Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)

[Keith_W]

I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to recall that the recipe called for Allspice and not Coriander seeds?

[Chris Hennes]

No, it had coriander seeds (at least, the version I made).

[Robert Jueneman]

Mushroom Stock

I want to try the Mushroom-Bacon Cappuccino, but it calls for mushroom jus, which in turn calls for mushroom stock, which is supposed to be presented on 2- 296, but mushroom stock isn't listed there, or in either of the indices!

Another reader asked the MC Cooks Forum if you were supposed to use the recipe for vegetable stock, substituting mushrooms instead of veggies, but hasn't received an answer yet. (Is a mushroom a vegetable? I didn't think so.)

But in any case, the water is scaled at 100%, and the vegetable oil used to saute the vegetable is scaled at 5%, but nowhere is there a scaling for the vegetables/mushrooms! So how much are you supposed to use?

If anyone has made a decent mushroom stock, or if you've found a secret recipe somewhere else in MC, would you please post it?

[Chris Hennes]

I believe what they really mean is their "Mushroom Broth" rather than Mushroom Stock. See p. 6•19.

[Robert Jueneman]

I believe what they really mean is their "Mushroom Broth" rather than Mushroom Stock. See p. 6•19.

Well, thanks, Chris. That makes a reasonable amount of sense. But it's strange that they don't list mushroom broth in their section on broths, either.

Now I'll have to drag out the pressure cooker which someone gave me. I haven't used one for more than 55 years!

[Chris Hennes]

Make extra: it tastes fantastic on its own.

[Tri2Cook]

I don't have the books yet but the mac & cheese inspired me to play. Since my mind usually tends to drift towards the sweet side, I've been fiddling with using fruit lambics and other fruit beers or ciders with fruit purees and juices to make fruit-veeta. I'm at a very early stage playing around with it and have more experimenting and lots of refining to do but it's been fun so far. I guess I'd better start building a MC book fund.

[avaserfi]

I don't have the books yet but the mac & cheese inspired me to play. Since my mind usually tends to drift towards the sweet side, I've been fiddling with using fruit lambics and other fruit beers or ciders with fruit purees and juices to make fruit-veeta. I'm at a very early stage playing around with it and have more experimenting and lots of refining to do but it's been fun so far. I guess I'd better start building a MC book fund.

Using fig juice and a good blue as the base for the cheese would be pretty tasty.

Edited September 8, 2011 by avaserfi (log)

[Robert Jueneman]

I believe what they really mean is their "Mushroom Broth" rather than Mushroom Stock. See p. 6•19.

Lachyg wins the sleuthing prize! He found the recipe for mushroom stock, on page 5-129, buried in the middle of a recipe for ragout of grains. It calls for 2 kg of mushrooms, 100 g of grapeseed oil, and 800 g of water.

At first I thought, "Wow, that seems like a lot of grapeseed oil!" But on looking up the recipe, I see that they are coating the mushrooms in oil, roasting them at 175C/350F until golden (30 minutes), then simmering in water for an hour, and straining.

From a culinary linguistics standpoint, this makes more sense, because a broth is a finished, highly flavored essence in it's own right, whereas a stock is used in combination with other ingredients to make the finished dish.

However, the differences are interesting. If you scale up the mushroom broth ingredients to the same scale as the mushroom stock, you would have 2kg of peeled(!) mushrooms (Crimini, in this case), 3575 g of water(!!), 121 g of olive oil, and 529 g of shallots. Obviously the shallots would add a lot of flavor, but I'm not sure that it would be a mushroom flavor. The recipes also differ in that the broth is sauteed, vs. roasted, but I doubt that makes much difference in the taste. Likewise, I don't know that pressure cooking for 15 minutes vs. simmering for 30 minutes would make all that much difference.

I thought I would double-check this recipe with Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, but surprisingly, I couldn't find any kind of a mushroom stock listed, even under morels or champignons. Cream sauces, and other preparations, such as a mushroom sauce made from Demi-glace, yes, but not a separate stock.

Now I guess I'll have to try both methods.

Bob

[pep.]

No, it had coriander seeds (at least, the version I made).

Any good substitutions for the coriander seeds? I have some, but not 40 g (which I'd need for the 2 kg of confit I plan to make). I even went to the nearest supermarket just before closing time, but their spice selection leaves a lot to be desired. No coriander there. With my planned timetable, I could just barely fit in the 10 hours brining and 8 hours cooking on Friday and Saturday. However, I'd like less stress and that means a sensible substitution that fits in with the rest of the recipe (orange peel etc.).

A short list of what I've got in sufficient quantity (not exhaustive, so feel free to mention other stuff):

• pimenta (allspice)
  
• fennel seeds
  
• long pepper
  
• sichuan pepper
  
• piment d'Espellete
  
• various chiles
  
• cumin
  
• caraway
  

[Chris Hennes]

In my opinion many of those things would probably taste good, but will pretty fundamentally change the flavor of the cure: I'd be more inclined to simply omit.

[pep.]

In my opinion many of those things would probably taste good, but will pretty fundamentally change the flavor of the cure: I'd be more inclined to simply omit.

I've thought about that, too, but I fear that if I leave out 4/5th of the coriander seeds, the flavor profile will become unbalanced. Either way, the flavor of the cure will not be the same. On the other hand, most traditional confit recipes do not specify more than bay leaves, black pepper and maybe thyme. Some are even given with just salt! Compared to that, even without most of the seeds, the MC cure will still be more flavorful than the traditional recipes.

[Chris Hennes]

Getting a well-balanced flavor profile with ad hoc substitutions is going to take some trial and error: the coriander does a nice job of highlighting the citrus flavors in this cure, and its absence will certainly be noticeable. But I think even without it, while you'll be missing that additional layer, my guess is that the confit will still turn out well.

[pep.]

Getting a well-balanced flavor profile with ad hoc substitutions is going to take some trial and error: the coriander does a nice job of highlighting the citrus flavors in this cure, and its absence will certainly be noticeable. But I think even without it, while you'll be missing that additional layer, my guess is that the confit will still turn out well.

How about increasing the amount of orange zest instead?

[Msk]

How about cracking/crushing/grinding the coriander you do have to get greater extraction. My guess is whatever risk of bitter components you might have gotten from overextracting a larger amount would be lessened.

Mike

[pep.]

How about cracking/crushing/grinding the coriander you do have to get greater extraction. My guess is whatever risk of bitter components you might have gotten from overextracting a larger amount would be lessened.

Since I didn't even think about not crushing the coriander, I just made a powder from everything. I mixed each ingredient with a part of the salt and powdered it in the spice mill accessory of my Bamix. The resulting powders were mixed in a separate bowl to ensure an even distribution of all ingredients. Otherwise, with 0.32 g of pepper being just 5 pepper corns in 400 g of salt, some of the duck legs might not have gotten any pepper at all.

Everything's packed now and resting in the refrigerator.

On a side note: Has anybody got a good non-chinese duck soup recipe? I'd like to do something with the carcass besides basic stock and the search hasn't turned up anything so far.

Edited September 8, 2011 by pep. (log)

[Keith_W]

Modernist ribeye steak. Sous-vide then browned with a MAPP blowtorch. I bought the blowtorch specifically for this purpose. Perfectly medium rare throughout with a tiny sliver of well done.

[thayes1c]

My Sous Vide Magic and Fresh Meals Magic got shipped yesterday, and while I have visions of 48 hr flank steak and perfect eggs dancing through my head, I'm really curious about the pulled mushroom on page 3-396. Has anyone tried this yet?

I've been flipping through the kitchen manual and I'm amazed at how many recipes are opened up to me now that I've joined the sous vide crowd! Any suggestions on things to try first?

[avaserfi]

My Sous Vide Magic and Fresh Meals Magic got shipped yesterday, and while I have visions of 48 hr flank steak and perfect eggs dancing through my head, I'm really curious about the pulled mushroom on page 3-396. Has anyone tried this yet?

I've been flipping through the kitchen manual and I'm amazed at how many recipes are opened up to me now that I've joined the sous vide crowd! Any suggestions on things to try first?

I've made the recipe with king trumpets, enoki and oyster mushrooms. Each mushroom takes a different amount of time to cook and has a different final flavor, but are all good. The enoki were the simplest to shape, trumpets second and the oysters were a pain, but looked great.

The end result is a tasty vegetarian/vegan alternative to BBQ, but I don't think it is as good as the real thing. Accepting that the dish isn't trying to compete with traditional BBQ and is something else, I think it stands on its own very well especially considering how easy it is.

If you do make it, using a great BBQ sauce really helps.

[thayes1c]

I've got some Activa coming in the mail today and was thinking of making chicken fried steak with it, mostly because that sounds awesome. Trying to figure out the best way to cook it. Should I bond the skin, then cook SV to proper doneness and finish by frying. Should I batter it as well? Any thoughts, tips or tricks?

[slkinsey]

How do you mean "chicken fried steak"? Are you proposing to bind chicken skin to pieces of beef? And do you want the end product to be anything like traditional CFS?

[thayes1c]

Yes, that's right. Steak covered in chicken skin. Along the same lines as a traditional chicken fried steak, but more delicious. I've seen recipes that call for bonding the skin to the steak and then frying, but my shiny new Sous Vide Magic is calling to me. I was thinking along the lines of the MC fried chicken, cooked SV and then finished in the fryer.

[Robert Jueneman]

For my up-coming class in Modernist Cuisine, I want to make some mushroom gnocchi using reverse spherification, served in a clear oxtail consommé as per MC 2-376.

However, the recipe calls for Super methylcellulose SGA150, and I only have the F50 from WillPowder, and I'm wondering whether I can substitute one for the other.

I've posted a note to a rather stale thread on methylcellulose at but if anyone has tried that recipe or has any advice, I'd like to know.

Bob

[slkinsey]

Yes, that's right. Steak covered in chicken skin. Along the same lines as a traditional chicken fried steak, but more delicious. I've seen recipes that call for bonding the skin to the steak and then frying, but my shiny new Sous Vide Magic is calling to me. I was thinking along the lines of the MC fried chicken, cooked SV and then finished in the fryer.

Well, as you can see here, I did something along the same lines (although not using chicken skin) and did not find it at all worth the effort Once you get the gravy on there -- and this is a crucial component of chicken fried steak -- then all the other stuff you might be able to do is a bit less impactful. If you're going for something that's more whimsical, and minus the gravy, then it might make more of an impact.

[andrestorrubia]

Hello - I made the carrot soup, and it was delicious. I substituted butter for margarine and I wonder if it would be safe to use olive oil. I understand one should not use oil while pressure cooking (and in fact I was a bit worried when using margarine) for safety reasons.

Would it be safe to substitute butter for olive oil in the carrot soup?