Chinese Chicken Salad Aspic

I was channeling the 60s. And fully expected it to be gross. But remarkably good! Stir fried chicken, ginger, sesame, soy, cashews, raisins, celery, mayo. Set is a riesling gelatin. Yah! #jelloshot

ASFS Presentation

Hypocras

Hypocras

Jackfruit

Soopa Shastra

Taillevent

Tourte Parmerienne

Getty Menu

Aphrodisiac Dinner

Leonardo Dinner

Central Kitchen

Platina's Pie

Henriette Davidis Dumplings: Another Lesson in Historic Cooking

    The past few days I've been writing an episode for my upcoming historic cooking series (for The Great Courses). This one is about Henriette Davidis, the most popular cookbook author of 19th century Germany. The Romantic Era, Burgeoning Nationalism and the Construction of Bourgeois Female Domesticity. All that and dumplings. Thing is, I thought I knew what I was doing with dumplings. They're kind of like matzoh balls. Rub fat in crumbs, add egg, a little stock, roll into balls and simmer in soup, right? Wrong.

    The procedure is quite different. These are made of bread - wet and then wrung out in a cloth and rubbed. So here's my own dense sourdough bread. Then you cream butter with egg yolks. Then you whip the egg white and it all gets folded in together. I get this, light a fluffy perhaps.

    Well, trial one was a complete disaster. I used fresh bread and she said not to, nor use hot water. Oops. Trial two was also a failure. For the second shot I thought, OK, I'll use bread crumbs, dry, so they hold together. NOPE. They almost worked, but likewise fell apart and were ragged. Hmm.

   How about I actually follow the directions and don't assume I know what I'm doing? So the bread MUST be stale. You must wet it and thoroughly wring out the water. Then you must rub it. It doesn't completely obliterate the bread but leaves some texture and as you can see bits of the crust. This is what glues everything together. Formed with two spoons like quenelles. Simmered 5 minutes in chicken stock. Beautiful and delicious.

Lesson learned. Don't assume you know better. Follow the recipe! Next time I'll use parsley too, which she offers as an option. 

A LESSON IN CULINARY HISTORY

A Lesson in Culinary History 

Lately I have been playing obsessively with alcohol laden aspics. Think of these as sophisticated jello shots. I was overjoyed to find one such in Messisbugo's Banchetti published in Ferrara in 1549. It's basically a Capon in Gelatin. Made with a bottle of wine and a riot of spices. Here's the recipe translated by me.

Take a capon and the feet of four capons, and place them to boil in sweet white wine, until it is cooked, and when it's cooked, take the flesh, the wings, and whatever you want to cover, and let the rest boil together, and let it cook well, then place in a little spoon of vinegar, half a pound of sugar, or honey, an ounce and a half of cinnamon, a sixth of pepper, and a quarter of ginger, a sixth of mace, a little saffron, then pass this decoction through a sieve, and have your little plates with the reserved capon at the bottom and bay leaves, and pour it over, let it cook and it will be good.

When I first tried this it was with 2 packets of gelatin, a chicken breast and most of the recipe followed closely thereafter. But half a pound of sugar sounds ridiculous, so I added about a tablespoon. And more than the tiny spoon of vinegar. It was for a film shoot I did yesterday for Matthew Arnold, a distributor of a new historic recipe archive who commission this. I'll share the video when it comes out. Version number one looks gorgeous. Clear aspic, the chicken lightly poached and cut into a lovely shape, underneath are the bay leaves Messisbugo calls for. Only one problem. It tastes AWFUL! It was the pretty version I made ahead and it was showed at the end of the video. As a historic exercise: epic failure.

Happily for the video itself I followed the directions exactly. RULE #1 of all culinary history. FOLLOW THE DAMNED RECIPE. No short cuts, no second guesses, no substitutions. If you can't get the ingredients, don't make it. For this I used a rooster, head feet and all, plus the extra 8 feet. All found at the SF Asian Market here in Stockton. And I used the Renaissance half pound of sugar - which is 12 ounces x 1/2 or 6 ounces or about 12 tablespoons. Sounds excessive? Absolutely not. The second one is remarkably delicious. Not too sweet at all, but beautifully perfumed, delicate and almost evanescent in its lightness. I can almost hear the Este Dukes gasp in wonder at the first mouthful.

So lesson learned. Follow the recipe and if it means sacrificing that instagrammable image, trust me, you will be happier in having made something edible. The author always knows best.

Grazie Maestro Messisbugo!

Dashi Sake Jello Egg

My jello shot odyssey has continued all week. This is sake and dashi stock, formed in an egg shell. Perched on a cucumber. Served with mackerel and an incorrectly rolled tamago, pickled eggplant and black garlic hiding back there too. Shot in my tea house. With a tea bowl I made. 

Ouzo Jello

This is ouzo jello. Delicious with marjoram and my own olive inside. Or served with hummus, feta, cucumber and a tiny pita.

Pickled Carrot, Jalapeno and Onion Noodle in Almond Cream-Dashi

The method: put a chunk of stale homemade sourdough bread in a small piece of cheesecloth with some whole wheat berries and dried beans. put in jar, add salt water, peeled black carrots and a small onion, one sliced japaleno. Cover wait one week. it may spray upon opening. Peel carrots into shreds and dehydrate with sliced onion and chili. next day grind into powder. Add the same volume of bread flour and enough egg to bind. Roll out and cut into noodles. Then take a handful of blanched raw almonds and put in a blender, and pour in a few cups of hot dashi stock (katsuobushi flakes and kombu, brewed like tea) till you have a smooth cream. Boil noodles 1 minute and place on top of hot almond dashi cream. period.