Digital Notes

The party line is that Ideas in Food is our digital notebook. There is irony in the fact that these notes are first usually scrawled on post-it notes, legal pads, old mail, and an occasional napkin. Times are changing, sort of. Today I took notes and scribbled extrapolations and inspirations while at Star Chefs using my iPhone. It was a brutal experience. There was no flow of ideas, rather a choppy typing. I could not doodle and extrapolate. My imagination was not free to roam. Incoming texts broke the mental flow of idea germination. Still, in all, I was charged with thoughts and noodled a number of ideas. To get an idea of what today inspired here is what I scribed:

– Substitute pistachio paste in miso marinade… sake, mirin, soy
– What other nuts? Smoked nut? What other nut substitutions?
– Powerful pure ingredients
– Ginger curd
– The switching of cultural herbs and seasoning
– Coat salt with oil then fold into tartars to preserve texture; try with other fats and sugar
– Minced seasonal fruit relish
– Bone marrow and sea urchin, kinome and crispy pistachio soba
– Use powdered sugar to dust and dry citrus skin, olives, nuts
– Tomato miso
– Use aerated brittle around foie or peanut butter, etc.
– Roast garlic and buckwheat miso
– Poached in pistachio milk flavored with lemongrass
– Red wine dashi
– Sauerkraut miso
– Buckwheat groats with flavor purée, perhaps squash
– Dried onions flavored with miso
– Black onion powder with roast buckwheat… Try other vegetables
– Bone marrow mousse
– Yuzu-wine-shallot sauce
– Artichoke and soft cheese mousseline
– A lighter onion sabayon
– Onion or allium miso
– Kasu and nut praline
– Pork belly cooked in salt kasu crust
– Use food-grade plastic to shape and structure meats and fish
– Can we make dashi in the cvap at 60°C?
– Threads of kelp made in a pressure cooker
– Garlic oil or stock to enrich sauces
– Toasted garlic consommé
– Grilled applesauce
– Prosciutto or country ham dashi
– Vegetable dashi… grilled vegetable
– Beer cake
– Proteins help emulsions; what can be a cream and what are the proteins?
– Fat flair up for flavor
– Fruit acids help proteins to disperse
– Shrimp for use as melting salt
– Sodium citrate allows for remelting
– What can be a cheese?
– 25 percent gum Arabic solution as moisture barrier
– Pork rinds, etc. 13 percent water
– Grind dried pork rinds; crumbs of false cracklings… how many incredible uses?
– Methocel foam as glue; try with other tapioca starch
– Try with fish skin
– Use dog brush to evenly poke holes in duck skin for searing
– Cook duck skin at 83°C then dry and fry
– Don’t forget layered duck skin in activa chapter
– Deep fry or tempura smoked confit garlic: frog legs, garlic bread soup, etc. ideas
– What would powdered pickled watermelon rind be like?
– Garlic poached in citrus nut milk then deep-fried