Apart from my interest in eating at good restaurants around the world I also have a curiosity in doing some cooking myself and this past Saturday (i.e. January 12) I made a dinner for five persons and this is what I served;

Edible stones

This is a small starter that derives from restaurant Mugaritz (this is how I did it: Edible Stones). I also served an alioli (the name comes from the Catalan words for the two main ingredients all (garlic) and oli (oil)) with the “stones” (i.e. potatoes).

Raspberry spheres with apple-wood smoked scallops

Foodpairing.com shows that raspberries, apple and scallops work fine together so I made a dish consisting of:

• Spherified raspberries (i.e. inverse spherification with an alginate bath and a purée of fresh raspberries mixed with Gluco from Texturas)
• Sous-vide cooked scallops at 47 degrees Celsius which were then fried quickly in a hot pan to achieve the Maillard reaction. Salt and Sarawak white pepper (selection Gérard Vives).
• The apple part of the dish consisted of putting the prepared scallops in a jar which I then filled with apple-wood smoke with the help of a ”Smoking Gun” (from Polyscience).

Caprese 2.0

This is a twist of the classical Italian antipasto dish insalata caprese (tomato salad with Mozzarella di Bufala cheese, basil and olive oil). All the original ingredients were kept but some of the tomatoes were made semi-transparent with the use of a centrifuge (and some Pectinex SP-L), kappa carrageenan for the jellification and finally a mold to get the desired sphere shape. The olive oil was transformed to a powder with the help of tapioca maltodextrin (Note: all tapioca maltodextrin are not the same. If you want to turn oils into powders, N-Zorbit M is the brand that you want to use to have this work).

Caramelized Carrot soap

On paper maybe the simplest dish for the evening but this is far from true though I made it following the original recipe from Modernist Cuisine (there is an easier version in the “Modernist Cuisine At Home” cookbook). A summary of the recipe (which shows some but not all of the steps included):

Refresher (Granny Smith)

A Pacojet sorbet made of Granny Smith apples.

Black Angus Entrécote

The meat was cooked sous-vide at 54 degrees Celsius and were than fried quickly in a hot pan to realize the Maillard reaction. Served with a purée made on celeriac and pears. Salt and Sarawak black pepper (selection Gérard Vives).

Dessert

Pacojet Strawberry ice cream, vacuumed honey melon and pineapples together with some powdered freeze dried raspberries.