Friday, April 17, 2009

Compression of Pears: Old for you, New for me


Most things have been done before so this was my first time earlier this year using compression for fruits and vegetables inspired by the late 2008 release of "under pressure"...Fresh hamachi , compressed Asian pears, micro red shiso, preserved lemon vinaigrette, and olive fleur de sel.
For those who don't know what compression is: Taking a fruit ie. watermelon or pear and cryovacing at high pressure to compress the fruit. Changing the texture of a fruit and also in some cases making it almost transparent.

Monday, April 13, 2009

My reinvention of Hollandaise and a Complete Breakfast: Bacon, Egg, Hashbrown, "Orange Juice"

A delicious play on words: Dehydrated prosciutto chip (Bacon), Sunny side up quail egg, Roasted shallot potato cake courtesy of Michael Mina (probably the best hashbrown i've ever tasted), a cara cara orange fennel "butterless bearnaise", and an citrus micros.

I enjoy making my Hollandaise based sauces this way...I was sitting around thinking about how much th culinary world (including myself) hates to make this "mother sauce" because of the time it takes and the lack of stability to heat. So I took the clarified butter out of the holladaise and used a reduction of cream to mock the butter. Not exactly the same flavor, but a mockery of the viscous texture that butter brings to hollandaise. Not only is it easier to make but holds longer without breaking. Just like how cream stabilizes a beurre blanc when holding in a steam well