Archive for category Food
As much as I love baine marie
While the French have figured how to make souffles, the Chinese have been scrambling eggs the way I like. This is a major generalization without much basis. I am referring to cooking eggs in a bain marie. Beaten eggs are stirred and slowly cooked to make a very creamy scrambled egg. I like a little smoke in my oil and the eggs cooked so fast that nothing sticks in a stainless steel pan when finished. If you are quick enough the final product should still be soft, a little creamy and have no caramalized taste. This discussion really dosen’t have much to do with how the French and Chinese cook does it?
I roasted some tomatoes (they look beautiful). Made an onion, tomato and chilli relish for my heat loving friends. A smoked salmon wrapping with wilted spinach on the side for a manic addition.
Salmon with blow torch
I swear there is a 7th flavour. Ok, maybe our tongue can’t pick it up. But you know that gentle burnt flavour when you grill meat? Well try burning protein with a little soy, vinegar, rice wine, pepper and it takes on another level. It can’t be that good for me if it taste so good.
Beef! as I didn’t know it.
There is a difference between cooking beef on a very hot pan and cooking strips of beef on a very hot metal wire/grill. The extra surface area for the fat and protein to sizzle produced so much more flavour. Forget a thick cut. Strips around 3-4 cm long and 1x1cm thick allows good burning flavour to mix with a little medium rare and juicy texture.
A little lighy soy gives the superb savory touch to the smokey and chared meat. Add a little yuzu to conter the fat. One go at the beef in Takayama and it’s all wired in my brain.
This 2 kg piece of beef brought by my brother was sensational in every sensory way. From a Korean market in Brisbane. A little more expensive than the fillet cut from supermarkets. But wow… I am already feeling hungry now. And it’s bed time!
Meats – the greatest hits
One of my weakness is that I find it hard to be content with what I have/achieve. A friend of mine said it’s such a ‘medical thinking’. I want to stop taking what society prescribes to me (or what I think society prescribes to me).
Apart from food that is. One thing is for sure, I will keep finding new things to eat: These are the best meat dishes I have tried.
Hida beef – Takayama, Japan: If you wince in disgust at the though of fatty meat then you can leave now. Selective breeding allows these cattle to accumulate lots of intramuscular fat. It’s similar to Kobe beed but not as well known internationally. Served in finger size strips and thinner slices, sizzling on a hot metal grill in front of you.
Duck rillettes – France: Duck legs cooked confit style (slowly in duck fat) then blended in more duck fat. Put it in a fresh brea roll and you have heaven in a bite. Quite easily found in good delis in Australia. Pork versions are also nice.
Roast pork – Bistro Guillaume, Melbourne, Australia: Perfect crackles, thick cut and so so moist and tender meat. I think it was soaked in brine but there was no hint of salt. The waiter said it was cooked slowly. Whatever the way, it was delicious.
Jamón ibérico de bellota, Spain: Free range pigs that live in oak forests and eat only acorns towards the end of their life. The sweet, nutty and savory flavour is dangerously painful to think about at 1 am. Although I havent yet stepped in Spain, in Australia it’s not had to find some fairly good stuff.
Ox tongue, braised slowly in spices and soy – Shoya, Melbourne, Australia. I guess this goes out to most cuts of tuff meats such as ox cheek. Over the past 3-4 years such cuts are getting popular again. A combination of being new to many people (even though in the past such cuts would not be wasted) and riding the economic crisis wagon.
A good pieces of steak cooked at home, with a glass of wine. And on the note of home cooking, pork mince simmered with onions, Taiwanese pickled cucumber, soy sauce, shallots served on a bowl of rice is hard to beat as comfort food. Cheers to that!
A little on molecular gastronomy – Hervé This and Nicholas Kurt
Posted by tzuyen in Food, Literature on May 24, 2009
There are a bunch of books I want to get by Hervé This on Amazon.uk/us. The exchange rate is now great for buying things online from overseas. Great, because I am leaving for Barcelona and San Sebastian in a week.
Hervé This, a French physical chemist. Nicholas Kurt, a Hugarian physicist had an interest in applying their work to culinary problems. Perhaps it was Hervé who partnered up with the renouned chef Pierre Gagnaire because I have barely heard of Nicholas. But together they coined the term “molecular and physical gastronomy” in the late 1980′s (later termed “molecular gastronomy”). It was a start of a movement in cooking that gained wider publicity in the late 1990′s and early 2000 when chefs such as Ferran Adria, el Bulli, and Heston Blummenthal, Fat duck, pushed new and experimental concepts as a major part of the dining experience.
Foams? Spherication? Hot jellies? Liquid nitrogen? Anti-cooker? microwave sponges? If you have heard of any of these terms then you have an idea of what I am talking about. Like foams or not, this is the question.
The last few years seems to be all about practicing chefs defending the molecular gastronomy movement as genuine cooking rather and sci-fi, industrial, processed, unnatural food. Thomas Keller, Heston Blummenthal and Ferran Adria all mention the ultimate goal of cooking is to transform, to find new techniques and to better them. What difference does it make whether a computer is used or not? Browning a piece of meat is transforming too. Chemical reactions – just like cooking a egg at 63 degrees for a hour
For me, as long as it taste good, I am happy with it. New experiences just adds to the excitment. But too much and you risk loosing good taste. I’ll leave it for you to decide.
Perhaps the founder of molecular gastronomy, Hervé, had the ultimate answer in his quest to improve and experiment with culinary art. He brings our attention to our motivation to coook.
“This brings us back, finally, to the question of love. Serving a meal is to give happiness to others, not to supply nutriments: fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and so on. Even the best soufflé, both in nutritional and artistic terms, will be bad if you don’t make your guests feel at home. A meal shared with disagreeable people, no matter how elaborate or well prepared it may be, will never be good either—whereas a sandwich shared with dear friends is a perfect delight. And our grandmothers, whose cooking we all adored, may not have been very good technicians, but what they gave us before everything else was love. Yes, cooking is first and foremost about love, and only then about art, and after that technique.”
No better reason why food taste fabulous
Potato man
A little eccentric about spuds. But if you owned a shop that specialized in potatoes since 1891 your mind is probably not running the same track as most people do. The shop at Prahran Market was first opened by Michael Mow’s grandfather Daniel Wong Mow. However, it was not until the early 90′s when Michael starteed bringing a variety of potatoes from all over Australia. His stock may not be consistent but there is always a good variety to choose from. Micheal is helpful with advice to match the right potato with your cooking ideas or if you want to try some spuds you never seen before.
Blumenthal and Keller plus more
Posted by tzuyen in Food, Literature on March 24, 2009
From the 2009 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. The next day we had dinner at Vue de Monde by Shane Osborn and Marcus Eaves. Left to right, top to bottom:
Theirry Marx on how his life in Japan and France influenced his philosophy on his food. In France it’s half about the ingredient and half on the technique. In Japan, it’s 90% on the ingredient (sacred and spiritual) and the 10% is traditional techniques. Seasonality from day to day is also something he observed in Japan
Thomas Keller and Heson Blumenthal, with Neil Perry on issues on their approach to the culinary arts. It’s also about a balance of haute cusine and giving something back to the community and environment.
Thomas and his 3 exellent books.
Party at Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons. This is the tuna station. Without a doubt, the toro portion was my favorite.
Carlo Cracco: Marinated egg yolk with parmesan water, toasted butter breadc crumbs, poppy seeds and dried tomatoes
Thomas and Heston and me!
Carlo Cracco: Egg yolk pasta, tomatoes, fried basil and sardines
Figs
It felt like overnight or something and the figs in the neighbourhood poped out of the branches and are begining to ripen. And after 2 weeks absent from Vic Market, every shop is boasting their own tray of figs. Safeway also got into the trend. I am just playing around with my new flash at the moment so cooking figs will come later. In the mean time I’ll just munch on them fresh.