Ugh, has it really been a month since my last post. I really kind of suck at this blogging thing. So we're coming up on a year since I started working my way through the Alinea cookbook which is just insane. This project thus far has really stretched me as a cook and for that I'm thankful. I never thought I would have been able to successfully pull of some of the dishes I have. Naturally, things aren't the same working out of my home kitchen when compared to how they would turn out in the Alinea kitchen. But the bottom line is that I'm having fun and I'm making truly amazing food at the same time.
This dish is basically the quintessential fall dish (yes I know it's not quite fall yet), but the flavors are pure September or October.
The first step was to make the gels that I used as sort of a garnish. The first gel was rosemary gel. I steeped a rosemary sprig in some boiling water. Once the rosemary had steeped, I took the water and mixed it with some sugar and brought it to a boil.. Once the mixture was at a boil a pinch of low acyl gellan gum went in. It's basically powdered gelatin.
I buzzed the whole mixture in a blender for a bit and poured into a little casserole pan to let it set. This is what it looked like at the end.
The second gel I made was a sherry vinegar version. Same process as the rosemary, just without the herbs.
I next made the mastic cream. This included heavy cream, water, sugar, eggs, and mastic. Mastic is a resin that is derived from trees, typically pines, not that disimilar from the the amber that they got the dinosaur DNA from in Jurassic Park. The whole mixture was combined in a little sauce pan and then cooled in an icebath until slightly solidified and chilled.
The next step in the process of this dish was the mushroom caramel. Sounds revolting, I know, but it was actually pretty delicious. This part of the dish includes pureed matsutake mushrooms, heavy cream, low acyl gellan gum, sugar, glucose and butter.
The mushroom puree and cream went into a sautee pan for a few minutes until slightly thickened.
Once the cream was complete the sugar and glucose went into another pan and I cooked it down until it turned to caramel which can bee seen below.
This is the completed caramel with the mushroom and cream mixture mixed in.
The final major component of the dish was the cake. This portion of this dish includes, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, glucose, pureed mushrooms, water and cake flour.
The cake ingredients were whisked together in a mixer until thoroughly combined.
I moved the cake mixture into a steamer to cook for about 10 minutes. This picture actually also includes the rosemary and sherry vinegar gels which steamed along with the cakes for the last few minutes.
The final plate. I was a little frustrated by how the mastic cream didn't set up. But wow was this really good. In making this dish, not only did I find out that mushroom and caramel tastes pretty good together, I actually paired this dish with a French Riesling which you wouldn't think since mushrooms are generally paired with red wine. Both were outstanding.
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