Milk and Sugar

I've always wanted to take the flavors of childhood and tweak them into something more apt to be served in a restaurant. I've never really gotten around to doing it, however. I have reinterpreted things like Reese's cups or a cake that was very popular about ten years ago (Chocolate cake with a flan layer on top) with relative success as far as the clients' enjoyment of the desserts. 

Growing up in urban areas of northern Mexico makes for pretty lousy food memories, as far as traditional eats are concerned. Having parents that were born elsewhere doesn't help either as far as my exposure to what the local sweets are. However, I did get to know a few of the sweets of the region. Like Jamoncillos, Cocadas and the most famous "sweet" of the region: Pan de Pulque. 

Jamoncillos and Cocadas share two ingredients that could be considered staples in pretty much every region of Mexico: Milk and Sugar. Wherever you go in Mexico you're bound to find sweets based on custards, curdled milk or more commonly caramelized milk. On a more modern note, condensed milk has also made a place for itself in the sweet pantry of our kitchens. 

In the 2003 movie "Politiki Kouzina" (A touch of Spice), the main character reflects on milk and sugar. He mentions having seen many seniors walking around with boxes of sweets based on these ingredients, which are, ironically, the first flavors we taste. 

One very popular sweet combination, and one that many Mexicans have eaten regardless of their region is the Galletas Marías and Cajeta. The former being a very popular biscuit, the latter, our version of Dulce de Leche (made from goat's milk). 

Taking that idea and this one from Linda, I wonder how people would react to a new, elegant version of the childhood staple. How about Galletas Marías and Lemon?? 

Volatile Compounds for TGRWT #8

M. pointed out that there's a third component in the TGRWT pairing: trimethyl amine. A quick google search showed that it's a compound associated with some utterly nasty smells:

"Trimethylamine is a product of decomposition of plants and animals. It is the substance mainly responsible for the fishy odor often associated with fouling fish, bacterial vagina infections, and bad breath." (From wikipedia)

According to our trusted Good Scents Company trimethyl amine occurs naturaly in cocoa and caviar. As do the previously mentioned substances. As for other ingredients that share the components, the list has been drastically reduced to five other foodstuffs: beer, cheese, fish, cofee and whiskey.

Just in case anyone was wondering about the previous list, it included: apple, arctic bramble, banana, beans, beef, beer, bilberry, brandy, bread, cabbage, carrot, caviar, cheeses, chicken, cider, clary sage, coffee, cranberry, currant, eucalyptus, fish, grape, guava, honey, hop oil, milk, peanut, peas, pecan, pork, potato, potato chip, soya bean, tea, tomato, turkey, whiskey and wine.

TGRWT #8

Next round is up!

Chadzilla brings us the next challenge, and it is well... challenging (duh!). The ingredients for number 8 are caviar and white chocolate. It's been done before, notably by Marc Veyrat and Heston Blumenthal.

As for the train of thought that might go into the making of this, I think I'm taking a very complicated route. So far I started by applying Martin's technique for searching for common volatile aroma compounds in food. I got two components from the search: valeraldehyde and butyraldehyde. Curiously, I had already found these two components for another dessert idea.

Anyway, I took the list of natural occurrences for each compound and cross referenced it. In all, I have 39 matches for the compounds (caviar and chocolate included). While it does present an interesting challenge for a multi-ingredient dish, there's also the risk of overdoing it. So far two choices are my top ones:

1. White Chocolate, Caviar, fish (or not), potato, vanilla (from the Used in part of the search).
2. Simply white chocolate and caviar.

Again, more on this as I get hands on.

TGRWT #7

So, I have had a lot of time to think, but none to execute. This leads to more thinking and thus, more ideas. One of those inspired by the fact that I lack an Ice-cream maker here...

The original idea was to make a cauliflower crème brulée and serve it with a bitter cocoa sorbet. The fact that I don't have my machine here has led me to think that I could do a "cremeux" in it's place.

More Ideas have come along so far. Some of them are:

• Cauliflower Gnocci, cocoa sauce: Just a thought really.
• Cocoa macaron with cauliflower cream: Now I'm really getting in deep... I've never even made macarons.

Anyhoo, more to come when I actually get in the kitchen.

Molecular Gastronomy... no bull

I'f you've stopped at Khymos, you probably already know about TGRWT (They go really well together). The event consists of creating recipes using a couple (or more) ingredients that "marry" really well according to their volatile aroma compounds.

Martin came up with a clever, albeit not perfect way to come up with the aromatic compounds of a certain ingredient, as was explained here. It involves searching for matches of those compounds between a number of ingredients, usually, some that wouldn't often show up together in menus.

If you ask me, that is REAL molecular gastronomy.

Update:
I'm going to make a "late entry" for TGRWT #7. The ingredients are caramelized cauliflower and cocoa so I'm thinking cauliflower creme brulée and bitter cocoa sorbet. I'll probably end up throwing a tuile in there just for kicks.

The Project: Caldo Tlalpeño

I love Caldo Tlalpeño (foto from mexico.canalblog.com. For those of you who might not know it, it's quite simple. Chicken broth with shredded chicken meat, vegetables and chickpeas. Some add rice to it. It also has one of my favorite ingredients in Mexico: chilpotles. It's usually served with garnishes that include avocado and fresh cheese, among other things that may vary from house to house.



In my book, it's one of the ultimate in mexican comfort foods. Thus, I've always been obsessed with tumbling it around. In the "early days" of my involvement with the scientific techniques (a.k.a. I knew nothing except lecithin). I had come up with a Dry version of the soup. It involved making the chicken into some sort of ballotine, a panisse of sorts, broth "aire", avocado in a mousse or cream and some other elements I can't recall right now (I have them written down somewhere at home). It was a very "simple" version of the dish.



Yesterday, armed with a bit more knowledge of what can be done, and drawing inspiration from a lot of places (mainly Alex Stupak, Wylie Dufresne, Sean Brock and Aki and Alex). I am determined to make a newer version of it. I have been thinking of using Activa with the chicken and turn it into some different shape. I might try using tapioca maltodextrin in order to turn the avocado into dust. As for the rest of the ingredients, I still have to think about them.