Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food

by Jeff Potter

  8 oz (250g) dried orange peel

  ½ teaspoon (3g) caraway seeds

  1 teaspoon (2g) quassia chips

  1 teaspoon (2g) cardamom seeds

  ½ teaspoon (0.75g) cinchona bark, powdered

  1 teaspoon (0.50g) coriander seeds

  ¼ teaspoon (0.25g) gentian

  Make sure that the liquid covers the dry ingredients, adding more grain alcohol if necessary, and screw on the lid. Shake vigorously to mix, about 20 seconds, once a day for two weeks.

  After two weeks, remove the solids, boil them in water, and then add them to the alcohol again. You can separate the liquid from the solids by straining it with a cheesecloth or fine sieve, returning the liquid to the jar and placing the solids into a saucepan. Muddle the solids with a pestle so that the seeds are broken open. In the saucepan with the solids, add:

  3 ½ cups (800g) water

  Bring to a boil and then simmer with lid on for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to return to room temperature for about an hour. Once cool, recombine the solids and water with the alcoholic liquid in the jar.

  Shake vigorously for 30 seconds once a day for at least a week. Then strain out the solids and discard them.

  Next, we’ll make a sugar syrup to add to the liquid. In an empty saucepan, bring to medium heat:

  1 cup (200g) sugar

  Once the sugar starts to melt, stir constantly until the sugar caramelizes to a dark brown color.

  Allow to cool for a few minutes. Add the liquid to the sugar, stirring it until entirely dissolved. Transfer liquid to jar and let rest for a week.

  After a week, remove any solids that are floating and decant the clear liquid into another container, leaving behind the sediment.

  You should have about 12 fluid ounces (350 ml) of liquid at this point. Add 6 ounces (180 ml) of water, shake thoroughly, and transfer to a bitters bottle (amber or other opaque bottle to prevent light from breaking down some of the organic compounds).

  Notes

  Some of the harder-to-find ingredients can be procured from http://www.kalustyans.com and http://www.starwest-botanicals.com.

  When using bitters, a "dash" is a solid pour from a bottle with a dash cap: bottle right-side up, rotate 180 degrees, and back. It’s not a side trickle. Your "dashes" will be larger as the bottle gets emptier due to the change in air volume in the bottle, but for practical purposes at home, it’s probably not worth breaking out the milligram scale. (But if you do, a quick check with my scale shows roughly 6 dashes to the gram.)

  A number of online sites exist for ordering bitters, in case you get taken with them but don’t want to spend the time making them. Try searching http://www.kegworks.com for the word "bitters" or search the Internet for "Fee Brothers" and "Bitter Truth," two makers of specialized bitters.

  Linda Anctil on Inspiration

  Linda Anctil is a private chef in Connecticut who blogs about her work at http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com.

  How do you think about the visual experience of food?

  I approach food as a designer, but because it is food, it also has to function. Ultimately, it has to taste good. Sometimes, I’m inspired by an ingredient, a season, a shape, or a color, but inspiration can come from anywhere. I always try to include an element of surprise, whether it’s visual or stimulating to other senses.

  Sometimes, I’m inspired by a serving piece. I found this great votive holder with a cup suspended inside of another cup with an empty chamber underneath. I’ve served brandies and bourbons in it and, actually, one with smoked cedar. I infused the flavor into a bourbon, then filled the bottom empty chamber with cedar smoke. The person drinking it will lift the glass to take a sip, and the smoke just pours out from it. It heightens the whole experience because you’re bringing the sense of smell into it.

  Votive holder on table with bourbon and cedar smoke.

  Votive holder being picked up with smoke wisps coming out.

  I inverted that same votive candle holder in another post. I put clam chowder in it with small potatoes that were hollowed out and filled with bacon and clams, all the flavors you expect to find in clam chowder. It almost looked like the potatoes were floating in the broth. It should be playful. It should be whimsical as well as delicious.

  Nature is a constant source of inspiration to me. I went out to the garden to pick some sage last winter, and I had the scent of conifers from my Christmas tree on my gloves. The smells became intermingled in my mind and, suddenly, conifers became something I could use as an herb. It inspired a whole series of dishes that I put together using the flavor of conifer. I did one where I layered lots of different textures and flavors together, culminating with my video "The Winter Garden" (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYvapNDIJw). I think it was probably my most abstract or conceptual dish that I’ve put together, but it really captured that whole feeling of being outside on that one day with the ice and the snow and the frost and the smell of conifers. I was the only one who ate the dish in the end. I enjoyed it a lot. It was a very personal expression to me.

  Do you have any suggestions about how to think about presenting food?

  Keep an open mind. Pick up a piece of fruit and imagine that you were an alien on this planet who had never seen it before, and experience it through that lens. How does it look to you? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What can you do with it? Think outside of the box and enjoy the journey!

  It sounds like it’s really about personal expression.

  It absolutely is. You can look at any artist or chef’s food, and you’ll realize it’s a personal expression of who they are. It’s telling a story about that person’s experiences. That’s a wonderful aspect of cooking.

  PHOTOS OF LINDA ANCTIL, VOTIVE HOLDERS, AND WINTER GARDEN PROJECT USED BY PERMISSION OF LINDA ANCTIL

  Modern Industrial Chemicals

  Over the past century, the food industry has developed or repurposed a number of chemicals to address the issues of scaling created when producing food in large quantities. Preventing illness, maintaining freshness, controlling costs, and meeting changing consumer demands have all presented challenges. Producing larger quantities of food increases the time between harvest and consumption, increasing the chances of spoilage and the amount of time foodborne pathogens have to develop. And aggregating ingredients from a larger number of producers increases the impact that a single contaminated item can have.

  Hard on the heels of World War II, when advances in food science had been applied to address these problems in the military’s meal rations ("an army travels on its stomach"), the food industry found a new market in the American consumer. Convenience foods and prepared meals burst onto the scene at the same time that freezers went into mass production and television sets became the "must have" item for the American family. Instant food and instant entertainment have been married ever since.

  The same family of chemicals that enabled the creation of the TV dinner (mmm, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese) also allowed for a new set of dishes to be created by haute cuisine chefs, sometimes called molecular gastronomy or modernist cuisine (we’ll use the latter term). These chefs use industrial chemicals to create entirely different ways of conveying flavors and exciting the senses. When done well, the dishes are not about additives at all, but about the perceptions and emotions that all good meals strive to evoke. No one is suggesting that vegetables and whole foods should be replaced with white powders.

  Molecular Gastronomy

  What is molecular gastronomy? It depends on whom you ask. To the purists, it’s the use of scientific investigative techniques to understand the chemical and physical changes that occur during cooking, a pure science. Under this definition, anything done in the kitchen is merely an application of general physical and chemical principles ("molecular cooking"). To others, molecular gastronomy is the use of unusual processes and chemicals to create sometimes alien experimental dishes that have a reputation for being sensory gimmicks. And somewhere in the middle a
re a large number of modern foodies: it’s the stuff that Marcel did on the reality TV show Top Chef.

  Regardless of the exact definition, one thing is clear: modern techniques for manipulating food can expand the toolbox from which a talented chef can create new experiences, whether subtle or over-the-top. As with all art, some experiments turn out great, stirring an emotional response and creating (hopefully positive) feelings, while others fail and are politely ignored (or not).

  Either way, the diner must be a willing participant in these types of experiences. If you’re lusting after a classic cheeseburger, you’d probably be unhappy being served a "deconstructed" burger, never mind how well executed: beef tartar on one corner of the plate, micro-green salad on the opposite corner, a smear of tomato reduction between the two, and toasted sesame bread on the side. As with most such things, frame of mind, expectations, and being open to the experience are key.

  ACHEWOOD COMIC STRIP USED BY PERMISSION OF CHRIS ONSTAD

  The demand for innovative foods at the high end of the culinary world should not be surprising. Luxury restaurants now have to compete with the enthusiastic hobbyist chef, who has been able to better approximate traditional restaurant fare as the quality of consumer gear and produce has improved. The same technological advances that have enabled the production of convenience foods have also enabled the agro-industrial food complex to deliver an ever-widening—sometimes maddeningly so—variety of food, and also to make those foods available for a longer window of time each year.

  Turning to food additives for new dishes is a logical progression in the process of creating something new. Sometimes, the results are amazing; other times, they fall flat. Compare the culinary iconoclasts to the fashions that show up on the Paris runways: while it might not be "everyday" wear or cuisine, the better concepts and ideas that start out at the high end eventually make their way into the clothing shops and onto the general restaurant scene.

  Many of the techniques that rely on food additives originated in Europe. Chef Ferran Adrià’s restaurant elBulli, in Spain, is considered by many to be the originator of much of modern haute cuisine. Chef Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant The Fat Duck, in the UK, has also established an international reputation for pushing the boundaries of food.

  Note

  By some accounts, one had a better chance of getting into Harvard than getting a reservation at elBulli.

  Should you have the opportunity and inclination to dine at them, both Alinea (Chef Grant Achatz’s restaurant in Chicago) and wd-50 (Chef Wylie Dufresne’s restaurant in New York City) are highly regarded and happen to use food additives in creating some of their dining experiences.

  Fortunately, you do not need to eat at these places to understand what this style of cooking offers. With willingness and a certain amount of determination, you can duplicate, or at least roughly approximate, a number of the techniques in use at these restaurants in your own home.

  Be forewarned: while the techniques are generally not difficult, the time and costs involved and the resulting product might not leave you clamoring to use these methods in your daily routine; in fact, you might even think they should be classified as a form of culinary terrorism. Still, even if the use of some of these chemicals remains limited to the "fun party trick" category because of their novelty, isn’t a part of geeking out understanding how things work? Before jumping into the techniques, however, let’s take a slight detour to examine a chemical taxonomy and the chemistry of colloids to help explain the science behind the techniques.

  E Numbers: The Dewey Decimal System of Food Additives

  It’s easy enough to write eggplant on the grocery list, but how does one go about writing up a grocery list for food additives? The Codex Alimentarius Commission—established by the United Nations and the World Health Organization—has created a taxonomy of food additives called "E numbers." Like the Dewey Decimal classification system, it establishes a hierarchical tree: a unique E number is assigned for each chemical compound, grouped by functional categories, with the numbering of chemicals determined by each chemical’s primary usage.

  E100–E199:

  Coloring agents

  (i.e., food coloring, like those found in the grocery store)

  E120: Cochineal or carminic acid ("red 4," in common use)

  E200–E299:

  Preservatives

  E251: Sodium nitrate (used in curing items like sausages)

  E290: Carbon dioxide

  E300–E399:

  Antioxidants, acidity regulators

  E300: Ascorbic acid (vitamin C)

  E322: Lecithin (emulsifier, typically from soy)

  E330: Citric acid (in lemons, limes, etc.)

  E327: Calcium lactate

  E400–E499:

  Thickeners, emulsifiers, and stabilizers

  E401: Sodium alginate

  E406: Agar

  E441: Gelatin

  E461: Methylcellulose

  E500–E599:

  Acidity regulators, anti-caking agents

  E500: Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)

  E509: Calcium chloride

  E524: Sodium hydroxide (lye)

  E600–E699:

  Flavor enhancers

  E621: Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

  E700–E799:

  Antibiotics

  E900–E999:

  Miscellaneous

  E941: Nitrogen (used in food storage)

  E953: Isomalt (also known as Isomaltitol)

  E1000–E1999:

  Additional chemicals

  E1510: Ethanol (alcohol)

  An abbreviated table of E numbers including common food additives.

  Not everything has an E number; for example, neither common salt (sodium chloride) nor transglutaminase (discussed later in this chapter) is currently included. Which additive to use for a particular effect, such as gelling, depends upon the properties of the food with which you’re working and your goals. Most food additives used in modernist cuisine come from the E400–E499 range, which consists of the following:

  Thickeners (e.g., cornstarch, methylcellulose, agar, carrageenan)

  Provide structure to items such as gels (Jell-O), traditional French dishes (aspics and terrines), and confections (gummy candies). Food preparers also use them to prevent both water and sugar crystallization in foods such as ice creams, because thickeners inhibit the development of molecular lattices.

  Emulsifiers (e.g., lecithin and glycerin)

  Prevent two liquids from separating, as with oil and water in mayonnaise. The food industry uses lecithin in chocolate for similar reasons, to prevent the cocoa solids and fats from separating and to increase the viscosity of the melted chocolate during manufacturing.

  Stabilizers (e.g., guar and xanthan gums)

  Lend a smooth "mouth-feel" to a liquid and can also act as emulsifiers by preventing aggregates from separating. Think of how oregano stays suspended in a commercial salad dressing, instead of precipitating out and settling to the bottom.

  You will also see compounds from the E300–E399 and E500–E599 ranges used, but usually as secondary additives that help the E400–E499 compounds function. A number of the E400–E499 additives require either certain pH ranges or secondary compounds to react with, such as calcium when working with sodium alginate.

  Some additives work in a broad range of pHs and temperatures but have other properties that may prohibit their use, depending upon the recipe. For example, while agar is a strong gelling agent, in some gels it also exhibits syneresis (when a gel expels a portion of its liquid—think of the liquid whey that separates out in some yogurts). Carrageenan does not undergo syneresis but cannot handle an environment as acidic as agar can. For example, if you attempt to use carrageenan to gel lime juice, which has a pH between 2.0 and 2.35, you will also need to add an acidity regulator to raise the pH.

  Buying Food Additives

  As you’ve probably guessed by now, your local grocery store is unlikely to stock many of the
chemicals needed for these techniques. Sourcing food-grade versions will undoubtedly get easier over time, but expect to place some Internet orders before attempting the recipes in the rest of this chapter.

  First, a warning: you should not use "technical grade" or other non-food-grade substances. While technical-grade powders might be 99.9% pure, there are no guarantees as to what substances comprise the remaining portion. Who knows what carcinogens might be hanging out in that remaining 0.1%!

  The following sites can supply most of the food additives used in this chapter in food-grade qualities:

  Check here first, because I will maintain this list with current information: http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/book/additives/.

  If you’re in the U.S., http://www.shopchefrubber.com, http://www.lepicerie.com, and http://www.le-sanctuaire.com are all good starting points.

  In Europe? Look at http://www.cuisine-innovation.fr, http://www.bienmanger.com, and http://www.creamsupplies.co.uk.

  Commercial food preparers have to balance additional variables in their recipes. In the lime gel example, if the pH is raised too much, the food becomes hospitable to bacterial activity, depending on other parameters in the food (e.g., water availability). Balancing all of this can require multiple chemicals, which is why prepared foods can have quite a number of chemicals on their ingredient labels!