Su-V

One of the newest acquisitions to the kitchen is a pressurized 50L vat of containing liquid nitrogen. We have had it filled a couple of times now, they come once a month or so and it's about a dollar a litre. It boils at 77 K or −196 °C. Brrr. 22 June 2005: World's fastest ice cream maker is polymer physicist Peter Barham from the University of Bristol, smashed his own world record by shaving two seconds off the time it took him to make a litre of ice cream, it only took him 18.78 seconds, though Barham says he can go faster. I didn't think to time how long it tool to make my avocado icecream for the next upcoming tasting menu. But I did take a quick photo of the process. Nitrogen was first liquefied at the Jagiellonian University on 15 April 1883 by Polish physicists, Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski. I bet they thought, I bet we could make some sweet as frozen deserts with this technology aye?

Braised oxtail ragu Potato gnocchi Mixed together with shitake mushrooms and parmesan Accompanied by a rocket & parmesan salad. Very similar to heaven I presume.

Chestnuts today at Mt.Tomah. prickly fuckers, Chestnuts yesterday, in my pan, which I eventually peeled and chopped, Old Easter eggs melted down mixed with milk caramel, chopped prunes and currents Pastry mixed with linseeds The end result, a full on chestnut chocolate tart with crispy ass pastry Back to the drawing board I guess.

Pinto beans Popcorn Cucumber Shaved brussel sprouts Tasty cheese Chargrilled capsicum Corriander Tomato Boiled egg Beef sausage Onion Picked chillies Dressed with, Lemon juice Peanut oil Oregano Ground cumin Ground annato seeds Cocoa Sugar Salt Cracked pepper It ate like nachos, it needed diced avocado and alginated pearls of sour cream instead of the egg. Makes me think I like nachos, I should look to eating a lot more of them, a nacho fest, hardcore nacho action. Nachos for breakfast lunch and dinner. J

We have been toying around with the idea of putting rambutans with the brûlée. After a bit of reserch I decided upon some pairings. Coconut brûlée, earl grey caramel, rosemary biscotti, rambutans and rose. For the coconut custard i chose to use a mixture of hydrocolloids, in this case a combination of agar agar, gelitine, iota carrageenan, and egg yolk and am quite happy with the silken custardy mouthfeel. Traditionally the brûlée custard is cooked in a bain marine, the method I have employed takes a little more measuring but once mixed and heated on the stove it can be poured directly into the moulds and set in the fridge. Every good brule has a good cracking toffee on top, the toffee above is britle like glass and super thin. I have been playing with isomalt and glucose lately at the ratio of 5:1 and it's a bit of fun I must say, much like blowing bubbles! Getting the temprature right can seem tedious and in this case I felt the toffee didn't have the same strenght with th

Pre heat oven to 165c Line a springform tin 450 g Easter eggs peeled or 53.5% chocolate 150g butter 5 eggs 150g brown sugar 80g coco powder 300g self-raising flour 1 double espresso 150g milk 1 tsp salt Melt 250g chocolate and butter together Make flat white with coffee and milk and mix in a tsp salt. Combine eggs and sugar and whisk untill there silken and 4x their original volume Seive flour and coco powder over eggs, slop in the flat white and pour in the buttery chocolate and fold through gently, pour into tin and set in oven for about 50 min or untill there is no wobble. Melt the rest of the chocolate and pour on top, cut it up and eat, yum. J

I was watching an episode of 'No Reservations' where Antony Bordain was in Spain hanging around with Albert Adria eating tapas, going to a few awesome restaurants and playing in test kitchens. Albert spoke of and roughly demonstrated a sponge recipe where by it was dispensed via siphon and cooked via microwave. Slightly aroused I found an exact recipe on the net and set about giving it a shot. Adria recipe: (perhaps the original?) Pistachio sponge cake 80g pistachio 80g sugar 20g all purpose flour 3 eggs 1/2 liter Issi siphon 2 N2O charges 40 seconds, microwave, full power. And unmoulded This gave me a rather cheeky idea, a sweet course to follow perhaps a venison dish paired with chocolate jus, garlic potato custard and drunk blueberries. The waiter would clear the venison dish and replace with the sponge dish plated on a like plate. The waiter would state that the kitchen hand has just walked out so the chef insists you do your own cleaning up ...

We got a few snapshots of some of the dinner the other week, Sour cream spherification, smoked carrot paper, pink pepper and basil Eucalypt roasted baby beets, goats cheese, raddish, poached cellery, tomato air and balsamic reduction Lick, suck, sip. - Hibiscus sour, vanilla creme fraiche and bubblegum tapioca cone, floral rose red tea. Pucker up! Lemon curd filled nitro poached Lemonade orb upon lemon sherbet. Avocado sorbet, cashew, cos and olive oil. To be continued... J

Nina had a birthday and my wife made her a birthday cake and here's a link to her blog post what a clever woman, you should have seen her on the old computer with her 'wizzy do' programs making mock ups, templates pane-tone icing color charts and the like. she's amazing.