If you know me at all by now, you know that I love turning classics into cornets. I did it a few months ago with eggs benedict and just recently with sea urchin and squid ink, which isn’t really a classic, but it made for a classically good cornet nonetheless. This time I decided to tackle buckwheat blini, crème fraiche and caviar- the staid staple of the Russian cocktail party set. Aside from learning which parts of my forearm are perpetually destined to stick to the oven door when forming cornets, I also learned that blini is plural for blintz. I had always assumed they were two different things, despite them looking similar on the page, so I was happy to glean that little knowledge nugget. Blini and crepes are very similar, however the primary difference is that blini tend to be yeasted whereas crepes are not. While various flours are used to make blini all over the world (and especially in Central and Eastern Europe), Russians often use buckwheat. Read more

E-to the-U-to the-REKA, Eureka! A whole realm of liquor-drenched possibility just ensconced itself in my kitchen-cum-laboratory.  I mean, when you can transform sherry into concentrated, raisin-like pearls, the world really is your oyster. And when you hit upon the technique through the grueling process of research and development (aka drink lots of sherry and experience the miracle of a happy accident) it’s all the more satisfying.

I recently read a review from El Bulli wherein Ferran Adria was said to have spherified sherry into raisins, thus my interest was piqued. I could find no information on the actual process, so I set about experimenting. I’ve done typical calcium chloride/sodium alginate spherification with alcohol and other acidic liquids before and was less than pleased with the results. That’s because you have to add an acid-balancing chemical (sodium citrate) that I feel adversely affects the final flavor.

I knew it was time to embrace a new spherification frontier, and I’ve been playing around with gelling techniques and agents recently, so why not spherify with one such as agar agar or gelatin? I read somewhere that someone dropped agar agar-infused liquid into cold oil and pearls were formed, so I figured I’d give it a go with sherry.

I got very lucky by simply following my preferred agar agar to liquid ratio (1.25:100) and dropping the mixture via kitchen syringe into freezer-chilled canola oil. Not only did it spherify, it proved just the right amount of agar agar to form an exterior skin while still remaining perfectly gushing on the inside.

Now that I’ve accomplished this feat, it’s like I played god for one brief moment. I have to wonder why the original god- Yoda, some nymph-mermaid hybrid, whoever that elusive god-creature really is- didn’t make raisins this good in our existing universe. I mean, if you can pack an 18% whollop of sweet but not too sweet high-brow alcohol into a sphere the size of a pinkie-toe and make it taste good with fewer ugly wrinkles than the passé raisins of my youth, why wouldn’t you?

Remember when you used to trade chocolate chips for raisins in the lunchroom and there was always some snot-nosed social-climbing weirdo who would give you all her chocolate chips in exchange for your palm-sweat coated raisins? Well all bets would be off with these “raisins” let me tell you. Kids would fight tooth and nail over them. Mormon entrepreneurs-in-training would quickly realize they could sell these sherry pearls to their classmates for a premium and once again they would take over a hedonistic hotbed of sin, just like their elders have done with Las Vegas. It would be drunken fifth grade mayhem of the highest order if only we’d serve sherry raisins to students. Seriously gives new meaning to No Child Left Behind, doesn’t it? Alas, a girl (who entertains brief delusions of deity) can dream…

Back to the reality of my kitchen for a moment: I chose to showcase my favorite flavors of España along with the sherry pearls- at least for their inaugural outing. I topped a puff pastry round with manchego cheese foam, slid in a sliver of Marcona almond, and dappled the canapé with the sherry raisins. It was simple, elegant and worthy of serving to your most discerning food-critical friend.

Speaking of simple, many feel that techniques which may or may not fall under the label “molecular gastronomy” are soulless sleights of science. This dish is emphatically not so, and would be a great launching point into that world since it is easily done with fairly accessible ingredients straight from a well-stocked grocer. Agar agar is easily sourced in both powder and strip form at natural foods or Asian markets. The other ingredients may be considered “gourmet” by some, but nevertheless can be found in any major city and most progressive towns across the US.

I don’t believe in creating esoteric food just for the sake of it being esoteric. I do, however, constantly strive to make things better, and these sherry raisins elevate both sherry and raisins to a level suitable to be served on the dinner plate, which is a place you don’t often see either.

Manchego Foam Canapes with Sherry “Raisins”

Makes 24 canapes

For the sherry raisins:

• 2 cups canola oil that has been frozen for at least four hours in a dish wide enough to drop sherry into
• 100 grams water
• 3.75 grams agar agar powder or strands (note- do not use agar agar that has been pre-mixed with sugar as the concentration is diluted and you won’t achieve proper spherification)
• 200 grams Sherry (I used Pedro Ximenez)
• 1 kitchen syringe, baster, or squeeze bottle.

1. Bring the water and agar agar to a boil over medium heat stirring constantly until agar agar dissolves.
2. Add to agar agar mixture to sherry and blend completely. You may wish to blitz it with an immersion blender to ensure complete uniformity. Place mixture into syringe, baster or bottle.
3. Working quickly to ensure your oil does not get above 20°F, drop raisin-sized droplets of sherry mixture into oil. My oil container is about 3x5” and I can usually get about 20 droplets per batch. Remove oil droplets with a slotted spoon to a mesh strainer after one minute. You should have perfect, raisin-sized spheres. Repeat with remaining sherry, however you will need to re-freeze your oil periodically as it must not go above 20°F.

For the canapés:

• 1 sheet puff pastry barely thawed
• ¾ c grated manchego cheese
• ½ c heavy cream
• 24 marcona almond halves

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Using a 1.5” cutter, make 24 rounds of puff pastry. Nestle rounds into cups of a mini-cupcake pan and bake until golden brown and puffed, about 15 minutes. You can make a light indentation with your finger in the cups in order that the toppings will sit well, if you wish.
3. Meanwhile, place manchego and cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir frequently until manchego melts into cream. Blend with an immersion wand until fully incorporated,then chill in an ice bath until needed.

To assemble:

1. Place scoops or quenelles of manchego foam on the puff pastry rounds. Wedge in a marcona almond half. Drop one or two sherry raisins on top and serve.

Every great journey should be a metamorphosis, and I can think of nothing more life-defining from the canons of literature than Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. In deciding to embody Alice for this, the sixth challenge for Project Food Blog, I was able to approach food from a whimsical perspective, but by the end of the challenge whimsy gave way to growth and in fact I find myself renewed for having seen it through. If you enjoy this journey, why not vote for it?

To Alice, eating and drinking is not about sustenance; rather it’s to evoke transformation. This is intrinsically linked with my own approach to food. Yes, I love to eat, but I especially like it when the food that passes my lips inspires mental and emotional reactions that lead to enveloping-contentment far beyond the physical. It’s like umami in the sense that you cannot put your finger on it but when it happens, it makes the bite that much richer, and yes, it can even change your life.

Alice eats a teacup

Ludwig Bemelmans said, “The true gourmet, like the true artist, is one of the unhappiest creatures existent. His trouble comes from so seldom finding what he constantly seeks: perfection.” I’m no true gourmet, but I do strive for Bemelman’s ideal. A handful of times throughout my years, I’ve taken a bite that has brought me to tears (and no, I am not talking about eating magic mushrooms here).

through the Looking-Glass House

Maybe that makes me a food nerd of the highest order, but one of my major life goals in writing this blog is to share that singular passion for perfect food with the world.  And to have a brillig-ly jabberwocky time while doing it, so let’s party, tea-party people.  Wonderland, here we come, through the Looking-Glass House.

Because a major tenet of the challenge was to fit the food into a cooler provided to us by Project Food Blog and Buick Lacrosse (bedazzled a la Mad Hatter), portability drove my selections. I started the journey the way Alice did, with a “drink me” bottle of magic potion. Alice said, “It had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast.” I thought about how to recreate it and I remembered Heston Blumenthal did an Alice-themed menu for The Fat Duck a few years ago.

from infusion to fruition

Sure enough, he made the potion using the method of infusion seen here. I started with all six of those foods and infused them into milk for 12 hours. Then I strained out the solids and thickened the layers with iota carageenan (1% by weight) so they would hold without bleeding into one another and blurring the individual flavor profiles.  I carefully layered them into bottles (with the help of my two co-conspirators, Emme and Andrea). While this drink may sound strange, it was pleasantly-staggering for the senses to distinctly sequentially identify all those flavors. It certainly made me think, even if it didn’t literally make me shrink.

I chose to miniaturize teacups, and rather than fill them with tea which might have been messy, I made blueberry foam “tea” instead. Taking a page from the Mad Hatter’s playbook, I constructed edible teacups from white chocolate using plastic hemisphere molds.

The only really difficult part of this dish is tempering the chocolate. The rest of it involves pouring chocolate into the molds, suspending them upside down until they solidify then popping out the cups. The handles are chocolate piped onto parchment and hardened, and the saucers are easily formed using round cutters. White chocolate “glue” holds everything together.

My favorite creation of the day was a riff I did on incorporating the Royal Hearts Family into the feast. I made a Royal Flush hand of cards by “tuile-ifying” dehydrated coconut milk. I stenciled out card shapes and sifted the coconut milk (along with isomalt, glucose and fondant sugar) inside the stencils.

Then I heated them at a very low temperature in the oven until they had congealed to paper-like consistency. I stenciled the heart shapes much the same way except I used paprika tuile powder instead. The added bonus- I discovered an idyllic flavor-pairing in the process: coconut and paprika. It’s worth a lick or ten.

Once again obfuscating the line between food and object, I created the Mad Hatter’s pocketwatch from an oversized raviolo in beurre noisette (since they butter the watch in the book). I filled the raviolo with a thin layer of Dungeness crab, and painted the backwards numbers on the “face” using squid ink. A little edible gold finished the look.

For the main course I deviated slightly from Alice. I thought paying homage to one of the most lauded restaurants of bygone days, The Quilted Giraffe, was related enough by sheer decadence plus I traveled back in cultural time for the dish’s inspiration. Charlie Trotter said of the Giraffe, “It was not just the food, it was the whole experience,” and I think that embodies Alice to a tee (yes, that was a really bad pun), which is why these crepes made the cut.

Barry Wine, infamous owner of The Quilted Giraffe (and this talented blogger’s father) used to serve a crepe formed into a beggar’s purse filled with caviar and crème fraiche, tied with a chive. I chose to roll the crepes instead so they’d look like little scrolls, and I am certain the golden (whitefish) caviar I used was not as decadent as the beluga from the days of old, but they were blissed-out bites of easily-portable culinary alchemy gone great.

Our blogs exist to record momentous occasions in the kitchen and elsewhere. We share our culinary creations and in the process little bits of our souls make their way to the page as well. Project Food Blog has forced me to go deeper inside to eek out posts worthy of your esteemed eyes, and for that I am grateful.

Much has been said about the project, competitive blogging in general, popularity contests, et cetera. The fact remains that regardless where you stand on these divisive issues as a blogger or reader of blogs, if you decided to take part in this contest and focused on the challenges with zeal, you couldn’t have helped but learned something in the process- made a transformation, just like Alice. Yes, I’ve *lost* my Saturdays (and most of the week, to be quite honest) but I’ve gained focus, an outlet for my madness where people seem to appreciate it, and a few new life experiences that I won’t soon forget. I deeply appreciate your votes in getting me this far, and I hope you’ll help me to continue the journey by voting again RIGHT HERE or using the Project Food Blog widget on the right side of the Salty Seattle homepage.