After a long carrer in the busness world, I decided to take a detour and go to culinary school. This blog chronicles the journey.
Wha'ts new-velle? [Nouvelle 1]
Nouvelle began in the 1970s. There was a hype of veggies. More dramatic presentations and presentation vessels. No more piling high. All about color, artistic, eye appeal.
Henry Gault & Christian Millau:
simpler, more natural presentation. Shift away from classical. An evolution.
Paul Bocuse: the father of Nouvelle.
1976: Bault & Millau began publishing an early version of Zagat, reviewed annually.
Nouvelle is NOT a diet cuisine, though spa food is an off-shoot of Nouvelle.
They shook up the traditional world. Haute was getting sloppy and lazy. Everything was buried in Bechamel.
These guys rebelled against:
> raw ingredients of inferior quality
> abuse of fish, not fresh, buried in sauce and puff pastry
> sauces heavy with flour, that tightened and then were thinned out for service
> egg based sauces.
Rules of Nouvelle:
> rejection of pretentious, over done dishes like beef wellington.
> reduction of cooking times, with veg. now cooked al dente
> rediscovered use of steaming
> use of air, mousses, lightness
> cook what is local, available
> more limited menus
> abandon marinades
> lighter sauces, pure reductions, less cream and butter
> rediscover regional dishes
> intro of new, modern equip like immersion blenders, cuisinart, teflon
Emphasis on inventiveness including use of ingredients not used in classical food.
No more turning veg. use of baby carrots with green on top.
Plating on oversized plates, other shapes, larger charger plates to frame food.
No more nape. Food floating on top of sauce.
Thinner sauces, often translucent.
Sauces no longer mask food. Veg placed in an artistic manner.
Beginning of fusion movement.
Sweet and sour mixed again in savory dishes.
Fruit with meat/savory food. Citrus used with meat or fish.
Undercooking of certain foods to highlight flavor of original product.
Joel Robuchon: extreme attention to detail, very precise and demanding. Impossible reservation to get. Service extreme with a server for every guest.
Jean Louis Palladin: big picture book with cooking by season.
Remember at least 3 of these Nouvelle greats!
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Now, we’re cooking! This is more my style. Can’t wait for next week.
Oil-vey! [Olive oil and balsamic vinegar]
Killer seminar by an awesome school instructor tonight. We started with olive oil, which is as old as alphabets, thousands of years old.
Olive trees need mild winters, long dry warm summers, well-drained soil (volcanic for example).
International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) is based in Madrid, Spain and has 23 member states. Promotes and governs standards (US not participating).
Production is high in Mediterranean countries, with Spain being #1.
In Italy, from Liguria and south, but some pockets in the north.
Mediterranean diet has led to increases in OO consumption.
Olive Oil is a fruit oil from olives, used in cooking, cosmetics, medicines, soaps and fuel for lamps. It is high in monounsaturated fat and low in saturated fat.
Smoke point: virgin: 375, refined 400
Italy has 20 DOP and 1 IGP OOs.
Oct/Nov is harvet time.
[Side note: in CA, tomatoes can go from pick to canning in just hours, so often canned tomatoes are even better than fresh ones we buy that are manufactured to withstand long travel and shelf life.]
Hard to know exactly when to pick each olive. They are inedible right off the tree.
They are either picked by hand or by using a ‘shaking machine’ that shakes the tree, but of course this method causes both ripe and unripe olives to fall.
By hand, not all are harvested at once; only the ripe ones each picking.
EVOO: 1% or less acidity
VO: 1-2% acidity
OO: combination f VOO and refined oil, < 1.5% acidity. usually 10% VO and 90% refined.
25/75 oil = 25% EVOO and 75% canola.
Once picked, olives are graded, foliage removed. Must be fast, rancidity and flies can attach olives.
Next to crushing where granite grinding stones are used.
Cold extracted must be kept under 80 degrees, slow churn or mixing of olives for 20-40 minutes.
Higher temp yields more oil, but poorer quality. Pressing separates oil from the pulp and water from solids. Gravity separates 3 components (oil, fruit, water).
IOCC Standards:
Virgin: only steps are washing, decantation, centrifuge and filtration (no heat).
EVOO - oleic acid less than or equal to .8g / 100 g
VOO - oleic acid less than or equal to 2g/100 g
This is not acidity you can taste on palate. It’s chemical acidity.
Oils from olives NOT to use:
Refined oil: chemically treated to neutralize taste and acid.
Pure OO: 1.5% acidity and blended OO and refined oil.
Pomace oil: heated and chemically treated. Very low grade.
Olive pomace oil is a blend of VO and pomace.
Lamanate oil: used for lamps.
The Mojet and Recognose Wheels are 2 attempts to create a system for describing the variables of olive oil. Drawings are linked just above.
OO generally only good for up to 2 years. From bottling, quality decreases over time. Store in a cool and dark place. There is no O2 in the bottle until opened. O2 is the enemy of oil (but a friend of balsamic).
Don’t refill oil bottles. When empty, wash and sanitize, then refill.
There are only 2 true producers of balsamic vinegar.
Modena: aged at least 12 years (Affiniato) and Extravechio gold band aged 25 years +
Reggio Emilia (Emilia Romagna):
Red label: 12 years just a few ounces: $89
Silver label: 18 years $149
Gold label: 25 years $189
Vinegar and caramel color and sugar is what most people buy.
Balsamic - unlike oil - likes oxidation. Aged in casks. Moved to different (smaller) casks as it ages and combined with other vinegars. Age indicates age of the youngest vinegar.
The tradition of Modena dates back to 1046 or older, documented to 1046.
Made from trebbiano and lambrusco grapes. Slow cooked to approximately 50% of original volume and creates concentrated must.
Cooked must rests a few months.
Then into casks where fermentation starts. Smaller and smaller casks of different woods are used.
100kg of must is needed to make 2-3 liters of vinegar.
Ingredients to look for on bottles:
cooked must, aged in casks (even if not tradizionale)
NO coloring.
Condimento: same methods as tradizionale but outside Modena or Reggio with no consortium approval.
The worst place for wine or oil is the best place for vinegar (i.e. attic).
Wine/OO Vinegar
no air air
store in cellar store in attic
most wine best <2 yrs older is better
Wow! I can’t believe I tasted 15 oils. Feeling a little queazy, but it was fun. The vinegars, though, were OFF THE CHARTS. Wish I had a purse to sneak that 25 year stuff out the door. :-)
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
What's new? [New England]
American food is the sum of its parts. There is nothing that is really consider “American Cuisine”. American food is the food of immigrants. Where you are, who settled there. What did they bring and how did they prepare it?
Colonial period: British came for religious freedom. Puritans were plain people with plain style. Cooked with bare essentials. A hearth and a spit or 2.
Weather and religion were big factors. Puritan Sabbath: sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. No work except required minimum.
Pepper, cloves, mace, cinnamon and ginger were big. Fish was a staple. Corn was the greatest gift from native Americans and it became a Pilgrim mainstay.
Baked Beans: salt pork. never cooked to a paste. maple syrup and bacon. variations on this dish are endless.
Maple syrup: the sweetener of choice, learned from Indians.
Fish: 16730 began fishing for salmon off the east coast. Served with cream sauce with peas. Salt cod - a must for Saturday dinner.
Scrod (young cod) and Haddock were big. [Some fish have worms that are killed when you eat them; which is different from the disease ‘worms’ you can get.]
Lobster: very plentiful back then and used as bait and in clam pie, lobster pie and chowder. When newly fished, they were much larger than today.
Desserts:
cobbler: a baked fruit dessert, baked in a shallow dish. A layer of fruit, topped with biscuit or cake batter. Never cover during baking. Fruit is the most important focal point. Apples, peaches, cherries. Always with sugar added. Very moist.
Grunt/Slump/Bramble: baked fruit stew with dumplings. Sung fitting lid. Water creates steam to cook fruit, turns into syrup.
Slump made on stovetop. Grunt and Bramble in oven. Not in a shallow dish.
Nothing exciting here, but it seems like we missed some of the great New England classics like lobster rolls and clambakes.
Escoffier. Bless you! [Classical French 4]
August Escoffier lived 1846-1935 to the ripe old age of 89. He changed food. He was the king of chefs, the chef of chefs. He redefined cooking by taking away elaborate stuff that Careme brought.
He lived during a time when there was a shift from dining at home to dining out (at least for the rich).
Dating started, the idea of men and women ‘going out’. Smaller tables. Individual menus. People got dressed up. There were waiters and sommeliers.
Caesar Ritz and Escoffier were great friends.
He cut down on cumbersome garnishes. Food was simply cooked. Vegetables were to taste like themselves. All garnishes were edible. Food should look like itself. Few ingredients.
In 1889, Ritz and Escoffier take over the Savoy in England.
1902, Escoffier’s book, a professional chef’s bible “The Culinary Guide” was published with over 5000 recipes.
Menu planning was introduced.
Service a la Francais: big table, buffet style, no waiters. Big impressive show. Great variety. Dates back to Medieval times. The groaning board.
Russian service: Service a la Ruse.
Serving one dish at a time. Served hot. Portion control and less waste. Each person tastes every dish. Wait service.
1912 Le Livre de Menu: a book on how to serve food appropriating to your guests. There was a conscience of seasons, seasonal food.
He was a task-master. He forbade brutality and swearing. Insisted on calm in the kitchen. Barley water for help, not allowed to drink alcohol. Organized the kitchen into 5 stations or parties:
> patisserier
> garde manger
> entremettier: hot soups, hot veggies
> rotisseur: roast, broil, fry meats
> saucier: stocks, sauces, #2 person in kitchen, how plates leave the kitchen
He retired at age 73.
Medieval: heavily spiced, barberick
La Varenne: soups and stocks
Careme: elaborate presentations
Escoffier: simpler, focus on food itself.
Cordials & Liqueurs:
These terms are interchangable. Fruit or flavorful plant in a spirit, with sugar added.
2.5% sugar or more.
Some have color added.
Brandy - must be distilled (heated). Flavor must be from fruit involved.
Perculation: liquid at bottom of large tank. Fruit in basket at top. Liquid drips through basket (like Mr. Coffee).
Maceration: (like making tea)
an infusion. does not have to be heated. quicker with heat. then distilled.
Distillation: tank with stuff and alcohol. Heat. Condenses. Result = flavored spirit. Syrup can be added.
Brandy: (from burning down): refinement and concentration of wine. A processed developed by the Dutch to reduce bulk for transportation.
Eau de Vie: water of life. From non-grape areas. Aged in crocks not wood. 90-100% proof. Mostly clear like water.
Very, very serious about coffee. [Coffee seminar]
This guy Peter is VERY serious about his coffee. The story goes like this. George Howell is the Boston area coffee merchant who invented Frappachno. He had a chain of stores that was bought out by Starbucks, in part because Starbucks wanted to own “Frappachino”. I guess George did well for himself. Some years after the sale to Starbucks, he’s back at the coffee business. Peter works for George and he came to school to deliver a coffee seminar. We were bouncing off the walls by the time the session was over, having tasted 16 coffees (I think, who can remember?).
Coffee started in West Africa. It spread east. There are two species of coffee.
> Arabica: 75% of world production, started in Ethiopia.
> Robusta: 25% of world production, a cheaper coffee, often used in instant coffee.
Arabica - could be lousy or great. It depends on the craftsmanship of how it is grown, harvested, roasted and prepared.
Around 500-1500, coffee was just used for its flower, not the bean.
1500 is when man began cooking the beans.
Wine and tea are very, very old.
Coffee just began really 200-300 years ago (as we know it today).
Artisanal coffee is not economically sound. Fine coffee needs to be $20/lb for true sustainability.
Quality is affected by climate, soil, location. Trees need to be spaced out. Must only harvest ripe fruit, which poses labor challenges.
Coarse grind uses more coffee.
Fine grind uses less coffee.
100 to 110 degrees is the ideal temp to drink coffee and realize its full flavor.
Coffee trees yield red fruit. The seed of the fruit is the coffee bean.
When grown in mountains, coffee is picked manually. Coffee is also grown on flats in Brazil and Viet Nam for example. When grown on flats, the quality is fair to average. Lower labor is involved and this coffee is what ends up at places like Dunkin Donuts.
The ideal growing temp is 68-75 degrees, with moderate rainfall.
Trees produce fruit after 3 years and then produce for about 20 years.
Fruit is harvested over a 3 month flowering period. Then there is 9 months of growth until the next harvest starts. This production time is twice what it takes to produce grapes for wine. Plenty of rain is needed during the non-harvest period.
1 tree yields about 1 pound of coffee per year.
Coffee trees grow to 15-20 feet, but are pruned down to facilitate picking fruit by reaching up (and using ladders in some cases).
You can get 1200+ trees per acre.
Every tree is pruned 1x a year.
Trees are stumped 1x every 5 years.
Every 15 years, the tree needs to be replanted.
Various diseases attack coffee trees and up to 50% of a farmer’s costs can go to fight disease.
Crops are harvested either via hand picking or mechanical harvesting.
Pickers pick only ripe fruit and must make 3-6 passings of each tree.
The coffee fruit is ripe when red and there isn’t much fruit. The seed takes up most of the room. 2 seeds side by side in each fruit.
Maximum yield is 2 pounds of coffee for tree per year. Most yield 1 pound or less.
All high quality is exported and not drunk in the country where it is grown.
Fine grind should be brewed at 195-202 degrees.
Coarse grind should be brewed at 205-210 degrees.
After flesh is removed from the fruit, 14-48 hours of fermentation. Less time in hotter climate and more time in colder climates.
Then, beans are washed. The densest beans are the highest quality.
The beans much be washed of the fruit. Otherwise, the beans will rot and spoil given the long transport.
Then beans are dried. At this point, the bean still has a layer of parchment.
Beans must be dried to a moisture level of 10-12%.
Parchment is removed right before roasting.
Alternative to washing process is to dry with the fruit on around the bean. Takes a long time to dry and the fruit can overferment.
Drying machines are at 105 degrees.
“Cup of Excellence” is the award for the cream of the crop beans.
Milling is the removal of the parchment or cherry husk.
In Costa Rica, women inspect every bean by hand.
Storage and transport affects coffee. Coffee ages and there is a loss of aromatics and sweetness.
Jute bags are bad. There is a push for airtight or vacuum sealed bags, but this adds 50c/pound to cost.
Superhigh quality coffee should be frozen raw.
Roasted coffee is more delicate and is best stored airtight.
After just 5 days post-roasting, quality drops if not airtight.
The best brewers are $175 and more.
Coffee wholesales in bulk for less than $3/lb and rarely sells for > $10/pound. Tea and wine command much higher prices.
$10/lb means a 12oz cup costs just 39c, compared with Coke at 42c for the same amount.
Vast majority of farmers are paid less than their cost of production regardless of quality.
Traditionally, great coffees are blended with others to produce a similar blended quality.
Mr. Howell’s push is to bring coffee into the genre of wine. Indicate country, region, farm, grade and variety of plant.
Quite a coffee education!
Is it France or Germany? [Alsace-Lorraine]
In northeast France, bordering Germany and Switzerland and just north of Italy lay the Alsace-Lorraine region. They have a flair for food here, but the cuisine is very German. Since the 17th century, it has been French, but it is the most ‘foreign’ province of France. Alsace takes its name from the river. Hot summers. Tough, cold winters. Mostly rural.
Cooking is not sophisticated. Hearty, local food. Lard is the fat. Pigs and goose eaten here. Heavy German cookery with French subtlety.
Alsace is the 3rd most important wine region, behind Bordeaux and Burgundy. Almost all the wine here is white. Wines here are taken from the grape, not the region, the only region in France like this. Fresh, fruity, all purpose wines.
They are famous here for eau de vie (water of life).
Lorraine is adjacent to and just west of Alsace. They are separated by mountains.
Important terms to know:
a l’alsacienne: designates the presence of choucroute (sauerkraut).
Choucroute: sauerkraut made in Alsace from a local variety of cabbage known as Chou Quintal.
Charcuterie: refers to the art of pork products, and a wide range of them exist in Alsace.
Knackwurst: 50% pork, 30% beef, 20% fresh pork fat, seasoned with salt and cumin and then smoked.
Liverwurst: sausage made with cooked, pureed liver.
Baeckeoffe (Baker’s oven): large chunks of lamb, beef, and pork marinated in Riesling and cooked with onions and potatoes (in the baker’s oven, where people would bring their food to the baker who would bake in his oven).
Zewelwai: onion custard tart.
Flammekueche: kind of pizza made with cottage cheese, cream, onion and bacon.
Kugelhopf: light yeast cake with raisins and covered with flaked almonds.
Spaetzle: similar to noodles; small curls of dough boiled and served with melted butter or fired golden in butter.
Muenster: Soft, ripened washed rind cow’s milk cheese with pungent smell.
Sylvaner: aged very well, light, called vin “passe-partout” meaning it goes with anything.
Riesling: wine of brilliant sweet/acid balance.
Eau de vie: water of life, distilled fruit.
> Kirsch: from cherries
> Mirabelle: from tiny, yellow plum
> Quetsche: from the large, violet plum
> Gratte-cul: from rose hip
> Framboise: from rasberries
LORRAINE:
Quiche: custard savory tart with bacon
Vittel and Contrexeville: natural, non-bubbly spring waters
Food from here is not for me. Get me back to the ‘real’ France!
Head for the hills (of France) [Savoie/Dauphine]
First we did a quick review on important stuff about Provence:
> olive oil, tomato & garlic (the truffle of provence)
> ratatouille: stewed eggplant dish
> mesclun: mixed baby greens
> bouillabaisse: fish stew with saffron and hot pepper paste
> aioli: the butter of provence
> pizzalaterre: pizza, cheese and olives
> cote de rhone: full body; chateau neuf de paup
> pastisse: licorice flavored aperitif
Savoie and Dauphine are in SE France near Italy and Switzerland.
Marches, Auvergene and Limosin are in the middle of France.
Savoie & Dauphine: up to WWII Savoie owned by Italy. Dauphine is north of Savoie, controlled by French of 500+ years. Heavy, hearty, coarse food. Stunning resort area with visitors from around the world.
Food specialties: fruit, nuts, pears, plums, apples, wheat, rye, potatoes and cheese.
Remember:
> potato
> cheese, with gratin
> fish (water very cold, streams)
> game (small birds)
> honey
VOCAB:
a la dauphinoise: served with sliced potatoes mixed with milk, salt, pepper,nutmeg, beaten eggs and Gruyere.
a la Savoyarde: with potatoes like dauphinoise but consomme used instead of milk.
gratin: designates a crust, usa. cheese, could be breadcrumbs.
omble chevalier: fish similar to trout, in the salmon family
a la grenobloise: garnish of noisette butter with capers, tiny croutons and pieces of peeled lemon meats (supreme)
a la limousine: garnish of red cabbage braised with chestnuts.
lentilles: lentils, protected by AOC called “Le Puy”
Potee: cabbage soup/stew with pork meats and turnips, onions, leeks, potatoes, garlic usa. cooked over fire.
Truffade/o: potatoes fried with bacon, seasonded with garlic. Pieces of Tomme (cheese) are added at the last moment.
Cantal: very large hard cow’s milk cheese.
=================
Marche: less than 10k people. Nothing special.
Auvergne: very picturesque, formerly volcanic. Now spas, springs, some hot springs. Good pastureland, cattle raised there, Amish looking people with money from successful cattle business. Best brasseries and bistros in Paris are owned by them. Hot summers, cold winters. Similar to New England. Look Arabic with dark complexions, dark hair. Just south of Torraine/Loire. Food a little more sophisticated and garlic is used. Also cherries, apples, pears and lentils.
Totally psyched about tonight.
Cheese from the famous Formaggios.
A visit from the Big Cheese [Cheese Seminar]
What a totally fun (and delicious) night! The owner (and his son) from Formaggio Kitchen came to give us a seminar on cheese. This guy imports TONS (literally) of cheese each week for his 3 stores (Cambridge, Boston & Manhattan) and for wholesale customers.
He suggests that you:
buy what you need
keep cheese in your refrigerator crisper
clean the surface of the cheese by shaving with a knife
bring the cheese to room temp before eating
We tried some goat milk cheese that was awesome. It is the most delicate cheese and is made Spring through November.
Almost always, the best wine with cheese is white wine.
Goat milk has the smallest fat globule, is the easiest to digest and goes with foods of summer.
Suggestion:
Greens with dijon vinaigrette
crisp the goat cheese in toaster oven
serve with Sancerre
All raw milk cheeses are supposed to age 2 months minimum before being sold/imported in US.
You can make any texture cheese from any milk.
Sour in a cheese is a sign of a high mountain cheese.
We had one cheese that had tiny crystals in the cheese (almost like salt) which is calcification occurring in the cheese.
Comte: a cow milk cheese
delicious and had calcification
“Fondue”: put comte, garlic and olive oil in a pot, melt it, dip bread cubes in it.
Vacherin Mont d’or: amazing cheese available Nov-Mar only. Sold only upon request.
The raw honey and the jams were off-the-charts!
This could be the first seminar I wish would just keep going!!!
To bad, it’s this night only.
McDonalds en Francais? [Classical 3]
While I can’t see this as fine dining, we did it anyway. Puree some chicken, form it to make it look like a cutlet, fry it up and voila! We also did another variation (above) forming them into fingers, deep frying some left-over skin and why not throw a few wings into the fryer while you’re at it?
Remember if greens are on a plate they must be dressed (even if they’re just for presentation and not to be eaten). Points off on the practicum if you don’t remember this!
Beef Wellington. Nice piece of tenderloin, make a hole in the center with a steele, fill it with duxelle (or top with duxelle), put some foie gras on top OR sear it first, then foie gras on top, cover with puff pastry, roll very thin. Optional, only wrap 3/4 leaving bottom open. Also, cook on rack after a while to avoid soggy bottom (though that didn’t work so great for us).
At 125-130 degrees, pull it, rest it and it should be perfect.
Garde Manger: Guardian of Food. usually cold salads, prep, aspics, choid froid, pate, terraines, gallotines and buffet.
Gallotine: poached, chilled and may be choid froid.
Canape: bite sized app on toast or cracker, decorative with 4 or 5 ingredients, colorful.
eaten with no utensils, baked base of bread, crackers, pate choux or crouton, compound butter spread on it to insulate from toppings. Could be anchovy butter with parsley and lemon juice; horseradish; caviar with minced onions; roquefort butter and chives; shallot butter; mustard butter with dijon, chives and shallots; truffle butter with sherry or brandy; curry butter; smoked salmon or caper with tarragon and vinegar.
Garnish: to adorn or furnish. To decorate food with addition of other items.
Gaufrette: waffle cut, deep fried root veg, thinly cut and salted.
Tools used by garde manger:
veg peeler
utility knives
melon ballrs
channel knife
aspic cutters
Late night. Good night.
8 Years come together [Classical French 2]
Eight years ago, I took a trip to Paris where I ate at the famed Lucas Carton. Little did I know that the extreme cuisine I was eating was so classically French or that years later I’d be here in class learning more about it.
Lots of talk about moussiline today.
Moussiline is a food preparation usually involving heavy cream and egg whites as a binding agent. It refers to various meat or fish pastes that are enriched with heavy cream and bound with egg whites. Also used as an adjective to mean to lighten and enrichen or in a buttercream where sugar syrup is heated to 238 degrees and poured into a buttercream.
Egg whites in a moussiline bind and lighten.
Heavy cream in a moussiline adds richness, smoothness and texture.
Quenelle: sort of dumpling made from meat, fish or veg, bound with egg and enriched with heavy cream, football shaped (using 2 spoons).
Moussiline:
use a hand beater
huge ice bath, equipment and fish/meat should be very cold.
Chill the processor bowl and blade
Press through a tammy in small quantities, using the flat side of a scraper.
Into cold fish puree, add cream a little at a time with hand mixer. Get it to shaving cream consistency.
Poach off small amount in salted water to test.
Specific steps:
1. all meat or fish free of skin and bones
2. handle as little as possible
3. use a separate bowl over ice, cut meat into 1.5” cubes
4. lightly mix egg whites (not to frothy). 2 whites to 1 lb fish (not frozen) to 1-1.5 c heavy cream
5. in processor, puree in 3 batches then to ice bath until done
6. setup tammy and get plastic scraper, small amount at a time
7. paste into refrig over ice bath for 1 hour
8. hand beater, bowl over ice bath, add heavy cream a little at a time (1/3 c). Shaving cream consistency is desired result.
9. do taster and poach in saute pan at a light simmer
10. add salt, pepper, cayenne, finely chopped herbs,
11. classic sauce
Can add a yolk for richness and/or 1 T butter.
If going into a mold, use bain marie covered with parchment.
Sole, flounder, halibut, pike are best fish for this. Can add shrimp, scallop, salmon. Oily fish like salmon and tuna are problematic and tend to separate.
Put quenelles on heavily buttered sheetpan or very damp cloth on sheetpan. Warm poaching water to refresh for service.
Use non-reactive bowls, don’t boil, low simmer, pipe moussiline into poaching liquid. 325 in oven like custard.
POACHING:
Pears, get flat bottom. Use melon baller to core, peel, use scrubby to smooth surface.
Non-reactive pot.
OJ, wine, champagne, ginger, lemon peel, lemongrass, etc. can be in solution.
More sugar in solution = fruit holds better
You can put crumbled parchment on top of fruit to keep it submerged.
When slight resistance, it’s done.
Put on cross hatch rack on parchment
If filling, plug base with strawberry or raspberry or truffle. Cut bottom off of strawberry so pear still sits flat.
Fruit very dry before glaze.
Glaze just before service.
Adding a little jam to coulis helps stabilize it.
Sugar syrup used for flavor and to help keep shape.
Ideal syrup is 1/2-2/3c sugar to 1c H2O. Use granulated. Could also be maple syrup, brown sugar, etc. Cider or fruit juices.
Refrigerate and cover with fruit submerged. Can stay for quite a long time (a week or more).
Caramet sauce:
1c sugar
2/3c H2O, cooked to light amber
add 1/2c heavy cream (+2T butter for butterscotch)
Poaching syrup: strain and reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce.