In one of my shortest ever times I have finished a technique and completed a dish! I have been thinking about this particular technique for a long time but never really attempted it until it made total sense in my head. Yesterday as you can read in the previous post I started testing an emulsion of foie gras and bitter chocolate then making it into an “Aero” Bar. Well today after many temperature range tests I succeeded in making a chocolate which was so light with a totally uniform bubble structure and rich from the foie gras. The difficult part was getting the Chocolate to crystallize at a high enough temperature so it is stable at room temperature and so it keeps the characteristic shine of good bitter chocolate. In this test I found that just 1 or 2 degrees made so much of a difference. The whole process to make this is only 10 minutes!

It’s not often a Chef will say he’s satisfied with something, but in this case, I’m Happy!

Today I finally solved the problem of a presentation of the dish I labelled Choco-gras (which is 1 of the pictures above, it is basically a spread which contains 1 part of seasoned Foie Gras fat and 1 part of bitter chocolate, on top of this paste I put freeze dried fruits, olive oil, grated Foie gras fat into liquid nitrogen, sea salt and pepper) while at the same time creating a new technique. It is an exceptional tasting dish but the only problems are; it is very temperature dependent with a huge difference between just a few degrees and you have to scrape your spoon across the plate and some people don’t like this. There is no such thing as a finished dish, for the entire life of a dish it will go through a series of changes to improve it and/or make it more functional.

Today I had my first tests on making the “Choco-Gras Aero Cube”, well surprisingly enough a very satisfactory result for the first test! As you can see from the very rough pictures, it is a first test! In the coming days the technique will be refined and hopefully finished by the end of the week. From the first test the results are a chocolate which is filled with air, Stable at room temperature and melts away to nothing in your mouth.

This is not a new concept as it has been done by Nestlé which makes the “Aero” bar for a long time. Next was Heston Blumenthal to adapt it to restaurants. My new technique takes a fraction of the time of anything before it and is totally stable with fat which is not normally stable at room temperature.

You thought I was going to tell you how to make it didn’t you

The idea that the right side of your brain is Creative and the left side is Logic is not a new theory, I think we can agree on that! As far as I know this is something that is pre-determined when we are born and there is not really much we can do about it. This is why not everyone can be a Chef, Doctor, Accountant, Artist, Etc.

This is an extension of what I have preaching in this site so many times…………. The Chefs who make menus from cook books are using the Logic side of the brain, when the actual true spirit of cooking comes from the Emotional side and then is completed by the logic side through problem solving. People pay to come to your restaurants to see what you can do, not to see what you have read and copied.

Cooking must be a fine balance of the 2 sides as so many times you can get carried away with wonderful ideas (such as levitating food charged with Helium which I actually researched and approached gas cartridge companies about a few years ago), sometimes your logical side brings your ideas into a reality and stops you getting a little too carried away. Which side are you using?

How boring would life be without Dreams and Desires?

One cuisine style I have not really ever spoken of here is the concept of “Recreation Cuisine”. What do I define as Recreation cuisine? Its basically an item which is either natural or man made that already exists but not in the world of food. So basically it can be a form of Symbolism or even Figurative Avant garde depending on which way you look at it?

A couple of weeks ago I sat with the Restaurant pastry Chef and we started throwing around a few ideas for the upcoming new menu. The idea that struck me the most was the idea of recreating a Vanilla flower (which is not edible) into the subject of a new plate. The main flavours that compliment vanilla and which came to mind instantly were: Licorice, Lime, Tarragon, honey and saffron. For the Stem we chose a lime curd (which is quite acidic) and froze the form in Liquid nitrogen, then to keep it shinning and uniform on the plate it is dipped in a Lime zest carrageenan gel which instantly sets. The flower petals are made from a Greek yogurt and vanilla crystal, which is highlighted with stripes of saffron to replicate the yellow markings of the flower. The cone in the middle is a frozen espuma ice cream which is Licorice and Japanese yuzu lime. To contrast the very light and airy ice cream we put a crystallized honey powder on the ice cream which crunches in between your teeth. Last but not least is a little frozen Coconut ice cream powder to make the whole dish appear more powerful. This is just the first plating, the final will be obviously much more clean.

For a product which is used so widely in most kitchens of the world, how many Chefs actually know what the vanilla flower looks like?

About 2 years ago when I was Chef de Cuisine of Al Mahara in Burj Al Arab I created a dish with a flavour profile that I love. When I was travelling through Greece I was eating Courgette flowers by the plateful, from this point I was addicted! The best way to eat them is fried in Olive oil and served with some good anchovies and kalamata olives. So I tried to combine all of these things in a way that it would be suitable in a top end restaurant. I discovered a technique where I could fill the flower with an anchovy foam and fry it, when you cut into the flower it basically spills a warm and flowing liquid filled with bubbles. The tempura used is from a siphon which leaves a very thin and translucent, crispy coating. I made a black kalamata olive oil which catches the foam and mixes nicely. It’s still one of my favorite tasting dishes!

Curiosity, They say it killed the cat, but to be honest it saved the Chef so it was a worthy sacrifice!

Creative cuisine is made up of about 50% Curiosity, 30% problem solving and only about 20% skill. Your probably thinking “so if it’s only 20% skill why can’t we all open a restaurant and become the best in the world?”. it’s very simple: Curiosity and an open mind! Even in this day and age where we like to think we are all open minded and modern people, there are still countless amounts of people who face challenges when doing something new. The barriers I have spoken of before but the main ones are as follows: Cultural, Religious, Tradition, Societal, Etc. Having lived in 5 countries I am very aware that these barriers take a long time to come down, but if you keep in mind these are only mental barriers than the whole process is faster. When I move to a new country I must keep in mind that what I have been doing will need to be adjusted to the local taste, this generally takes about 6 months of fine tuning .

Now back to the topic, CURIOSITY! Creative cuisine means to “Create”, which sounds obvious…………….. But to some it is not, creation does not mean opening a book and replicating nor does it mean eating in a restaurant and copying, this is called interpretation. Creative cuisine needs to start from a thought, this is called the “What”. The thought will come to every Chef differently, I have heard some very strange places where inspiration will come to Chefs (some I can’t even mention here), but for me it will come when I am inspired by a food product almost as soon as I look at it or taste it in it’s raw form. I sometimes get images of food in the last moments of my sleep just before I wake up which I write down (but these generally do not work). You can imagine the possibilities are endless, for all the techniques which have been discovered in Classic cuisine and in Creative, plus all the techniques which you have been creating and also thinking about, you then need to narrow it down to what will suit this product the best. Once you have come up with the idea in your mind then you need to get to work on the problem solving. This covers everything from the sourcing of the products, handling of the products, what will accompany it, how will you prepare it, how will you store it, what is the best temperature, which plate to serve it on, Etc, Etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg! I spend a lot of time trying to convince Chefs to open up there mind to the possibility of Creating and expressing them self through food, the feeling you get when you perfect a new dish is something you cannot get from taking someone else’s dish and calling it your own.

Why did I write such a story? 2 Days ago I was washing some cabbage leaves and I was mesmerized by the water beading on the leaf as it looked like jewels dancing around (a little romantic I know). The beads of water were repelled so much by the leaf that they were perfect round balls and moved at lightning speed. So I started thinking if I could utilize this in perhaps a soup bowl, this way when the waiter pours the soup it will move naturally in the bowl plus the sides will remain clean when the soup is finished. So up until this point I still did not know why the water did this, so I contacted Peter Barham who is a Professor of Physics  (and one of the creators of the Molecular Gastronomy concept) whom I know. He explained that the leaf and water have 2 different energies and basically repel each other, plus we have now discussed different ways to replicate this in a soup.

I guess what I am trying to say, pay attention to the little things that are naturally occuring in food. One of my Chefs once said to me “Good cooking is small points done to perfection”, How true this is!

One of the most common misconceptions about food is that “the more expensive it is, the better it is”. In some regions of the world this is more evident with social status being given to people who eat in certain restaurants and also how much they spend when they are their. In the middle east it is a common tradition when entertaining business contacts or someone worthy of impressing to order far more than you can possibly eat, ordering the wine according to the overinflated price tag and then leaving enough food on the table to feed a family. This is power when you can show abundance. Working as a Chef in the region can be a little frustrating to see your hard work go into the bin, but this comes with being the “Foreigner”.

But in saying this price is never an indication on how good food is, it’s all down to the Chef. Take for example a dish made from carrots and basic ingredients and it can over shadow a dish made with Foie gras and Truffle depending on the skill of the Chef and the thought they have put in.

The reason I gave this fancy lead up to a story about sardines is I think it is important to understand that you cannot judge an item purely on the price tag. Sardines must be one of the cheapest fish in every country, but in my opinion they are generally one of the best as they have such a unique powerful flavour plus they are so good for you. Since a trip to Greece many years ago I have been in love with this under rated little fish. The trick was that it was so fresh that it was almost still moving, the Chef simply fried it and served it with a salad. The flavour is still in my memory today!

When handling sardines it is important to understand they are fragile, you need to be very careful and use a razor sharp knife when preparing. To remove the scales simply use your finger and rub them off under running cold water, this way you preserve the best part of the sardine…… The brilliant blue skin. Carefully remove the 2 fillets without piercing the stomach (the taste from the stomach is nice when BBQing but too rough for pan frying), next carefully remove the bones with Tweezers. Make a mix of 1 part Salt and 1 part Sugar, totally cover the flesh and leave to marinate for 1 hour, rinse in Cold water. That’s it, you have something that cost you next to nothing and you will be surprised at how surprised people are at the flavor, the cooking and serving is up to you.

We are then sticking them back together using Transglutaminase and serving the whole fish without bones, this goes in a deconstruction of “Sardines on Toast”, compleate with Texturized Ketchup and a japanese Mayonaise (plus all the trimmings)

Off you go to the market and give these little guys another go!

2 Years ago I created a dish I call Octopop, since then it has been through many transformations. The original Octopop (as pictured above) was the same cooking process before (sous vide and cooked 12 hours) but the flavour of the Gel was Orange and Saffron, which was skewered with Dill flower stalks to give a perfume and also to give some natural movement when placed on the table. The original dish was eventually transformed into an edible floral table garnish. Now in Spain we are doing it in the style of Pulpo a la Gallega (potato, paprika and olive oil). I have been eating in many very traditional restaurants and I have discovered that the Spanish people fight over the very tips of the legs as they say these are the best. With this in mind I gathered all the tips which are normally cut from the terrine and fused them together in there own “Octotips” Terrine.

Today I conducted the second round of tests on the famous miracle berries that I received from Africa (for anyone who did not read it, First of all shame on you second here is the link to redeem yourself http://madridlab.net/melonas/2009/01/miracle-berries/ ). The results this time were very interesting and varied as I had 12 testers who were all giving different results. Those who were normally sensitive to the taste of Sour, sensed the acid a lot more strongly than those who normally like Acidic foods. The second is; the miraculin protein only coats your tongue, which leaves your throat and top of your palette exposed. So while you do not taste sour on your tongue, you certainly feel it as you are swallowing. Another test which the restaurant pastry Chef did for me was test the effects of miracle berries on smoking, I am a non smoker so I do not understand the importance of the end of meal cigarette but it seems all smokers seem to enjoy this one. The results were pretty strange as he did not taste any of the tobacco flavor (maybe a good idea for people who date smokers;-), and for this he felt cheated. So I am left with the same thoughts I originally had, it is a very interesting product but impractical to use during a meal as its effects last too long and change too much.

The most outstanding results were:

• Tonic water
• Gin
• Bitter chocolate
• Limes
• Soy sauce
• The effects on Sugar

Today I finished the Pasta free lobster ravioli as first mentioned in the below link to a story a week ago.

http://madridlab.net/melonas/2009/02/lobster-ravioli-with-finger-lime-caviar/

The changes were minor but made the world of difference, we have tried about 10 different versions altogether. The soup is an essence of Langoustines which is very intense, the smoked eggplant filling now has diced lobster claws and some very potent unfiltered extra virgin olive oil, and some of the very special finger lime caviar just under the lobster skin to give bursts of fresh lime. Basically just a little fine tuning but a huge difference in the final result.

I have been thinking all morning of a name which better describes the concept of Nose to tail cooking which was made famous by Fergus Henderson in St Johns London (http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk/home/). The theory of using everything is not a new one, you only have to look in August Escoffier’s Le Repertoire de la Cuisine, here you will find uses for most parts of animals and it was published more than 100 years ago. So we agree it is not a new concept? So why do so many people still object to using every part we possibly can? This story is in response to a story I wrote about utilizing EVERYTHING from the Head of a baby pig, this story sparked a torrent of upset emails and comments on my blog. I love debating all aspects of food but this topic has become a very sensitive one, so I am not going to push this point too hard, but then again I am not going to ignore such an interesting form of cooking. But I do need to say, if we have taken the life of an animal to feed our appetites first this is one of the oldest concepts in mankind (a little concept of we are the top of the food chain). Second, why not use every small part instead of putting it in the bin? If I were an animal I would want people to eat every part instead of leaving any part they deemed not good enough to eat (take for example Shark fin fishing, they just cut of the fin and push the body back in).

This process of Nose to tail also applies to Vegetables and fruits, but obviously we have to rename it so I have said “Top to Bottom”, there is also another accepted term which is “Trash Cooking” but this has a negative impression when you use this is the restaurant as people are thinking of Garbage when they are eating your food. When we use any food product we need to study and fully understand every element, this way we can better know how to use it, think about Tomatoes; How many people thrown away the seeds and pulp? Well Ferran discovered a few years ago that the majority of a tomatoes flavour comes from the seeds! Now we are serving dishes with the pulp and seeds as the focus. Look at the pictures above, yesterday the restaurant kitchen was preparing spring onions and I found a box in the bin of beautiful roots that smelled so good and looked so attractive. So I decided to cook them in a vacuum bag with a little water for 12 hours at 80 degrees, this morning I opened them up and tasted one. Good but missing something……….. The flavour of fried onions! So I slightly dried them and dusted them in a little corn starch, next fried them in some olive oil to make them crisp. Well they came out amazing, Crispy and tasting like fried onions. All this needs now to become a great snack is a little potato and egg, then you will have the latest version of Tortilla Español (Spanish omelette)!

This is a very interesting topic and technique I have never written about, so here it is. The technique of making “Instant noodles” (using Methyl cellulose which is a Thermal reversible gel, see an earlier post I wrote about it) is not a new one, in fact it was started many years ago (to the best of my knowledge) by a friend of mine Wylie Dufresne in WD-50 New York. Since then it has been modified and interpreted the world over. Paul Pairet made a extremely good version of this using an Asian influence which was a Coconut instant noodle into a heavily infused Thai style broth, truly spectacular. There are 2 pictures, the first is a test I have been working on which is a new family of salads I am creating, the one in the picture in a Roquette instant noodle with Parmesan consomme. the second is Paco’s which we are serving here in the Restaurant, it is also combined with his love of Spanish olive oil. The noodle is simply made of 3 ingredients: Olive oil, Methyl cellulose and water. So being so pure it has a very clear taste of olive oil, which is obviously the goal. To make it is also very easy, just make a solution of water and 3% Methyl, to this very viscous mix emulsify the olive oil slowly as if you were making mayonnaise. 150g of the base will hold 350g of Olive oil, so you can see it is a very strong definite flavour of olive oil. This mix then gets put into a syringe (make sure no air) and then gently press it into a 90 – 100 degrees Celsius stock of your choice and within seconds you have a noodle. The beauty of this technique is: you have a noodle you can pick up with a fork but as soon you start to chew it melts away, this is because your mouth is about 36 degrees and this is below the temperature which Methyl melts.  The rest is up to you

What is Inspiration?

Oxford dictionary defines it as:

inspiration

   • noun 1 the process or quality of being inspired. 2 a person or thing that inspires. 3 a sudden clever or timely idea. 4 the process of inhalation.

Inspiration is a funny thing and also happens to be the most asked question for every Chef “Where do you get your inspiration from?” I am sure even the guy who fries the chips down in McDonald’s gets asked this same question. Chefs take inspiration from a variety of sources; Meals in restaurants, Books, Magazines, the surrounding landscapes (Michel Bras), Natural objects, Industrial products, Etc. For me the only inspiration you should get comes from within, this way you will not be influenced by the work of others and you can remain free to really develop your own style, this is an interesting point as the more restaurants around the world that I eat in I am finding more influence from many well know Chefs in 1 meal!

But when the “chips are down” and you are really struggling for inspiration cooking is a very hard profession, the only way to cook is with Love, so you need to dig deep and remember why you started cooking and the days when it was all so simple. So what do you do when your inspiration needs a bit of a tune-up? In my position now as Head Chef of the Laboratory I am trying to find new techniques and create new plates everyday, this can be a very heart breaking process as you can sometimes go more than a week without a single success! This means a lot of hours work and thinking that has simply ended up in the bin, I try not to think too much about what didn’t work and think that I am at least 1 more failure closer to success! I find every now and again I just feel like I have given too much of myself to food and I need to find the right boost to pick me back up. In these times I generally go to a market and talk with the many farmers and Providores as they are so passionate about there specific products which I find it contagious!

We create food to make people happy, it does not make sense if we are making ourselves unhappy in the process (you can taste if the Chef is happy through his food, remember Food is an Expression). Take the time sometimes to Love what you do and don’t forget to occasionally congratulate yourself when you do something outstanding. I’m off to the market this week as I need a recharge!