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May 3rd, 2012 » Put­ting on Airs: from may­on­naise to aro­matic bubbles

Culin­ary airs & foams, those frothy darlings of the molecu­lar gast­ro­nomic world. Like a sauce, but much lighter, more con­trol­lable, and not prone to mak­ing things soggy on the plate. And remark­ably simple to make: take a suit­ably dosed liquid, whip it until bubbles form, then sit back amazed as those bubbles don’t pop.

All this magic hap­pens by dos­ing your liquid with an emul­si­fier. And even though we aren’t tech­nic­ally mak­ing an emul­sion, the sci­ence at work is nearly the same.

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April 13th, 2012 » White Sour­dough (63% hydration)

This is a slightly stiffer¹ ver­sion of the “San Fran­cisco Sour­dough Bread“² (reg. 69% hydra­tion³) found in Saus’ Advanced Bread & Pastry. I wanted to try some­thing stiffer, as I’m just get­ting the hang of using proof­ing bas­kets, and prop­erly shap­ing the dough. No shape­less lumps of wet dough today!

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1. Stiffer dough is easier to work with, and res­ults in a tighter crumb, with fewer large holes. ↩
2. I hes­it­ate to call my loaf a San Fran sour­dough, as I’m pretty sure L. san­fran­cis­cen­sis isn’t a dom­in­ate strain ’round here. ↩
3. Hydra­tion is expressed as a ration of flour to water. 69% means that for every 1 part, by weight, of flour, there 0.67 parts water. ↩

September 17th, 2010 » Fros­ted Fruit Mold

I’ve been going through the recipe box that my mum put together back when she got mar­ried. Being a mod­ern young woman, in the late ‘60s, she evid­ently appre­ci­ated the con­veni­ence of pro­cessed, pre-packaged foods. There is more than one Jello salad, and sev­eral cas­ser­oles incor­por­at­ing canned, con­densed soup.

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June 29th, 2010 » The Long, Bor­ing One About Gumbo

Da was sup­posed to be enjoy­ing some hot Gulf coast action right about now. Fate threw some wrenches and, well, he’s not. Under­stand­ably, he’s dis­ap­poin­ted. Oil balls and dead dol­phins don’t help.

On a side-note, I’ve been mak­ing some wicked gumbo lately. After last fall’s trip to NOLA, I had sworn off the stuff. Not off eat­ing it. Just off mak­ing it. I had noth­ing on the nat­ives. But as with all my inten­tions, time passes and resolve fades. That recent warm streak doesn’t help. So I’ve been mak­ing, again. Mak­ing good. Oh so good!

I was crow­ing about my most recent efforts to Da’s lovely bride, who sug­ges­ted that some kick-ass Father’s Day Gumbo may be just the thing to perk a cer­tain someone up.

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