Injecting food?

[katiaANDronald]

Hello,

last night I was watching a repeat of the BBC Full on Food programme and they attempted to recreate a heston blumenthal recipe for fried potatoes which included sizzled hay (in which the potatoes where soaked for the taste) and, most interestingly, injecting ketchup into the fries once done.

Now, I don't think I will be sizzling hay anytime soon but I kind of like the idea of injecting food - any tips out there about what can be done... any bad/good experiences with it.

Thanks!

Ronald.

[FaustianBargain]

how does one 'sizzle' hay?

Hello,

last night I was watching a repeat of the BBC Full on Food programme and they attempted to recreate a heston blumenthal recipe for fried potatoes which included sizzled hay (in which the potatoes where soaked for the taste) and, most interestingly, injecting ketchup into the fries once done.

Now, I don't think I will be sizzling hay anytime soon but I kind of like the idea of injecting food - any tips out there about what can be done... any bad/good experiences with it.

Thanks!

Ronald.

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[katiaANDronald]

how does one 'sizzle' hay?

he he - good question. one takes one's hay and places it in water so that the hay is damp. one then take's one's blow torch and applies blow torch to hay until the smell of hay (via the smoke) is release. the hay is then placed in water with the potatoes!

now how one comes up with such an idea to start with is a whole different story

[chezcherie]

when we roast a pig, we inject it with a mojo solution 24 hours before we light the coals. i am extremely needle-phobic (have actually fainted at the mere sight of a hypodermic), but that thing is soooooo oversized that it makes me laugh. can't even imagine that coming towards me.

[winesonoma]

Hello,

last night I was watching a repeat of the BBC Full on Food programme and they attempted to recreate a heston blumenthal recipe for fried potatoes which included sizzled hay (in which the potatoes where soaked for the taste) and, most interestingly, injecting ketchup into the fries once done.

Now, I don't think I will be sizzling hay anytime soon but I kind of like the idea of injecting food - any tips out there about what can be done... any bad/good experiences with it.

Thanks!

Ronald.

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Vodka or Gin mixed with tabasco and wostershire injected into cherry tomatoes. Little explosive Bloody Mary's.

[ducphat30]

[hathor]

[

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[culinary bear]

I've used standard 2.7mm medicut needles for brining, and I carry smaller ones (21ga and 25ga) for injecting alcohol into fruits and other such things.

5ml and 10ml syringes also make very handy alternatives to squeeze bottles for placing single drops of coulis or syrup on to plates, as you have complete control of the placement at all times; there's no gravity-induced dripping on to the plate after you've finished applying the coulis or syrup.

I've also been known to vac-pack 10ml pouches of syrup and then use a syringe-needle assembly to puncture and withdraw the syrup, before removing the needle and using as described. Currently I'm using this for a passionfruit reduction which is dotted on to a passionfruit marshmallow as a garnish for a dessert.

[hathor]

I've used standard 2.7mm medicut needles for brining, and I carry smaller ones (21ga and 25ga) for injecting alcohol into fruits and other such things.

5ml and 10ml syringes also make very handy alternatives to squeeze bottles for placing single drops of coulis or syrup on to plates, as you have complete control of the placement at all times; there's no gravity-induced dripping on to the plate after you've finished applying the coulis or syrup.

I've also been known to vac-pack 10ml pouches of syrup and then use a syringe-needle assembly to puncture and withdraw the syrup, before removing the needle and using as described.  Currently I'm using this for a passionfruit reduction which is dotted on to a passionfruit marshmallow as a garnish for a dessert.

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Dumb question: where do you get the syringes? Aren't they 'controlled"?

[Tess]

I have a "flavor injector" from Williams-Sonoma. I'm sure you can get them cheaper than I got mine from another cooking supply place.

[culinary bear]

Dumb question: where do you get the syringes? Aren't they 'controlled"?

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Not in the UK. I have two sources; Westons, and Wildcat (a site for body piercing supplies) whose 2.7mm medicut needles come with syringes attached.

I'm active in the piercing/body mod community, so I have easy access to all sorts of culinarily useful things through contacts there.

I'm not sure where you can find equipment in other countries, but your best bet is probably medical supplies companies.

Edited January 7, 2005 by culinary bear (log)

[winesonoma]

[

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Vodka or Gin mixed with tabasco and wostershire injected into cherry tomatoes. Little explosive Bloody Mary's.

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[culinary bear]

Yes it works, just shoot them up. Any melon can also be injected with whatever you like. Age melons 24 hours turning frequently to distribute the flavor.    

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I've managed to get the best part of a bottle of smirnoff vodka into a watermelon by injecting it. :)

[carswell]

Our spring equinox dinner often features a gigot de la clinique. Instead of repeating myself, I'll just repost the recipe as I once wrote it up for another website:

In her eponymous cookbook, Alice B. Toklas includes a recipe, obtained from a surgeon, for a leg of mutton marinated in "Baume Samartain" (a mixture of old Burgundy — Beaune or Chambertin! — virgin olive oil and various herbs and spices), injected with orange juice and cognac, roasted, and served with a venison sauce into which is mixed two tablespoons of the blood of a hare. The resulting leg is "transformed into a strange and exquisite venison."

Always on the lookout for new leg-of-lamb preparations for our traditional vernal equinox dinner, we decided to improvise and streamlined her recipe. Being fortunate enough to have a source for excellent agneau des prés salés, lamb that has grazed in salt-water marshes, we were not interested in transforming the meat so much as enhancing its already delicious flavour. And that is exactly what happened: the meat was very juicy and subtly perfumed with orange and had a delectable, almost caramelized crust.

Gigot de la clinique

Start five days before you plan to roast the lamb. Trim as much fat as you can from a 5 to 6 pound (2.5 kg) bone-in leg of lamb. Place the lamb in a large, nonreactive baking dish and rub it all over with olive oil. Around it strew 4 bay leaves, several branches of fresh thyme, a handful of unpeeled garlic cloves, 4 crushed juniper berries, a generous pinch of cayenne, some black peppercorns and 1 or 2 thin slices of fresh ginger. Sprinkle on 1 teaspoon of powdered sugar and pour in ½ cup white wine.

Combine ½ cup freshly squeezed blood orange or tangerine juice with ½ cup cognac. With a hypodermic needle, inject the mixture into the meat in three or four places. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Turn the lamb once before going to bed.

Each of the next two days, inject the lamb with same quantity of juice and cognac and turn it before going to bed. On the last two days, inject it with some of the marinade in the dish.

When you are ready to cook the lamb, remove it from the marinade and season it generously with salt and pepper. Roast it in a 425°F (220°C) oven for 10 to 12 minutes per pound (500 g) for medium rare. Turn the lamb several times during cooking and baste it occasionally with some of the marinade. Remove the lamb from the oven, season it again with salt and pepper, place it on a platter, cover it loosely with aluminum foil and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Set the roasting pan over medium heat and cook for 2 or 3 minutes, stirring constantly and scaping up any bits stuck to the bottom, until the juices thicken and begin to caramelize. Remove the pan from the heat and spoon off any fat. Return the pan to the heat and add the marinade, including the garlic, ginger and spices, along with ¼ cup veal demi-glace (optional). Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer until thickened. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Taste the sauce; if overly acidic, swirl in some room-temperature butter cut into small pieces. Pour the sauce into a warmed sauce boat. Keep the sauce warm while you carve the lamb into thin slices (the cutting juices may be added to the sauce).

Dumb question: where do you get the syringes? Aren't they 'controlled"?

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Here in Montreal you can buy them at pharmacies and without a prescription. (I always feel like I have to explain that I'm not a drug addict, though.) If that's not possible where you live, try contacting a health care provider (clinic, doctor, nurse), a veterinarian or a diabetic.

[culinary bear]

In her eponymous cookbook, Alice B. Toklas includes a recipe, obtained from a surgeon, for a leg of mutton marinated in "Baume Samartain" (a mixture of old Burgundy — Beaune or Chambertin! — virgin olive oil and various herbs and spices), injected with orange juice and cognac, roasted, and served with a venison sauce into which is mixed two tablespoons of the blood of a hare. The resulting leg is "transformed into a strange and exquisite venison."

Wasn't Alice B Toklas the lover of Gertrude Stein? I'm sure I saw a recipe of hers that included hashish in it somwhere...

[fiftydollars]

Yes it works, just shoot them up. Any melon can also be injected with whatever you like. Age melons 24 hours turning frequently to distribute the flavor.    

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I used to cut a small hole into watermelons and pour in vodka. The thing would slowly soak up a whole 750ml bottle and slices off the melon were almost flamable.

The fruit was still palatable although the whole purpose of the thing was to use the watermelon to sneak liquor when we were too young to imbibe lawfully.

Edited January 7, 2005 by fiftydollars (log)

[FaustianBargain]

I found an article by chef Blumenthal on other stuff to inject

That way your syringe becomes multi-faceted in its usage

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a little snippet from the article

The reason for doing this is as follows: as the meat cools, its molecular structure relaxes, so allowing the juices to be reabsorbed into the muscle fibres. This will have the effect of making the meat not just juicier, but tastier, too, because you are replacing what is literally lost flavour.

this sounds a tad dodgy to me. i am not sure the 'molecular structure' can relax so much that the juices are 'reabsorbed' into the muscle fibres. as heat works on meat and curls the fibres causing the juices to leak, the fibres are destroyed. i dont think they are capable of 'reabsorbing' anything. can someone more knowledgable than me support me here?

or maybe someone who has tried this at home?

[carswell]

In her eponymous cookbook, Alice B. Toklas includes a recipe, obtained from a surgeon, for a leg of mutton marinated in "Baume Samartain" (a mixture of old Burgundy — Beaune or Chambertin! — virgin olive oil and various herbs and spices), injected with orange juice and cognac, roasted, and served with a venison sauce into which is mixed two tablespoons of the blood of a hare. The resulting leg is "transformed into a strange and exquisite venison."

Wasn't Alice B Toklas the lover of Gertrude Stein? I'm sure I saw a recipe of hers that included hashish in it somwhere...

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Indeed she was; Stein wrote her autobiography. And, yep, the recipe, for "haschich fudge (which anyone could whip up on a rainy day)," comes from the eponymous cookbook. The headnote to the recipe is a classic. In it she suggests the fudge "might prove an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies' Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR" [Daughters of the American Republic] and advises "Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstaic reveries and extensions of one's personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected. Almost anything Saint Theresa did, you can do better if you can bear to be ravished by 'un évanouissment reveillé.'" They don't write 'em like that anymore.

[culinary bear]

They don't write 'em like that anymore.

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They don't. At the moment I'm reading MFK Fisher's "With Bold Knife and Fork" and loving it.

Ah, nostalgia... it's not what it used to be.

this sounds a tad dodgy to me. i am not sure the 'molecular structure' can relax so much that the juices are 'reabsorbed' into the muscle fibres. as heat works on meat and curls the fibres causing the juices to leak, the fibres are destroyed. i dont think they are capable of 'reabsorbing' anything. can someone more knowledgable than me support me here?

Interesting. The proteins would be denatured to a greater or lesser extent by cooking; an internal temperatue of much above 40C would lead to the fibres being functionally damaged.

I'm not entirely sure that the fibres provide all the mechanism by which juices may be reabsorbed, nor that 'reabsorption' is indeed physically necessary to provide a juicier mouthfeel to the meat. One could hypothesise that "re-juicing" interstitial spaces between cells and between meat fibres themselves, even temporarily (the time between injecting and consumption) would be enough to provide more juiciness without the need for actual re-uptake by meat fibres.

Maybe worth a little experimentation...

[FaustianBargain]

cant ground meat/minced meat be "juicer" than a steak?

edited to add: errmm..its past one, dont you have a kitchen to run in the morning or somethin?

this sounds a tad dodgy to me. i am not sure the 'molecular structure' can relax so much that the juices are 'reabsorbed' into the muscle fibres. as heat works on meat and curls the fibres causing the juices to leak, the fibres are destroyed. i dont think they are capable of 'reabsorbing' anything. can someone more knowledgable than me support me here?

Interesting. The proteins would be denatured to a greater or lesser extent by cooking; an internal temperatue of much above 40C would lead to the fibres being functionally damaged.

I'm not entirely sure that the fibres provide all the mechanism by which juices may be reabsorbed, nor that 'reabsorption' is indeed physically necessary to provide a juicier mouthfeel to the meat. One could hypothesise that "re-juicing" interstitial spaces between cells and between meat fibres themselves, even temporarily (the time between injecting and consumption) would be enough to provide more juiciness without the need for actual re-uptake by meat fibres.

Maybe worth a little experimentation...

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Edited January 7, 2005 by FaustianBargain (log)

[fifi]

I have injected many a turkey prior to frying and went on to try the same with pork butt and fresh hams prior to smoking. I finally opened the wallet and bought a real injector something like this one. I finessed my technique a bit by studying the anatomy and working to place the marinade in between the main muscle groups rather than in the muscle itself. The specialized canula on this type of injector is made for the job. The regular one has a rounded, closed end with the holes along the side. The rounded end helps to maneuver it between the muscle groups. I don't have the bigger one that will take minced garlic etc. but it is on my list. Of course, you don't need anything like this for cherry tomatoes.

I don't recommend the flimsy plastic ones that you see in the supermarket if you are going to mess with big hunks of meat. I have thrown away several of those, after having the thing come apart under pressure. You would not believe how thoroughly you can marinate a kitchen when that happens.

[culinary bear]

cant ground meat/minced meat be "juicer" than a steak?

Possibly; if it has I haven't had it. Then again, I'm not a general fan of minced muscle. My mincer is mostly used for haggis and faggot prep.

edited to add: errmm..its past one, dont you have a kitchen to run in the morning or somethin?

It's past two. :) I usually get by on four hours a night.

[FaustianBargain]

well, i was asking because it makes sense that 'ground meat' can be rejuiced rather than a big hunka meat..anyway i see it, i cannot possibly imagine how meat juices ejected (because the muscle fibres that been literally squeezed, curled and destroyed )can be 'injected' back or whatever it is that heston.b says in that article. but hey, rejoice! i have been wrong before. so if anyone tries this at home, please give us the results. danke!

cant ground meat/minced meat be "juicer" than a steak?

Possibly; if it has I haven't had it. Then again, I'm not a general fan of minced muscle. My mincer is mostly used for haggis and faggot prep.

[culinary bear]

I'm sure there's scope for some uptake of moisture by 'denatured' meat; otherwise techniques like salmis wouldn't work.

[Bernaise]

DAMN YOU CARSWELL!!

you beat me to the 'gigot de la clinque'...I've been sitting on it waiting for the right opening - cheers to you!