Well My time is coming to an end here in the Casino de Madrid. It is my last day today as I have many exciting challenges I need to be sinking my teeth into and now I have the time to focus 110% on there progression.
I will be staying in Madrid for the coming months as I need to build my consultancy and production company until it functions by itself with a minimum of maintenance.
I am sure you all know who is Dani Garcia! Just in Case you don’t know (http://www.restaurantecalima.com/) Definitely worth checking out!
He is a Friend and a very good Chef here in Spain! He is definitely one of the top creative Chefs specializing in Progressive cuisine and one of the guys evolving the cuisine as we know it on a daily basis.
This week he was in Madrid for a marketing exercise for the region of Andalucia cooking a special media breakfast. While he was here he did a filming with Telemadrid in the Lab.
As always it is great to see Dani here in Madrid and we hope to see him back soon!
While passing through the restaurant kitchen I noticed how wonderful the smell was coming from the Bulls tail which was cooking in the pressure cooker. This smell was the steam coming from the blow off valve in the top of the pot, or another way of looking at it is these are the Volatile molecules escaping without being utilized……………
About 6 months ago Paco handed me a catalogue from Míele and asked me to choose whatever I wanted for a new Lab which Míele (http://www.miele.es/es/electrodomesticos/productos/gama_de_coccion.htm) would be sponsoring. Every Chef dreams of a new Kitchen, so obviously I was thrilled. I made a new design as well and basically tried to squeeze in every practical machine possible. Keeping in mind we have a reasonably compact space the priority was also to make sufficient work space as the last kitchen was short. The island bench in the middle is amazing as 1st it houses all of my personal small tools and knives and second it is a bench which is a pleasure to work on.
So to “Cut a short story Long”, I now have some equipment which is designed for top of the range home kitchens but to tell you the truth the features beat most machines in professional kitchens. I now have: Pressure steamer (capable of 120 degree steam), Oven with Steam (steams from 1 degree to 100 degrees, plus an oven), Microwave (normal), Oven (Steam injection feature, Wireless temperature probe, 300 programmableprograms), Plate warmer (which also has a food warming function), Induction (with a very powerful 2 stage booster function), Wok induction, HUGE Fridge/Freezer (with LED lights in every shelf), Mobile Tepan plancha, etc, etc!
Who could be anything but be inspired in a kitchen like this? Thanks Míele!
In what other job in the world can you spend the day testing Haribo mixed gummies and not get into trouble?? I often take my job for granted and still complain about the small things (which is human nature I guess) but I really do stop and think sometimes how good I have it. Let me list a few benefits of my job; No services (which is both positive and negative), I can take a break from managing large brigades of Chefs (in my other previous restaurants in 4 other countries) and think for 1 person, NO WAITERS OR HOTEL POLITICS!, everything is about the food and how to understand it better, Etc.
So today I spent the whole day on Haribos, although I did not finish anything to use them in, I did discover some very interesting techniques in Crystallization, wrapping, stabilizing and my favorite “Gummy bear candy floss”. Plenty more work to be done on this topic, but enough for today as my teeth hurt!
Last week I went to Copenhagen to speak with Dr Peter Barham, world renowned Food Scientist and contributor to the development of cuisine in the Fat Duck. Peter Barham is 1 of 3 food scientists in the world majorly responsible for bringing “Molecular Gastronomy” (or as we like to call it these days “Progressive cuisine”) into the main stream, the other 2 are Harold McGee and Hervè This. Dr Peter Barham is a professor in Bristol university but also has many other projects and postings around the world, We met in Copenhagen as he is Honorary Professor in Copenhagen University. The talks with Dr Barham were truly thought provoking and we look forward to working with him in the future. During my time in the university I met with the rest of the team who are working exclusively in Molecular Gastronomy, but in many different projects and areas of Gastronomy. A machine I have not come across until this trip was a pressure chamber used for sterilizing meats, the way it works is you put a food item (they are still testing as to which items go well) into a vacuum bag and place it into the chamber with water, when you start the machine it hydraulically applies pressure (equal to the pressure 80 000m under the sea), for a period of about 15 minutes. This technique basically destroys the bacteria while leaving the food item relatively unchanged (except in a few cases where the molecules break and change the color or texture), this will make food safe as it kills all bacteria (inc. Salmonella) but the only thing is it won’t kill spores so when re-exposed to oxygen you still need to use caution as spores can hatch. Until this day I also did not really know too much about the study of “Sensory Science” and after a brief description from a sensory science professor my brain is racing with possibilities, once again I hope this is the start of an interesting relationship that benefits both sides. A Big thanks Primarily to Dr Peter Barham and also the team in Copenhagen University Faculty of Life Sciences as they took so much time out to explain there work.
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!
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:
Last week we achieved many things, above is just a few pictures of the better techniques and/or Dishes we finished. The Kangamon: was easily transformed into a Bocadillo (Spanish sandwich). Salmon Miso: marinated for 2 days then cooked at 36.5 degrees, Garnished with Furikaki spice mix (from Vik Cherikoff) and not shown in the picture is an amazing Horseradish and roasted lemon sorbet! Prawn Thermidor: Beautiful fresh Prawns from the south of Spain which have been fused together and contain a liquid sauce Thermidor. The last one is Roasted pineapple sashimi: Pan roasted with muscovado sugar caramel, Kaffir lime, Ginger, Lemongrass and Chili. The powder is a spicy caramel which is only hot in the back of your throat after about 5 seconds and goes as fast as it comes due to the addition of Dextrose. Not a bad week!