These were tasty, salty snacks to start off the meal. They are puffs made of carrot, leek, and beet, in the style of pork chicharrones, but vegetarian!

Though they're actually pretty delicious on their own, straight out of a bag, we plated them up with some cheeses and veg purees, for a little more visual impact, to keep them from sliding around on the serving plate, and to boost the flavors a bit. Each type of puff has a dollop of a puree of its vegetable and a dollop of a different cheese. The carrot has whipped cream cheese, the beet has whipped chevre, and the leek has processed Parmeggiano-Reggiano (recipe follows). I figured out how to make processed parmesan by reading cheese-processing patents. Who says my law degree isn't applicable to cooking?

These puffs are quite time-consuming to make--they take even longer than pork chicharrones, and are only half as delicious (which is still pretty delicious). It's also mostly active time, as opposed to just waiting for something to cook, or waiting for it to dehydrate. I've done carrot, leek, green garlic, beet, ketchup, and mackerel. On the bright side, when you make them, it's easy to make a HUGE batch. However, after this most recent time making three different batches, each of which was for three separate events (a catering gig and two nights of Lazy Bear), I've said repeatedly that I am never making these again unless someone specifically requests them. I don't know whether I'll keep that vow, but I'm pretty confident that I will never again try to make and serve three different kinds at once. At least not until I've got stages to do the work for me.

Puffs
1 part intensely flavored loose puree or liquid (preferably fat free)
1 part tapioca starch

Make a puree of a vegetable through ordinary means. It should be a fairly loose puree, with plenty of liquid for it to spin well in the blender. Pass the puree through a chinois and then measure out enough puree for the batch you want to make. I typically do a batch of 250g puree, which ends up making 60-120 finished pieces, depending on how large you make them. So, it goes a long way.

Combine the puree with an equal amount by weight of tapioca starch, stirring and then kneading a bit to get them evenly combined into a dough that vaguely resembles pasta dough. If your puree was particularly dry, you may want to add only 75% of the amount of tapioca starch. If it was particularly liquidy, you may need to add more tapioca starch to get it to resemble a pasta dough.

Roll out pieces of the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap, about 50g of dough at a time. Get it as thin as possible (a couple millimeters). Leave the sheets of dough between the plastic. Steam the sheets (I now steam them individually, but if you have a larger steamer, do as many as you want) until the tapioca has fully hydrated and the sheets have cooked entirely through. I've sometimes done this as short as 4 minutes, but it's safer practice to steam them for 10 minutes. Unwrap the sticky sheets from the plastic. The steamed sheets will now be easy to work with. Cut the sheets into strips no more than half an inch thick (though you can go as thin as you want). Put all the strips onto parchment paper on a sheet pan or onto a dehydrator tray. Dehydrate, or if using the oven, bake at 200F for several hours, turning strips if necessary for drying. When they are dry, they will feel like hard plastic. At this point they can be stored in an airtight container indefinitely.

Fry the strips at 375F until fully puffed, continuously agitating to make sure all parts of the strips get puffed. I usually do batches of around 10 dehydrated strips, but you may be able to do more depending on the size of your strips. Drain the puffs on a rack, salting while they're still oily. They'll keep for quite a while in an airtight container with desiccant packs. Otherwise, serve within a couple hours.

Processed Parmeggiano-Reggiano
120g grated Parmeggiano-Reggiano
120g water
6.5g sodium citrate (2.7%)
.4g citric acid
60g extra virgin olive oil

Dissolve the sodium citrate and citric acid into the water and bring to a boil. Add the grated cheese and whisk until smooth and re-emulsified. You'll be shocked at how easily that will happen. The sodium citrate binds the calcium and ensures a smooth emulsion even when adding tons of water and oil. The citric acid compensates for the flavor dulling of the sodium citrate, adding back some nice tartness to the cheese, but if you add too much citric acid, you'll lower the pH too much and the emulsion will break. If that happens, add more sodium citrate and it will re-emulsify. Finally, add extra virgin olive oil, occasionally testing whether you've added enough by taking a small quantity of the now-processed cheese and spooning it onto a plate or something then letting it cool. You'll know you've added enough olive oil when the cooled tester dollops stay more liquid. I am guessing at the 60g figure.

Posted by Barzelay on 2010/01/18 @ 4:09 | Comments (2) | Food Additives, Lazy Bear, Science, Technology, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

Comments

Name

Email

URL

Remember personal info? Comments (You may use HTML tags for style)

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.