Thursday, September 15, 2011

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. :)

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

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.