Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science - Fermentation

As I posted way back when, I enrolled in an on-line course about the relationship between science and cooking. Here's what went on during Week 10.

• The star power is upped this week with guest lecturers Wylie Dufresne of wd~50 and David Chang of Momofuku making appearances. Ted Russin of The Culinary Institute of America also makes an appearance. 
• Harold McGee informs us that food fermentations are the work of living microbes; they're essentially invisibly small cooks that change foods for the better.
• Foods that owe their popularity to fermentation include dry cured sausages, pickles, breads, the vinegar in vinaigrette, cheeses, chocolates, wine and beer and ciders and the distilled beverages made from them. These are all thanks to bacteria and fungi like Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Leuconostoc mesenteroides.
• The most common food fermentations develop spontaneously. They're spontaneous because the microbes that are responsible are all over the place, in the air and in the soil and on surfaces of everything. And they thrive on the sugars in nutrient-rich materials like plant tissues and animal secretions like milk. 
• The second big group of food fermentations is produced by yeasts, usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but also others. They produce alcohols and carbon dioxide from fruit juices and other liquids that are rich in sugars. 
• There's a third group of fermentations is based on an Asian method for fermenting starchy foods, like the seeds of grains and legumes. Yeasts and lactic acid bacteria can't deal with starch directly. Sometime before the second century BC, Chinese brewers domesticated a species of mold, a kind of Aspergillus, which prepares starchy foods for the yeasts and the lactic acid bacteria by converting the starch into fermentable sugars. At the same time that it does that, the mold generates its own distinctive aromas. With the help of this Aspergillus, called koji in Japan, sake and other alcohols are made from rice in Asia. It's also how soy and tamari sauces and miso pastes are made. 
• We are told that the fermentation reactions in yeast, or in bacteria, are due to enzymes. An enzyme is a protein that is a type of catalyst; a catalyst is a molecule that increases the speed of a favourable reaction either by helping to break bonds, or by helping to make bonds form, without being used up.
• An example of a catalyst is baking soda or lye, which speeds up Maillard reactions that contribute to browning and flavour. 
• As magical as catalysts appear, they cannot make unfavorable reactions become favorable. 
• For more on fermentation, here's David Chang and one of his minions:
• In terms of the bond breaking, enzymes do this by either rearranging the molecule, or by affecting the atoms in the molecules in some way. In terms of making bonds form, enzymes do this by bonding to two molecules, or bringing them closer in proximity. The bond can then form more easily, because the molecules are positioned in a way that makes the bond happen more easily. Enzymes need to be very specially designed to fit the particular molecules they work on, so for each type of chemical reaction that an enzyme catalyzes, it is designed to help that reaction.
• The enzymes bromelain and papain are enzymes from pineapple and papaya. Because these are often found in meat tenderizers, they are used a lot in recipes because they break down the proteins in meats, making it tenderer.
• The browning of fruit or vegetables is also due to enzymes. Biting or cutting releases enzymes in special compartments of the cell, and they react with other compounds in the fruit or vegetable. 
• Thanks to one of Dufresne and Russin's collaborations, we can now glue one piece of meat or one protein to another, thanks to meat glue, an enzyme also known as transglutaminase.

In honour of the Hamburglar

At the beginning of February of this year, the chances of the Ottawa Senators making the playoffs were dead in the water. With their starting and backup goalies out with injuries, the team was forced to rely on an unknown call-up from the farm team. Fast forward to today - the Senators are playing their best hockey in months, and are playing the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs. This is in part due to the play of Ottawa's newest hockey hero, Andrew "Hamburglar" Hammond. In honour of his success, I thought it would be as good a time as any to celebrate the food he got his nickname from, the hamburger.

There are almost as many claims to the origin of the hamburger as they are toppings for a burger, and meats used to make the patty. As it turns out, people have been enjoying ground meat placed inside a sliced bun since the late 1800s. Whether the patty is thin or thick, square or round, you can get a hamburger pretty much anywhere. Burger purists will insist that a hamburger should only be ground beef and seasoned with salt and pepper. These people should be ignored, as a tasty burger can contain binders like eggs or breadcrumbs; be seasoned with onions, soy sauce, Thousand Island dressing, or Worcestershire sauce; and be made with ingredients such as ground lamb, bison, and salmon; or meat substitutes like tofu, or textured vegetable protein. Below is the recipe I use when I'm in the mood for some hamburgers - try and resist throwing your burger on the ice as part of a victory celebration. Go Sens Go!

Ingredients

570g ground beef (don't use lean ground beef, burgers need fat for flavour and moistness)
1 egg
breadcrumbs
onion soup mix
Worcestershire sauce
ketchup
salt and pepper

1. Combine in a bowl the ground beef with the egg, the contents of the onion soup package, a dusting of breadcrumbs, a few shakes from the Worcestershire bottle, and a few shakes/squirts from the ketchup bottle. Mix everything together with your hands. Add more breadcrumbs if you think your mixture needs it.
2. Form the meat into patties, and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.
3. Whether you're cooking the burger using a grill, or pan-frying them, flip it only once. You're looking at about 3 minutes per side for rare, 4 minutes for medium, or 5 minutes for well-done.
4. Put the burger in either a bun (or in between some toast for a patty melt), and top with your choice of condiments, vegetables, and toppings.

The Alton Brown Experience

The Mr. Wizard of the television cooking show world, Alton Brown, is bringing his "Edible Inevitable Tour" to Ottawa Sunday, and when my wife told me about it months ago, I immediately booked our tickets for it. I've been a fan of Brown's since I stumbled across the book version of his groundbreaking cooking show "Good Eats". For almost 250 episodes, the show explored the science and technique behind cooking, the history of different foods, and the advantages of different kinds of cooking equipment, all in way that was both informative and entertaining. His stage show, which Brown does as a way to recharge after his duties hosting "Cutthroat Kitchen", has been described as a mash-up of a talk show, a science experiment, a multimedia lecture, a concert (apparently there will be live music), and a stand-up comedy routine. Here's a sample of what to expect, so if it looks like something you'd like to do on a Sunday evening, check with the NAC for ticket information.

  

I Watched This So You Won't Have To: "Knife Fight"

Debuting earlier this year on Food Network Canada, "Knife Fight" is a show hosted by former "Top Chef" winner Ilan Hall that pits two chefs against each other in a competition where they must make at least two dishes in one hour using a combination of two or three secret ingredients, and whatever is in the pantry. This is done for bragging rights in front of a live audience and is critiqued by Hall and two rotating judges, usually a celebrity and someone in the food industry. I've been watching this show on and off these past months, here's what I thought about the episode shown on March 5th:

• At the start of the show, Hall tells the viewer this isn't your mother's cooking show. If someone's mom had a hand in creating "Chopped", she would beg to differ. 
• Some people may remember Hall's role in the infamous "Top Chef" head-shaving incident done to molecular gastronomy douchebag Marcel Vigneron, so this show already has that going for it.
• We're lead to believe this show takes place after-hours in Hall's restaurant The Gorbals.  Reality TV being what it is, I question the idea of any chef letting a TV crew and an audience into their place after a night's service to film an "after-hours warzone". But I'm cynical like that, and I've never worked in a kitchen, so what do I know? And how underground can these after-hours chef battles be when they take place in a restaurant as mainstream as The Gorbals?
• We're also lead to believe he's been hosting these cooking contests for years. I would have thought getting his restaurant off the ground would have taken up a majority of his time, but again, this is reality TV, and all I know about the restaurant business is what I see on television, and read about in books.
• The winner of the competition gets a cleaver with the word "I win" emblazoned on it, the loser gets a smaller cleaver with the word "I didn't win" on his. Something tells me getting television exposure for themselves and their restaurant(s) is the biggest prize of all.
• Giovanni Reda is the master of ceremonies - does a cooking show really need a master of ceremonies?
• If you heard this much noise at a restaurant, you'd walk out, and bitch about the place on Yelp. There's got to be an "Applause" sign flashing in the building somewhere. I find it hard to believe that people can get that excited watching people cook. 
• Tonight's combatants are Raphael Lunetta and Neal Fraser. I'm sure these chefs are as good as the reputations that proceed them, but I can't believe the mere mention of these chefs names can cause that much of a frenzy. 
• Fun facts about the chefs: Lunetta loves surfing so much he's known as the Surfing Chef. At Fraser's Fritzi Dog artisan hot dog restaurant, you can get a sausage made with roast turkey and duck, and a sous-vide carrot for your veggie dog.
• We laughed at the idea back in the late 90's, but Kramer from "Seinfeld" with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich restaurant idea truly was ahead of its time.
• Our judges this evening are James Beard Foundation Award-nominated chef Mark Peel, celebrated chef Michael Cimarusti, and noted actress, winemaker (who knew?), and food lover Drew Barrymore. 
• No celebrity timekeeper for this week's episode. It looks like Barrymore pulled rank as the show's executive producer to get on the judging panel. The other judges may have more knowledge about food, but neither of them were in "Charlie's Angels", thus warranting the additional screen time.  
• A forty-day dry-aged rib-eye, abalone (a large mollusk), and Pacific Ocean trout are the mandatory ingredients. Other than the abalone still being live, these items don't appear to be so weird that they would throw the chefs for a loop. That being said, Lunetta seemed intimidated by the amount of food he had to use, and the time he had to cook it in. Fraser, on the other hand, seemed to take everything in stride and rolled with the punches.
• The audience is said to be made up of their chefs' friends, family, and whatever celebrities happen to be in the area. Either these chefs know, or are related to the most photogenic people in L.A., or there was a casting call for people to attend this show. That would explain the woman in the bunny ears, and the hipster in the leather fedora, unless this is how west coast foodies usually dress.
• Mollusks are hard to shuck, no matter how big they are.
• Barrymore on her foodie cred: "I had my first octopus at six years old, I never turned back." Something else that she tasted for the first time at a young age was alcohol - hindsight being 20/20, she should have stuck with the octopus. (Too soon?)
• Not hearing a lot of questions about cooking from an audience allegedly made up of foodies, just a lot of hooting and hollering. The judges though are very interested in what's going on in the kitchen, so it's good to see they're taking their job seriously.
• First dish out from Fraser: sauteed abalone with shishito peppers with a green garlic purée. Raves from the judges, though Peel wasn't crazy about the abalone.
• Lunetta seems to be having trouble in the unfamiliar kitchen, he is soon heard saying he's "in the weeds". This admission seems to surprise Cimarusti.
• I wonder who feeds the audience and the cast because the only people I see eating are the judges. Lots of people in the crowd are drinking, so I guess it's an open bar.
• Second dish out from Fraser: Ocean trout on English peas with a white carrot purée and mushrooms. More raves from the judges and some concern about whether the Surfing Chef will be able to plate anything.
• Even though he's running behind, Lunetta takes the time to properly debone the fish he's preparing. He is though ignoring the judges, and focusing on his cooking.
• Having the chefs walk the dishes out to the judging area really adds to the drama given the time constraints they're under.
• Do chefs usually carry around special spice blends with them? Seems kind of convenient that Lunetta just happened to have the spice he would normally use on a rib-eye for this competition.
• Also convenient: that Barrymore's wine just happens to be available for Lunetta to use for his pan sauce.
• A woman famous for her substance abuse issues has her own brand of wine. Think about that for a minute.
• With two dishes out to the Surfing Chef's none, I think Fraser is the clear favourite to win the competition unless Lunetta blows the judges away with his creations.
• 10 minutes left in the cookoff, and neither chef has touched the rib-eye yet.
• Lunetta announces he will walk all his dishes out at once when they're finished. The judges are OK with this.
• Third dish out from Fraser: Côte de bœuf (a fancy way of describing a rib steak) served with cheese grits and a horseradish gremolata (a chopped herb condiment). Enjoyed by the judges, with the gremolata, in particular, getting raves.
• With the clock ticking down, and the crowd chanting his name, Lunetta finally brings out his food. He presents to the judges a sea trout and abalone with a guava and citrus emulsion, and a côte de bœuf with a pan sauce made with pink peppercorns, beef fat and bones, and wine.
• Barrymore on tasting Luntta's beef dish: "It's like Christmas in your mouth!" 
• Peel liked the beef as well, particularly the pan sauce, but thought the dish was too complex and ambitious. Cimarusti liked the Surfer Chef's fish so much, he jokingly planned to steal it for his own restaurant. 
• It must be hard to judge people you know and have worked with, and admire. You can see the judges have a lot of respect for the chefs in tonight's competition.
• Lunetta doesn't like his chances of winning this contest. That belief holds true with Fraser winning, as I expected. A good time was had by all, all hail the Hot Dog King.

Bottom line: Watching "Knife Fight" is like watching a CGI car crash directed by Michael Bay - you know what you're watching is fake, but you can't help but look at all the explosions. This show is food porn on speed. But interestingly enough, after seeing this episode, I wanted to head to my kitchen and cook something, which usually doesn't happen to me when I finish watching a cooking show. If you want to learn something about cooking, watch Hall's "Eat Like a Man" series of videos. But if you want to see celebrities and hipsters pretend to care about cooking, this is the show to watch. As guilty pleasures go, this show can't be beat.

Stock vs. Broth

As everyone is aware this winter of 2015, it's as cold as fuck outside. It's no surprise the current bone broth craze is taking off, who doesn't like a bowl of something hot and tasty when it's freezing out. When you read the article, you'll see the terms broth and stock are used interchangeably. Both are liquids flavored with vegetables, meat scraps, and bones, and are used as the base for soups, and sauces. You may be surprised to learn that the two are not the same.

Both culinary schools and old wives tales will say that broth is made from meat and stock is made from bones. Stocks are unseasoned, which is why they make a great neutral base for a soup or a sauce, but pretty unremarkable on their own. What makes broths so satisfying on its own are the seasonings, like salt, pepper, or wine; a broth is essential a seasoned stock. The heated bones, cartilage, and skin turns into gelatin thanks to the collagen, which adds to the stock's body, texture, and taste. Now that that's cleared up, here's a recipe for a basic beef broth. Whether you substitute it for your morning Starbucks as some in New York's East Village have is up to you.

Ingredients

2.72 kg. beef soup bones (or a combination of knucklebones, neck bones, beef shank, and oxtail)
1 large onion
3 large carrots
2 stalks celery, including some leaves
1 large tomato
1/2 cup chopped parsnip
1 medium potato
8 whole black peppercorns
4 sprigs fresh parsley
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 cloves garlic
water

1. Preheat the oven to 450 °F (230 °C).
2. Trim the root end off onion, then slice or quarter it, peel and all. Scrub the carrots and chop them into 1-inch chunks. In a large shallow roasting pan, place the soup bones, onion, and carrots. Bake, uncovered, about 30 minutes or until the bones are well browned, turning occasionally.
3. Drain off the fat, and place the browned bones, onion, and carrots in a large soup pot or Dutch oven. Pour 1/2 cup water into the roasting pan and rinse. Pour this liquid into the soup pot.
4. Scrub the potato and chop it into chunks, peel and all. Chop the celery stalks into thirds. Add the celery, tomato, parsnip, potato, peppercorns, parsley (including stems), bay leaf, salt, thyme, and garlic to the pot. Then cover everything with 12 cups of water.
5. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 5 hours. Strain the stock, discard the meat, the bones, the vegetables, and the seasonings. Makes about 8 cups.

50 Kitchen Hacks To Make Life Easier

Anything that either saves me time, makes my life easier, or makes me look like a superstar with minimal effort, is something I like. If you feel the same way, you're going to love the list below, provided by the good people of Kit Stone.

The new food trends for 2015

Greetings and salutations everyone. Hope the holidays were good, and the start of this new year has treated you well. During my downtime, I ate a lot of good food, hung out with family and friends, and enjoyed the two cookbooks I received as gifts, a reprint of my late mom's beloved "All New Purity Cook Book", and "The Official DC Super Hero Cookbook", the closest I'm going to get to the out-of-print cookbook I loved back in my youth. To get back into the swing of things, I thought my first entry of 2015 should be a comment about this year's predicted food trends.

• The new cocktail ingredient: Tea
  Taking advantage of the millions of tea drinkers in the world, bartenders will be looking for ways to add it to more drinks. This isn't as crazy as it sounds, as several local brewers, like the Dominion City Brewing Company, have made some great beers with tea. The green tea powder matcha will also be appearing it everything from pesto to antioxidant-rich drinks due to its vibrant colour and flavour.
• The new comeback food: Foie gras
  About two weeks ago, a judge overturned California's ban on the sale of foie gras, to the delight of chefs, foie gras producers, and lovers of fatty duck or goose liver everywhere. Because of this, restaurants will soon be making foie gras the centerpiece item of haute cooking again. I'm sure the number of death threats issued against chefs who resume cooking with this controversial food will decrease as the months go by.
• The new comfort food: Uni and guacomole
  Uni is the Japanese name for the edible part of the sea urchin; guacamole is in my opinion the best thing you can do with an avocado.  Together, they are a high-end comfort food combination that makes truffled macaroni and cheese look like last year's Kraft dinner. You might need an in with the chef at your favourite gastropub to get this before it starts appearing on the menu.
• The new cooking trend: Stem-to-root
  Picture cauliflower leaves being sauteed, and served over polenta with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese; carrot tops made into pesto and fennel tops finding their way into a relish; limp celery simmered back to life with ground meat, white wine, and aromatics. With the head-to-tail movement working so well with meats, it seems logically that a similar movement would happen with vegetables.
• The new foodie trend: Taking a selfie with the chef
  Why just snap a picture of your food when you can have a picture of the person(s) who made it? Given how temperamental chefs can be about people in their kitchens, I can't see this catching on, but with all the attempts to make chefs the new rock stars, who knows? Can't wait to see how this plays out at Union613...
• The new food treatment: Pickling and fermenting
  Vegetarians won't be the only ones benefiting from this, expect to see a lot more vegetables getting a bath in either vinegary, herbal or garlicky solutions this year.
• The new kale: Various contenders
  Several vegetables are vying for the chance to replace kale as the trendy choice in the produce department. Root vegetable like kohlrabi, celery root, and parsnips (one of my favourites) is predicted to be appearing in more kitchens, along with radishes and cauliflower. As a parent with poor eating habits, my wife is always looking for new ways to trick my son and I to eat healthier, so having something new on the vegetable side of the plate is always a good thing.
• The new Starbucks order: The flat white
  All the rage in Australia, the flat white is milk poured over two shots of ristretto (the first, most concentrated part of the espresso shot), with a thin layer of microfoam on top. What's the difference between that and a regular cappuccino? Beats me, I'm still uncouth enough to order a pumpkin spice latte in the fall.
• The new taste zone: Sour
  While umami will still get a lot of attention, the use of citrus, mustard, and vinegar will be seen in everything from beverages to entrees to desserts this year. It's about time sour have gotten some of the spotlight, it's an underrated taste. Who don't like a sourball gum every now and then?