Morel Dashi

Scallop . Beni Tade . Sea Beans

Purity of flavors is most often exhibited in carefully layered Japanese inspired cookery.

Visually simple but because every component is at it's peak quality and cooking method, everything comes together in a neat stack of flavors.

None overwhelming the others.

That is what we call balance.

The secret to a perfect mushroom Dashi is to combine all the ingredients and not cook it for at least 3 hrs.

It is subsequently cooked for less than 10 minutes.

Use Dry Morels

Clear Soup.

Clear Flavors.

Anise . Cocoa . Smoke

100 g Cocoa Nibs

5 Perfect Star-Anise pods

25 g Coriander

5 Cloves

50 g Sichuan Peppercorns

10 g Lucknow Fennel

1 Entire Box Maldon Salt

A Smoker 

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Vague Instructions.

Smoke the nibs.

Toast the spices.

Grind the spices.

Combine in a food processor with salt.

Pulse.

Transfer to airtight container and FREEZE.

Keep FROZEN otherwise you will discover you just completely wasted your time after 2 weeks.

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Supplemental Info

Click 

LUCKNOW FENNEL

Cauliflower Creme

Curry-Apple Caramel

Caramel is made from Golden Vavouvan and Apple Juice.

Actual curry powder is too bitter for this application hence the use of Vadouvan.

It is cooked in CVAP Oven, obviously temperature needs to be adjusted to avoid the air pockets but the basic structure and flavors work.

This is not a dessert but rather something intended to be served to accompany a protein with affinity for slight sweetness like duck or pork.

Golden Vadouvan .....Click: Here.

In it's generic forms everyone is used to light and dark brown sugar as called for in multiple recipes. Both are essentially created by adding molasses in a ratio to refined white sugar which is essentially sucrose. In the non-generic sense the actual "named" sugars which shockingly most people rarely use create a completely different experience.

Read:

MUSCOVADO

DEMERARA

TURBINADO

Consider this just the personal opinion of 1 person but I strongly feel that the absolute best..... without a doubt...... sugar that money can buy I have ever tasted  is made by the company INDIA TREE.

What if we can create "brown sugar" with a different flavor and complexity. I started with black olives, white sugar and glucose to make an olive caramel. After it had developed a strong olive flavor, I pureed it completely in thermomix  cooled it. Separately I made a small amount of caramel in a large pot, deglazed with water and added the previous olive-sugar puree. On low heat I then added enough white sugar to get it extremely thick like a paste.

It was scraped onto a parchment lined sheet pan, left to cool and wrapped tightly with plastic. After 4 days the result was a soft sugar with delicate caramel-olive notes. It is slightly denser than standard brown sugar but easily broken and crushed with your fingers. The flavor is fantastic. The challenge is to reproduce it.

Olive "Brown sugar"

My first instinct is to make an olive-sugar condiment perhaps with salt, marcona almond and sichuan peppercorns as a dusting garnish for sweetbreads, game birds or a complete conterpoint note to a very soft lactic washed rind cheese.

Miso is ubiquitous. You can add almost anything to it and take advantage of it's basic salty depth of flavor. One of the best creams I have tasted was the Tarte-tatin ice cream at R4D in New York city. Tarte-tatin is a basic comforting combination of apples, pie dough, caramel and butter. Tarte-tatin miso logically became a combination of sweet saikyo miso, roasted apple puree and brown butter solids made by cooking powdered milk in butter. An altogether addictive flavor very different from but reminiscent of dulce de leche. It pairs well above with pork chop and belly, figs-olive-anchovy-almond condiment. Perhaps tarte-tatin miso is not the accurate name and does seem a bit cumbersome but it certainly was the inspiration.

 It is now common knowledge that one can influence the flavor of meats cooked sous-vide by the inclusion of flavored fats in the bag. There is no reason why such fats should be limited to butter, olive oil, other nut oils or combinations of oils and spices. Spiced flavored oils have a more uniform distribution of flavor as opposed to solid matter like Thyme or Cinnamon Included with the oil. Rosemary, Cinnamon and Sumac Oil is fantastic for lamb. The above golden vadouvan (which can be found HERE) and Curry Leaf Roasted Chicken Butter works especially well with aged meats and game birds. Perhaps this will be the new chicken fried steak.

Hamachi

Crispy Salmon Skin . Piperade . Nyons Olive-Pepper Juice