The idea from this course came from my favorite way to eat baked potatoes as a kid. We had baked potatoes whenever my Dad grilled steaks, and when he grilled steaks, he always glazed them with barbecue sauce as they cooked. When they were finished, he'd put all the steaks on a big plate to hold until we sat down to eat them. In the couple minutes it took us to wash up and gather at the table, the steaks would (it turns out) rest, which helped them stay juicy, but as they rested some of their juices would collect in the pan and commingle with the grilled barbecue sauce glaze. After we all took our steaks, my father would split open his baked potato, add butter, and then pour all those accumulated beef and barbecue juices all over the baked potato. It was delicious, and I started doing it, too.

This dish started out as a way to play on that taste memory. Instead of baked potatoes I used sunchokes and, since this was for a vegetarian dinner I couldn't use any beef juices. I tweaked this in a number of ways, but the end result indeed a good tribute to the baked potatoes of my youth.

The sunchokes were peeled, with all their knobby parts removed in the process, and held in cold water until used (to reduce oxidation). All the sunchokes were then vacuum-sealed in bags with salted whey (the byproduct of making the ricotta for the next dish at the dinner). They were cooked sous vide at 85C for 50 minutes, then chilled, drained and dried on paper towels just before serving, then sauteed and basted in lots of butter.

I also made sunchoke chips by slicing the sunchokes thinly on a mandoline then deep-frying at about 325F until fully golden and dried. Don't worry about peeling them before slicing if you're just making chips. Drain them on paper towels, then put them in an airtight container with desiccant packs. They'll keep for a week or so.

Along with the sunchokes I served a buttermilk gel (recipe below--a bit of a feat to use gellan for something with so much calcium), a barbecue gel (barbecue sauce and water in an equal proportion, so that the BBQ flavor wouldn't be completely overpowering but it would maintain the look of barbecue sauce, gelled with .7% gellan F then pureed and pushed through a chinois), a barbecue streusel, and buttermilk powder (olive oil, tapioca maltodextrin, salt, and powdered buttermilk).

The celery is not just a garnish. It really ties the whole plate together with the fresh, crisp texture and strong flavor.

Buttermilk Gel
190g water
310g buttermilk
1g sodium citrate
.5g sodium hexametaphosphate
3.5g gellan "F"

Calcium interferes pretty badly with gellan gum, so this recipe sequesters the calcium using two sequestrants: sodium citrate and sodium hexametaphosphate. Shear the sequestrants into the buttermilk. Shear the gellan into the water. Then shear the water and buttermilk together. Heat the mixture to at least 200F in a saucepan, stirring constantly once bubbles appear around the outside of the pan. Immediately pour the hot mixture into a shallow dish and refrigerate until fully gelled, which won't take more than twenty minutes or so, and will start happening immediately. Once fully gelled, cut the gel into inch cubes and puree them in a blender, doing whatever is necessary to get them to spin (this works best if you are making a larger quantity, such as twice the quantity listed here), such as picking up the blender and shaking it vigorously while it's on. Once it's fully pureed, push the resulting fluid gel through a chinois or tamis and refrigerate for up to two weeks.

Posted by Barzelay on 2010/02/02 @ 5:17 | Comments (6) | Food Additives, Lazy Bear, Sauces, Condiments, 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.