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Culinary Challenge 4 (Something you didn't like as a child).

Ben_Johnson_34605

This weeks objective: is to recreate a dish from your childhood. But not your favorite, maybe that will be next weeks. For this week you will recreate one that you hated as a youth. Use sous vide to turn something you despised as a youth into something delicious you can enjoy in life now. Whether it's liver and onions or Brussels sprouts, try to remember the foods that you tried so hard to forget.

Outline: Take the challenge in your own kitchen then share your results via the ChefSteps forum. Describe the dish you have chosen and techniques used to make it. Describe where your idea or inspiration came from and what your plan of attack was, and finally, post your pictures.

The top 3 posts will get their photos posted on ChefSteps' Pinterest board. Please have your entry posted by Sunday.

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Comments

Carsten_Eriksen_35462

@Brian Dougles - FYI. The Common Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus) is a large species (of 40 different species) in the dove and pigeon family. It belongs to the Columba genus and, like all pigeons and doves, belongs to the family Columbidae. It is locally known in southeast England as the Culver

... And it taste delicious :-)

michaelnatkin

@Brian Douglas - prunesco, that's awesome!

Nor_Eastern_56309

Oh, and the texture of the brie is a lot like the french laundries Parmesan crisps only much lighter, almost ephemeral. It sort of crunched on the tooth and melted. I think it probably could have many uses.

Nor_Eastern_56309

@Brian Douglas I simply cut the rind off of Brie and microwaved it on silpat for 18 seconds on high. The filigree is just the molton brie cheese exploding outward. If I had been more observant the filigree would have been much larger. That is just what came off the silpat using a ham hand. Attached is a much better photo.

prince_of_porcelain

@Nor'Eastern - Greens cooked for hours with bacon and vinegar and lots of hot sauce is pretty good in my book, but you stepped it up. What was the texture like on that brie and how exactly did you do it? That's pretty cool, and I may need to give it a try.

prince_of_porcelain

@Carsten - I don't know what a woodpigeon is, but sounds close enough to squab for me. That dish sounds delicious. Foie is a rare treat for me as an adult. I should've pulled the old 'I really hated foie gras as a child' card for this weeks challenge. Now I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it. And those gooseberries look good too.

Carsten_Eriksen_35462

Wood pigeon, Red Berries and Foie Gras.

This week's challenge should be easy for me, for I could only eat five dishes as a children: lasagne, Rice porridge, Wiener Sausages (but not the ends), Frikadeller (danish meatballs) and Pizza.

I remember one special Christmas Eve where I ate pizza while the rest of the family ate roast duck. Therefore, this week I decided to throw myself at poultry.

Wood pigeon: I cleaned the birds and made them sous vide (60 degree Celsius for 24 hours.) Then I cut the breasts and thighs of the hull and fried them crisp in a pan,- skin side down.

Foie Gras: thereafter I fried a pair of thick slice of foie gras in the same pan.

Berries: Simultaneously I gently warmed fresh blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries and blueberries in a saucepan with 2 tbsp. of water.

Sauce: The warm foie gras fat from the pan, mixed with a splash of vinegar balsimico.

Voila!

PS! this might not be the best looking and well plated dish, - but it tasted delicious ;-)

Nor_Eastern_56309

When I was a child my siblings and I had to suffer through one of the most god awful meals imaginable. Greens cooked for hours with a couple of slices of bacon, with a side of mac and American cheese. The greens invariably came out this oily blackish green glop. Served with vinegar and later a semi-hot sauce.

So I decided to do a modern rendition of the dish. The pork belly is just a basic sous vide variation. The greens were cooked at 185F for 14 minutes and then sliced int 2 inch by one half of an inch pieces. The shitake mushrooms were simply sauteed in duck fat. I made some greens pasta and served a microwaved rind of brie on top. There are four different types types of hot sauce: habanero, cayenne, jalapeno and basic tomato and onion.

Some interesting observations: the textured web of brie was a bonus; vinegar chive whipped cream pairs phenomenally well with very hot sauces, must have something to do with the fat content; the greens had the slightest crunch and made for an interesting textural contrast with the shitake mushrooms and the crispy panko crumbs; the tomato added nothing except color.

For scale, the ring mold used is 1.5 inches in diameter.

One thing became obvious - my plating and photography skills are not even amateurish yet.

Hmmmm. It is going to be really difficult to bread and saute this monster.

The surprising filigree when microwaving brie rinds. Pictured on top of greens pasta with ancient balsamic vinegar.

The finished dish. The quenella of vinegar chive whipped cream is completely washed out.

seijoed

@Mason - did a tempura of squid, shrimp, onions, mushrooms, peppers yesterday with a large batch of salmon and tuna

https://plus.google.com/112827635720941213700/posts

prince_of_porcelain

Also, apparently it's February now, not November. Who knew? Still no good plums at the market in Wisconsin.

Mason_Perry_34060

Looks great, I like sous vide shrimp, but I love tempura shrimp! Best of all I might actually eat those prunes! Great idea matching with the hot mustard!

seijoed

Sounds like finding good mussels in Denver...

Looks great!

I'm going to have to submit mine later, I'm boarding a flight later this afternoon.

prince_of_porcelain

I posted my entry last night, but it never showed up, even though if I check my comments it says it should be there. Anyway, I think I started off with some sort of comment about taking one for team and posting after @chris_koller's phenomenal looking dishes.

I turned to my parents this week for advice on what I didn't like as a kid. I thought they'd give me something I could work with. A dish that I could elevate beyond what I'd had as a kid into something much better. Instead, I got prunes.

I don't really remember not liking prunes. Of course, I don't really remember liking prunes either. They were sort of a non entity in my young life. However, I'm always telling my kids they have to listen to their parents, so, I accepted the challenge. Prunes aren't really a dish though. And they're pretty much what they are. I thought may I could buy some plums and make a better prune, but the prospects of getting a decent plum in Wisconsin in November were slim to none. So instead I thought about what I could do to incorporate prunes into another dish.

I thought about shrimp with plum sauce and hot mustard. I thought I could do something there. I came up with this idea to treat the prune as though I was making shiokombu but the prune was the kombu. I packed 100g of prunes, 25g mirin, 40g rice vinegar, 70g sake, 30g soy, and 25g sugar into a bag and let it cook sous vide for an hour at 87C. This kept the liquid from reducing, and allowed the prunes to hydrate somewhat. After cooking, I removed the prunes from the liquid, and blended, adding a combination of the cooking broth and EVOO until it reached a consistency somewhat like a marmelade. I plated with sous vide shrimp and some dollops of chinese mustard. This is Shioprune Shrimp with Chinese Mustard:

The sauce was really quite good, and paired well with the hot mustard. Next time, I'd probably tempura the shrimp to give it a little crunch rather than the more delicate sous vide shrimp texture. Blasphemy here, I know.

But I wasn't done yet. I had guests coming for dinner, and one prune dish surely wouldn't suffice. I took some inspiration from @Michael_Natkin's Romesco entry from the challenge a couple weeks ago. I made the Romesco sauce, but included 10 prunes in the sauce. I cooked potatoes, carrots, leeks, asparagus and cod sous vide. I made a stock from the shrimp shells and cod trimmings, and reduced that with some previously made vegetable stock and carrot juice into a broth. I took a blowtorch to some scallions I'd trimmed and plated the dish: Prunesco Sauce with Cod and Vegetables.

I served it with some Crostini to mop up the sauce. The prunesco sauce was sweeter than the romesco sauce (I also made some of the standard recipe) It was delicious with the crostini and leeks and onion, but the standard romesco sauce paired better with some of the other veggies, particularly the carrots that were sweet enough on their own. I don't have any expectation that prunesco will become the new standard across Catalonia, but I imagine if you had some roasted calcots and a bowl of prunesco sauce, you'd be pretty happy indeed.

prince_of_porcelain

Hmmm. My post never showed up?

tuckatodd

@Chris koller I love the creativity!! Well Done!!

crkoller

Not sous vide, but Heston's flowerpot tiramisu with edible dirt. I am sure I would have hated this as a kid; wine, coffee and dirt all in the same dish...would have been one bite, a look of despair and young Chris would have been done haha.

Here is the tiramisu video:

http://youtu.be/Qwb3dj8INU8

Mason_Perry_34060

Nice I want some dirt!

seijoed

Chris - that is just awesome!

prince_of_porcelain

Holy crap @chris. You rock!

crkoller

Similar to @Grant I pretty much ate everything as a kid; my parents' rule was: "You have to try it, but if you don't like it you don't have to finish it". So for this challenge I thought of what I hated as a kid and the first thing that came to my mind was dirt...I hated being dirty, whenever I would get dirt on my hands I would find my mom and cry until I was clean...So using that as inspiration I made a edible dirt salad, also the kids I used to babysit hated salad so this one is also for them haha

I've seen Noma and Heston use this idea so I figured it was worth a shot. I made the dirt using some pumpernickel bread, hazelnut flour, cocoa, cocoa nibs, and sesame seeds.

Underneath the dirt I had a "mud" made of SVed caramelized onion, turned into a fluid gel stabilized with agar.

I Sous Vide some beautiful local beets, carrots (orange/yellow/purple), and asparagus I bought at the Durham, NC farmer's market. Also scattered around are some, French breakfast radishes, morels, baby pak choi, red sorrel, dehydrated Fuji apples, and some herbs.

It was simple, the textures were great, and overall it was a lot of fun putting the whole thing together

Cheers,

Chris

prince_of_porcelain

New issue of Lucky Peach showed up today. I love this magazine.

prince_of_porcelain

@Ben_Johnson - That is awesome. It looks really, really good.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Sweet! maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this whole hydrocolloid thing! Very nice dish @Ben

seijoed

That is what I thought, thanks!

Ben_Johnson_34605

Brendan is correct, the gellan gives a very nice texture for the soubise. For a denser soubise, you could increase the gellan to around 1%. This would also allow you omit the gelatin and serve the terrine warm.

Shannon_Barnes_68642

@Ben, that is so beautiful it makes me want to cry a little. LOVE it!

Brendan_Lee_56950

I think the gellan is to make a fluid gel first so you get the proper mouth feel (i.e. not jello) and then the gelatin sets it up as the faux fat cap?

seijoed

Thanks a bunch! What exactly does the gellan do here?

Ben_Johnson_34605

There were two things I wouldn't eat as a kid. Peas(any kind) and beef liver & onions. I chose liver & onions for my challenge this week. I love peas now. For the liver I did a paté and cooked it in a 68.5 °C bath to a core temperature of 67 °C. For the faux fat cap, I did a sweet onion soubise fluid gel and set it with gelatin. I served the terrine with pumpernickle crostini, baby chicories and pickled mustard seeds.

Terrine Base:

beef liver 100%

red port 21.55%

red wine 43.1%

shallot 18.86%

garlic 3.88%

butter 37.72%

thyme .32%

cream 37.72%

sugar 2.69%

egg yolk 10.78%

salt 2.91%

curing salt(pink) .25%

Cut liver into 2 cm cubes soak in 2% salt water solution overnight to remove impurities.

Add salt, curing salt and sugar to liver.

Blend and strain through chinois.

Sweat garlic, shallot and thyme in 50g of butter until tender.

Add wine and reduce until nearly dry.

Add cream, butter and blend.

Pass through chinois.

Chill mixture.

Combine with blended liver and egg yolks.

Pour mixture in terrine mold and cook to core temperature of 67 ·°C.

For Sauce Soubise(faux fat cap):

sweet onion (raw) 100%

thyme .6%

butter 6 %

chicken bouillon 30%

cream 19%

milk 40%

gellan F .54%

salt .8%

gelatin 170 1.5%

Sweat onions and thyme in butter until tender.

Add chicken stock, cream, milk and salt.

Simmer for 5 minutes, strain through chinios.

Add gellan F and heat to 85° C.

Cast into mold and let gel into a solid.

Puree to a fluid gel.

Melt bloomed gelatin and combine with onion puree.

Set on top of liver terrine.

Pickled Mustard Seeds:

mustard seed 100%

champagne vinegar 175%

water 75%

sugar 100%

salt 5.5%

Blanch mustard seeds 10 times in boiling water.

Combine vinegar, water, sugar and salt.

Mix well to dissolve.

Combine blanched mustard seeds and pickle brine place in chamber sealer and pull a vacuum to infuse, or let rest in brine for 48 hours.

Pumpernickel Crostini:

Slice pumpernickel into 3 mm thick.

Brush with olive oil and season with kosher salt.

Bake at 150 °C for 10 minutes.

Baby Chicories:

Clean chicories, season with black pepper, kosher salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

grant

I had loved all things food as a child, my Dad made me. If we were to ask what's for dinner, he would quickly yell, "FOOD, don't talk to your mother like that". My brothers on the other hand, didn't even like it when their foods touched on the same plate. I think some of them still feel that way. My meals fell into two camps, Dad cooked it or Mom did. My favorites where smoked oysters, smoked salmon, crab, cod, salmon patties and salmon scraps. Salmon scraps was the name of the dish actually. My dad would send my brothers and I to the cleaning stations on the piers to get the carcasses of salmon that people have butchered. I mean butchered in a terrible kind of way. We would gather them up and scrape away with spoons. Often ending up with many, many pounds of meat. We would then mix it with butter, onions and Johnny's seasoning. We would sauté it up into a huge pile and dig in. All of Mom's food for sure was a huge hit. That was stuff like, Swedish meatballs and rice, turkey gravy and biscuits, tuna casserole, fried mashed potatoes, steak Italiano with rice, Dr. Pepper ham, mashed peas and chicken, fried gizzards with rice and butter, meatlaof etc. She was really good actually. She could really bake too. Sorry I cant add to this one but I was even told that as a very young child I would sneak raw coffee grounds to eat as well. I swear I don't remember that though:)

Grant