Modernist Cuisine

Read our reviews of volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4, and volume 5 of The Modernist Cuisine cookbook series.

The Modernist Cuisine cookbook series changed the face of culinary writing, winning many deserved awards and making a lot of money with its $600 price tag. The six volumes demanded years of research, development, testing and perfecting. There is only one place that could handle that level of research - Intellectual Ventures Lab in Bellevue, Washington.

IVL is a serious think tank for major smarties, geeks, foodies and quite a few geniuses. The Food Sciences Lab is only one part of the laboratory. Intellectual Ventures employs talented inventors who work on ways to help solve some of the world's biggest problems. From the website:

"Lots of inventions need tender loving care to become more than an idea. This Lab is part of Intellectual Ventures' efforts to support invention. We work on the very beginning stages of nurturing an idea to prove that it can work and demonstrate its potential. Some of these originated here, others came from outside inventors we work with. We have projects such as deep brain surgery tool; a system to weaken hurricanes; a super-thermos to transport vaccines; and a laser to kill mosquitoes. While most of inventions are available for license by companies who want to incorporate them into their products, many are purely humanitarian projects."

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Photo by timomcd

Fun Dip doesn't count as super tasting.

NPR recently aired a fascinating story about the physiology of taste. The segment featured an interview with Barb Stuckey, author of Taste What You're Missing: The Passionate Eater's Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good.

The book discusses the variety of tastes that we all experience. By this I do not mean salty, sweet, sour, etc. as much as I mean what we as individuals experience each time we sample a bite of food.

Depending on your particular taste-bud arrangement and anatomy, you are very likely getting something completely different out of your food than I do from mine.

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Patrise Shuttlesworth

We have been on a very modern journey over the past few weeks. We have explored food history and fundamentals in Volume 1, techniques and equipment in Volume 2, animals and plants in Volume 3, and very modern ingredients and preparations in Volume 4. We wind this series up with Volumes 5 & 6; Plated-Dish Recipes and the Kitchen Manual.

The recipes you'll find in Volume 5: Plated-Dish Recipes are quite different from those you see in most cookbooks. The point of Modernist Cuisine is to look at cooking from new angles, with a distinct interest in subjects not commonly covered in culinary books. So it stands to reason that the recipes are somewhat different. The goal is to break down recipes in such a way that the reader better understands not just the what (ingredients) and the how (methods), but also the why.

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Photo by John Suh

Eat them by the handful.

First, a quick and dirty lesson on the varieties of chocolate:

• Unsweetened chocolate is all cacao and no sugar, making it incredibly bitter. It is also known as baking chocolate and is usually found in the baking aisle of grocery stores in the forms of blocks or bars. The sugar is added separately when baking brownies or cakes.
• Bittersweet, extra dark, semi-sweet, and dark chocolate, at least in the U.S., are often used interchangeably and should contain no less than 35 percent cacao. (Bittersweet and extra dark tend to have more cacao, while semi-sweet and dark have more sugar.) Unlike the cacao, however, sugar content is not regulated so sweetness may vary between brands.
• Milk chocolate contains milk (duh) either in the form of powder, liquid, or condensed.
• White chocolate uses cocoa butter instead of cocoa solids as its main ingredient. As a result, white chocolate lacks many of the health benefits found in darker chocolate.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's dive into the most delectable of chocolates: the dark variety.

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Photo by Nicholas L. Hall

Pork loin, brining overnight in whey, thyme, lemon peel. DO THIS.

If you're like me, you constantly find yourself trying to re-purpose things that might otherwise get tossed out. Corn cobs turn into stock, vermouth just past its prime transforms into vinegar, the crumbs and dust left over from packages of dried mushrooms gets further ground up with spices, for a crust on pan-roasted meats. You get the picture.

Recently, I found myself in possession of a ton of whey, after making a batch of cheese on the stove-top. The cheese was the purpose of the endeavor, but as I stood there looking at the half gallon or so of delicious dairy byproduct, I couldn't help but think of something to do with it, other than pitching it down the sink. I tasted the whey, and was transfixed by its nutty, salty richness and pleasant lactic tang. For a second, I considered simply spooning the stuff over some rice and going to town, but that might have seemed gluttonous.

My first thought was to use it as the base for a braise, as I've come to enjoy the slightly cheesy funk and depth of flavor created when meats and milk join for long periods over low heat. Unfortunately, I had to work the next day, and didn't want to burden myself with such a long (albeit only moderately involved) cooking process. The next thought was a brine, leaning on the not insignificant salt content of the liquid to season and tenderize a large cut of meat, while the slight sweetness and tart lactic qualities balance the salt, and add their own nuances.

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pj_in_oz

What is it?

Dubbed "aubergine" by the French, the eggplant is part of the nightshades family and is a fruit related to the tomato and bell pepper. Native to India, it has since spread to many other world cuisines, including Chinese, Mediterranean, African, Italian and French.

There are different types of eggplant, but the one most commonly found in American grocery stores are dark purple in color, elongated egg-like in shape, and usually run about eight by three inches in size. Supposedly, eggplant is a good source of antioxidants and fiber, but it also has more nicotine than any other edible plant. Even these amounts, however, are minimal--it would take 20 pounds of eggplant to equal the nicotine of one cigarette (so don't bother).

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Garrettc

We enjoy the occasional pint and, like much of America, have taken an interest in craft beer ever since we could afford (and thus appreciate) it. While I like to simply imbibe my beers, my husband enjoys discussing the various flavors and styles of beer. "What if," he asked, "we could make the perfect beer?"

The dream of cranking craft beer out of our guest bedroom-turned-super-microbrewery took a step toward reality after my brother-in-law gifted us a homebrew kit last Christmas. Needless to say, we were intimidated by the daunting task of homebrewing and did not open the kit for half a year. But after seeing friends brew their own beer, we decided what the heck -- super-microbrewery, here we come.

As with most things in life, the initial experience didn't turn out as expected. There are lots of errors made, lots of lessons to be learned. Here are the five things we learned during our first homebrewing experience. Read on, and save yourself a headache should you ever attempt homebrewing.

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IslesPunkFan

With the temperature climbing steadily toward the hellish heat of Houston summer, I could've sworn I'd escaped the flu season unscathed. If only I was so lucky. I got sick, making it hard to taste anything. And as someone who loves food, this was especially unfortunate. I knew I had to conquer this flu, and I had to do it fast.

Every time we're sick, we follow the same routine: cold compress on the forehead, lots of pills and syrups, endless television, ginger ale, and chicken noodle soup. The cold compress reduces core temperature, the medicine manages the symptoms, and the TV gives us something mindless to occupy our time. But why ginger ale and chicken noodle soup? Why are they universal antidotes for the flu? Even in my feverish state (or maybe because of it), I pondered this, and when I finally mustered up the energy, I dragged myself to the computer to do a little research.

Aside from ginger ale obviously countering dehydration which happens during illness, the carbonation helps soothe upset stomachs, and the ginger is medically proven to combat nausea. The trick is to drink it slightly warmer and slightly flatter than you normally would -- try pouring it out in a glass and letting it sit at room temperature for about ten minutes before drinking. Too cold or too carbonated, and it may exacerbate the stomach pangs.

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Roasted Banana-Rum Gel Setting

Back in December, I wrote about Gelatin Clarified Stock. It's a wonderful technique, and one I still use. It is, however, slow. Due to the melting point of gelatin and the structure of the gel it sets, it requires both freezing and cold-thawing to work properly. Both of these steps take time. Fortunately, gelatin is not the only hydrocolloid on the block.

Agar, a derivative of red algae, is one such hydrocolloid. Lately, I've been exploiting a few of its particular properties in the kitchen, with some wonderful results. One of agar's benefits is the fact of its provenance. Since it doesn't come from animals, agar can be used to quickly and easily clarify vegetarian stocks and juices. I'm not vegetarian, so this fact is actually of minimal importance to me. What makes agar gel particularly appealing to me, especially in this application, is the fact that it is not as easily thermoreversible as gelatin.

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Yes, this exact thing is taking place in Thailand right now. Except not really.

The interesting thing about Google is that we ask it the kind of deeply intimate questions that we would never ask another human being, even a friend or loved one. Embarrassing questions; compromising questions; dark questions; questions that reveal our own hidden insecurities and prejudices.

It also reveals a certain hive mind tendency. Type in the very beginning of a question and you may find that Google automatically completes exactly the question you were rushing to ask. "Why are Russians so good...at chess?" How did you know I was going to finish that question with "at chess," Google?

But for each of these harmless, silly auto-completes, there are always several more that are tacky at best and downright ugly at the worst. "Why are Indians so smelly?" "Why are Irish people alcoholics?"

A vast web of stereotypes laid bare, courtesy of Google and its clever habit of transforming millions of users' search histories into one giant artificial intelligence capable of finishing your question before you can.

Of course, nearly every ethnicity, race, gender or country of origin you type into the Google search box results in the auto-complete question "Why are __________ so rude?" (Instinctive, sometimes insurmountable xenophobia pretty much always leads us to believe that every other culture is somehow ruder than our own.) It's nevertheless interesting to see what culinary stereotypes the average Google user carries with them, no matter how off-base or potentially offensive they are.

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