Daring Cooks July 2009 Challenge: "Skate", Molecular Cuisine
The Daring Cooks July challenge certainly managed to take me completely out of my comfort zone. I have barely heard of Molecular Cuisine before this challenge, and now I was actually asked to produce something befitting the much-misunderstood-and-little-known art of cooking. The biggest obstacle for me is to make a vegan fish dish that remains moist and will blend well with the powders.
Sketchy from Sketchy's Kitchen is the host for the Daring Cooks July challenge. He hopped between a MC (Molecular Cuisine) dish and a classic rustic Italian dish, and opted to skip the 400 year old dish in favor of something that would be new and daring.
The Challenge: Skate, traditional flavors powdered (slightly altered)
This is a dish from Grant Achatz, found in the Alinea cookbook - page 230. Our host picked a recipe that could be completed without having to order a bunch of specialized chemicals or powders. Just a little work and you can make this, the techniques are not very hard and only require a few tools.
4 skate wings (I made Tofu Fish Sticks instead, see below)
* Beurre monte
* 300g fresh green beans
sea salt/kosher salt
1 banana
454g butter - 4 sticks
Powders - prepare ahead of time
caper / onion (total failure on my part)
lemon powder (skipped and subbed more tofu fish breading powder)
cilantro/parsley powder
'brown butter' powder (skipped the cream powder)
(I also added paprika powder)
* For green beans, slice each beans into very thin rounds (2 mm)
* Beurre Monte - 454g butter (4 sticks, 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g water. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the butter 1 cube at a time. This should from an emulsion. Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees. The emulsion will not break - this is your poaching liquid.
I made the Tofu Fish Sticks - a famous recipe from Vegan Lunch Box. This was a huge success, and we really loved the flavors of the tofu fish sticks. I even used the leftover breading powder as one of the powders to be served on the plate with the fish sticks. Unfortunately, I found drying the herbs and other things in my microwave oven is very difficult. I completely failed in making the onion powder because my microwave doesn't have high or low temperature settings. When I left the onion in the microwave for 2 minutes each time, the onion wouldn't dry. When I used 3-4 minutes each time, the onion started burning. Drying in the oven would be better, I suppose, but I really couldn't find enough time to sit in front of the oven to watch.
The plating was fun to do, but obviously, I could have made some nice pattern of the powders to make it more presentable. The whole challenge was a new thing to try, and I might study a little further on Molecular Cuisine, but overall, I really think having a dehydrator is rather critical in this case.
For more beautiful plates in this July challenge, check out the Daring Cooks blogroll.
Sketchy from Sketchy's Kitchen is the host for the Daring Cooks July challenge. He hopped between a MC (Molecular Cuisine) dish and a classic rustic Italian dish, and opted to skip the 400 year old dish in favor of something that would be new and daring.
The Challenge: Skate, traditional flavors powdered (slightly altered)
This is a dish from Grant Achatz, found in the Alinea cookbook - page 230. Our host picked a recipe that could be completed without having to order a bunch of specialized chemicals or powders. Just a little work and you can make this, the techniques are not very hard and only require a few tools.
4 skate wings (I made Tofu Fish Sticks instead, see below)
* Beurre monte
* 300g fresh green beans
sea salt/kosher salt
1 banana
454g butter - 4 sticks
Powders - prepare ahead of time
caper / onion (total failure on my part)
lemon powder (skipped and subbed more tofu fish breading powder)
cilantro/parsley powder
'brown butter' powder (skipped the cream powder)
(I also added paprika powder)
* For green beans, slice each beans into very thin rounds (2 mm)
* Beurre Monte - 454g butter (4 sticks, 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g water. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the butter 1 cube at a time. This should from an emulsion. Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees. The emulsion will not break - this is your poaching liquid.
I made the Tofu Fish Sticks - a famous recipe from Vegan Lunch Box. This was a huge success, and we really loved the flavors of the tofu fish sticks. I even used the leftover breading powder as one of the powders to be served on the plate with the fish sticks. Unfortunately, I found drying the herbs and other things in my microwave oven is very difficult. I completely failed in making the onion powder because my microwave doesn't have high or low temperature settings. When I left the onion in the microwave for 2 minutes each time, the onion wouldn't dry. When I used 3-4 minutes each time, the onion started burning. Drying in the oven would be better, I suppose, but I really couldn't find enough time to sit in front of the oven to watch.
For more beautiful plates in this July challenge, check out the Daring Cooks blogroll.
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