Baselerd

mm84321 looks amazing! I too have been on an Eleven Madison Park cooking binge. I will say these are some of the most challenging (but tasty) recipes I have attempted in my life. The nice thing about these recipes is that they make insane amounts of leftovers, and most components keep well for at least a week. Pork Belly with Peas, Mint, and Lettuce (I used a full-sized belly since suckling pig is just too expensive) Quail with Dates, Endives, and Juniper. Marble Potato Confit with Pork Shallot Crumble. For this recipe I could not get my hands on any malt-vinegar powder or truffles. So I ended up combining the concepts and just made truffle powder with truffle oil + N-zorbit M. Smoked Couscous, compressed melons, lemon vinaigrette Lemon and Basil Parfait, [melting] Strawberry Sorbet, meringue. Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese Foam and Rye Crumbles/Tuiles Chocolate and Milk Textures. This was by far the best dessert I have ever made. Making the frozen chocolate foam with the LN2 was a lot of fun as well, and my first time doing real cooking with LN2 (other than using it in chemistry labs for ice cream). A nice display of my lack of quenelle-ing skills.

I too recently made the Bresaola recipe. I ended up making the black garlic sauce as decribed but had to add a bit of additional water (2-3 tablespoons) to get my blender working with it. All in all the dish was excellent, but I would tend to agree that the cure is a bit on the powerful side. However, I would say my preference is towards the coffee and away from the juniper. Either way, it was a learning experience for me (first time making dry cured meat).

The original MC has sections on canning, modernist cheese making (although not hugely comprehensive) and some fermented foods (and faux-fermented using Fermento).

Anyone else own / cook from this book? It's based on a restaurant in Austin, TX. It has a lot of cool modern Japanese-American fusion dishes and spectacular desserts. In either case, if anyone else has been giving this book a go I would like to hear about your luck. Most of the recipe's I have been able to cook (sous vide pork belly, wagyu short ribs, many desserts, a few sashimi tastings), but I am hesitant to dive into some of the rarer/expensive sea food since I am relatively inexperienced with seafood (i.e. my significant other doesn't like seafood much).

Bringing back this zombie since I've been fairly interested in this. Austin has quite a few restaurants that have been moving into this realm. Not quite to the extent of restaurants such as Alinea or Minibar, but I have seen plenty of foams, gels, smoke, sous vide, and overall modern presentations at quite a few restaurants here. Obviously Uchi and Uchiko are always listed as the top restaurants in Austin, which deserve that spot. These restaurants are full-blown molecular gastronomy, but use some modern techniques in some of their components. They have an awesome sous vide pork belly dish (Bacon Steakie). Another good modern spot to check out is the Barley Swine. I would highly reccomend Congress or Carillon if you want more avant garde food, although the former comes at a cost (and is likely the closest you'll get to what you want without going to Chicago).

Cooked a few recipes out of MC that used the pressure cooker. The carrot soup was delicious, as are the few stocks I have cooked in the pressure cooker. However, my favorite two items I've made so far are the puffed chick peas (granted they are deep fried after pressure cooking) and the pressure-cooked sesame seeds. The sesame seeds were truly great and super easy (just pressure cook water and raw sesame seeds, then add sesame oil once cooked) - I recommend everyone who has access to the MC recipe make it.

With regards to plating, I have always felt symmetry, stacking (vertical aspect), and similar sized components make any dish look great. This one's a bit tricky since the large slab of cauliflower is the same texture and appearance as the florets (making the contrast of the dish a bit less). One thing that helps is artfully arranging the sauces on the plate before placing the other components on (rather than pooling it to the side after plating everything else). Try painting a line of tamarind paste down the center of the plate first, and arranging the other components symmetrically around that dividing line, with the large slab of cauliflower in the center.

Made the "Sunday Pork Belly" with red wine cabbage, applesauce terrine, red-eye gravy, and crispy corn pudding last night... it was delicious! I had to improvise quite a few things since I lacked many of the ingredients: -For the crispy corn pudding I used instant mashed potato flakes instead of Ultra-crisp, using a 1:1 ratio. I also dehydrated pureed frozen corn rather than freeze drying. -I didn't have any mallic acid, sucrose, sorbitol, fructose, or spray-dried apple crystals for the hot applesauce terrine. I substituted simple syrup for some of the sweetness. -For the red-eye gravy, I used some lamb stock I had lying around rather than pork stock. I was concerned about this causing a strong lamb flavor, but it turned out really well and I couldn't even tell it was cooked with lamb stock. I used xantham gum to thicken the gravy instead of microcrystalline cellulose. -For the sous-vide pork belly, I used the basic salt brine rather than pink brine... this is probably one of the best pork belly's I have ever eaten. All in all, it took about 3-4 hours active prep time, and another hour for cleaning the kitchen.