Category — Fun With Food

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Believe it or not, this is cheesecake. The flavors are all represented here in differing textures and (arguably) bizarre forms. The meat of the dish is a very light inflated cream cheese mousse. Set with agar and inflated using a cream whipper, the mousse, shown in the close up below, is very fluffy and porous, a very different texture than the traditional dense cream cheese custard.

One frustration I have with cheesecake is the graham cracker crust: It becomes dense and soggy after baking. Here the crust is appears in a powder and in large chunks to preserve its original flakey and crunchy texture. We also have some hand-made berries made from cherry and raspberry puree. You can eat the liquid-center orbs all at once and pop them in your mouth or puncture them to sauce the plate in a sweet and tangy fruit puree. Finally, for extra texture, flavor, and dramatic flare, crispy cherry leather is stuck into the cream cheese mousse.

For a complete recipe please subscribe to my newsletter. Simply click the link below and enter your email address. I’ll include the recipe, including the cherry-raspberry spheres, in my next mailing (12/1/09). You’ll receive a monthly update of the latest from Garrett’s Table as well as plenty of subscriber-only content. E-mail addresses are confidential and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.

Photos by Justin Kern.

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A very popular technique in modern fine dining is spherification. This technique allows us to encapsulate a liquid, such as cherry and raspberry puree, inside of itself. The key players are calcium and sodium alginate, which is a seaweed-derived gelling agent. When sodium alginate comes into contact with calcium it quickly forms a delicate but resilient skin that cannot be de-natured by freezing or excessive heating. However, when you apply light pressure to the orb with a fork or your teeth, the membrane breaks, releasing the liquid interior. This is illustrated in the photo below.

I made these orbs by first making a cherry and raspberry puree. I then thickened and seasoned the puree. I added calcium lactate to the puree and froze the mixture into spheres. Meanwhile I combined water, sugar, and sodium alginate to make a slightly sweet mixture. I boiled the mixture to expel the air bubbles and kept it warm. I dropped the frozen spheres into the warm alginate bath. The heat melted a thin layer of water on the outside which was immediately gelled. After a 2 minute soak, I carefully removed the orbs and rinsed them in a water bath. I then transfered them to a holding bath of cherry juice. Although the skin is resilient to heat and cold, it breathes and is permeable by the process of osmosis. Keeping the orbs in a flavored liquid adds to the overall flavor and prevents liquid migration from the orbs.

Top left to lower right: Frozen puree, spheres in hot alginate bath, spheres in water rinsing bath, spheres in cherry holding bath.

For a complete recipe with helpful information on where to buy and how to use sodium alginate and calcium lactate, please subscribe to my bi-weekly mailing list. Simply click the link below, enter your email address, and I will include the recipe in my next mailing (12/1/09). You can unsubscribe at any time and I will not flood your inbox. With each mailing you’ll receive a friendly update of what’s going on at Garrett’s Table with exclusive, subscriber-only recipes and content.

Stay tuned in the coming days to see how I use these cherry-raspberry orbs with the flavors of a classic New York pastry

Photos by Justin Kern.

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Pretzels, large or small, soft or crunchy, were meant to be dipped in mustard. In a never-ending quest to make life more efficient and more delicious, I decided to make a pretzel from mustard.

If you’re a regular reader of Garrett’s Table, you know that I’ve been recently obsessed with puffed tapioca chips, as seen in puffed tomato chips with basil pesto. Puffed tapioca chips don’t sound very delicious but I assure you they are. They’re made by steaming a flavored tapioca starch dough. The cooked dough is then dehydrated. Once dry, you fry the chips at 400° F. The residual moisture in the gelatinized starch cells turns to steam, causing the chip to rapidly expand, creating a tender but crispy puffed chip. Making a puffed tapioca chip is a somewhat laborious process but watching a tiny, nearly inedible, dry pellet inflate into a tender, crispy, and delicious chip is a huge pay off.

This week I’m introducing something new to Garrett’s Table: Video! This video was shot on my iPhone. It’s certainly crude, but there must be a first for everything. The soundtrack is awesome though! Watch to learn how to turn your favorite mustard into a crispy pretzel chip. I’ve also included a recipe below the video.

Puffed Mustard Pretzel:

• 240 g water
• 80 g stone ground mustard
• 8 g salt
• 10 g white wine vinegar
• 20 g ground mustard seed
• 5 g onion powder, with 10 threads saffron
• 2 g xanthan gum (optional)
• 380 g tapioca starch
• 10 g kosher salt
• 10 g mustard seed
• 5 g powdered sugar

Combine the water, mustard, 8 g salt, vinegar, ground mustard, onion powder, and saffron in a blender. Blend on high speed. Add xanthan gum and blend for 1 minute. Add liquid mixture to tapioca starch and carefully combine with your hands or a rubber spatula. The dough will be a non-Newtonian fluid, which means it acts as both a liquid and a solid. When you handle the dough gently it will flow as a liquid, but when rapidly compressed it will stiffen and resist as a solid. This consistency is desired.

The next step is rolling the dough into thin sheets. I like to tape silpats to my work surface as spacers for my rolling pin. Place a layer of plastic wrap over your workspace, with the ends overlapping the silpats slightly. Place a thin log of dough in the center of the plastic and carefully place a second sheet of plastic over the first. Press down firmly in the center of the dough log with the rolling pin and roll upward and downward slowly to achieve a uniform thickness of about 1/16.'’

Place one dough sheet at a time in a steamer. Steam for 10 minutes, or until translucent. Allow the dough sheets to cool to room temperature. Once cooled, remove the plastic wrap and lay the dough sheets on a cutting board. Cut into pretzel shapes with a cookie cutter. Lay the shapes on the tray of a dehydrator and dry on low heat overnight, or until dry and brittle.

In a spice gringer, grind the 10 g kosher salt, 10 g mustard seed, and 5 g powdered sugar into a fine powder. This will be the final seasoning for the chips.

Heat a pot of oil to 400° F. Drop 3 dry chips into the hot oil. Use a spider or slotted spoon to completely submerge them in the oil as they puff and rise to the surface. Fry for 10 seconds and transfer to a paper towel. Lightly dust with seasoning mixture.

Keep visitin Garrett’s Table in the coming days for a wild recipe using these puffed pretzel chips!

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Warm fruit cobbler is one of the best treats of summer. The sweet, warm, cooked fruit underneath a crunchy oatmeal crust is incredible topped with vanilla ice cream. In the summertime here in Chicago fruit markets and farmer’s markets are filled with peaches and plums at their peak of ripeness. I took full advantage of the summer fruit harvest to make my own unique version of fruit cobbler.

I began with a peach puree. I cooked the peaches with a splash of bourbon and a sachet of black tea leaves. The tea infused with the juices that leached from the peaches to form a sweet-tea of sorts. I then pureed the peaches and adjusted the seasoning with a squeeze of lemon juice.

The centerpiece of the dish is a poached red plum. To make them I neatly peeled and split the peaches in half. I then made a simple syrup in which I blended the plum skins, a vanilla bean, and a splash of port wine. I sealed them in a plastic bag and cooked them souse vide at 130° for about 20 minutes. The plum halves were evenly poached and slightly softened but held their shape. I served the plum warm.

Finally the other elements of the plate include a cardamom ice cream, which adds some spice and a nice temperature contrast, oatmeal praline for added crunch, and a light and fluffy cinnamon foam to add the final element of this deconstructed fruit cobbler.

Photos by Justin Kern.

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And now for something completely different. These are crunchy yet tender puffed tomato chips with a basil pesto dip. The chips taste intensely of sun dried tomatoes and are perfectly complimented with a creamy, blended pesto. It’s gourmet Italian junk food made with an unusual technique…

I made the chips using my oven dried tomatoes The chips themselves begin with a dough made from dried tomatoes and tapioca starch. The dough is rolled thin between plastic wrap and steamed. The cooked dough is then cut into shapes and dehydrated. When fried at 400°, the tiny amount of moisture remaining in the starch turns to steam and puffs the chip dramatically. Here are some pictures of the process:

The cooked, cut, and dehydrated tomato chips

When fried, the residual moisture puffs the chips into delicious Italian junk food

The process sounds strange but we’re actually quite familiar with it. Popcorn and puffed rice cereal are both common examples of puffed starches that Americans eat on a nearly daily basis. Here’s my recipe for puffed tomato chips with basil pesto:

Tomato Chips:

• 75g oven dried tomatoes
• 400 g water
• 15 g kosher salt
• 30 g balsamic vinegar
• 680 g tapioca starch

Blend the tomatoes, water, salt, and balsamic vinegar until smooth. Pass through a fine mesh strainer to remove any solid particles. Carefully measure the tapioca starch into a large mixing bowl and add the tomato liquid. Slowly incorporate the liquid to form a dough.

Take a small handful of dough (about 1/4 cup) and roll it into a log. Place between two sheets of plastic wrap and roll to 1/16′’ thick. Steam the dough in the plastic wrap for 10 minutes. The dough will now be translucent. Repeat this process with the rest of the dough.

Allow the cooked dough sheets to cool and carefully remove from the plastic wrap onto a clean work surface. Cut into shapes and dehydrate overnight, or until dry and hardened. Store dried chips in an airtight container.

Tomato Seasoning:

• 2 Tb. tomato powder
• 2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Combine ingredients and grind to a fine powder using a spice grinder.

Basil Pesto:

• 2 oz. basil leaves
• 1 Tb. balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tb. water
• 4 walnuts, toasted
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 Tb. grated parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp. lemon zest
• 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 c. vegetable oil

Place all ingredients except oils in a blender and blend until smooth. While spinning, drizzle in oils to emulsify. The pesto should be thick and creamy. Hold in the refrigerator.

To Finish and Serve:

Bring a pot of oil to 400° F. Drop 3-4 chips in the oil and fry for about 20 seconds, or until puffed and crispy. Drain on paper towels and dust with powdered tomato seasoning. Serve with a side of basil pesto dip.

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