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

Kombu hydrated in denatured Mirin.

Denatured referring to removing the alcohol.

Exposing miring to heat basically ruins it so proceed gently on super low heat

Cool completely before hydrating seaweed.

Best case scenario is to ROTARY EVAPORATE the Mirin thus preserving it's delicate flavor.

Other spirits with character can obviously be used like Gin.

Don't buy cheap kombu, use wide sheets with salt deposits on them.

Vacuum sealing speeds up the process.

Imparts the mysterious smell of the clean ocean.

Destined for a raw, steamed or barely cooked preparation. Raw to barely cooked allows marine flavor to shine.

The term "Dry-Aged" is typically attached to the development of flavor in large cuts of meat as well as textural improvements in it's quality. Dry aging tends to be function of temperature, humidity and time. Time serves to allow the enzymes to do their work, temperature to prevent it all from going bad and humidity keeps bad bacteria in check.

Dry aging of seafood would seem rather pointless since the beauty of marine products is to eat them as fresh as possible in the most pristine state barely out of the ocean. What if there was some opportunity to develop flavor by waiting a little and the freshness is maintained.

Japan has long been an inspiration in the way fresh fish is stored in NETA cases, they certainly undergo some aging to use the term loosely. This experiment would therefore be dependent on some extremely accurate refrigeration.

STEP 1

The ideal candidate should be something you can either eat completely raw, raw adorned, cooked plain by moist methods (steam-poach) or cooked plain by dry methods.

I chose Scallop U-12.

First I made a light brine of 50g of sea salt per litre of H2o.

The Scallops were brined for 10 minutes, rinsed and patted dry with the LINT FREE ANTI MICROBIAL TOWEL. These are indispensable for any serious fish cookery and or crudo/Sashimi storage.

STEP 2

I then decided to help develop flavor by doing the KELP CURING PROCESS but without the introduction of any aromatics or further seasoning. The scallops are placed end to end equatorially and wrapped in kombu then gently wrapped "torchon" style in plastic wrap. The torchon is then vacuum sealed to compress and stop the introduction of any aromas outside the bag.

It is then refrigerated for 12 hrs. The timing in this case is an arbitrary choice. This still technically represents "wet aging" but it is important to understand the introduction of seaweed into the aging process. It is too much to talk about here but I am reading a fascinating book on SEAWEED which is generating a lot of ideas in terms of taking advantage of it's anti-microbial properties.

STEP 3

Unwrap the scallops from the seaweed, rinse in ice cold water gently but thoroughly  to remove any film of seaweed and dry with the same towels above.

Step 4

I lined a plastic flat tray with anti-microbial towel and placed the scallops on it evenly spaced out for breathing room. I then put the tray in a commercial refrigerator with a fan directly in front of the scallops blowing cold air at about 38F for about 12 hrs. The scallops were completely dry and almost had a PELLICLE as you would find in the process of Scotch smoked Salmon.

AROMA:

There was still a clean ocean smell but with depth and complexity of smelling a properly made miso soup.

FLAVOR:

Served raw simply on it's own it was silky and sublime, almost had a mushroom-like umami addition.

Raw with Soy-Mirin-Sudachi Lime with a sprig of Shiso  had more of a "meaty" depth of flavor.

Seared with YUZU-PEAR puree, roasted Maitake and drops of Roast Chicken TSUME is a complete balance of flavors. All these examples are of course in comparison to tasting an untreated scallop in the same way.

There are many ways to go forward here with some perhaps too esoteric for mass production however it is definitely an avenue worthy of further exploration.

Also check out Ideasinfood DEHYDRATED SCALLOP.

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.