Rose foam at room temperature

Just a small reminder that the deadline for the current round of TGRWT #17 is a little later than usual: May 8th. I took the picture above for last month’s TGRWT (where it was combined with chicken) and came to think that it actually qualifies for this month’s TGRWT as well. It’s rose foam on a spoon with apple, celery and almonds, and the foam is sprinkled with a little pepper.

As an experiment I tried to freeze the leftover rose foam and was quite surprised by the resulting texture. (more…)

One of the more curious cookbooks I own is a German one entitled “Kochen und Backen nach Grundrezepten” (Cooking and Baking with Base recipes). It was first written in 1932 and has been updated regularily ever since. Each section typically has a standard recipe which indicates the ratios to use followed by suggested variations (just like The improvisational cook). It also has nice summaries of dos and don’ts (just like BakeWise and CookWise), and what really makes the book stand out is that is so compact yet still comprehensive. It’s one of those books I actually use when cooking. Many other books have a little too much text – you have to read a lot to pick up the key points. Anyway – the reason I mention this is that as I read about the new “Ratio” book by Michael Ruhlman (MR books, MR blog), the German cookbook was the first book that came to my mind.
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Many cookbooks suggest the following for boiling eggs: 3-6 min for a soft yolk, 6-8 min for a medium soft yolk and 8-10 min for a hard yolk. If you are satisfied with this, there is no need for you to continue reading. But if you’ve ever wondered whether the size of an egg has any impact on the cooking time you should read on. And if you search the ultimate soft boiled egg we share a common goal! From a scientific view point, a cooking time of approximately 3-8 minutes to obtain a soft yolk is not very precise. A number of important parameters remain unanswered: What size are the eggs? Are they taken from the fridge or are they room tempered? Are they put into cold or boiling water? And if using cold water – when should the timer be started? When the heat is turned on or when the water boils? And would the size of the pan, the amount of water and the power of the stove top matter?

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It’s time for a new round of “They go really well together”. For TGRWT #17 the challenge is to pair apple with rose, in particular Cox Orange or Elstar apples in combination with Damask (Rosa × damascena). The hosts this time are Malin and
Lisa, and Malin explains explains a litte about the chemistry behind the pairing both in English and Swedish. The deadline is May 8th so you get a little extra time for this round. By coincidence rose appears in TGRWT twice in a row, but I can assure you that the hosts of the March and April round did not know about each others choices when they were made. If you bought a bottle of rose water for last round I’m sure there’s a little left. You might even be lucky to get hold of fresh rose leaves now that summer is approaching. For inspiration on how rose combines with chicken, do check out the round up of TGRWT #16 over at Supernova Condensate.

I just discovered that The Atlantic features a blog by Grant Achatz of Alinea. Under the title “Back of the house” we get a peek “Inside the restlessly creative mind and kitchen of Grant Achatz” according to The Atlantic. Grant has so far reported from the Madrid Fusion in January (four posts) and in the latest post he describes how a visit to Japan has inspired him to explore manipulation of the environment at Alinea. Comments are allowed and Grant is actively involved in the discussions. Recommended reading!

For a true multi modal experience I can imagine that restaurants and chefs who are into ORGASMIC, a new proposed acronym for science enabled cooking, will serve desserts accompanied by the orgasmatron (picture via BoingBoing).

The definition and use of the term molecular gastronomy has been a recurring topic here at Khymos. In my opinion no better name has been deviced, but that may actually change now. I just received an email which let me know that:

A group of influential international chefs have sequestered since yesterday in Alicia, Spain. Their mission has been to find a more palatable term for the dreaded “Molecular Gastronomy”. The consensus seems to be leaning towards ORGASMIC, an acronym for ORganoleptics, Gastronomy, Art, & Science Meet In Cuisine. A final vote on the proposed name change is scheduled for tomorrow morning, followed by the unveiling at a press conference.

Unfortunately information about which chefs have been invited to the event is scarce, so it’s difficult to judge about what impact this will have. Nevertheless, since the acronym includes so many of the different aspects related to molecular gastronomy I likely that the new name will eventually replace the term molecular gastronomy. I’ll update once I have more details!

Update: Fellow blogger Aiden Brooks is currently living in Barcelona and has many more details on this. It seems that there will actually be a new Erice meeting and that the current “secret session” is a run up to the next International Workshop on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy.