Langoustine au coraille in an ocean mist with frozen vinaigrette

    - Excellent! Beautful dish (served over a bowl of hot herbal stock and dry ice for perfume and show), very good langoustine tail and the smoked paprika flavoured vinaigrette granité was spectacular.

    Coagulated egg with truffels, oysters and shallots

    - "Custard" with an oyster juice pearl. The truffles and shallots were diced and found at the bottom of the custard to provide a textural difference. A very subtle dish. Different but good, nice counterpoint to prevous dish.

    Seared turbot skirts with caviar and brown butter

    - Exactly what is says. Plain and good. The caviar amount was so minimal they could have left it out.

    White winter vegetables with seared foie gras and jasmine-perfumed dashi

    - The disapointment of the evening. Not because it was bad (it wasn't) but because it could have been spectacular. Our seared foie was served cold and had kind of rubbery texture. It also needed a little bit of salt. The perfumed dashi was a stroke of genius and if the foie had been hot and crispy this would probably have been the best dish of the evening.

    Bresse chicken with artichoke ravigote, rosted bone flour and sauce offal

    - Excellent chicken, crispy skin. The bone flour gave a smokey touch. The artichoke was a nice acidic counterpoint.

    Cheese

    - Mature french cheeses. I had all the five available!

    Pre-desert

    - Interesting spicy/sweet/salty crunchy powder (cumin, chili, cinnamon, cardamom..?) called "Sands of sahara" or something similar.

    Roses, Champagne and Madeleine

    - Candied rose petals, milk skin (?), some sort of pudding (?), hot madeleines flavoured tableside by the application of rose water with a perfume mister. Very good!

    Canapés (four different, including home made purple mini macaroons)

    ---

    I would say that this was among the best four or five meals I've had in Stockholm and certainly one of the most exciting. I will definitely go again.

    http://www.esperantorestaurant.se/

    Note that they don't serve a la carte, only two different menues.

  15. I marinate with raw aromats, cooked off wine and meat. Then separate the components, sear meat, caramelize vegetables, deglace pan and braise with everything together once again.

    (That was the way Keller did his beef cheeks at the French Laundry when the cookbook was written)

    I definitely wouldn't throw away the aromats if they were used in the marinade. They will surely contain both a lot of remaining flavour, quite a bit of red wine and maybe some meat juice. But I do see a point of keeping back (at least part of) the aromats and adding them the last hour.

  16. We saw a fabulous new Soehnle scale - a thin little thing, looks wonderfully easy to clean, handles about 10 pounds.  It comes in a burgundy, orange, green, white and blue.  There isn't a good photo of it anywhere on line - just this one which doesn't do justice to how nice this scale looked.  It weighs next to nothing and has a glass surface that requires just the lightest touch to turn on, off and tare. 

    Bought that scale a week ago or so. Needed a slim scale that can easily fit into a knife case (cooking school - yay!). It is very thin, light and has an all glass top. So far, I think it is great. We will see how it will hold up to heavy duty use.

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