Fire in the Rabbit Hole! (A home version of Next Restaraunt's Childhood Campfire)

Campfire!

 
It started out innocently enough, as it so often does.

Someone I don't know and have never met posed a question on the internet.  Well, a couple of questions, I guess.  I figured, as a citizen of the world, or perhaps more accurately, the internet, it was my responsibility to help this person I don't even know find an answer to their question.  I am here to help.  That question went like this:

"Edible Charcoal? Any ideas?  I googled and found out Next did an edible woodfire with sweet potatoes.  How?"

Now, I didn't know the answer to that question, though it did sound vaguely familiar.  But I had a secret weapon.  You probably haven't heard about it, but it often helps me find answers to things I don't know the answer to.  It's called Google, and you should probably check it out sometime.  Using this little known site, I quickly found an interview with Chef Beran in which he discussed the particular dish from the Childhood menu.  There wasn't much in the way of specifics, but it did state that he cooked sweet potatoes in a stock so that they came out looking like charcoal.  Then he figured out how to powder alcohol with aroma in order to set it all on fire.  I shared this info that I found on the internet back onto the internet, where hopefully it would be found by the mysterious internet stranger who I really had no other way to contact.  I suggested this may give him a place to start if he wanted to attempt this dish.

And then I went one step further.

In that interview above was reference to a lecture that Chef Achatz had given at Harvard.  I'd seen a recording of the lecture several years back, as it had served as the inspiration for my home version of the In The Rocks cocktail.  I hunkered down with another little known resource on the internet called YouTube.  Again, you may not be familiar with it, but it is basically a compendium of all things video on the internet.  Using this relatively unknown site, I located that specific lecture in it's entirety.  (I realize I am giving away an awful lot of secrets here, but perhaps with these useful tips, you too can help mysterious strangers on the internet.)  In that lecture, Chef Achatz drops a few more details about the dish.

I shared this new information that I had found on the internet back onto the internet yet again:  Sweet Potatoes cooked in a syrup of vanilla, cinnamon and blue corn to look like charcoal.  Tincture of Vanilla, Cinnamon and 95% Grain Alcohol powdered with tapioca malltodextrin and mixed with powdered sugar for the fuel to the fire.  Plated with apricot puree, streusel, bourbon ice cream, english toffee caramel sauce.

I really felt I was helping this mysterious internet stranger now.  And it probably could've ended there.  But I made one more lingering statement at the end of my internet post: 'Now I want to give this a try.'  


And down the rabbit hole I went.  You say something like that on the internet, and you are committed.  There is no turning back.  So, I went out and bought some Everclear.

190 Proof.

"Warning: Overconsumption May Endanger Your Health." Hmmm.  Health endangerment.  That's not what I'm looking for.

"Caution: Do Not Apply to Open Flame.  Keep Away From Fire, Heat, and Open Flame.  Contents May Ignite or Explode."  Excellent.  There it is.  Exactly what I need!

Marshmallow Tincture Ingredients

I didn't want to wait weeks for a proper tincture, so I thought I'd try a quick pressurized infusion.  I chose my aromatics: licorice root, vanilla bean, cinnamon, cardamom, and lavender blossoms.  Added those to everclear in a whipping siphon.  Charged with a couple nitrous canisters and in two hours had a nicely infused 190 proof grain alcohol.

Tincture of Everclear, Licorice Root, Vanilla Bean, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Lavender

I took that, mixed with n-Zorbit, a modified tapioca starch used for turning fats and oils into powders and blended in the food processor.  Success!  The n-zorbit successfully absorbed the alcohol into a powder.  I sifted this with powdered sugar and spooned a little on to a plate.  Willfully ignoring the warning on the bottle, I applied an open flame to the powder.  Voila!  It quickly ignited and burned cleanly, leaving behind a slightly burnt, slightly caramelized crispy crust with a taste reminiscent of campfire marshmallows. 

 Combustible Marshmallow Powder was born! 

 

You can find my detailed recipe here:  
Combustible Marshmallow Powder

Now that I had my fire, I needed to bring together the rest of the dish.  Here, I took a slight departure from the Next dish that had served as inspiration for the concept and decided to go with pressure cooked bananas as my charcoal stand-in, rather than sweet potato.  I kept the apricot puree.  Rather than bourbon Ice cream, I went with butter rum sherbet.  And for a little crunch and texture, I made some sea foam powder.  This tantalizing concoction is a crunchy blend of sponge candy, brown butter solids, pecans, salt and butter all bound together with some more n-zorbit.

Brown Butter Solids

Sponge Candy

With all the components prepared, all that was left was to plate the final dish. Here is "Campfire":

And if you'd like to try it yourself, I've posted that recipe here as well:
Campfire

 
I have yet to hear back from the mysterious internet stranger, but I like to think that he is out there somewhere now, serving plates of food, and lighting them on fire.  And so, with my help, the world is a better place.

Campfire:  Apricot Puree, Sea Foam Powder, Butter Rum Sherbet, Pressure Cooked Banana, Combustible Marshmallow Powder

Diner's View of Campfire:  Apricot Puree, Sea Foam Powder, Butter Rum Sherbet, Pressure Cooked Banana, Combustible Marshmallow Powder

Here's links to the recipes for the other dish components as well.  Use them in this recipe, or adapt them for other applications:

Pressure-Cooked Bananas
Brian Douglas's Version Of Butter Rum Sherbet
Sea Foam Powder

Control your temper...ature. Embrace the sous vide.

As you may have seen from the past few posts, I've been spending some time on a site called ChefSteps.  Basically it's a web destination for anyone and everyone who's interested in modern cooking techniques.  They are developing an online class for sous vide cooking which I've been working my way through.  There's also an active forum to ask questions, discuss knives, compete in weekly challenges, exchange recipes and ideas, or just contemplate the differences between various grades of methylcellulose, if you're into that sort of thing.  Anyway, I've been enjoying the site, and picking up plenty of tips and tricks along the way.  I thought I'd do a menu based on several of the recipes, ideas, or discussions from the site.

So I started off with Caramelized Carrot Soup.  This was a recipe featured in Modernist Cuisine, then adapted for the @Home version of the book.  I'd been wanting to try it.  Since many of the ChefSteps crew worked on the Modernist Cuisine books, it seemed like a fit.  So, I pressure cooked some carrots.  I have an old canning cooker that I use (not sure of the vintage, but the manual includes directions for use on your coal fired stove so I assume it's been around longer than the 2 years I've owned it). I adapted the recipe slightly to cook the carrots in jars, because the cooker is just huge otherwise.  After cooking, they went into the blender, through the sieve, and combined with carrot juice.  Then I added some butter, and emulsified with a stick blender until it was silky smooth.  The finished soup was topped with Creme Fraiche and Roasted Pepitos.  It was pretty damn tasty, and perfect for wintertime.

Caramelized Carrot Soup

Look at that texture.

Next up was the Salmon Mi-Cuit.  That's French for half cooked or lightly cooked.  I had some fresh Ora King Salmon that came in to my local fishmonger this week.  Early that morning, I brined it for an hour, then cooked at 40 degrees Celsius (that's 104 Fahrenheit) for an hour.  It went immediately into an ice bath to rest until dinner about 10 hours later.  It was plated with a vibrant green watercress puree, pickled onions and horseradish cream.  The salmon was awesome.  It had a texture that just melted in your mouth.  Not like sashimi, definitely not flaky, but something altogether different.  This recipe was part of the class, and looked beautiful on the plate.  The top pic is mine, followed by the ChefSteps version on the bottom.  Mine's not quite as elegant, but not half bad.  You can check out the recipe here: Salmon 104 Degrees.  I highly recommend it.    

My Salmon Mi-Cuit

The original ChefSteps Version

The entree was Beef Short Ribs.  These had been cooked for 48 hours at 64C (147F).  The long cook time allows the collagen to break down so that the ribs are tender, but only cooks the meat to medium doneness.  Contrast this with a typical slow and low braise, crock pot or smoking process which functions similarly to break down the collagen, but cooks the meat to well done.    The ribs were paired with a Chimichurri sauce (parsley, oregano, garlic, olive oil, white wine vinegar, crushed red pepper, black pepper).

I served the Short Rib with a Potato Pave that I believe originated from Chef Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc, and had been getting rave reviews on the forum.  Those reviews were well deserved.  Essentially this is a Potato Gratin, but the potatoes are sliced thin, dipped in cream, layered, and cooked until tender.  Then they are pressed together and cooled.  After refrigerating overnight, I sliced into cubes and fried the side of each.  This way, every individual potato slice was crispy on the edge.  I think I had about 25 layers of potato in these.  You should search this recipe out, because it is phenomenal.

Also with the beef, was some Brocollini that I cooked sous vide at 90C for about 9 minutes, then charred with a blowtorch and sprinkled with sherry vinegar.

48 hour Short Rib, Chimichurri, Potato Pave, Brocollini

Final Sear on the Short Rib

Potato Pave, ready to go

Creating the crust on the Potato Pave

The final dish of the night was a Lemongrass Cardamom Creme Brulee, which ended up without a picture.  These also got cooked sous vide, though somewhat less successfully.  Although they didn't fully set, they were still quite delicious, and a nice way to end the meal.  

All in all, quite a successful dinner, though it really put my single circulator through the paces trying to complete everything. Several times I put the ribs into hold mode while I borrowed the circulator to cook other items in a separate bath.  Maybe I need to get another.