GPI Culinary now available online!!!

Hello everyone! I am extremely pleased to announce that our GPI culinary products are finally available for online purchasing. Currently we have only launched with 3 products, namely the Kokumi, Cream and the FlexiGel. Needless to say, we will soon be offering all hydrocolloids for online purchasing. Expect to see sodium alginate, agar, gellan, etc on the shopping cart.

To view the online shop, click http://gpiglobal.com/default.asp?pID=46

Apple and Pork on a salad

Due to popular demand, I made something more "healthy". By healthy I mean less fat and salt. So I made this apple dressing for a salad. The apples are cooked sous vide and with apple cider to preserve the light colour then pureed. I added some iota carrageenan to add some body to the dressing. I didn't want to add a lot of butter since I wanted to keep that sharpness to the apples.

So I made it healthy, but I couldn't ignore my calling for bacon. So I bought some cured pork belly and fried them at medium heat on a skillet. It turns into beautiful crispy chunks of bacon. mmmmm. I also had some freeze-dried pancetta left from last week's trials and added that to the dish.

PS ~ they had the choice of putting bacon or not. :)

New Caprese

2 weeka go I spun tomato puree in a centrifuge and produced a magnificent tomato consomme. This week, I wanted to work on that component and have it as part of a complete dish. The initial suggestion from people on Egullet was Caprese salad. So now the question is how to make a modern version of that without deviating too far.

There has to be a point of reference on the dish, and I decided it should be the mozarella; unaltered, and left as the anchor to the dish. Everything else is changed.

The tomato consomme became tomato gelee. It's amazing how crystal clear that thing is. I placed it on top of tomato powder for colour, and again, having that colour as a point of reference for the tomato. The basil was pureed with olive oil. It's like pesto without the pine nuts and parmeggiano reggiano. To add some texture to the dish, I placed bits of freeze-dried roasted garlic - crunchy, sweet, and of course, roast garlicky.

The tomato consomme was solidified using CarraPure 6455. It's designed to be used as a gelatin alternative.

Tomato gelee
1. Puree skinned tomatoes
2. Place the puree in a centrifuge and spin at 6,000 rpm for 1 hour.
3. mix in CarraPure 6455 at 1%. Heat to 75C and set in molds.
4. Place in the cooler until set, about 1 hour.

Another photo I took. Slightly different plating.

Ultimate Consomme

I was able to take the centrifuge for a spin (pun intended). Rotating at 8,200 RPM, it creates the clearest and most pure consommes I have ever come across. The tomato consomme I made had a strong tomato flavour, and was very sweet.

The beauty of it, I think, is how light these consommes are. Flavour molecules, as I was told, are the some of the lightest molecules. So they go to the top while being spun in the centrifuge. While proteins, starches and other substances are the heaviest, therefore sinking down. So what you have then is a liquid that is free of starch, and protein and contains only water and flavour. PERFECT!

Here is a photo of the tomato consomme while in the centrifuge container. Taken with iPhone.

I ended up putting some watermelon puree into the centrifuge as well. The liquid comes out extremely clear. The sweetness will vary depending on the sweetness of the original watermelon. White tomato sauce is on the left, which is just tomato consomme and white roux, and watermelon consomme on the right.

To make a finished dish with the tomato sauce, I sous vide some halibut, then wrapped it with a parmeggiano reggiano crust. Paired it with some pickled fennel. Yes, a very white dish. Which is exactly what I wanted.

Another very interesting use of the white tomato sauce was pasta "Alfredo". It looked like alfredo but was far from. In flavour, it is a very delicious tomato and basil pasta, but definitely very unique in appearance, and VERY delicious. My coworkers at it all before I could take a photo.

OH HELLO!!!

It's been a while hasn't it? I'm back to working on culinary applications here in GPI and I couldn't be happier and more excited. Even more exciting is that we will soon be offering our products online for chefs to purchase. They will be sold in 1lb containers at very competitive prices. Stay tuned!

I also received my copy of Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold. It is an astonishing book with plenty of information. So what better way to jump-start the culinary work than by tackling a recipe from Modernist Cuisine, with some alterations of course.
This particular Pumpkin Pie recipe was from the MC website, found here:
http://modernistcuisine.com/2010/12/a-modernist-christmas-feast/
Here is a photo of the one I made.
Components are:
1. Pumkpin Pie Brulee
2. Filipino Shortbread Crumble (Polvoron)
3. Whipped Sour Cream
4. Fresh Ginger

The crumble provides a delicious nutty aroma and flavour from the roasted flour and it balances the sweetness of the pumpkin pie. The whipped sour cream also adds another balancing component and actually goes really well with the pumpkin. Creme Fraiche would also be an even better component for this!



Here is my recipe:
Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pie
1 Butternut Squash
50g Dark Maple Syrup
90g Organic Yogurt
80g Butter
100g Water
.8g Cinnamon
.25g Nutmeg
500g Squash Puree from Butternut Squash
6g CarraPure FlexiGel
3g CarraPure Kokumi

Method:
1. Slice the squash in half, remove seeds and coat with butter.
2. Roast the squash for 40 minutes at 205C(400F), and remove skin when cool to the touch.
3. Measure 500g of Squash and puree in a high speed blender. Add all the wet ingredients in the blender.
4. Mix the spices and CarraPure blends together, then add them to the blender. Mix for 1 minute.
5. Heat the mixture to 75C(167F) and then pour into a mold.
6. Place in a cooler for 2 hours.

Filipino Shortbread (Polvoron)
Ingredients
300g AP Flour
50g White Sugar
50g Unsalted Butter
50g Rendered Pork Fat (Preferably from bacon)

Method
1. Roast the flour for 30 minutes at 190C(375F).
2. Cool the flour to room temperature.
3. Mix all the other ingredients once its cooled. Optionally, you can compress the mixture if you want to form shapes with them.

Whipped Sour Cream
Ingredients:
100g Heavy Cream
50g Sour Cream

Method
1. Whip the heavy cream to almost stiff peaks
2. Slowly fold in the sour cream.