Hungry In Hogtown

Foaming at the mouth, Part II: el Bulli's tortilla de patatas Marc Singla foam

For the longest time, I was convinced that only the French know how to make a good omelette.  Rachel and I had eaten our share of Spanish tortillas and Italian frittatas, and found them wanting: thick rounds of leaden, overcooked eggs with a consistency more reminiscent of a custard forgotten in the oven than an old world culinary classic.  The French insist an omelette should be thin, light, and cooked just long enough to firm one side while leaving the other creamy.

The French are right.

Then we visited Cal Pep, one of Barcelona's most famous tapas joints, and discovered a tortilla that puts omelettes to shame.  There, cooks scoop a mixture of potato, chorizo, onion and golden, creamy eggs into sizzling hot, high-sided small pans. One flip and a minute or two later, they slide a thick, lightly caramelized disc about the size of a large hamburger patty onto a plate, slather the top with allioli, a garlicky mayonnaise better known by its French name, aïoli, and await the delighted squeals of ravenous customers.

What makes this tortilla so special is that, unlike its Iberian and Italian cousins, it offers that magical mix of cooked and creamy egg that makes a French omelette superior.  Cut open Cal Pep's tortilla, and, underneath the lightly caramelized crust, lies a core of warm, not-quite-set egg.  Allioli complements the unctuousness of the interior while nuggets of spicy chorizo and potato add body and flavour.  It's enough to make me forget France forever.

The tortilla's iconic stature in Spanish gastronomy means that Ferran Adria can't resist riffing on it,  even if he's got to crib from another chef to do it.  El Bulli's evolution of the hot 'tortilla de patatas Marc Singla' foam from el Bulli: 1998-2002 deliciously deconstructs the standard dish.  Raw yolks and a barely cooked sabayon mean the egg portion of this tortilla is a golden syrup that flows on the palate, and Adria opts for a tangle of caramelized onions for their complex savoury-sweet bite.

Yet it's the potatoes that grab your attention.  Gone are the chunks of spud, replaced instead by an almost overwhelmingly rich foam made by boiling potatoes, enriching them with cream and olive oil, then blending and pouring the mixture into an iSi Gourmet Whip charged with nitrous oxide.  The Gourmet Whip is unique because it can be heated, so after spooning caramelized onion into the bottom of a martini glass and gilding it with some raw egg yolk and sabayon, the dish is crowned by a layer of piping hot potato.

Despite my misgivings -- blending potatoes is normally a recipe for glue, not haute cuisine -- the foam is spectacular.  It has a noticeably buttery taste even though it has no butter, and the texture is, not unexpectedly, light but still substantive enough to form the backbone of the dish.  My only complaint, and here, yes, I'm trying to have it both ways, is that I miss some of the complexity of flavour and texture that comes from the caramelized exterior of Cal Pep's tortilla.

I've tried to reproduce Cal Pep's tortilla at home, but I'm not quite there yet.  Problem number one is that my non-existent Catalan makes translating the recipe difficult (someone help me, please).  Problem number two is that I have yet to find a pan suitable for the job.  My results so far have been good but not stellar: a respectable crust, but a slightly overcooked centre.  No matter, I can always turn to el Bulli's version, or, failing that, Rachel assures me I prepare a mean French omelette.

Foaming at the mouth: Wylie Dufresne, Guy Rubino, and the future of molecular gastronomy

Had enough yet?  Can't wait to see the last of foams, spheres, airs, and the countless other "gimmicks" at the heart of molecular gastronomy?

If you answered 'Yes' to those questions, you're not alone.

Chris Nuttall-Smith, outgoing food editor of Toronto Life, knows his food and has eaten more than his fair share of great and ghastly meals, and he's fed up.  During a conversation earlier this summer, he professed to being "tired of molecular gastronomy."  When I asked him recently if I could use his quote for this post, he not only agreed, he elaborated:

If you really got me on a roll, I'd say:

'I find it so tedious, and wankerish and precious. I used to roll my eyes when food writers said this kind of thing. C'mon, I'd think. Give the newbies a chance. But then two years passed and every hack chef on the continent discovered foams. Enough, fuck. And how is it "cutting edge" when chefs use transglutaminase to glue pieces of meat together? Weren't they doing that at Tyson Foods in 1986?  Really. Can I just get something that tastes good and was made with a bit of integrity instead?'

Yes. I'd love it if you'd use that.

Me too.  Agree or disagree, the man writes good copy.

I'm glad he didn't mince words, because his comment provides some context for two other experiences I enjoyed this summer.  The first, dinner at wd-50, Wylie Dufresne's landmark molecular gastronomy restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side, offers a taste of what many naysayers loathe most about this new approach to food: unconventional flavour pairings, oodles of obscure chemicals, and a penchant for deconstructing traditional dishes.

Rachel and I visited with another couple, our friends Ryan and Sue, and, for the most part, the meal was a hit.  The best dish of the night was Dufresne's take on french onion soup: two spheres of gruyere-flavoured liquid floating in a pool of beef broth -- it's comfort food with flair and imagination.  What impresses most about this dish aren't the spheres, however, it's that delectable broth, a staple of classic Western cuisine crafted with obvious skill.  Dufresne may no longer work in Jean-Georges' kitchen, but he brings those same standards to his own.

The delicious riffs on comfort food don't stop there.  Pizza pebbles with pepperoni and shiitake dazzle while eliciting laughs of joy and amazement.  Pop one of these balls into your mouth, and it immediately crumbles into a sandy powder with a texture and taste eerily similar to that of Combos, the pretzel snack that "cheeses your hunger away."  This is no accident. Some may find it absurd, even offensive, to pay good money for the taste of Combos on a tasting menu, but I think it's a stroke of genius -- laughter's a reaction I wish chefs would encourage more often, especially in fine dining restaurants that intimidate some diners as much as they delight others.

Not every dish on the twelve-course tasting menu tickled us as much as these two -- one in particular, a combination of surf clam, watermelon, and fermented black bean leaves me a little cold, mainly because I dislike the vaguely raunchy flavour of fermented beans paired with fresh clam -- but most of the rest combine form and flavour exceptionally well, two others especially: I'm not sure if lamb belly, black chick pea, and cherried cucumber is a great take on lamb or bacon, but the unexpected taste of cured meat mixed with the mild gaminess of lamb makes for an unforgettable dish.  Dufresne plays with Jewish deli food (or a BLT, apparently) in a dish of thinly sliced pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise and tomato molasses.  wd-50 refines tongue to such an extent that the dish conjures images of pastrami, not offal (click here for the recipe).  And, yes, fried mayo is as delicious as it sounds, though I must confess to expecting a slightly thinner texture from the mayo.

Pastry chef Alex Stupak's desserts were every bit as good as the savoury courses they followed, with fried butterscotch pudding, mango, taro ice cream, and smoked macadamia the best of the lot.  This dish deftly balances hot and cold, and sweet, salty, and smoky.   Like mayo, pudding just gets better after a brief sojourn in hot fat.

To read someone else's take on our wd-50's tasting menu, and to see pictures of the dishes discussed above, click here.

Chris and Wylie approach food from two very different places: Wylie pushes boundaries and buttons; Chris yearns for quality ingredients cooked simply.  On the surface, it appears the stage has been set for a messy divorce between molecular gastronomy and traditional (dare I call it Slow?) food.  But are they really incompatible?

My experience writing The Dish for the October 2007 Toronto Life makes me think not.  Guy Rubino has carved a reputation as an elite chef by creating gorgeous, complex dishes that mingle Asian and Western techniques and ingredients at his Toronto restaurant, rain.  He's best known for his TV show, Made to Order, which focuses on the sumptuous dining experiences he and his brother, Michael, tailor to the desires of special clients.

What I find most fascinating about Rubino's style is that he frequently dips into the molecular toolbox to tweak his food.  I arrived curious to see how and why Rubino integrates this emerging culinary outlook into his dishes.  What I found left me convinced that Guy Rubino is a role model for the future of this cooking revolution.

I profiled a trio of preparations featuring bluefin tuna, wagyu beef, and tangerine.  Nuttall-Smith assigned me the piece specifically because Rubino uses transglutaminase in one element of the dish.  Transglutaminase -- also known as "meat glue" or "trans glam" amongst chefs -- is a naturally occurring enzyme that literally glues proteins together.  Take a chunk of beef, for example, spread a tiny bit of trans glam powder on it, and set another piece of meat, let's say chicken, on top.  Wrap the pieces in cling film, and let them rest briefly in the fridge.  When you pull them out, cow and clucker will be fused together in a permanent embrace.  If a tiny voice in your head is saying "Cool" right now, you're like me.

Rubino's trio is deceptively simple.  It includes a wagyu and bluefin tartare with tangerine gelée and tangerine foam; a strip of tangerine fruit leather encased in a coil of bluefin sashimi and dressed with tamari veal reduction, dehydrated ginger and wasabi; and a thick disc of seared, wagyu fat-encased bluefin loin finished with a tangerine teriyaki miso froth and a thin line of cilantro oil.  What struck me most is that transglutaminase is just the tip of the iceberg with this dish.  By my count, there are no fewer than six molecular gastronomy techniques in the three preparations: agar jellies the tangerine gelee; methylcellulose thickens the tangerine mousse; sodium alginate binds the fruit leather; soy lecithin emulsifies the teriyaki froth; xanthan gum stabilizes the cilantro oil; and, lest we forget the reason for my visit in the first place, transglutaminase binds the wagyu fat to the loin to add a little moisture and flavour.

The kicker, of course, is that Guy Rubino is not a molecular gastronomer.  He's simply a chef who recognizes that the methods refined by the likes of Homaro Cantu, Grant Achatz, and Wylie Dufresne can be put to use in any kitchen to improve the taste and texture of many dishes.  We've come to expect a restaurant to be "molecular gastronomy" in much the same way we used to insist restaurants be French, Japanese, or Italian, until a new generation of chefs blew that conceit to smithereens.  Molecular gastronomy is undergoing a similar transformation, shedding its niche status and emerging as a broadly used set of tools that help cooks enhance and reinterpret the foods they prepare regardless of their background.

As I see it, Nuttall-Smith, Dufresne, and Rubino -- or, put in more political terms, the conservative, the revolutionary, and the moderate -- are proxies for a broader debate in the culinary world over the role of molecular gastronomy in modern cuisine.  Each position has value, too.  I am constantly fascinated and amazed by culinary innovation, but I'm not blind to its excesses.  To the contrary, I've been forced to eat a few of them.  Some passionate, knowledgeable foodies, like Chris Nuttall-Smith, offer necessary resistance.  By challenging the relentless quest for innovation for innovation's sake, skeptics force chefs to ask the most important question of the dishes they produce, not merely "Is it good?" but "Is it better?"  The answer, sometimes, is "No."  Wylie Dufresne, on the other hand, pushes boundaries and buttons, forges new techniques, and discovers the ingredients of tomorrow.  He, and chefs like him, provide the necessary imagination that propels any creative venture such as cooking forward. 

Innovators must remember to ask one simple question:  "Can I make it better?"  And they often do.  Guy Rubino is the product of this dialectic, synthesizing the techniques he learns from chefs like Dufresne with incredible raw materials and his own culinary vision to produce a richer, juicier tuna loin or a more intense tangerine foam.  His food is by no means simple, but by probing the area between the extremes he promotes compromise and a promising future.

SHF #34, Nosh In My Backyard: Regan Daley's wild blueberry pie and el Bulli's rhubarb with sugar and pepper

The summer heat shimmers around me and I can hear the oscillating buzz of grasshoppers as I sit on my front steps.  Time is stretching out and slowing down the way it does only for children. I don’t even realize I’m hungry until my mother appears with a pile of vermilion stalks on a plate, with a little bowl next to it.  I dip a rhubarb piece into the sugar in the bowl and bite down, savouring the shock of the sharp juicy sour crunch.

Rhubarb grew in a shady corner of our backyard, looking like horizontal ruffled elephant ears.  We’d pick the stems before they got too thick and woody, and cook them in jams and pies, while the children would often eat them raw with sugar as a treat.  Even though I hated celery and complained about its strings, I’d tear into rhubarb stalks with relish and valued the stringy fibres that straggled behind for their ability to hold extra sugar when I swept the stem through the sugar dish.

Ferran Adria offers a more sophisticated version of this childhood treat in el Bulli: 2003-2004.  He takes tender young raw rhubarb, carefully trimmed to minimize the tough fibres, and rolls them in demerara sugar and black pepper.  It’s a sharp dish -- the crystals of the sugar and the pepper’s heat seem to emphasize the sour taste -- but the added flavours round it out as well.  It’s surprisingly elegant for such a simple preparation.

It's also a perfect dish for the latest edition of Sugar High Friday, hosted by the passionate cook, which is all about going local.  Not only does rhubarb grow like a weed in our home province, Ontario, but the rhubarb we used to make our version of this dish was given to us by our friend Jill, who harvested the stalks from her mother's garden.

My parents no longer live at that house, but their current home does have another crop in the backyard.  Wild blueberry bushes dot the rocky brush behind their house in Sudbury, and it was an easy task to step out for fifteen minutes and return with a small pail of sapphire-hued treasures.  I say "was."  Construction crews are building a new housing development right over the backyard berry patch.  Sudbury’s economic boom is bad news for my blueberry pancake habit, which my mom has indulged during every summertime visit.  At least the construction reduces the chance of hungry bears coming into the yard, lured by the berries.

And there is simply no comparison between wild and farmed blueberries -- one of the reasons I gorge myself on blueberries at my parents’ house.  Sure, the domestic ones are just as pretty and twice the size, but they’re completely flat in flavour.  The wild ones pack a whallop of acidity and sweetness into each tiny globe, worth every sunburn and mosquito bite and sore back from picking that I’ve endured in their pursuit.

Regan Daley agrees.  "There is one thing you must remember in order to make this pie:  YOU NEED WILD BERRIES!  Never use the cultivated ones.  They make lousy pies, and lousy everything else for that matter," she states in her book In The Sweet Kitchen.  Blueberry pie has never been a real favourite
of mine, but I’d picked and brought back several pints of berries from my last visit, Rob was eager to try it, and Regan had not yet steered us wrong.

Her track record is still perfect.  The crust, made with lard and butter, is phenomenal:  light and crisp and flaky, we chased the last bits around the plate with our forks, unwilling to let any crumb go uneaten.  And the filling!  Rather than the stodgy, almost solid gel of store-bought blueberry pie, this is a juicy confederation of berries in all their summer glory.

We ate an astounding amount of the pie when it was fresh from the oven, and an even more surprising amount the next morning.  The recipe specifically mentions that, being comprised of flour, egg, and fruit, blueberry pie is an "honourable" breakfast food.  And though it may not be my mom's pancakes, it extends the tradition of fashioning simple, delicious treats from the bounty in the backyard.

The undisputed king of noodles: el Bulli's two metre parmesan spaghetto

Sometimes molecular gastronomy can be a real pain in the ass.  Even the simplest of recipes -- and a two metre parmesan spaghetto is, believe it or not, relatively straightforward -- can be sabotaged by seemingly benign requirements, requirements like "1-1 L ISI siphon with the emptying attachment spaghetti."  Emptying attachment spaghetti?

Mangled English aside, I have no idea what that might look like, nor have I found a retailer that sells it.  The likely reason is simple: the spaghetti attachment is actually a customized piece of equipment designed specifically for (and likely by) el Bulli itself.

Unfortunately, the attachment points to a larger problem with pursuing molecular gastronomy at home generally, and cooking from the el Bulli cookbooks specifically: both require a constant stream of specialized equipment -- equipment that is often difficult, if not impossible to get.  The el Bulli cookbooks compound the problem by offering no indication of where, or even if, the necessary equipment can be purchased.

And the list of obscure items is extensive, even considering just the one cookbook in which this recipe appears, el Bulli 2003-2004.  If it's not a spaghetti attachment for the parmesan noodle, it's a spherical balloon attachment, Pacojet, Thermomix, candy floss maker, Roner, dehydrator, or a slew of other creations.  Keep in mind, however, that's only the equipment that's either difficult or expensive to source.

Mercifully, every so often the requirements, though odd, are at least easy to find.  For example, anyone hoping to make the parmesan noodle would be better served visiting a medical supply store or pharmacy than Williams-Sonoma, as the noodle attachment is but one weapon in the necessary arsenal for this dish.  Without two metre-long (that's six feet, for the metrically challenged) PVC tubes and a syringe, there wouldn't be a need for the attachment in the first place.

Unless, of course, there's no need for the attachment at all. Equipment can sometimes be replaced by adapting more conventional appliances to the task at hand.  No Thermomix?  No problem (most of the time, at least).  For some tasks, a blender or food processor will do the job.  Likewise, I substituted simple cheese cloth for a Superbag -- a heat resistant, reusable mesh bag filter made from inert material that functions as the ultimate chinoise -- while making the parmesan noodle.

A solution to the spaghetti attachment had eluded me, however.  Then I found JoCooking, the fascinating blog of a Portuguese woman with a wealth of molecular gastronomy experience and knowledge.  While browsing her photo album, I stumbled upon these three noodle photos.  She had clearly solved the problem.

The solution is so simple I wanted to kick myself when I heard it: instead of using the spaghetti attachment to extrude the noodle from the PVC tube, she uses the syringe itself.  Pumping the syringe requires a little elbow grease -- one noodle glided out of the PVC tube with minimal pumping, the other took so long the friction was making the syringe hot to the touch -- but it gets the job done.

Technical requirements aside, this is actually a very easy dish to make.  It's just parmesan whey set using a little agar.  The whey is extracted by mixing grated parmesan with boiling water, then passing the mixture through a Superbag or, as mentioned, cheese cloth.

To serve, the noodle is dressed with lemon zest, balsamic vinegar, and black pepper.  On its own, the parmesan flavour is overpowering -- and I love parmesan, "the undisputed king of cheese" -- but the combination of flavours is wonderful. The burn of pepper, and the bite of lemon mixed with the acid-sweetness of balsamic balance the powerful salty notes of a spaghetto that is, essentially, distilled parmesan.

There is a flicker of hope for those of us trapped in the equipment conundrum.  When I first started experimenting with spheres, I had trouble sourcing the sodium alginate and calcium chloride I needed. Now, less than eighteen months later, those and other ingredients are readily available through a variety of online retailers.  I sense -- and I certainly hope -- that a revolution in equipment is underway, too.  Last month, Harold McGee revealed that he, Michael Ruhlman, and Thomas Keller are working on a sous vide cookbook to be published when PolyScience releases the first immersion heater designed specifically for home use.  And, just today, while researching this post, I found an online store selling Superbags.  Finally, a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Caramellow: el Bulli's cream and white coffee caramels

Who among us doesn't fondly recall the sheer joy of a trip to the local convenience store as a child?  Maybe your parents had just handed you a dollar, or maybe you'd found some spare change lying on the sidewalk.  If you were like me, you instantly converted whatever newfound pittance was burning a hole in your pocket into a small brown paper bag of your favourite treats: chips, chocolate bars, Freezies, maybe even licorice.

Forget change, I wanted to leave that store broke.  And that's where penny candy came in handy.  What good is three cents, especially when there are gummi bears, Swedish Berries, and, my personal favourite, Kraft Caramels to be had for just a penny apiece?

My childhood love affair with Kraft Caramels -- light only, thank you very much -- was intense.  This was candy that knew how to entice: the transparent wrapper is genius, the junk food equivalent of a beautiful woman wearing an outfit that reveals just a hint of décolletage.  Giddy with anticipation, I'd remove the wrapper, pop the candy in my mouth, and resist the urge to chew.  Some pleasures must be savoured slowly to be appreciated properly.  Then I'd wait for those sweet, creamy, and vanilla notes to wash over my palate.  With uncharacteristic discipline, I would occasionally consume an entire caramel without so much as a single bite -- the square of caramel would just dissolve away into nothing.  Ordinarily, however, I would abandon self control and rip into the candy with my teeth.

What's black and white and read all over? el Bulli's cantaloupe caviar (and me!)

What can I say?  Word gets around.

First, Toronto Life asks me to do some writing for them.  I say sure.  Then, out of the blue, I get a request to participate in a Globe and Mail article by Beppi Crosariol on molecular gastronomy for the home cook after being referred by Clement of A La Cuisine.  It's all pretty damn cool, and I just can't refuse.

I even prepared some refreshing cantaloupe caviar to be photographed for the piece.  Seeing as I spend most of my mornings in a daze, I was oblivious to the fact that the article was in yesterday's paper until Rachel emailed me.   A quick sprint to the newsstand revealed that a photo of my cantaloupe caviar even made the front page of Canada's newspaper of record, right above the banner.  Sweet!

Welcome to those of you visiting for the first time after reading the Globe article.  If you'd like more information about molecular gastronomy in general, click here, and for a quick tour of my molecular gastronomy pantry check out this post.  I also encourage you to explore frozen chocolate air, Nutella powder, and the the dish that kick-started my interest in molecular gastronomy, white chocolate and caviar.  For a whiff of controversy, nothing beats el Bulli's deep fried rabbit ears.  If you'd like to experiment with molecular gastronomy at home and are looking for an easy to prepare, delicious, familiar flavour, look no further than Moto's donut soup.  For those whose interests veer towards liquid spheres (aka liquid ravioli), we've written about liquid pea ravioli, mango ravioli with coconut cream and ground rice, or you can just keep on reading this post about melon caviar.  We also write extensively about cooking and dining in Toronto, as well as a host of other food-related topics.  Molecular gastronomy is much, but not all of what we do.

These melon caviar are my third kick at the spherification can, so I'm beginning to feel like something of an old pro by now.  Even so, the caviar are, in many ways, easier to make than full-sized spheres, which have a nasty tendency to burst during the "cooking" process.  If anything, caviar are subject to the opposite problem: they need so little time in the calcium chloride solution that they sometimes completely solidify.

Dying to make them?  The melon caviar recipe is available here.  To make cantaloupe juice, simply dice a cantaloupe, drop it in your blender, and liquefy.  It's all very straightforward from there.  By the way, the photo of me hunched over that tiny bowl in the Globe article is partially for show.  Yes, I made perfectly good caviar that way, but it is easier -- assuming you're not making them as part of a photo shoot -- to use a bigger vessel.  Also, if playing with two syringes is not your cup of tea, there are devices made specifically for mass producing these caviar.  There's even an el Bulli demonstration video that comes with a recipe for apple caviar.

The final dish is garnished with passion fruit seeds and a sprig of mint.  Visually, these delicate pearls are stunning -- a light, vaguely translucent shade of coral (click here to view the el Bulli catalogue photo).  The taste is straightforward melon and, when "cooked" properly, that taste explodes onto the palate as each caviar bursts in the mouth.  Rachel and I had some leftover prosciutto, so we tried a molecular gastronomy version of an Italian staple, melon and prosciutto.  The combination loses nothing in translation, as long as the melon is sweet enough to contrast the ham's saltiness, though this is an issue with this dish whatever the preparation.

My plan to conquer all media is unfolding nicely.  Internet.  Check.  Magazines.  Check.  Newspapers.  Check.  I believe television is next. Food Network, make me an offer, and it better not involve Unwrapped.

Drool Britannia, Part II: fish and quips

After listening to a Frenchman talk about the superiority of French cuisine, the Englishman responds by saying, "Yes, but what about your dreadful lavatories?"  To which the Frenchman replies, "Alors, in France one eats well, in England one shits well, it's all a question of priorities."
- Leon Rappoport, How We Eat: Appetite, Culture, and the Psychology of Food

One of my favourite sidetrips whenever I travel abroad is a visit to the grocery store.  Yes, proper markets -- La Boqueria in Barcelona springs immediately to mind -- dazzle, but to really feel the culinary pulse of a culture in the modern age, there's no substitute for a Megamart.  A dozen rows of shelves packed with a society's culinary inventory is a cultural anthropology primer from heaven.  These stores are designed, after all, to cater to popular taste quickly and conveniently.

That's why Rachel and I happily accompanied our friends Katy and Steve on a grocery shopping expedition during our visit to London six years ago.  Once I got over the sticker shock, I started surveying the food.  I was unable to resist two items novel to me: Marmite, as English as a stiff upper lip; and frozen pizzas topped with baked beans, which Steve labeled "British fusion cuisine."

Marmite was a disaster.  Having never tasted it, I treated it like peanut butter and smeared it thickly over my toast.  That was a mistake.  "Who spreads this shit on their toast every day?" I ranted after disgorging the offending toast and leaping to the sink to vigorously wash out my mouth.  "It tastes like cheap instant beef bouillon cubes."  And it does.  Yet it remains remarkably popular in some quarters.  Aussies even have their own equally loved and loathed equivalent, Vegemite.  This leads me to believe that Australia's sizable republican movement is actually a covert anti-yeast spread crusade motivated by broad-based resentment over the devastating colonial inheritance that is Vegemite worship.

We shall not dwell upon baked bean pizza.

English food is not without its triumphs, however.  Last year, for example, I made stupendous sticky toffee pudding (and sticky toffee pudding ice cream) for the St. George's Day event.  When I learned that Sam from Becks & Posh planned to hold a Fish & Quips event this year to prove that English food is no laughing matter, I began searching for another classic English dish.

Inspiration came in two forms.  The first is a memory of our aforementioned trip to London.  Rachel and I wanted to visit a proper "chippy," so Katy and Steve took us to their local haunt, the Sea Shell, rated among the best fish and chips shops in London.  Our haddock and chips were superb.  The haddock was lightly battered and served with its skin still attached.  The net effect was fish that tasted like fish, not deep fried batter.

When I read Harold McGee's article about Heston Blumenthal's efforts to fry a better fish, I finally had the means and the method to celebrate one of England's most laudable contributions to cuisine, and I mean that seriously.  It also gave me a chance to see whether Blumenthal's not-so-secret ingredient really resulted in a crust that lived up to its light and crunchy billing.

The key ingredient is alcohol, lots and lots of it.  Yes, there's beer, but that's not nearly enough.  In addition to approximately three hundred millilitres of lager, Blumenthal adds a further three hundred millilitres of vodka.  That's more than ten shots of hard liquor, in case you're wondering.  Alcohol's chief advantage over water is that it evaporates faster, which means it's ready sooner, so the star of the dish, the fish, isn't overcooked.  But it doesn't stop there.  Water is better than alcohol at developing glutens in flour, therefore substituting alcohol results in a lighter batter that stays crispier longer.  After thirty minutes, for example, our fish was still almost as crispy as when it emerged from the oil.

There are two ways to make this dish.  Since we don't own a soda siphon, I used Harold McGee's adapted recipe from the New York Times (click here to read a copy of the article and view the recipe), rather than Heston Blumenthal's original recipe.  For those familiar with beer batters, the logic for carbonation should be clear: bubbles mean a lighter batter.  Carbonating the batter just takes this idea to its logical conclusion.

The fish was almost an unqualified success.  Our eyes lit up after our first bite.  The batter came as advertised, a feather-light and shatteringly crisp crust enrobing the tender white flesh of lemon sole.  At first blush, I was thinking it was the finest fried fish I'd ever tasted.  Rachel felt similarly.  My only problem -- and the problem really is mine -- is that the batter covering the thickest parts of the fish, though crispy, tasted powerfully of vodka.  Mea culpa, I'm sure, since that likely indicates I didn't cook the fish long enough.  Of course, if you'd like to blame one of the finest chefs in the world instead of me, please do.

Fried fish just will not do by itself, of course.  Fish and chips is the de facto standard around the globe.  We didn't include them here, but we'll be featuring chips soon in their own post.  As odd as this may sound, we're waiting for a special ingredient.  Besides, french fries deserve their own post, and the accompaniments we made, mushy peas and tartare sauce, deserve a little respect.

I've always had an issue with mushy peas.  Why anyone would take a perfectly good vegetable and turn it into pablum, I don't know, though I suppose I'm in no position to criticize, since my culinary repertoire includes turning perfectly good peas into liquid ravioli.  My tastes are changing slowly, however, and I've now begun to recognize some of its charm.  Mushy peas are excellent comfort food -- Rachel fondly remembers eating creamed peas on toast as a child -- and the soft texture also provides a foil for the crunch of a well fried piece of fish.  English mushy peas are traditionally made with marrowfat peas, and are related to the pease porridge of nursery rhyme fame, but Blumenthal offers a fairly sophisticated version using frozen garden peas and mint.  The herb punctuates the fresh flavour of the peas, which somehow makes you forget the large amount of butter that makes it such a luscious accompaniment.

Likewise, Blumenthal's tartare sauce has a freshness to it that outclasses any of its peers.  Capers give it salt and acidity, as do cornichons, which also complement the herbal punch of tarragon, chive, and parsley.   A bit of whipping cream and a hard boiled egg round out and extend the flavours.  Zesty and creamy, this tartare sauce combines with the peas to counterpoint the delicately crisp fish without being cloying.  Recipes for all the elements of this dish are available here.

England once forged a reputation based on its mastery of the sea, not seafood.  Today, England is forging a new reputation, this time for superlative cuisine.  Chefs like Heston Blumenthal, at The Fat Duck, and Fergus Henderson, at St. John, are doing this by enhancing, not rejecting, traditional English dishes like fish and chips. England, it seems, is now making food a priority over lavatories.  Even the unspeakable baked bean pizzas seem to have disappeared thanks to market apathy.  Challenges remain, however, though I'm sure Marmite will one day be a distant memory, too. 

Purée-fication: crab cakes with popcorn purée

I hate secrets, especially food secrets.

What is Coca Cola's secret formula?  Why does Heinz ketchup taste so much better than any competing brand?  What is the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices?  And how the hell do you make Moto's popcorn purée?

My answers are: marketing; wish I knew but think this article is perhaps the most interesting analysis I've ever read about ketchup or any other topic; not sure, but I think it includes MSG; and someone please tell me because that sauce is addictive.

Yes, ever since our meal at Moto I've been unable to get popcorn puree out of my mind.  Every so often I drift off into a reverie, pondering how to reproduce that sauce -- the toasted background flavour, and those powerful salty and buttery notes.  It's movie theatre popcorn ambrosia.  My one and only taste was a tiny golden pool in a dish of snow crab with a passion fruit noodle, which is not a lot to go on.  I was so taken, I even asked our server how to make it.  Her reply was simplicity itself: "popcorn, milk, and a lot of butter."

Ear-resistible: el Bulli's deep fried rabbit ears with aromatic herbs

It's hard to keep your eyes off two bloody ears joined by a strip of fur, trust me.  I suppose the instinct that compels us to stare at a bag of bunny scalps is the same force that makes us slow down for a glimpse of a traffic accident or any potentially grisly scene: morbid curiosity.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I felt troubled the first time I saw them. There's something about rabbit ears.  Most of us have managed to distance ourselves from the brutality behind our meals. We're so inured to the sight of a steak or a chicken breast, that we've become disconnected from the fact that an animal had to be killed and butchered to produce them.  But rabbit ears go beyond even that.

The problem is cuteness.  A cow is not always cute.  A crimson slab of meat certainly isn't.  But a pair of bunny ears is an altogether different story. Not only are rabbits cute, their ears are an essential part of their cuteness, perhaps even its essence.  Looking at steak calls to mind images of summer barbecues; looking at big, floppy rabbit ears conjures up happy childhood memories of Bugs Bunny or the Easter Bunny.

By turning adorable into dinner -- or at least a surprisingly delicious snack -- el Bulli's deep fried rabbit ears with aromatic herbs (click here to see the el Bulli catalogue photo), from the el Bulli 2003-2004 cookbook, challenge our assumptions about food.  Eating game, and doing so respectfully by being frugal and eating as much of an animal as possible, is a deeply rooted tradition in most parts of the world.  Spain is no exception, and Rachel and I vividly remember the arresting sights of the butcher stalls specializing in offal and game meats in Barcelona's La Boqueria market.

Ravioli without borders, Part II: Liquid mango ravioli with coconut foam and toasted rice

Inspiration is everywhere in Toronto.  The dish that inspired these mango spheres with coconut foam and toasted rice powder is a dessert Rachel and I have eaten countless times, Salad King's mango sticky rice.

Salad King is one of Toronto's most popular Thai restaurants.  Nestled just off Yonge Street, it's a popular hangout for student and office worker alike, who fill every last seat around Salad King's gleaming stainless steel cafeteria tables to devour some of the best cheap eats in town.  I'm partial to the panang curry and Thai basil noodles; Rachel reserves a special spot in her heart and stomach for green curry.

For years, we've finished our Salad King meals with our favourite dessert, mango sticky rice.  It's a charmingly simple, almost rustic dish: just some savoury steamed rice, sweetened coconut cream, and ripe mango, a perfect send-off before the brisk trip home on a cool night.

After eating this dish for the umpteenth time, I began to toy with the idea of deconstructing it.  It's not as easy as it sounds.  There are only so many ways to reconfigure rice, coconut milk, and mango.  As my interest in molecular gastronomy blossomed, my exposure to ever more ingenious ways to deconstruct flavours and dishes made reinterpreting the coconut and mango elements a less daunting task.  For the coconut I turned to my trusty iSi cream whipper, having already made a decadent coconut espuma for el Bulli's piña colada, although I adapted a different foam, which includes heavy cream, from El Bulli: 1998-2002 for this dish.

Nachismo: el Bulli's Doritos croquant polvoron

Some members of the fooderati look down their noses at Doritos and other junk food, but let's be honest here: Doritos rule!  Salty, cheesy, and mildly spicy, they are flat out addictive. There are times (and perhaps it's best I not elaborate on what times I'm talking about), when the craving for a Dorito is so strong I swear I can hear the siren song of a large bag of Sweet Chili Heat beckoning me to crash on its crunchy shores.

So you've got to love the cojones (by the way, how do you say "balls" in Catalan?) of Ferran Adria for even thinking he can improve on the humble Dorito.  Adria's solution: polvorones.  What's a polvoron?  It's a Filipino dessert made by mixing toasted flour with melted butter, powdered milk (or baby formula, apparently), and a little lemon or vanilla extract, then molding the mixture into bite-size cakes using a polvoron stamper.  For an overview of the process, click here.  For a recipe, click here.

Nutella, not just for the bedroom anymore, Part III: Nutella powder

Looking for a truly novel way to serve Nutella?  Tired of smearing it on a slice of bread, baking it in a cake, or swirling it in ice cream?  Well have I got a solution for you.  Sprinkle it.

Crazy, I know, but thanks to the alchemy of molecular gastronomy anyone can take a blob of Nutella and turn it into the powder you see here.  A powder so fine and dry you can grab a handful and watch it tumble through your fingers like sand from a tropical beach.  Eat it, however, and it quickly turns back into a paste that sticks to the roof of your mouth.

SHF #27: the el Bulli sampler

There's nothing like entering a quality chocolate shop.  Whoosh!  Open the door and, without even having to cross the threshold, an alluring panoply of scents reaches out to envelop you.  I always focus on that moment, inhaling every roasted, spicy, and sweet note I can before the sheer volume of sensation leaves me numb.

Cacao Sampaka is like that.  A short walk from the Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona, Cacao Sampaka is the brainchild of Albert Adria, Ferran's brother and the pastry chef at el Bulli.  Minimally decorated in shades that echo its product, Cacao Sampaka shows off its wares in display cases that call to mind a visit to Tiffany's or the Museum of Natural History rather than a chocolate shop.

Blog math: Susur's spice meringue cod + Moto = Froot Loops crème brûlée

Actually, the full formula is: 2/3 Susur's spice meringue black cod + Moto = Froot Loops crème brûlée + 2 * Caesar salad.

What the hell am I babbling about, and where do I get the balls to link two chefs as accomplished as Susur Lee and Homaro Cantu with candy masquerading as kids' cereal?

In a recent post, I described the marinated black cod baked in spice salt meringue recipe Rachel and I prepared from Susur: A Culinary Life.  The recipe calls for baking the cod in a meringue dome made from two and a half cups of egg whites.  That's a lot of egg whites -- I stopped after collecting one and three quarter cups of egg white from a dozen eggs.  That's when I had to figure out what to do with all those yolks.

I'm a man buffeted by fixations great and small, most of which involve my appetite.  After writing a post about our meal at one of Chicago's temples to molecular gastronomy, Moto, I often found myself mentally revisiting Cantu's dish of jalapeno, avocado, and lemon myrtle.  What did I love so much about this combination?  Why, its "inescapable essence of Froot Loops," of course.  (Now there's a sentence you don't read often, let alone as a quote.)  I wanted, nay, had, to experiment with that flavour.

SHF #26: El Bulli's frozen chocolate air

It's here!  It's finally here!

After countless delays, El Bulli 2003-2004, the latest English language cookbook from the Catalan masters of molecular gastronomy is finally available in North America.  And what a marvel it is.  Ferran Adria and his acolytes continue to push the boundaries of food, adapting new techniques to new flavours.  This edition is notable for the advent of liquid nitrogen, liquid ravioli, dehydration, and the star ingredient in frozen chocolate air, soy lecithin.

If you're wondering what soy lecithin is, you're not alone.  Lecithin, regardless of its origin, is a powerful emulsifier.  If you love the rich texture of salad dressing, mayonnaise, or even Nutella, you owe a debt of gratitude to lecithin, the magic ingredient that stabilizes and thickens them.

What's my Moto-vation? Oh right, I'm a glutton!

Imagine a regular high school, with all the typical roles and stereotypes, but populated by established chefs:  Brulee Hills 90210.  In that school, I'd bet someone like Bobby Flay would be the arrogant jock, Tyler Florence would be the good looking but dim guy all the girls swoon over, and Ina Garten would be the “good time girl,” with a giggle and a flask of something potent at the ready.  Score!

What about Homaro Cantu, then, the technology-obsessed chef behind Moto?  Well, he'd be the president of the chess club and, let's be honest, the biggest nerd in school.  Half his peers would pick on him, slapping him on the head and yelling, "Think, Cantu, think," before tossing him in his locker.  The other half, meanwhile, would respect him, perhaps even envy him a little.  No one would understand him, however.

This would make poor Homaro very unhappy.

I can't help but thinking that, marginalized by many, poor Homaro -- and I'm talking about the real chef Cantu now -- overcompensates for his nerdiness by being the biggest, baddest nerd he can be.  And why not?  Sure, some of the kids will ridicule everything you do, but the sympathetic half will become ever more supportive with each new step down the path to uber-geekdom.

In the kitchen, where it really matters, this makes Homaro Cantu a molecular gastronomy chef who thinks too much about the "molecular," and not enough about the "gastronomy."

I say this confidently, especially after our magnificent experience at Alinea.  Grant Achatz uses food science judiciously.  Most of his dishes are about the food; the science is there if you look for it, but it's subtle.  Flavour predominates; the food comes first.

Homaro Cantu is also an abundantly talented chef, but his dishes often seem like they're not about the food.  The best molecular gastronomy chefs (Adria, Blumenthal, and Achatz, for example) are able to stop developing a dish when it looks and tastes its best.  As he matures, I'm sure Cantu will begin to approach his own creations with the same finesse.  I just don't think he's there yet.

I went to Alinea and all I got were these crappy photos (and an unbelievable meal)!