Kiwisizzler

For those who don’t know me so well, I’ve been cooking for a while – nearly 14 years to date. I’ve honed my skills in many different styles of kitchen from purely organic vegetarian cooking through to top-end fine-dining and have a penchant for the traditional, preferring the classic and ‘authentic’ methods of preparation over all this molecular gastronomy malarcy that has infiltrated the culinary world.

When I began my formal training in New Zealand we spent part of our studies covering modern cookery. Back then modern cookery didn’t even include fusion cuisine. It was more a recap of nouvelle cuisine (you know the stuff – tiny portions surrounded by a mass of empty white plate which required a visit to MacDonalds on the way home just to feel satisfied) and while the presentation ideas were valuable it wasn’t worth much more than that. It has always been proper kitchen experience that has made the difference, stealing ideas from anyone and everyone.

In the last few weeks I’ve been learning about some ideas that are fast becoming the norm in fine-dining kitchens. My favourite, being one of the most fun and biggest reaction-getter, is caviar. I don’t know about you but caviar (fish eggs) don’t float my boat. What if they didn’t taste of fish? How about if they were made of raspberry jelly?! This is quite a simple idea when we stop and think but far removed from the traditional idea of jelly.

First we put a small container of vegetable oil in the freezer. It needs to be nice and cold. Next some raspberries are placed in a stainless steel bowl covered with clingfilm and placed over a saucepan of simmering water so the steam heats the bowl. After an hour or so the raspberries will have excreted lots of juice. This method is called ‘etuve’ and translates to ‘steam room’. In culinary terms it means to cook in the food’s juices.

After straining the juice, we bring them to the boil with a little sugar and add some agar, a gelatine derived from seaweed. The juice is boiled until the agar is dissolved. Using a large syringe, we suck up the liquid and then drip it into the very cold oil. As the jelly is water-based it won’t mix with the oil and as the oil is so cold (-18C) the jelly sets straight away. Also, being made of agar instead of the usual animal-derived gelatine, the jelly balls will hold their shape at room temperature and above. Agar sets at around 55C. Interesting stuff! My next project with this method will be to serve cold, rare beef fillet carpaccio with ‘caviar’ of watercress and horseradish. The green and white balls will contrast against each other nicely and are a classic pairing to beef. Lush!

The other major concept I’ve been using which has been around since the 1970′s is called ‘sous-vide’. This technique involves using a precisely regulated water-bath  (thermal immersion circulators) in which the food is cooked slowly at very accurate temperatures. The food in question is vacuum-sealed in a plastic bag which maintains the integrity and structure. As an example, If I were to roast a beef rump in the usual manner, it would likely be rare in the middle, working its way to well done on the outside. Using sous-vide we first colour and seal the meat in a hot pan to give the meat that caramelised appearance and flavour. The searing also kills any bacteria present on the outside of the meat – a very important step. The meat is vacuum-packed and cooked in the water bath at 55C for 45 minutes. As medium-cooked meat is 55C it cannot be over-cooked using the sous-vide method as this is the maximum it can get to. For the professional chef, this means no overcooked bits resulting in less wastage and more consistency. The sous-vide method can also be used for slow cooking over a long period of time – we recently cooked duck legs for 18 hours at 80C and they simply melted!

Who says you can’t teach an old (ish!) dog new tricks?!!