Ice Clarification

     I have recently been given the task of creating a flavorful broth element for a vegetarian entree. I have made vegetable sauces in past by blending, cooking, and repeatedly filtering vegetables (mostly carrots or onions), but that is an extensive and labor intensive process. I needed to try a different approach. Let's give ice clarification a go.

This guy is responsible for making me freeze things!

     My first experience with ice clarifying was stumbled upon by accident, and most people may have also tripped over it without even knowing. I grew up in Arizona, and we spent many summers freezing our drinks to make make-shift Popsicles. Every time we froze soda or a juice made from concentrate, the iced beverage would leach out a super concentrated syrup before the water ice melted. We would promptly consume the sticky sweetness and even go so far as attempt to suck it out of the icy matrix. That, essentially, is the principle behind ice clarification.

The horrible "smoothie" ice cube

     I started with the same process of extracting maximum flavor that I have used before, puree the hell out it. The standard mirepoix would be a good start; carrot, shallot, and celery. To the start, I added leeks, parsley, parsnip, red beets, and tomato. To facilitate the puree, water was added to the blender. What survived to process was a glop of goo reminiscent of a smoothie gone horribly wrong. The "smoothie" was added to a stock pot and put over a flame until it reduced by one quarter in volume (approximately one hour). I placed the cooked "smoothie" in a shallow flat pan to cool in the refrigerator for a few hours. Once the pan was cool, I placed it into the freezer overnight.

surviving juices in the heavy sauce pan

     The following morning I had a large ice cube made from my horrible "smoothie". I lined a large perforated pan (you can use any colander or sieve) with cheese cloth (two layers of unfolded cloth) and placed this into another pan for catching the juice. Once the pan was lined and placed, I plopped the ice-cube into it. The ice cube, now resting in a lined perforated pan, went into the fridge to melt. In the refrigerator, the ice cube "smoothie" would slowly leach out all its good liquids while the cloth kept the solids in place. After two days in the fridge, I had a beautiful red-hued liquid in the catch pan. I threw away the solids left in the cheese cloth and went on finishing the surviving juices.

slurrrp*

     I placed the red liquid into a heavy sauce pan, and began to reduce it further. The taste was rich in vegetable and mildly sweet, but I knew I could make it stronger. The liquid was reduced by another two thirds over a medium flame. The finished liquid was very sweet and full of flavor with a viscosity of a heavy stock and a deep red hue. From this point you could thicken the liquid further with a small touch of xanthan gum, to achieve a "demi-glace"-style sauce.

     This clarifying process can be done with a multitude of ingredients. Your imagination and your available space are the only limitations.

WTF? Hors d'oeuvres

     A fellow chef is currently working on a five course wine dinner for a Napa winery. The dinner is Wednesday, August 24. We were sitting discussing refinement details on Sunday, August 21 when we were informed that we also needed to provide three passed hors d'oeuvres (HD) for the 120 person reception. Nice timing... Apparently everybody knew this detail, except for the chef planning the event. As a joke, I said I would pick one of the items up. I joked that we should do peanut butter and celery, then pushed the joke further with the addition of raisins. "Ants-on-a-log, who doesn't like that? It'll be huge!" I bemused.
     Needless to say, I committed to the HD so I must deliver. I asked the the deliverer of our surprise if agar-agar was available. He replied yes. So I carried on with a plan to deliver said ants-on-a-log, moleculargastronified.

     I have done fluid gels in the past with decent success, so I conceived the concept:
     For the celery... Celery fluid gel would be easy, but what to do with the peanut butter component? I considered peanut mousse. Then I contemplated creating a mock-mousse with another gel. This gel however would need to be aerated to mimic the mousse.

     Normally to create a clear fluid gel you need to vacuum the air from it then shear (blend) it carefully to avoid the introduction of air to your mixture. I have had rare success in creating an airless fluid gel. The correct equipment is key, the Luddite approach does not make for airless gels.


     After the two main ingredient concepts were tackled, I needed a vessel to hold it. I thought of the obligatory Chinese soup spoon, no. I considered making a cracker, meh. I finally settled on a cookie. Shortbread would be the charger for the gels. I was apprehensive about the vessel, but went forward.
     Now, the raisins... No, raisins or currents will not do. How about currant caviar? Damn, no alginate and gelatin spheres would dissolve too quickly at room temp during the passing. I want something that looks like ants and compliments the flavor of peanut. I settled on Black Sesame.
  Concept complete, now for execution:

Celery Gel (we will not call it fluid gel because of the air content)

      Our first step is to pulverize the celery. I used a VitaMix variable speed blender. Wash and trim ends off of four heads of celery. Make some pulpy celery juice. If you have a vegetable juicer, hot damn! Go for it, I wish I did, you will easily knock away a big chunk of production. If you don't, continue with me for next few steps:
     Place a fine sieve over a fine chinois, add your pulpy celery juice to the sieve. Work the product until all you have remaining is pulp.

pulpy celery juice

Juice!

Pulp!

Now grab some cheesecloth and squeeze the remaining juice from the pulp.

Pulpy nugget!

Juice!

Now it's time to get cooking. But, oh shit! Guess what? Apparently the agar-agar that was in the building ready for me to use comes conveniently flavored with almond extract and sugar. The sole use for that flavored agar is the Almond Tofu dessert served in the Chinese concept down the way from our kitchen. I can't order what I need, it wouldn't come for seven days. I can't run down to the nearest Asian flavored market, the nearest one is 45 minutes away. I guess I will have to go with gelatin. However, gelatin will not be as stable at room temperature as agar agar would have been. Against my better judgement I decide to add a modified food starch to my mixture to extend its life against the ravages of room temperature. In hindsight, I would have avoided this step and just went with copious amounts of gelatin and hoped for the best.

     The starch was incorporated slowly until the fluid became heavily viscous. Then 25 sheets of gelatin were added to the mixture. The mixture was passed through a fine chinois and poured into a full-size sheet pan lined with plastic wrap. 

Viscous!

If you have a vacuum sealer, this is the time to remove air. I did not.

fancy plastic lining

After the mixture has cooled you may begin the process of making a gel. Cube it up and blend. I used my blender at 20% power to avoid too much air incorporation.

jello gello!

Gello jigglers. Hey kids, wanna snack?

If this had been a true fluid gel, it would have been transparent. The addition of starch and air saw to it that no transparency would survive this process. So, we have a simple gel. If I had hair, I might be tempted to use it for styling. I can see it now, Cel Gel.

processed gel

 Peanut Mousse Gel (chunky style)
     What the hell am I thinking? I really don't know, but on with the show.
     I began with one gallon of heavy cream and six egg yolks. I add four cups of raw peanuts to the mixture and blend. I went with raw peanuts after contemplating whether or not a strong peanut taste would overwhelm the delicate celery. The green flavor of raw peanut would compliment the green in the celery, or so I thought. Hindsight, toasted is always best. To the blending mixture a small amount of sugar and salt was added. The peanut flavor was greatly underwhelming, so I added some peanut butter -- about one cup. Sigh, this one was getting away from me, a slow march away from the original conceptual flavor. Still not enough kick. The fat is murdering any trace of flavor. I reach for the dreaded bottle of sesame oil. Glug. Taste... Think... Glug... Taste. Finally we have semblance of peanut! Now, in for the kill. Toss in the modified food starch and gelatin. Pow. Chill. After the chill, process into gel taking care to incorporate as much air as you want. Although, be careful not to make butter.

and we're mixing

pour, unfiltered into mould

Plastic liner!

Look at that airy, chunky texture!

Cubes!

Peanut Mousse Gel!

Le Car Machine!

The Vessel (shortbread with celery seed)
     I used my standard shortbread recipe; flour, butter, salt, powdered sugar, and white sugar. To bump up the celery flavor in the gel I decided to sprinkle the shortbread with ground celery seed. It was strange, but it oddly worked. The shortbread was also shaped into a corrugated sheet and scored with the tines of a fork to mimic the stalks of celery. Before the shortbread completely cooled, it was cut into portions. After the shortbread cooled completely, I began assembly.

corrugated shortbread  (wooden dowels)

portioned product

add some celery gel

add some of that peanut concoction

top with the black sesame and voila!

     This was a fun experiment. I have ways to make it better now. At least people will remember it, like or dislike. That is always one of my goals, keep 'em talking.

Beer Dinner - Lagunitas - Course One

Course 1:
Three main components:
The Cake
  I first attempted to make a savory pound cake with whipped egg whites for the cake base. It came out way too dense. To mock the Chocodile the cake had to be as similar to a Twinkie as possible, without the overbearing sweetness. Pound cake was the wrong direction. I pondered angels' food cake, but it would not be tender enough. I needed fat to assist in forming the savory character of the cake. Angels' food is a springy beast of no-fat and all air. Airy plus fat equals chiffon. I considered using chicken fat (schmaltz) for for the fat in the recipe, but settled for lard (no time to render chicken bits). The cake came out perfect, it was the right direction! 


The Filling
  I considered a savory whipped cream, but I couldn't match a flavor that I felt would satisfy the satire. I Thought of a few products I had on hand that I could experiment with and came up with an interesting offering. Dynamite sauce, the same sauce used for scallops, mussels, and whatever seafood that gaggles of sushi restaurants slather on thick and then broil to mask the natural flavor of the sea. It is also used a binder for some maki stuffings. Dynamite sauce is made from a special Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie), Masago (Capelin roe) (or Tobiko (flying fish roe)), and Sriracha sauce, and the name comes from the pop of the fish roe as it broils. This sauce would serve me well and offer a small shock value to the more squeamish guests. 


The Coating
  I needed a coating to emulate the thin genache used to enrobe the Twinkie in the Chocodile. My mind went back to a sauce I had rarely seen used but always found interesting, Chaud-Froid. Look up Chaud-Froid in a French cookbook and you will more than likely find a chicken breast coated with it. The sauce is made from Béchamel with added liquor and bound with gelatin. Beer would have to take place of the liquor but all other components could remain the same.


The Plate
  It seems, as with all previous dinners, I don't have my choice of plates. All previous dinners the plate selection came down not having the money to purchase new plates for one event. Now, the lack of plate choice is simply because I have been pigeon-holed into using predetermined plates. After I had baked, filled, and coated the cakes I placed one on the round plate. Ugh! It was too stark and muted. So, I went crazy with the garnish... Unfortunately, my mind's pictures seem more grandiose than actual reality. 
  I added a needed green flavor through the use of chive oil. The oil should also serve as a moistener to the dish. Then I thought the filling wasn't a sufficient amount of dynamite flavor, so I went with a paint of dynamite. The paint looked hapdash, however. I would spoon it on the plate instead.
  The two items on the top, chive and masago, would just come along for the ride to ensure that I completed my dedication to the gaudy direction I had chosen. All-in-all, I feel that it looked OK, I would have preferred a much smaller plate which I believe could have kept it much tighter. 

  Que sera sera, every dish is a chance to learn.




Recipes:


Semi-Sweet Chiffon Cake
ingredients:

• 7 Eggs separated into whites and yolks
• 3 oz melted Fat (I used Lard, Schmaltz would be best (me thinks))
• 6 fl oz Heavy Cream
• 1/2 cup AP Flour (if you cake flour on hand, use it)
• 1/2 cup granulated White Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
• heavy pinch Kosher Salt

Preheat the oven to 325° (I used a convection oven, so you may want to bump your temp up by 25° if you have a standard oven)

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.

Whip egg yolks until light yellow, add sugar. Continue whipping yolks and sugar until they form ribbons.

Whip heavy cream until it forms soft peaks.

Temper fat into egg yolk mixture.

Mix salt with flour.

Alternate folding in three parts the whipped cream, whipped whites, and flour into the yolk mixture until completely folded in.

If you have cream canoe molds, use them (ungreased). If you do not, you can form your own molds with aluminum foil by folding it into rectangles and pressing them around spice bottles. (leaving one side open, of course.) 

The smaller the cake, the less time it takes to bake.

I had the cakes in the oven for 25 minutes. It may take up to one hour for larger cakes. Cakes are done when their centers spring back to the touch. 

If possible, invert the pan while cooling.

Dynamite Sauce

ingredients:

• 2 cups Kewpie Mayonnaise
• (if you need to make a substitute you can use the following)
• 2 cups heavy mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup Sriracha hot sauce (more or less to taste)
• 1/2 cup Masago (or Tobiko, orange colored)

Fold all ingredients well.

(Ideally, I wanted to soy lecithin as a whipping agent. However, the stash of culinary chemicals I was going raid had been previously plundered. If you can get a hold of it, it may prove to be an interesting textural addition to the filling.)

Place sauce in a piping bag with a small tip, or a squeeze bottle with a small tip.

Chaud-Froid

ingredients:

• Béchamel
• 8 cups milk
• 1 White Onion
• 6 whole Cloves
• pinch Nutmeg
• pinch Cayenne Pepper
• 2 sticks Butter (1 cup)
• 2 cups Flour
• s/wp to taste
• score and stud the onion with the cloves, steep onion in milk, add nutmeg and cayenne
• melt butter in sauce pot, add flour and stir until incorporated, add warm milk (straining it through a sieve first)
• whisk sauce over medium heat until thickened
• 2 beers (I used Lagunitas Czech Pilsner) or 2 cups liquor of your choice
• 10 sheets of gelatin

Add beer to finished béchamel sauce, add gelatin, whisk until hot. Add milk or more booze, depending on your taste to adjust to your desired thickness. Coating the back of a spoon is a good thickness to shoot for, but may require multiple coats. Thicker will require less coats but the mouth-feel will not be the same.

Assembly:
Keep sauce warm during filling. Fill cakes from the bottom with three injections (see a Twinkie for reference) of dynamite sauce. Set filled cakes on a wire rack. Coat filled cakes with chaud-froid sauce, cool. Remove cakes from cooler and coat again with chaud-froid. Continue process until completely coated.
For chive oil;
  Process 2 oz of fresh chives in a neutral oil in a blender until fully incorporated. Strain mixture through a very fine chinois of a coffee filter in a sieve if no chinois is not available.
Garnish the dish with your own preference.

Recipes - Fried Oyster Tostada

What do you do when your friend orders 35 dozen oysters instead of 3 dozen? You get creative. This is one of the recipes used to spend 10 of those dozen.


Fried Oyster Tostada
(Tostada Ostras Fritas)




Ingredients and method:


Tostada

• fry white corn tortillas in oil until crispy, drain

Refried Beans

• 10 lbs of dried pinto beans
• 4 white onions
• 12 jalapenos
• 12 cloves of garlic
• 2 cups manteca (lard)
• water
• reserve lard, add all other ingredients in an adequate stock pot, add water with a 4:1 ratio of volume, bring to a boil, simmer until fully softened, add manteca, puree with a stick blender until completely smooth, continue cooking until desired thickness is reached.

Pickled White Onions (same recipe as mentioned previously in "tuna slider")

• 4 cups white wine vinegar (distilled will work also)
• 2 cups granulated white cane sugar (I still prefer using Zulka morena)
• 4~8oz cilantro chopped
• 10~12 large white onions
• slice onions as thinly as possible, using mandoline, meat slicer, or your bad-ass knife skills; mix vinegar and sugar until completely dissolved, add cilantro, add onions; stir, toss, do whatever to completely incorporate all the ingredients; set aside under refrigeration.

Chorizo

• I used pork chorizo, although I prefer beef chorizo, I think the beef would mask the oyster flavor.
• Cook chorizo to preference.

Fried Oysters (I used fresh Fanny Bay oysters, but I have used pre-shucked Blue Points in the past)

• Shuck all oysters and place in a bath of egg whites (one per oyster)
• For dredge (mix ingredients well):

1. 2 cups AP flour
2. 1 cup masa
3. 1 tsp kosher salt (or preference)
4. 1 tsp ground white pepper

• When ready to serve, dredge oysters until completely coated in mixture, deep (or shallow) fry in 345~355° oil until crispy (usually 45 sec ~ 1.5 min, depending on size of oyster).

Cilantro Sauce (this is my recipe for Elote (Mexican corn) baste, but I use it for a tartar sauce replacement in Mexican fried fish recipes)

• 4 cups mayonnaise
• 2 cups fresh lime juice (if you have to use bottled, only use premium fresh squeezed, not a concentrate or an essence based product)
• 4 oz cilantro chopped
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• mix all ingredients well, adjust thickness by adding mayonnaise for thicker or lime for thinner, salt and pepper to taste

Assembly:

• spread beans on tostada, place a spoon of chorizo (your preference for amount) on beans, place in oven (400° for 1~2 minutes) to heat and keep warm
• dredge (dredge to order and do not dredge ahead of time, it makes for nasty) and fry oysters (2 per tostada); place oysters on chorizo
• place a decent amount of pickled white onions on oysters (2 ~ 4 oz)
• finish with cilantro sauce

¡ Aquí !

Beer Dinner

I was excited at the prospect of doing another beer dinner. I had no choice on the brewery, but the one that had been selected was more than exciting. Lagunitas.

The local brewery scene in California is definitely packed with heavy hitters. Stone Brewing, Bear republic, North Coast, Russian River, and Lagunitas are just a few of the higher production breweries worth hunting down.

I sat down with a fellow chef to hash out a menu and came up with an interesting offering. I went with a concept based from snack foods.
  (first course)
  Recently I came across a Chocodile which was a welcome blast from the past. The twist for the dinner would be to make that snack savory, and the beer to pair it with was their Czech Pilsner. The pun, Czech-a-dile, was born.
  (second course)
  More snack food! I love fruit, I love bacon, and I love them together. I immediately thought of devil's on horseback. I needed to take it a step further and push the envelope. Instead of a date, we would use apricot. Also, we would use a hot dog in place of the traditional stuffing for the fruit. He we have an apricot stuffed with a hot dog and wrapped in bacon... My mouth watered. Let's take it a step further and bread that damn thing! Corn dogs, baby! I think I peed myself when the idea hit me. I don't know what my fetish with rehashing traditional snacks is but, I can't get enough.
  (third course)
  Might as well continue with the snack vein. Fried chicken. But wait, fried chicken is a wee bit heavy for a third course... Think... Why of course, let's go with quail! Southern fried quail. Cole slaw goes well with picnic chicken and beer, so let's take that a step further too. I love to preserve things, citrus being one of them. We set to preserving limes, lemons, and grapefruits three months before the event. That would be perfect, preserved citrus slaw.
  (fourth course)
  Already deep in the snack food and picnic trance, this one went quickly. BBQ sandwich, sticky, sweet, and spicy! It would be a perfect mid meal pairing with a heavy hitting IPA. We would use Maximus IPA and the meat of choice... Goat. Throw two sides, ribbon cut chips and a jalapeno popper, in the mix and we were complete.
  (fifth course)
  Dessert. Most beers for dessert rest in the imperial stout category. This was no exception. The Cappuccino Stout could be easily paired with chocolate. I went to another snack cake, Ding Dong. But that was not enough, let's throw a float in the mix to have a two part dessert. I love coffee soda, so I made a batch, and the ice cream... We made with the beer. Also, to keep the recipe as close to its origins as possible we used tallow rendered from Prime Rib trimmings.

With the hash out the way, recipe fleshing would be next.
 

Menu Hashing - Burger concept

I was recently asked to hash through some menu ideas for an upscale burger concept. I thought immediately, "Oh gawd, another damn burger concept." Burger concepts are a dime a dozen and their failures are even cheaper. But, I tend to think left of center and, although I was forced to conceptualize within a certain set of parameters, I have come up with a few interesting offerings. This is one of them. I have taken the cliché "Tuna Slider" (apparently a required California standard) and added my suggestion to the pile.

Seared Tuna Slider.

Ingredients:

• small (<15 lbs whole fish) yellowfin loin fabricated into medallions
• 4 medium green tomatoes
• 4 large white onions
• Pickling Liquid
• 4 cups white wine vinegar
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 oz chopped cilantro
• FGT (fried green tomato) Dredge
• 1 cup AP flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• pinch cayenne pepper
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 12 small Brioche Rolls (or store bought equivalent)
• good mayonnaise (kewpie is my guilty pleasure)
• Clarified or Unsalted butter (for cooking with)
• Oil for frying (at home, shallow fry is OK)
• S/P to taste (for searing the fish)

Start the pickled onions first. Slice the onions in rings, as thinly as possibly (I used a meat slicer to shave them). Mix the vinegar and sugar together until completely incorporated. Add the onions, add the cilantro, mix well. Set aside.
Mix the dredge ingredients well. Set aside.
Slice the green tomatoes. You should get approximately 3~4 usable slices per tomato. 
Mix buttermilk with eggs, add tomato slices. 
Remove tomato slice from buttermilk and place in dredge, coating completely. Re-dip tomato slice in buttermilk and re-dredge. Set aside. Fry tomato slices when all have been coated.
Brush hot grill with butter, sear tuna quickly. 
Brush cut rolls with butter and grill them until golden.
Assemble sandwich on grilled roll with tuna on bottom topped with fried green tomato and pickled white onions. Place a small amount of mayo on the inside of the top bun.

Pretzels, why not?

     For the hell of it, I decided to make soft pretzels last night. I made one pretzel dough with two topping variations, salt and cinnamon/sugar. The salty variety came out much better than the cinnamon and sugar.

     I used Fleur de Sel for the salt, which came out nicely. 

     However for the cin/sug mixture I used standard C&H white and mass production ground cinnamon. I have given up C&H recently and switched to Zulka, but the mixture was left over from a batch of snickerdoodles. Zulka is a more coarse grain Mexican cane sugar and usually .02 - .04 cents cheaper per ounce. But I digress.

     The recipe for the dough came out nice and chewy with right flavor. That recipe is as follows:

• 2 tsp Instant Yeast
• 1 1/2 cup Water
• 1/3 cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 4 1/2 cups AP Flour
• Pinch Salt
• Baking Soda
• Boiling water

     Reserve the Boiling water and baking soda.

     In this order add the dough ingredients to your mixer (hook attachment).

1. water
2. flour
3. sugar
4. salt
5. yeast

     Mix ingredients until they form a ball. Continue mixing on medium speed until the ball of dough is smooth and elastic, approximately three minutes.

     Let dough stand and rise for thirty minutes. Punch down dough and let rise again for thirty more minutes.

Punch down dough for last time and begin forming pretzel shapes. I used a 2.75 ounce scoop to portion my dough before rolling. That size makes a decent four bite pretzel. 

     When you have your portions, roll the balls into long, thick pencil shapes. Pick up both ends and cross them to form the pretzel. (If you are making a larger pretzel, you will need to twist the two ends over one another before finishing your shape. This will ensure the shapes integrity through baking and eventually eating.)

     Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a handful of baking soda to the pot. Watch out for bubble up when you add it. Let this simmer until the pretzels shapes are ready.

     Bring water mixture to a full boil. Preheat oven to 475° F.

     Place pretzel shapes one at a time in boiling water. The pretzel will develop a yellowish color and float. Remove the pretzel from boiling water and place onto a parchment lined sheet pan.

     Top the wet pretzels with your topping and place into the oven for six to eight minutes. 

Pretzels are done when golden brown.

     Enjoy. (and yes, boiling along with a decent dough is the key to a good pretzel)

Ado Project

Well, I still haven't gotten around to taking pictures of my salt. I have attempted, but the lack of a good macro lens is hindering my actually liking the photos. So you get none.
I do, however, have two new experiments; lime salt and smoked salt.
Lime salt will be a flavored salt, not a reformed salt.

ingredients:
1 box Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
24 Limes

zest all limes and reserve on paper-lined perforated sheet pan
juice all limes and mix with salt until completely incorporated
spread salt mixture evenly on paper lined sheet pan
place both pans in a well ventilated area, preferably dark and warm (75-85° F)

I have a few grainy phone pictures of my process:

The first picture is day one. The salt is saturated with lime juice and the zest is still green and moist.

The second picture is day three. The salt has formed a crust and the lime juice is nearly dried. The zest is nearly dessicated.

The third picture is day seven. The salt is passed through a coarse chinois to break up and sort larger chunks. Once the salt is passed the dessicated zest is reintroduced to the salt. 

Viola, lime-flavored salt.

Note: The lime salt does oxidize after time when exposed to light. I am currently on a bag I made five months ago. The flavor is still good, albeit mellowed. The color, however, has changed from a white with green specks, to a very pale ochre with green specks. I would like to avoid the use of a chemical color enhancer, but maybe the addition of another natural product may help... Next batch.

Smoked salt.

Ingredients:

Oak wood chips (I split a log off of my wood pile into splinters and used that.)

1 box Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

(Warning, this will permanently scar the tools you will be using.)

Add water to the salt to form a loose mortar. (Using the word paste would be inaccurate as the consistency is more like mortar.) Place the salt mixture in an adequate size fine sieve. You will need a round metal container that the sieve can rest on. I used a stainless bain-marie insert. Place wood chips in the bottom and place metal container on a low to medium low flame. Place sieve on metal container and cover with aluminum foil. Allow the chips to smoke and adjust the flame accordingly. You want the salt to dry slowly. 

I allowed the salt to dry in the smoke for one hour. When I removed the salt it had completely adhered to the sieve and it took a serious go to remove it all. When the salt was finally removed I passed it through a coarse chinois to break and sort larger chunks. The salt when tasted immediately had an ashy taste. I assumed I had smoked the salt too long and believed the experiment lost. I bagged the salt and stashed it away for later recollection. However, three months later, the salt had actually matured and mellowed to the point of where I had wanted it. So, I think I am onto something there. I would like to try a reforming of salt using what I call the "bong-water" method of smoking (more on that later). I would also like to dissolve the already smoked salt in boiling water and allow it to recrystallize slowly through evaporation. Sorry, no pictures of this one. (Update: pictures taken (Thank you, Wife!))

Oak Smoked Kosher Salt.

Restaurant Spotlight: Recette

Recette, French for recipe. This recipe hails out of NY. 

The picture above finally gives new dimension to one of the most played out dishes in America. You can probably find a "Buffalo"-style slathered anything in almost any hack restaurant in your city. However, Recette finally breathes an air of excitement into that Necropolis of "Buffalo" blasé with their choice of protein. Sweetbreads. Nothing short of creamy, tasty, and succulent sweetbreads. Kudos to them for breaking the mundane!

Food Porn

Tamworth Pork
Eola
Washington DC


What it is:
Jowl Confit
Smoked Shoulder
Coco Beans
Kale
*smoke under the dome*

Restaurant Spotlight: Feast

Feast
Houston, TX

  Rarely do I see a restaurant that catches my carnal culinary attention. However, Feast in Houston has done just that, placing it in the realm of restaurant Meccas with the likes of Au Pied de Cochon and Incanto. The dish that caught my eye was nothing other than Stuffed Duck Neck. Utilization of the entire animal is both key and classic. This restaurant embraces this concept and elevates it to a level that titillates our carnivorous concupiscence. Thank you Star Chefs for introducing us, thank you indeed. Please follow the links to experience everything the restaurants have to offer, and the link for Star Chefs to see more pictures of glorious Feast.

Ado Project: WTF?

NY City wants to ban the use of salt in restaurants. Yes, you read correctly. I can understand the ban on trans-fats, but salt? It is very easy to switch to a "healthier oil" for frying and all manner of cooking, there are plenty available. However, salt? Salt is a necessary ingredient in not only cooking, but human survival, once used for money, now it's used freely. I thought, also, if the wording of the bill is done right this would affect sodium based products. A few, other than Sodium Chloride, are Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Metabisulfite, and Baking Powder, the list reaches into sodium based compounds used in more scientific and experimental culinary applications to the undesirable preservative side of sodium compounds. Regardless, freedom is freedom to choose your fates, if you wish to euthanize yourself by overeating salt, go right ahead it's your choice. Your choices in life have consequences, however. Newton's third law can apply to living your life. The government cannot make me live better through attrition. If they attempt and succeed in a sodium prohibition, I will gladly do my part in fighting the good fight. Damn the torpedoes! Full salt ahead!

link:http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_york_state/chefs-call-proposed-new-york-salt-ban-absurd-20100310-akd