Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

[Keith_W]

For a similar yellow fleshed potato available in Australia, try Royal Blue or Dutch Cream. Dutch Cream is less yellow than Royal Blue, has a less pronounced flavour, but is a good all-round potato, like Yukon Gold. I would generally prefer to use Royal Blue if I can get it - when it is off season they can be rather small, like the size of a cocktail potato small.

[bhsimon]

For my wife and best friend, I attempted my first round of recipes from Modernist Cuisine at Home.

Caramalized Carrot Soup, page 178 (including Stove-Top Carotene Butter, page 121)

Potato Puree (pommes forestières variation), page 230

Pressure-Caramalized Onions, page 127

Pressure-Cooked Garlic Confit, page 126

Honey Mustard Sauce, page 259 (uses Pressure-Cooked Pickled Mustard Seeds, page 125)

Sous Vide Steak after Barbeque Marinade, page 134

Blueberry Panna Cotta, page 366

Firstly, I'd like to thank Chris Hennes and pbear for their advice regarding canning jars. As pbear guessed, I picked up some Quattro Stagioni jars which are not the same as Mason jars; they have a one-piece lid. They worked perfectly. Thankyou Chris and pbear.

Before I get into it, I thought it might be worth mentioning that I had to scale each of the recipes because the yield was generally too much for the three of us. I was determined not to make too much food, which happens all too often when I cook. The scaling percentages were great. I used a spreadsheet program to type up the ingredients for each recipe and apply the scaling.

I started the day preparing the panna cotta. My wife loves blueberries, so I gave her the choice of raspberry, blueberry or a combination. She chose blueberries, of course, which I enthusiasticly embraced. I didn't use powdered gelatin because I already had gold and platinum gelatin sheets in my store cupboard. I measured out the required amount, using 50% of that from each sheet. I love the colour of the blended blueberries.

I used an ice bath to cool the mixture quickly. I wanted to get it into the fridge as quickly as possible to give it plenty of time to set.

Next I prepped the garlic confit and got it into the pressure cooker.

The end result is gorgeous. The flavour is so pure and intense!

We are lucky to have a juice bar very close to our house, although too poor to afford a decent masticating juicer of our own. My wife generously offered to go to the juice bar for some freshly extracted carrot juice which was immediately combined with beautiful Danish butter, blended and simmered to infuse.

While the garlic confit was in the pressure cooker, I started on the potatoes. This is what they looked like after their 35 minutes in the circulator.

Some dried chanterelles being infused into the cream.

Now that the pressure cooker was free again after the garlic confit, it was time to get the caramalized onions started.

They came out of the cooker looking beautiful and golden.

This is what the steaks looked like in their marinade, just before being drained and put into the circulator.

Out of the circulator. Before going to the marinade, I used my 48-blade Jaccard on them. You can see some of the blade marks in this photo.

Since the onions were finished in the pressure cooker, I got the mustard seeds going.

Once done, I prepared the honey mustard sauce. The flavour was very clean and very intense.

Most components were ready, so it was time to get the soup going. I enjoyed the process of preparing the carrots.

After their time in the pressure cooker, this is how they looked. So cool.

After blending and just before being passed through my fine strainer.

Again my wife offered to get some carrot juice from the juice bar. We deliberately got different batches of juice because we wanted to use the juice as fresh as possible.

Time to blend in the carotene butter.

The finished soup!

After the soup starter, it was time to get the mains plated up. I reduced the liquid from the caramalized onions while deep-frying the steak and blending the butter into the potato puree.

This is a cross section of the deep-fried steak. The crust was actually very dark golden after a minute in the fryer. Next time I will halve the time to 30 seconds.

The finished dish! My plating skills need a lot of work.

Desert was easy. Finished the panna cotta with fresh raspberries.

My wife and best friend were incredibly complimentary about the whole meal. I'm overly critical of anything I cook, but Modernist Cuisine at Home is such a great book that I was really pleased with the results.

The carrot soup is superb, as many have noted. Very buttery but a beautiful, clean carrot flavour. It was so amazingly rich that we all agreed it could have been served in a shot glass as an amuse bouche. If I was to make it again as a soup starter, I would probably drain the butter from the pressure-cooked carrots, rather than include it, to reduce the richness.

I didn't think the combination of flavours in the mains was exactly right, but each component was perfect in itself. We started to combine the meat and potatoes with different components and enjoyed a range of flavour combinations. The potato and garlic confit was lovely together, as was steak and onion. Steak and honey mustard sauce was also good together. The potato puree was simply amazing on its own. I couldn't find Yukon Gold here in Australia, so we substituted for Desiree; I think this was a poor substitute. Although the result was still very tasty, the texture was more fluffy than silky. There is no doubt that the 35 minute dunk in the water bath had a positive impact on the outcome.

This was the first time I had deep-fried my sous vide meat to get the Maillard crust. It was definitely a great technique. A lovely crust was formed with almost imperceptible effect on the doneness of the interior.

The only failure for the evening was the panna cotta. The failure was in the texture, not flavour, and not caused by Modernist Cuisine at Home. I think I made a mistake measuring the gelatine. Even though they had been in the fridge (at 4°C) for more than 8 hours, they didn’t set. It was more like a very thick cream. In the discussion of gelatine in Modernist Cuisine at Home, I learned that bronze, gold and platinum gelatine sheets have a range of bloom strengths. The suggest powdered gelatine had a single bloom value of 225, and silver gelatine sheets have a single value of 160 bloom. I think my mistake was compounded by this non-specific bloom strength. In future I will purchase only silver sheet gelatine or other gelatine sheets with a specific 160 bloom strength (Modernist Pantry sells these).

I really enjoyed my first cooking experience with Modernist Cuisine at Home. It was a fantastic day of kitchen joy. Although I also have Modernist Cuisine, I haven’t cooked from it. I have, however, learned a lot from those five volumes and I use that knowledge all the time in my cooking. The recipes in Modernist Cuisine at Home are very accessible; with a pressure cooker and immersion circulator, basically every recipe is within reach. I’m already planning my next menu.

Finally, a big ‘thank you’ to all of those who contribute to the eGullet community. I read eGullet every day, and have done so for years since the beginning of the sous vide thread. I finally joined so I could express my gratitute to the community that has given me so much knowledge and inspiration.

Edited November 17, 2012 by bhsimon (log)

[rotuts]

bhsimon

very nice presentation. thanks for all that work to post so many steps and results!

[Keith_W]

Looks good bhsimon BTW if you are in Melbourne, you might be able to find Yukon Golds in the Prahran Market.

[bhsimon]

Looks good bhsimon BTW if you are in Melbourne, you might be able to find Yukon Golds in the Prahran Market.

Sydney, sadly. I have been to the Prahran Markets in the past, though, and they are great. Thank you for the suggestion.

[Hugh Anderson]

Hi Hugh,

I asked Sam, one of the developmental chefs, about this. Here's what he said:

"If the bananas are getting overcooked, I suggest slicing them, dusting them with sugar, and then leaving them in the freezer on a metal tray long enough to firm up a little (roughly 15 minutes). Note that the metal tray will stay cool as you torch the banana slices, which will help to prevent them from overcooking.

That sounds like an awful lot of xanthan gum. Using 0.15 g for 20 g of passion fruit puree is probably a better starting point."

Thanks Judy! Moving the decimal over a place for the xanthan definitely sounds right. As for the bananas, I think my problem was the distance of the blowtorch - I need to keep it further away.

It turns out that finding chicken skin at your butcher isn't always so easy. I've got some at home that I'll try to render as much fat from as I can but in making the Home Jus, does anybody have a recommendation on what to replace my chicken fat with? Butter or a neutral oil just sounds weird.

I know you're looking for a substitution, but what I ended up doing was buying bone-in skin-on chicken thighs for the chicken stock & chicken jus, saving the skin for pressure-rendered chicken fat and using the meat & bones in the stocks.

Last night I made a few more recipes for the first time, including the Honey Mustard, Marinara (pizza variation), No Knead dough, and Cheese Slice.. I adapted the cheese slice recipe to make a cheese that is relatively unknown outside of my hometown (St. Louis): Provel. It's a processed cheese made of sharp provolone, sharp white Cheddar, and Swiss (2:1:1 ratio) plus a few drops of liquid smoke and is used in "authentic" St. Louis-style pizza. I grated it & used it on pizzas and was happy that I nailed the texture and would like to think improved upon the taste. The marinara was fine and the no knead dough worked out great, although I've done the Lahey version before so it wasn't really anything new.

[Greg Honeycutt]

Presentation looks fine to me, and that soup looked amazing. I'm thinking of exploiting the pressure cooker more in the near future.

[LindaK]

I adapted the cheese slice recipe to make a cheese that is relatively unknown outside of my hometown (St. Louis): Provel. It's a processed cheese made of sharp provolone, sharp white Cheddar, and Swiss (2:1:1 ratio) plus a few drops of liquid smoke and is used in "authentic" St. Louis-style pizza. I grated it & used it on pizzas and was happy that I nailed the texture and would like to think improved upon the taste.

Hugh, as someone who live in St. Louis for quite a while and couldn't embrace the local love of Provel, I salute you. I'll pass the recipe to my friends back in STL, who did their best to convert me. I never thought I'd see Modernist Cuisine and Provel cheese in the same post!

[ElsieD]

bhsimon, that looks wonderful!

[Doodad]

Just got it this morning and am so excited to try a bunch of stuff. My daughter and I are doing a dinner Thanksgiving weekend.

[eternal]

Made a few things over the last week including the Roast Chicken (it was pretty awesome), Pressure Rendered Chicken Fat (worked like a charm), Brown Chicken Stock -> Chicken Jus - > Home Jus Gras (lot of work - would probably just start with store chicken stock next time if I didn't have any homemade stuff on hand) - but delicious - hard to measure .8 grams of something too but was able to approximate and adjust), Apple + Parsnip soup (easy and tasty), Garlic Confit (i destroyed this somehow - it came out dark brown and burned), Rice noodles (finally a way to get some bite to my noodles!) and I think that's it. I think I'll invest in a jeweler scale soon to help measure the chemicals.

[HowardLi]

Made a few things over the last week including the Roast Chicken (it was pretty awesome), Pressure Rendered Chicken Fat (worked like a charm), Brown Chicken Stock -> Chicken Jus - > Home Jus Gras (lot of work - would probably just start with store chicken stock next time if I didn't have any homemade stuff on hand) - but delicious - hard to measure .8 grams of something too but was able to approximate and adjust), Apple + Parsnip soup (easy and tasty), Garlic Confit (i destroyed this somehow - it came out dark brown and burned), Rice noodles (finally a way to get some bite to my noodles!) and I think that's it. I think I'll invest in a jeweler scale soon to help measure the chemicals.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-AWS-100-Precision-Pocket/dp/B001ODPFXE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353299482&sr=8-2&keywords=aws-100

[Bojana]

Finally had the time this weekends to make the flaky pie crust, made mini tartlets and filled with almond cream (frangipane) and raspberries & blueberries.

I love the formula! It will be my go to recipe for many similar pies, flaky, tasty, sweet but no too much. The dough was a dream to roll out, but the MC@H recipe lacks details to make it fool proof. I want to give everyone here few tips that I feel complete the recipe:

· Butter not only needs to be cold, put cubed butter for at least 30 mins in the freezer

· Mix the fry ingredients first, then add frozen butter but mix only until butter is a bit larger than pea size

· When start mixing egg yolk, have ice water at ready too. I found that I needed to add close to 50ml of water after adding yolk. The point is that dough just needs to start hanging together

· After fridge rest, give it at least 10-15 minutes at room temp before rolling out

· I prefer to cut my dough neatly for the form (no overhang) and just give it another fridge rest in the baking form, this helps to prevent shrinkage. By cutting overhand after baking, you loose part of lovely brown crust

· Keep the scraps and bake delicious cookies of them but do not re-knead

Finally, some pics

Scraps, broken to show the lovely flakiness (sorry its upside down, no time to fix the photo now)

Finished products

I liked raspberry ones better, they had more of a punch than blueberries. I still have to try the cream version although it does not appeal to me too much (sounds too rich), maybe someone else will test and report?

[Judy Wilson]

Hi everyone,

The chefs asked me to post a few responses for you guys, so here we go:

but what do the Guru's at MC think a (portion) of dried bay might change the dish?

Yes. But use only one leaf if the dry form is all you have.

1) Has anybody tried the sweet potato puree variation of the potato puree? Is the starch retrogradation still necessary? As the text does not say this can be omitted, I would assume that it is, but I am not aware that sweet potatoes have the same starch structure.

The starch retrogradation step can be skipped, but the puree won’t be quite so smooth.

5) I would rather do a dry brine than a wet brine for poultry breasts. Is there any reason why I should not salt and vac seal a breast using s1 grams of salt (and s2 grams of baking soda) for T1 hours and then allow the skin to air dry for T2 hours?

A liquid brine allows the salt to permeate the entire piece of meat whereas a dry cure only affects the outside. We prefer a liquid cure in this case because it will season the meat more evenly throughout, preventing the meat from becoming salty on the outside and unseasoned on the inside.

And lastly, there has been a lot of questions about baking soda, and ensuring that it has not gone bad (sorry, I can't seem to find who originally posed the question). Their response:

To test the freshness of your baking soda, mix a small amount of baking soda with a small amount of vinegar. The more vigorously it bubbles, the better it’s going to perform in your recipe.

Hope that helps! And, even more importantly, that it helps in time for Thanksgiving!

edited for format.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Judy Wilson (log)

[rotuts]

thanks Judy! your input and that of the whole MC crew is much appreciated.

....

now for some pics of the MC crews Thanksgiving!

happy Thanksgiving to all!

[RobM]

For my first attempt with the book I went with the Caramelised Carrot Soup - very nice, but as others have said it's pretty rich! I'll definitely serve it in something small like ramekins next time! Sorry about the presentation - this was course three of a busy dinner party!

[eternal]

Has anybody thought about doing their turkey in the spirit of the roast chicken in the book? I was thinking of dunking the turkey in boiling water and shocking a few times tonight, injecting the brine and then roasting at 205 but I'm a little concerned about how long this might take. My turkey isn't giant (12 lbs) but could still take an awful long time. Sorry, I've done the turkey leg confit approach before and didn't really care for it.

[Morkai]

Made the white chicken stock last night. It's certainly good - it has a nice clean taste, texture and look. Very bright, if not a tad lacking in flavor. Has anyone else made it?

I think the brown chicken stock will be a bit more rich, and will try that next time.

[Doodad]

Got my pressure cooker/canning kit and isi whipper this morning. Looking forward to trying some new things this weekend.

[Okanagancook]

Made the white chicken stock last night. It's certainly good - it has a nice clean taste, texture and look. Very bright, if not a tad lacking in flavor. Has anyone else made it?

I think the brown chicken stock will be a bit more rich, and will try that next time.

I have made the white and brown chicken stocks and they are both excellent stocks. As you say they are bright. .I didn't add any salt to mine, prefer to add salt when I am using the stock. Did you add any salt to yours? The veggie stock is also excellent.

[slkinsey]

I have made the sous vide vegetable stock and the pressure-cooked brown pork stock, white chicken stock and brown turkey stock. All turned out very well indeed. One thing to keep in mind is that a stock is not the same thing as a broth. What you end up with is supposed to be a flavorful liquid that can be used as the basis for other things such as soups, broths, sauces, etc. But a stock isn't something you can typically just use as-is and have it be all that spectacular. This is why, for example, part of making the MCAH chicken and noodle soup involves infusing the chicken stock with herbs and spices.

I also tried something interesting with the sous vide vegetable stock, of which I made a quadruple recipe. Once I strained out the stock I looked at the huge pile of vegetables and thought, "surely there has to be some more flavor in there." So I bunged it into the pressure cooker, barely covered it with water and pressure cooked it for 30 minutes at 15 PSI. Kind of like a vegetable remouillage. The resulting "second stock" wasn't as deeply flavored or delicate as the first stock, but it was pretty damn good.

[Todd in Chicago]

I have made the sous vide vegetable stock and the pressure-cooked brown pork stock, white chicken stock and brown turkey stock. All turned out very well indeed. One thing to keep in mind is that a stock is not the same thing as a broth. What you end up with is supposed to be a flavorful liquid that can be used as the basis for other things such as soups, broths, sauces, etc. But a stock isn't something you can typically just use as-is and have it be all that spectacular. This is why, for example, part of making the MCAH chicken and noodle soup involves infusing the chicken stock with herbs and spices.

I also tried something interesting with the sous vide vegetable stock, of which I made a quadruple recipe. Once I strained out the stock I looked at the huge pile of vegetables and thought, "surely there has to be some more flavor in there." So I bunged it into the pressure cooker, barely covered it with water and pressure cooked it for 30 minutes at 15 PSI. Kind of like a vegetable remouillage. The resulting "second stock" wasn't as deeply flavored or delicate as the first stock, but it was pretty damn good.

Very interesting - so did you actually use the second stock "as is" or are saving it use with/in addition to water for your next batch. I also made a quadruple batch of the vegetable stock and should last me a while. But next time, I think I'll do as you did and then reserve the second stock to add as water or in addition to water next time. Todd in Chicago

[HowardLi]

How much of the creamed spinach can be made hours or days ahead? I'm trying to shy away from recipes that require immediate service. Wondering if I could perhaps refrigerate after the cheese is folded in.

[pbear]

Depends on how consistently cold is your fridge. An ordinary one, you should be fine for up to three days. A good one, which consistently stays below 40F, should give you up to a week. (Sorry, can't provide a cite, as the computer with that bookmark just croaked, but I'm not pulling those numbers out of thin air.) One thing. I'd cool the spinach mixture before adding the cheese. Or wait until reheating to add the cheese. Melting and reheating might work, but I wouldn't take the chance. And can see no advantage to even trying.

[HowardLi]

So I should be OK to refrigerate up until the fold-in-mascarpone step? Thanks