Cooking: March 2008 Archives

Well, I broke down and bought a new toy. It is a thermal immersion circulator by Polyscience. What was once in the bailiwick of laboratory scientists, is now showing up in the kitchen of chefs. Food is vacuum sealed in plastic bags and cooked in a temperature controlled bath of water. This type of cooking is called sous vide. And you can read more about it here. So far I have used it to cook meat and salmon.

In a perfect world, I would live in the same complex as Central Market. I would buy groceries daily and shop the market for what ever mood strikes me. This time, I wound up with

• Orange Cauliflower
• Mexican Asparagus
• Minneola Oranges
• Reed's Extra Ginger Brew
• Green Gourmet Garlic

I tried this recipe again with some left-over bread from Gumbo's. And it is amazing how differently it turned out during the making of it. This time, I reduced an entire 14 ounce can of Young's Double Chocolate Stout to a couple of ounces. I took the pan off of the burner and added 4 ounces of chocolate chips. After melting and mixing the chocolate into a smooth consistency, I added 3/4ths of a cup of brown sugar (whoops, it should have been 1/4). I then added a cup of cold heavy cream. And added three beaten eggs.

This time, the mixture had a consistency of pudding! It even tasted like it (yes, I risked salmonella poisoning to try it). It was pretty good. Because I didn't have enough dried bread cubes, I cooked the leftover mixture in the oven along with the bread pudding. And this is what it turned into. The volume almost doubled. The only negative thing about it was a little bit of water that seeped out during eating. This thing looks like a brownie. And I wonder if eating it with the soaked bread cubes will make it seem even more like a brownie...

I've been wanting to make some chocolate covered strawberries and this weekend, I finally took the plunge. I have learned a lot of things in the process.

The first rule is Mise en Place. Prepare everything before you start cooking. For example, do not wash and dry the strawberries as you individually place them in the chocolate. This only slows down the cooking and can lead to burned things.

Watch the melting chocolate in a double broiler carefully. Once the water comes to a boil, turn it down to a bare minimum. Do not let the chocolate get too hot. Do not let the water run out in the broiler section. This only allows the top to get hotter and discolors the pan.

Do not attempt to rescue chocolate that has too much moisture cooked out of it (see above for reasons why this might have happened). Adding wet or dry goods to hot chocolate will cause it to seize. And now you have lost the tempering. A broken chocolate looks a lot different than tempered chocolate.

And in taking this picture, I have learned some things about food photography. I need a props library. I only have one set of plates, a section of marble, and some plastic cutting mats. These are not very photogenic items.

I can see why you need food stylists. The strawberries have been sitting in the refrigerator and collected condensation. Wicking away the moisture with a napkin was fun. Also, some moisture has weeped out of the strawberries. I had to clean up that mess after the strawberries were in place.

Hot halogen lights will melt chocolate. Set up the camera and the lighting, with a dummy in place to work on focus, color balancing and placement. At the last second, transfer the strawberries in and take photos.

I also tried soaking a batch of strawberries in Wild Strawberry Schnapps before covering them with chocolate. The liquor was not as intense as I hoped it would be. Maybe, for the next time, I need to think about ways to get rid of the moisture in the strawberries before I attempt to replace it with flavored alcohol. Perhaps with salt? Or maybe a food dehydrator?