Baking Soda In Green Purées

I was pretty sure the lower the pH a green vegetable was subjected to, the faster it would discolor. I read this study just to be sure, and then I tested the results using beet greens.
Ingredients:
300g beet greens, chopped
10g olive oil
optional: salt and baking soda
Method:
Get a large pot as hot as you can without anything in it. Add the oil and immediately follow with the greens. Stir until they are completely wilted(10 seconds or so). Put everything into a blender(add the salt and baking soda if you are adding them), blend until smooth, and pour into a metal container sitting on top of an ice bath.

I did three different trails:
One with 3g of salt and 1g of baking soda, one with 3g of salt and a very small pinch of baking soda, and one without any salt or baking soda.

From left to right, a lot of soda and salt, a little soda and salt, nothing added.

The soda not only effected the color, but also the texture. You can see how tight and smooth the far left purée is compared to the others, the thinnest being the far right(it wouldn't even hold the drag I did).

A gram of soda made the purée unservable, as it tasted like baking soda.  A little bit of soda seemed to help a little, but assuming you chop your beets fine enough and blend for long enough, you can get an identical purée without any salt or baking soda.

Plate it up!

Spicy soy poached swordfish with warm radishes, beet green purée and pickled beets

This picture used the purée with a pinch of baking soda.

Degradingly,

Adam

Warm Heirloom Shelling Bean Salad

The beans in this recipe are taken from this previous entry.
Ingredients:
800g cooked shelling beans +100g beans
200g cooking liquid
80g olive oil
335g corn kernels
100g small diced bacon
75 ramp pickling liquid
50g bragg apple cider vinegar
40g scallion sliced into thin rounds
a good amount of fresh ground black pepper
Method:
Cook the bacon over medium heat in a medium size pot with a quarter of the olive oil until it is lightly browned but not crispy. Add the scallion and corn and cook until everything is heated through. Mash the 100g of beans with a fork to make a paste and add this to the pot. Add the rest of the ingredients over high heat and stir until the beans are heated through.

Plate it up!

Coconut oil seared quail over warm bean salad with lardo and sunflower sprouts

I didn't find that this salad needed any additional salt.

Poorly,

Adam

Cooking Fresh Beans - When to Salt?

I don't know where it started, but some people (you know the ones) say you shouldn't add salt when cooking beans. Now, I'm fairly sure these people are talking about dried beans, but I wanted to try this out with some fresh beans, because they are all over the market right now. I can always try dry beans later.  I got six different types, Perignon, Coco, Calypso, Pink Butter, Cannellini, and Flageolet. I tried them with and without salt, what follows is how to cook them with salt.

Ingredients:
Salt and water brine, at a 3.2% salt concentration
Shelling Beans
Garlic Cloves
Thyme Sprigs
Black Peppercorns
Method:
Place the shelled shelling beans into a bag and cover them with the brine, they shouldn't be swimming in a lot of extra liquid. Add a few whole garlic cloves (I did not bruise or smash them, only peeled), sprigs of thyme, and black peppercorns depending on how much you like those things and how many beans you have. Seal the bag, making sure to get all of the air out, and place it in a pot of boiling water. Cover the pot and turn the flame down so it maintains a temperature between 205-210F. Cook, stirring every 20 minutes for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The overcooked, unsalted calypso beans.

Properly cooked/seasoned beans (any mashed bits are from the garlic cloves)

I bagged all of the different types of beans separately, but I cooked them all in the same pot of water at the same time. They were all done, to what I thought was perfection, at the same time, regardless of the variety. The only exception was the unsalted. The unsalted beans were slightly over cooked and tasted watery (even after adding salt after cooking).
I conclude that cooking fresh shelling beans in heavily salted water is good for their flavor and texture. It seasons them on the inside and prevents them from overcooking. Be warned that cooking them in this high of a salt solution will prevent you from using this liquid directly(the beans are awesome on their own, they could even take more salt if you love that sort of thing,). However, the liquid will taste too salty to most people. You could back it down to 2.2% brine, but then the inside of your beans wont be as nicely seasoned. I prefer this method because you still can use all of that glorious bean cooking liquid to season other stuff and the inside of these beans are creamy and seasoned.

Bindingly,
Adam

French Fries

This is how I make "triple cooked" chips. This idea has been around for a long time, even though it has gotten more attention recently from the likes of Heston Blumenthal. The details that I found were most important(although each detail is infinitely important if you want it to come out right) were the type and age of the potato, the temperature, size and seasoning of the water cooking step, and the first fry. This picasa page has photos to go along with the following recipe.
Ingredients:
Freshly dug, middle of the road amylose to amylopectin potatoes(I've tried superior, katahdin, NY114, and carola with great results, 5 lbs is a good starting point, but you could do more)
10000g water
230g salt
3qt oil
2 cup beef tallow
Method:
Peel the potatoes and cut them into large fries, the size of the potato will dictate what size is ideal, but they should be around 2cm by 2cm by the length of the longest side of the potato. Place the fries into cold water. In a very large pot bring the 10000g of water to a boil and add the salt. At a rolling boil, add a small amount of fries(you want to pot to recover a boil quickly) and cook for 13 minutes. They will be very soft, but remove them carefully and let them cool on a tray. Keep boiling the potatoes in batches until all are cooked. Let them further cool in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Once fully chilled, bring the oil to 310F. Fry, in batches, until the potatoes have developed a dry exterior and just start to turn color, about 8 minutes. Remove the potatoes, place on a tray, and let fully cool to room temperature(you can refrigerate them). Freeze the potatoes completely, in an air tight container if you are planning for long term storage. Once frozen, remove and let thaw in the fridge. Bring the oil, with the addition of the beef tallow, to 375F and fry the thawed potatoes until they are dark brown. Remove from the oil, lightly sprinkle with salt(they are already pretty seasoned) and serve once they have cooled slightly.

Oh dear...

Creamy seasoned middle, crunchy outside

Make 10 pounds at once, or 50, and freeze them all, then amazing fries are a thaw and quick fry away.

Oh, and remember Russet Burbanks have a high proportion of Amylose to Amylopectin(mealy), fingerling potatoes have the opposite(waxy), carolas are in the middle(trip-fries).

Longingly,

Adam

Blistered Tomatoes

I haven't come across many perfectly peeled tomatoes; it's a method problem. The only method I was taught was scoring the skin and then blanching in boiling water. The idea is that you separate the skin from the flesh without cooking the flesh. This works with tomatoes that aren't very ripe. Truly ripe tomatoes are very soft and get destroyed when using the blanching method. Very small tomatoes are the greatest test.
They have much less mass and overheat in water almost instantly. What you really need is more heat. Using a blow torch is a much better technique. This was suggested to me by my roommate Shiraz Noor, and now we spend our night effortlessly peeling even the ripest cherry tomatoes.

Plate it up!

White soy marinated cherry tomatoes with yuzu kosho, scallion, avocado, and pork terrine.

Tepidly,
Adam

Scallop Scramble

I've made this before with the whole adductor muscle, but I wanted to see if it would work with that little muscle that most people peel off and throw away.
Ingredients:
60g scallop meat(the small muscle attached to the large adductor)
60g heavy cream
10g water
2g salt
6 strands saffron
Method:
Blend the meat, cream, and salt until smooth. Pass through a fine mesh sieve. Add the water and saffron to a pan and boil it until almost dry. Turn off the heat and add the passed scallop mixture. Stir the pan with a spatula until the saffron is evenly distributed. Turn the heat to low and stir the scallop until it sets gently, like a soft scrambled egg.

This is what it looked like before cooking, after passing.

Plate it up!

Scrambled scallop with olive oil glazed turnips, English peas and cherry tomatoes

I definitely noticed a difference from when I used the whole adductor muscle, as opposed to just the scrapes, but the scrapes still work. They just need a little bit of the whole muscle to give the same texture; definitely not worth throwing away.

Passively,

Adam

Butter Poached Lamb Heart

Ziploc bags work well for everyday low temperature poaching. This recipe uses a bag filled with flavored butter to act as the cooking medium for the heart.

Ingredients:

60g butter

20g white wine

10g cream

4 black peppercorns

1 shallot, peeled and sliced

4 bay leaves

4 sprigs thyme

10 leaves rosemary

1 baby lamb heart

1 tsp. salt

Method:

Cook the wine, thyme, bay, peppercorns, shallot, rosemary, and salt in a pan until almost dry. Add all of the cream and then the butter a little at a time while swirling the pan to invert the emulsion. Place the lamb heart into a ziploc bag. Pour the butter emulsion over the heart, press out all of the air, seal, and submerge in a water bath at 68C for 28 hours.

I made this into a ravioli filling.

Plate it up!

Butter poached lamb heart ravioli with braised lamb flap, turnip greens, and a sauerkraut-lamb sauce

It wasn't the texture of a falling apart braise, but it was tender and meaty.

Constantly,

Adam