Menu:
Dry Shot, red pepper, garlic, oregano (p.156)
Transparency of Manchego Cheese (p.82)
Mains provided by a turkey cooked in bread dough
Salad, red wine vinaigrette (p.200)
Dry Caramel, salt (p. 296)?
Caramel Popcorn liquefied, (p.372)
Chocolate egg
Unfortunately I can only find one picture of this event, so I will give a brief run down of the dishes.
Dry Shot, red pepper, garlic, oregano- The ingredients of a pizza in dehydrated powder form. Dried red capsicum ground into a powder, dried olives ground into a powder, fried and then dehydrated oregano leaves, dehydrated elephant garlic slices, toasted and ground bread crumbs and, fried and ground capers. These are all taken in a shot together, and should provide the essence of pizza. However I failed to experiment with the proper flavour balance before service so the taste was capsicum heavy if I recall correctly.
Transparency of Manchego Cheese - A straight forward tasting spoon of roasted garlic, roasted red and yellow capsicum, dried olives, sour-dough croutons, anchovies and olive oil pudding covered with a melted thin layer of Manchego cheese. Straight up delicious. Especially the olive oil pudding, which I never knew was a standard recipe. The surplus pudding and sides were great for people to snack on while the rest of the dishes were being put together. This is supposed to be served as a large square of the Manchego covering the various elements, however this would required a huge block of cheese, which I didn't invest in.
Salad, red wine vinaigrette - Lettuce juice granita served with red wine vinaigrette granita. You simple juice 4kg of spinach, rocket and cos lettuce, freeze it and make a granita. Not having a juicer, this was done using a food processor and a cheese cloth. 4kg of salad leaves takes up a lot of room, exhausts supermarket supplies and contains sufficient chlorophyll to stain many, many surfaces green. It is served with a granita made simple from frozen red wine vinegar. If it weren't for the cost and inconvenience, this would be a staple dish. It tastes incredible, is very refreshing and gives you a feeling of nutrition seeping through your body as you eat it.
The mains was cooked by my housemate to actually fill the stomachs of those we invited over for dinner. It was a turkey cooked in a bread dough that, unlike the typical salt doughs, you can eat. Bread with turkey meat that is saturated with cooking juices. Yes.
Dry Caramel, salt - I'm not sure if this dish featured in the first dinner, or if I am mixing up my events. Anyway, this is the simplest dish while being the first to use novel white powders. In this case NZorbit Tapiocia Maltodextrin, a modified starch which binds to fat and bulks up food. This has the effect of turning fats into powders, so make a cream-caramel and add this particular brand of maltodextin, you end up with a caramel powder that dissolves in your mouth to revert back into caramel. How hard you cook the caramel determines what sort of caramel the powder reverts to when wetted, a powder from a chewy caramel becomes chewy, a powder from a hard caramel isn't chewy. I found that interesting. When I first received this powder in the post, I was like a kid in a powdered candy store and discovered that eating too much maltrodextrin in one night seems to give dramatic dreams.
Caramel Popcorn liquified - Popped popcorn is steeped in a salt and butter syrup, which is then strained. A caramel syrup is mixed with soy lecithin and foamed with an immersion blender. The popcorn flavoured syrup is served with a topping of caramel foam. As one person described it "This is basically what butterbeer would taste like". The comparison is apt, as it goes well with a shot of spiced rum. I have whipped this one up on a number of occasions since then, as it takes maybe 20 minutes from start to finish (not including the copious washing up it makes)
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| Chocolate brownie filled egg |
