Workbook

Conquered

Concord grapes always tend to sneak up on us. A first signal of autumn, it’s not uncommon to begin seeing them as early as late August. I love them, but for some reason I usually get stuck for ideas. Because of their seeds, they have to processed, and in the end, they just seem to lose a little something along the way. And simply turning them into coulis or sorbet seems boring.

 

Undeterred, we've set about blending and straining several cases since their arrival, incorporating them into a few different applications this season.

 

  

We're still exploring complimentary flavors via pate de fruit. Here, concord grape is teamed up with pear:

 

Though we haven't ever introduced gelatin clarification into a regular production or menu item, we play around with the method from time to time. It's a great way to transform a muddy-looking grape puree into a more refined end result. A dosage of 0.5% gelatin is dissolved into the puree, and then its frozen. The solid block is then allowed to slowly thaw through a chinois, producing a translucent to clear juice; the nasty bits get caught up in the protein network provided by the gelatin. Knowing that tannins can sometimes affect certain hydrocolloids, we haven't played around with this enough to notice.

   

Cheese has found its way back into some of our pre-dessert work; most recently, chevre has been given the spherification treatment. We using the 'reverse' method, of course, and a 0.8% alginate/water bath The natural calcium present in the goat cheese mixture is sufficient for the skin to form. Heavy production of this and a couple other spheres has taught us how a holding bath can help us control the end result. Storing the finished orbs in syrup make sense in a sweet application. A weak syrup actually helps to nicely 'tighten' their shape, though we learned the hard way that the syrup itself can suck away too much internal moisture, shrinking the spheres down to half their original size.

 

The grapes enter the dish in the form of cold oil/agar agar pearls, and the whole is finished with candied walnut and a half-grind of black pepper.

 

Concord season has also afforded us the perfect opportunity to work on a technique that's been on my to-do list for months. Borrowing a concept from the El Bulli camp, the goal is to create a stable liquid that can be baked into the center of a cake. I've seen a few minor variations, but the basic idea is to gel a fruit mixture with aglinate and calcium gluconate, followed by blending, molding, and freezing. The frozen center is then inserted into a batter. I've seen a similar effect achieved by Stupak, using gellan to  give his carameilzed brioche pudding a liquid caramel interior.

   

Here, the soft grape is baked into a standard financier. Perhaps I see a peanut butter and grape variation in our future.

Download: Concord Grape Pâte de Fruit- Workbook 01.11.09

Download: Concord Grape Pearls- Workbook 01.11.09

Download: Chèvre Spherification- Workbook 01.11.09

 

 

 
 
 

Mou

 

As in 'soft'. Soft caramel, or caramel mou.

I love this stuff. It's the soft texture, and the complexity of flavor from the resulting Maillard reaction- the sugar and milk proteins reducing together- that elevates this confection beyond that of mere caramelized sugar. Add some sea salt and it's a real party.

When you nail that perfect consistency, however, the caramel is difficult to handle, and thus, is often found wrapped in cellophane. That works out alright in most circumstances, but as a petit four in a fine dining setting, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of litter on the table. Something edible would be great.

 

     

 

I've had a passing interest in edible films, probably since a first encounter with one of those breath strips that hit the market a decade ago. This isn't a new idea of course; thin wrappers that you can eat have been around forever. But I bet it was the pharmecutical industry that discovered and then pushed the film-forming possiblities of our friendly hydrocolloids. The gelcap was just the beginning.

In the culinary realm, there has certianly been a lot of work in this area. The first few that come to mind: the Fat Duck's own flavored films, Aduriz's faux fish skin made of cod-derived gelatin, and Alinea's crispy Pure-Cote packages. I've never been smart enough to come up with such inventive applications myself, so I never really pursued the idea with much vigor.  But this sudden challenge of finding a refined wrapper for my caramel renewed my interest.

And though I spent several hours pouring through patent applications- there are indeed many ways (and many ingredients available) to achieve edible films- one answer jumped out at me from our daily mise en place. Whether dispensed from a squeeze bottle, or spooned out of a container, the random drips and drops of our pectin-based sauces often dry out, turning 'crusty' even at room temperature- frustratingly so- but are easily peeled away. Perhaps a solution? Sure enough, our standard passion fruit coulis, spread on some acetate and given a quick run in the dehydrator, yielded a transparent, pliable wrapper. It was a little sticky the first few times, so I simply reduced the sugar. Primitive, for sure, but it works.

 

    

 

Most of the recent patents I researched concern themselves more with the application of flavors or medicines to an array of films. But it was within those various 'recipes' that I discovered a new (to me) gum, pullulan, derived from starch, which seems to tailor-made for this kind of thing.

Fun stuff.

 

   

Download: Soft Caramel- Workbook 30.9.09

Download: Passion Fruit Film- Workbook 30.9.09

   

 

Gummy

It’s probably been at least a year and a half now since we started tinkering with our own version of gummy candies and starch molding. Of course, it was right about the time Sam was doing his various alcohol ‘bears’- including absinthe, sambuca, and amaro, and at least once, there was the infamous ‘whiskey dick’. We didn’t really want to tread on his territory, so apart from playing with starch molded fish and the like, we shelved the idea.

 

I sat in on a hydrocolloid demo at ICE a couple weeks ago, featuring George Mendes, Tim Koerner and Anthony Caratozzolo, as well as Mr. Mason, who blew through his repertoire of cold oil spherification, soft chocolate set with carrageenan, gellan films, and warm custards made possible with methylcellulose. The gummy bears just kind of came up in conversation, reminding me that I hadn’t thought about them in many months.

 

Our first test was with Pernod, a little softer and less chewy than the commercial candy we all know; we didn’t factor the blooming water into Sam’s formula (dosing gelatin at 25% of the total), nor is there the high enough sugar content to contribute much texture. And though we’ve taken a break from pearls and caviars and such, we still keep some cold oil in the walk-in, so I dropped the last few cc’s of Pernod gel into the oil to produce a nice transparent pearl.

 

 

From there, I wanted to see if they would float in water; they didn’t, but I’d love to try floating them in a slightly more viscous fluid. And then the general idea of suspension led to the thought of floating such pearls into a clear gummy. Below are basil and strawberry gummy pearls dropped into a clear gel, and strips inlaid with raspberry. We went for a firmer texture using 25% gelatin, and along with some sugar we also added a small amount of citric acid. The technique can certainly be refined, but it was a cool starting point.

 

 

 

 

Download: Pernod Gummy-Workbook 27.7.09

 

 

 

Duality

 

We stopped doing what I would call ‘traditional’ petit fours for a long stretch- pâte de fruit, nougat, macarons- opting for more inventive and complex bites. But time and distance does often make the heart grow fonder for such things. And certainly during the summer months, when our corner of the kitchen can hit 80 degrees and 80% humidity, we need to go with stable standbys that have some measure of plate time. Being able to make them by the hundreds also helps. We do, of course, continue to throw a curveball with these- macarons, for instance, become open-faced constructions, and the pâte de fruit appears as a duo of flavors.

 

The standard HM pectin jellies still hold interest, even as we explore other textures and the versatility possible through other hydrocolloids like LM pectin, agar agar, and gelatin. We’ve often combined two flavors into the same gel, but it was Hermé who sparked further play through the conventional method with such joined pairings, but also inclusions and infusions.

 

 

 

 

While I’m sure there exists some trick for better adhesion, we find that simply stacking the two framed pâtes, followed by a run through the guitar, does an adequate job. And using the thin white chocolate plaque as a vehicle allows us to skip the sugar dusting, reducing the sweetness somewhat, but also giving us a nice, translucent jewel to behold. Two most recent pairings include fig-apricot and lychee-peach.

 

Download Apricot Pate de Fruit- Workbook 26.7.09

 

Download Fig Pate de Fruit- Workbook 26.7.09

 

Download Lychee Pate de Fruit- Workbook 26.7.09

 

Download White Peach Pate de Fruit-Workbook 26.7.09

 

Back in Black

 

I feel like I've been ignoring our old friend black sesame.

   

 

The last macaron we did contained a center of ground caramelized sugar and black sesame seeds, further mellowed out by a hit gianduja. We could never get it super-fine; I liked the texture, but I always thought it needed improvement. Then we decided to give macarons a rest, and our sesame efforts drifted elsewhere.

This is the result of trying a typical soft rocher approach: the black sesame paste with added cocoa butter and dark chocolate. It's a delicate mixture to handle, either liquid or solid, but that magic melting point makes it nice to eat. It might need a touch more sugar for some; I purposely chose a low percentage chocolate to help that balance.

Download: Black Sesame Rocher-Workbook 23.3.09

   

Chasing Tradition

 

I've often mentioned my equal love and respect for both the 'old school' and the 'new', and how each can really serve to inform the other.

While I've enjoyed a handful of decent versions over the years (La Brea Bakery's sticks out in my mind), one thing that I've never actually gotten around to mastering myself is that specialty of Bordeaux, the canele. But I'm always game to make up for my lack of breadth, even when it comes at the suggestion of one of our line cooks, who just happens to have had a bit of pastry experience. I'm not too proud to learn a trick or two from anyone.

Bill and Shelly began working on the batter a couple days before, allowing ample time for the crepe-like mixture to rest. Like its delicate cousin the macaron, the canele is a fussy preparation for just a few ingredients. Recipe proportions differ wildly among the several I've looked at; the important variables of vessel, time, and temperature equally contribute to the characteristic dark color, crisp shell, and moist and airy interior.

     

They decided to try both the traditional copper molds, as well as the more accesible silicon forms. And while we debated the virtues of coating the molds with beeswax or butter (even honey-butter), the fact that we didn't happen to have any wax lying around made the point moot.

I'm looking forward to spending more time with Bill's recipe and nailing it down. These things are addictive.

Download: Canele-Workbook 20.3.09

   

Star Power

 

The New York photographer known by most as Battman, has been making the rounds this week shooting for his new book. This latest will be his eighth food-focused project, the theme being "small bites". I chose a subject that I've been thinking about for the last year or so, the idea of an a la minute chocolate petit four, or I guess, a sort of bon bon frais. Often, when I submit something to a media request, it's almost like giving the idea a sense closure; by putting it "out there" I can move on to other things.

Such is the case with the trio of bon bons we photographed for the book. Through dark, milk, and white chocolate, each paired with a different citrus, I assembled molded chocolate cups, a cream, and agar pearls. The pearls, too, have begun to feel tired, and though I think they're put to best use in these petit fours (as opposed to scatterd on a plated dessert), I feel like it's time to leave them alone for awhile. With the white, it was the caramelized white chocolate and lemon: grapefruit and Earl Grey factored into the dark.

The match for the milk chocolate is one of my favorites: star anise. It's one of those synergies that aren't exactly subtle, but unless you know it's there you might not be able to put your finger on it. The milk chocolate cream is topped with orange pearls.

Putting these chocolate creams together really made me think about how to "perfect" the emulsion of cocoa butter, water, and milk fat. There has been a lot written about the subject, from Frederic Bau to Herve This. With ganache in particular there are a lot of conflicting opinions, but it's something I'm beginning to pay a lot more attention to. As always, looking toward science to better serve our cooking.

Download: Milk Chocolate Star Anise Cream-Workbook 19.2.09

Download: Orange Pearls-Workbook 19.2.09

   

   

Production

  

 

There are times that my aspirations and intentions have to take a backseat to reality.

As I started to arrange our V-Day take-home amenity (a box of chocolates bagged up along with a split of Champagne), my initial goal was to produce four or five different pieces. Seeing as the day itself lay within the middle of the two most insane weeks in recent memory, the logistics of it all simply forced me to downscale and ground my plans to terra firma. We decided to go ahead with one variety; rather than feel a sense of personal defeat, the thought of busting out a thousand pieces of chocolate is challenge enough. And in the spirit of the holiday, it's a passion fruit ganache, originally nicked from Jaques Torres.

 

Download Passion Fruit Ganache-Workbook 11.2.09

 

I don't get all that starstruck anymore, but I do think it humbling to reflect on where I've been, and where I find myself now. Sometimes those moments sneak up on you when you least expect it...

When Shelly and I went to do the SOS event over at Lever House last month, we had arrived early to finish a little last minute prep. The kitchen's stations were all assigned to the guest chefs and taped off with stacks of plates and equipment. While I was on hand to execute dessert proper, Jaques was on the roster to provide chocolates and petit fours. Pointing over at a labeled fish tub in the pastry pass, I whispered to Shelly, "If you would have told me ten years ago that my name would one day be spoken in the same sentence as Jacques, I wouldn't have believed it." I didn't know it until just the other day, but she snapped a picture of the box.

 

Though it feels a little cheesy at this point, I still smile inside when I think of finally having 'arrived', counting such heroes among my friends and colleagues.

Calcium Proficiency

 

A casual observer might say I've become a little too preoccupied with milk, whether it be isolating its solids or its percentage in an ice cream base. Two other pressing issues led me to begin investigating the calcium content of various other ingredients. One, of course, relates to last week's post on pectin. The other goes back a few months to a conversation I had with Chad, about alginate-calcium spheres and the alternative techniques that mimic the effect. We had both recently played around with delicate yogurt 'orbs', but without the boost of any added calcium (usually calcium lactate gluconate). It seemed obvious that since most of us have concentrated calcium at hand in the form of milk powder, wouldn't that work too? He hadn't tried it either, but sent along a graph listing the natural calcium content of a dozen or so common foods. If anything, it inspired me to flesh that list out a bit.

The nutrition labels on virtually all packaged foods, I discovered, don't really offer much useful information. Calcium is listed in terms of daily value, not actual content. Luckily I stumbled on what is likely the best single document for such figures, the data logged by the USDA on over a thousand fresh or processed foods. This list is a behemoth, and it requires sifting through a lot of commercial products to uncover some basic ingredients. But once we do get a better handle on such numbers, we then have to figure out exactly how it reacts with other ingredients and in what concentrations we must apply them to acheive our desired effects.

Download: USDA National Nutrient Database-Calcium

 

But let's bring pectin back into the fold. Last time, I started with the familiar and basic, apple or high methoxyl pectin, which gels in high sugar/low PH environments with the application of heat. I don't know that it's worth going into the chemical nature of their differences (not that I'd be the one to do it anyway), but suffice it to say, low methoxyl pectin sets in the presence of calcium. Such a difference comes into play in the manufacture of, let's say, low sugar jams. I've worked with LM pectin (sometimes referred to as NH) off and on over the years, but with little understanding of the chemistry or how to determine correct proprtions or the results they would then give. Although I've used it in glazes (where we take advantage of its thermo reversible properties) and even tuiles and nougatine-like mixtures, a lot more attention is given to its HM cousin, at least in pastry circles.

When looking for more than a brief overview of things like the one I just gave, I often find myself leaving culinary texts behind in favor of technical papers on the subject. As I mentioned to a food scientist friend the other day, these things aren't exactly written in kitchen language; it can be frustrating parsing through all the chemistry-speak and diagrams of molecule chains just to extract a few useful nuggets of information. But it can be worth the effort, and I often feel energized and excited by such discovery.

Rather than chase more advanced applications, I wanted to first nail down some parameters. I've seen one or two LM pectin-based versions of conventional pate de fruit, and every once in a while I'll give them a go. But the results often vary wildly, and I had no idea how the formula was structured, or how it might need to be altered when plugging in other ingredients. Even in the technical literature, perecntages of pectin and calcium are given as wide variables. My goal was to establish those ratios in a low-sugar pate de fruit by using that most common source of calcium, milk.

I pieced together some general information to set out on my first attempt: LM pectin is generally dosed in a range of 0.5-1.5%, 2 to 3g per cup of liquid makes up the middle and will give a sufficient gel. When it comes to the calcium needed, the proportion can range anywhere from 10 to 40 milligrams per gram of LM pectin. Again, that's a big window. Knowing that I'm looking for a fairly firm set, I pushed those numbers to the high end of the scale.

Download Blood Orange Pate de Fruit (Dry Milk)-Workbook 10.2.09 

I decided to go with a full 1.5% of pectin, mixed with ten times its weight in granulated sugar. In determining the measurement of milk powder, I guessed as to how much I might want for flavor, and then went back to see if I was in the proper range. As 10g of milk powder contains 123mg of calcium, starting with that measurment would put me within the acceptable range of 30mg per 1g pectin. I have discovered, by accident, that you can get a premature set by incorporating the calcium too soon, so I allowed the pectin to dissolve fully before adding my milk powder. The resulting texure and flavor was near perfect; the only problem was a slight graininess as some of the milk powder didn't get a chance to fully hydrate. This tells me that next time, I either have to grind it to a finer consistency, or to perhaps prepare a solution of it. But what if I were to add just plain milk?

Download Blood Orange Pate de Fruit (Skim Milk)-Workbook 10.2.09

Using the same structure as the first recipe, I plugged in an amount of skim milk that I thought might provide the necessary calcium without diluting the blood orange too much. Substituting 75g of milk gave me a total of 94mg of calcium (as opposed to 123mg from the dry milk) and a slightly lower proportion of 25mg per 1g pectin. It didn't seem too far off, and besides, I might be able to determine a tighter range, and if this was too low, I'd certainly find out. For sure, the fluidity of the milk makes it much easier to incorporate, and though the color was not as intense, I was happy with the flavor and texture, which was softer, but only slightly so.

In the end, now have a much cleaner, more vibrant facsimile of a pate de fruit. I'll let you do the math, but remember that the conventional version made with HM pectin has a sugar concentration as high as 80%. Here, it's a fraction of that. While I didn't take into account any naturally occuring calcium in the blood orange, I think this will become a good standard to apply to an infinite number of liquids, and a starting point in exploring new applications...

 

   

Square One

   

Among the many tasks on this year's to-do list, one is to refresh my knowledge and expand my uses of pectin. We use it almost everyday; in fact, for the novice, it's probably the least 'threatening' introduction to the broad range of hydrocolloids. A naturally occuring product in virtually all plant matter (to varying degrees of course), it's fairly easy to understand the mechanics at work. Yet once you decide to dive deeper into pectin's different varieties and applications, you'll realize the possibilities extend far beyond the jelly jar. But in order to move into new territory, it helps to start at square one.

In our kitchen, the most basic use of pectin is to lightly bind sauces. I long ago began to prefer this method over starch-thickening or reduction, because it allows for a clarity of flavor unobtainable otherwise (unless you've advanced into using modified starches like Ultratex or gums like Xanthan, which require no heat nor high sugar concentrations). I don't want to get too bogged down by the microscopic science at play, but in the simplest terms, pectin thickens a fruit coulis (or a preserve) through the application of heat, sugar, and acid. For such an application, we're using readily available apple, or high-methoxyl pectin. Heat dissolves the pectins, the high sugar content effectively force the pectin strands to fuse by attracting all of the available water, and the low PH further aids in encouraging that bond. In a coulis such as ours with manadarin orange, the sugar concentration is fairly low (20-25%), and we're also taking advantage of the juice's natural acidity. If we were looking to set a thicker product, like a jam, we'd increase that sugar concentration to over 50%.

The extreme in pectin thickening is pate de fruit. This traditional confection was often in our rotation of petit fours up until a few months ago, but it's still one of my favorite processes. All the same factors are at work here, however the sugar content is pushed above the 80% range, which helps to create that dense chewy texture. A couple of thoughts with regard to recipe I chose to offer here...

You'll notice that I don't use 100% kalamansi juice, but that it's blended with apricot puree. Fruits vary in their amounts of natural pectin, and although we are using added refined pectin, for fruits that contain little and to round out their flavor, we will often pair them with a fairly neutral fruit that does contain natural pectin. Other examples include boosting mango with apple, or papaya with pear.

Because pectin begins to gel as it cools, it is important not to let the temperature drop as the mixture is being prepared. As this low-methoxyl pectin is not thermo-reversible (meaning it can't be 'melted' down and recast once it gels), we avoid this premature set by adding our sugars in three or four stages; adding all of the sugar and glucose at once will cause the temperature to drop. And of course, pectin clumps readily once added to liquid, so we disperse it in some of the sugar at the outset. 

Finally, we add citric acid at the very end of the cooking to give the pectin just the right environment to bond. Some recipes will call for tartaric acid, but I find the two interchangeable. The acid also helps to balance out the extreme sweetness of the pate de fruit; that sweetness is its biggest handicap, but in the future we'll take a look at how pectin's other face, the low methoxyl variety, works differently and allows us to explore other options.

 

Download: Mandarin Orange Coulis-Workbook 3.2.09

Download: Apricot Kalamansi Pate de Fruit-Workbook 3.2.09