Genius Week 5: TED and I

So I presented on Monday morning--first thing. Needless to say, there were a few bumps here and there (probably because I memorized my script over the weekend...I need at least one week to fully memorize a script), and it definitely was not my best. But, overall, the presentation was something I'm very proud of. 

The project was a great experience for me. I gained a deeper understanding and passion for cooking, and I know I'll continue learning how to cook in the summer. Modernist Cuisine has most definitely opened my eyes to something new--I never knew new technologies were being created for the purpose of cooking and I'm definitely looking forward to using my sous vide cooker and pressure cooker in the future.

Now back to the presentation itself. I thought my slides were pretty good, since they followed along with what I was saying. I did notice that a lot of the presenters had more pictures than text (or had all pictures and no text whatsoever). In my opinion, I had a good balance of images and words. On the other hand, my command of my script was "ehhh." As I mentioned earlier, there were a few bumps here and there, but worst of all, I was too stiff and too serious. Afterwards, I talked with a few classmates about the presentations and one said: "You were fine although there were a few times when you seemed like you were trying to remember your script" and another said: "No one smiled; everyone was so serious."

In retrospect, I could have done better. Now that it's all in the past, there were a few things that I learned. First, no more procrastination on a presentation. I hate to admit it, but I did leave the presentation and the script for the last 1.5 weeks of the project. If I had been able to finish earlier, I would have had time to practice and prepare, and the presentation would have gone more smoothly. Second, a high school student needs at least seven hours of sleep if he/she is going to give a presentation first thing in the morning the very next day. I'm pretty sure I only slept for six hours on the night before, which made me feel extremely tired the next morning. Third, bring your CONFIDENCE! Not that I wasn't confident during my presentation, but I certainlybdidnt bring enough to the table now that I think about it. This was the cause if my "stiffness" and my "mistakes" (I actually did screw up one sentence of my script...however, I did manage to make a quick "recovery").

So now that the project has come to a close, I just wanted to thank everyone--Mr. M & P, my fellow bloggers, and everyone else who stopped by my blog. It's been a wild ride--first, the LA Reader's Workshop project and next, the genius project...I wonder what my next project will be?

Comments:

- Allison

- Jess

- Christy

Lord of the Blogs: The Return of the Queen

Dear readers,
However few or scattered you may be...I'm back! After a yearlong hiatus, during which I focused on school work and numerous extracurriculars, I have realized that I need a different medium--other than my family and friends--to express myself creatively and to share my obsession and passion for books, movies, music, and TV. Reflecting back on my time spent on "Cheaper By the Book," I have also realized that writing a blog is incredibly cathartic, something that I need especially since the months ahead will be full of applications and essays and stress!

Anyways, enjoy my next posts and feel free to make comments. All feedback is welcome.

~ Alycia

PSA: The Breakfast Club

Don't you forget to eat

Something that I can never understand is why and how teenagers don't eat breakfast in the morning. They might throw out excuses like "I don't have time" or "I need to lose weight" (if you typically have C lunch, you probably can skip this post because you eat a hefty breakfast...right?). In reality, breakfast is extremely important to one's health.

"How many people don't eat breakfast in the morning? You've got detention."

Losing Weight
Skipping breakfast, or meals in general, actually makes weight loss much more difficult since it tends to lead to eating more food during lunch and dinner, and eating unhealthy snacks in between meals. Studies have shown that one can accumulate more body fat when eating fewer and larger meals than when eating smaller and more frequent meals.

Why Teenagers Should Eat Breakfast
Our bodies and brains are still developing, and require nutrition and energy to grow. Eating a good breakfast in the morning will most definitely make you more efficient as it gives you energy to do whatever you need to do. Studies show that teenagers who don't eat breakfast are more "tardy and absent" from school than those who eat breakfast daily. Test first thing in the morning? A wholesome breakfast should be one of your main priorities for conquering that exam (other than studying, of course).

What Constitutes a "Good" Breakfast?
"Good carbs and fiber with some protein" (quoted from the "that one" article listed below). Here's a list:

• Oatmeal
• Greek yogurt
• Grapefruit (or any kind of citrus fruit)
• Bananas (how about dried bananas on your oatmeal?)
• Watermelon
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Eggs
• Almond butter
• Coffee (but avoid too much cream and sugar!

The list goes on and on.

What Does Alycia Eat Every Morning?
I eat a boiled egg with soy sauce and turmeric powder, one-two pieces of my dad's homemade bread with olive oil (that is filled with >10 spices from our spice cabinet), and a bowl of oatmeal with chia seeds, hemp seeds, and assorted nuts (from Costco). Sometimes I drink one-two cups of a homemade fruit smoothie.

To learn more, check out this article and that article (which are my sources for the above information). If you want to look at tumblr gifs from the movie "The Breakfast Club" (let's be real--you would much rather check out these gifs than an article), click this link. And if you're feeling like you wanna go back to the past, take a look at this list of '80s movies that you can binge-watch on a snowy day.

So guys--don't mess with the bull, or you'll get the horns. The same thing goes with your health and well-being. So, join the breakfast club by eating a healthy breakfast every morning.

If you wanna feel like ^^ every morning, start eating a healthy breakfast

Sincerely yours,

~A

P.S. ^^^^^^^^^^^Awkward b/c 10th graders just had an assembly about eating disorders....oh well.

Top gif (source)
Bottom gif (source)

Genius: Vlog

Enjoy.
~A

My Comments:

• Catelyn
• Hanna
• Jess

Genius Week 4: I Quinoa Believe How Good This Tastes!

For Mr. M and P:
THIS IS AN EXTRA BLOG POST (TECHNICALLY THE FIFTH). MY SIXTH OFFICIAL BLOG POST WILL BE THE ONE AFTER THE TED TALK. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE MY FOURTH BLOG POST (THAT IS DUE BEFORE PRESENTATIONS), IT IS BELOW AND ABOUT PIZZA. ~Thank you

You ready for a really brief post? Here goes...

*******Just a heads up, "quinoa" is pronounced "keen-wah" (and no, it is not a fish, Ben Affleck).

Updated Timeline:

Week 0: Intro to Modernist Cuisine
Week 1: Blanching

Week 2: Sous Vide

Week 3: Steel-Plate Cooking

Week 4: Pressure Cook
Week 5: Create My Own Dish

The Original Recipe of the Pistachio Pesto

The Original Recipe of the Quinoa

Quinoa with Pistachio Pesto and Asparagus                                                           ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Wash the quinoa and set it nearby to let it dry. Slice the asparagus into thin pieces. Sautee the asparagus in butter (amount of butter is up to you). After five minutes, the asparagus is done and ready to be served. In the meantime, cook the quinoa in a pressure cooker for five minutes (pre-pressurizing will take 15-20 minutes). Serve with the pistachio pesto and asparagus!

Pistachio Pesto                                                           ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Gather basil leaves, chives, cilantro leaves, scallions (green parts; 2 inch pieces), and baby spinach (refer to amounts in the original recipe; you can just eyeball it).  Set a pot of water to boil and prepare an ice bath. When it boils, submerge the greens listed in Step 1 for 1 minute. Then place the greens into the ice bath. After five minutes, dry the greens (using your hands to squeeze out excess water) and place them in a food blender. Boil 3 garlic cloves for a few minutes, then place those in the food blender. Add 3/4 cup of cheese, 1/2 cup of pistachios, 1 lemon, and 1/2 cup of olive oil. Puree until smooth. Refrigerate for 1 hour before using.

Technologies used/science:

 

Pressure Cooker

               

Blanching!

To learn more about pressure cooking and the science behind it, click here.

VIDEO:

See ya soon,
~A

Genius Week 3: You've Got a Pizza My Heart

This past week was all about pizza. You may not know this, but in my home, pizza-making is most definitely not new. My dad has made pizza (a healthier version that uses more whole-wheat flour) a gazillion times, especially when my friends come over (so far, he's gotten very positive reviews). I've helped out a few times, but this past weekend was my first experience with making two entire pizzas. It turned out great.

Pun intended (creds)

In my opinion, "pizza margherita" was not a hard dish, especially compared to the salmon I made in Week 2. Overall, it probably took three-four hours max (counting the time spent on Friday and Saturday...yes it was a two-day process), which is most definitely an improvement.

Needless to say, I still ran into a few obstacles and setbacks. For instance, since we didn't have a pizza peel (the tool with a really flat and large head that pizza people use to put pizzas into the oven) to put the pizza on the steel plate (which had been in the oven at 475F for almost an hour), my parents and I had to be creative. We found a wooden board and sprinkled corn flour across it. When it came time to put a pizza in, the pizza was placed on the board. One person would attempt to slide the pizza onto the steel plate while the others would use tongs to help the pizza make its way slowly (without the toppings falling off or the dough piling up into a heap). This taught me that one must be flexible when working in the kitchen (and in life). One must strive to find solutions when there are problems, and one must not give up easily.

For the history folks. (creds)

Remember when I complained about my "frantic running around the kitchen" last week? This week, it definitely was not a problem. I read through and memorized the recipe word by word and step by step before cooking, and I gathered all of my ingredients to ensure a speedy cooking process. In my opinion, I'm starting to get the hang of cooking (my parents might have a different opinion, but oh well).

Over the past three-four weeks, I have most definitely gained an appreciation of the time and effort my dad puts in to make dinner every day. This old adage instantly comes to my mind when I think about cooking: "There is more than meets the eye." Looking and watching at someone cook is easy, but doing the cooking is a whole 'nother story. What I'm trying to get at is that my parents are a huge inspiration when it comes to cooking. They might not be pros like Nathan Myhrold, but they have experience and a "third sense" when working in a kitchen. They also carry things out in a methodical and scientific approach that guarantees a smooth cooking process (after all, it was my dad who suggested--more like demanded actually (since I was super-duper slow in the beginning)--that I begin to memorize recipes, and it was my mom who suggested that I visualize myself cooking a dish before I actually cook it).

Here's the updated timeline. We're getting awfully close to the final week!:

Week 0: Intro to Modernist Cuisine

Week 1: Blanching

Week 2: Sous Vide

Week 3: "Steel-Plate Cooking"
Week 4: Pressure Cooking

Week 5: Create My Own Dish

My recipe for the is featured below. As always, it came from the Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook, although I did make a few modifications, such as...

Neapolitan Dough:

• Less is more - as always, less salt
• Stretching probs - I was kind of confused at what the book meant by "stretching" the dough. As you'll see in the video, I merely just "stretched" the dough...

 Original Recipe Pt. 2 (Neapolitan Pizza Dough)

 Original Recipe Pt. 1 (Neapolitan Dough)

Pizza Sauce:

• Measuring is for wimps - In the original recipe, the carrots and onions had distinct measurements. I merely "eyeballed" it.
• No pressure cooker! - My pressure cooker hasn't arrived yet, so I cooked the sauce in a standard pan while letting it boil slowly for forty-fifty minutes.



Original Recipe Pt. 2 (Pizza Sauce)

• No one needs salt and/or oil - The recipe calls for salt and olive oil at the end of the slow-boiling process to season the sauce. I completely disregarded it (actually b/c I forgot), but the sauce turned out great anyways.

 Original Recipe Pt. 1 (Pizza Sauce)

Pizza:

• Measuring is for wimps pt. 2 - As you will see in the video, I "eyeballed" the amount of sauce I put on my pizza
• Parmigiano Reggiano 4 lyfe - Instead of using "vacuum-dried buffalo mozzarella cheese" (which is such a mouthful to say...get it?), I used Parmesan cheese, which I had left over from Week 1's salad.

Original Recipe (Pizza Margherita)

Neapolitan Dough                                                           ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Add 3 1/4 cups of flour, 2 tsp of honey, 1 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 1/2 tsp of wheat gluten, and 3/4 tsp of yeast into a mixing bowl. Add 1 1/3 cups of water into the mixing bowl. Mix using a mixer for five minutes at medium speed. Let the dough rest for ten minutes. Mix again for five minutes at medium speed. Then split the dough into four (can make four 12-14 inch pizzas) and stretch these portions of the dough. Roll these portions into small balls. Coat the balls with olive oil. Place in the dough balls in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

Pizza Sauce                                                           ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Cut pieces of carrot and sweet onion. Put them in a food blender with 5-6 cloves of garlic. Blend until smooth. Saute in a pan for a few minutes at medium heat. Add in one large can of crushed tomatoes. Let it slowly boil for 20-30 minutes.

Pizza Margherita                                                           ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Take the dough out an hour before it goes into the oven. Shape the dough into a circular shape (12-14 inches diameter). Make sure that the edges, which will be the crust, are higher and thicker than the "body" of the pizza. Spread the sauce out. Add green peppers and artichokes. Straight into the oven!

The pizza was great; I ended up eating four pieces (which is equivalent to one pizza). Compared to my dad's pizza, which is healthier, my pizza tasted more like "professional-restaurant pizza" (if you know what I mean). It was thin and crunchy, and the sauce was a bit salty--but regardless, it was pretty good.

If you sense a "red" theme with the kitchen appliances I've used so far, you're definitely onto something. I used my dad's mixer for the first time (he typically uses it to make bread), and it was a lot of fun. I know mixers may seem like ordinary kitchen equipment, but let's remember who didn't cook before this project and who is doing her project on cooking because of that (hint: you're reading her blog).

The Mixer

I also used a steel plate for baking the pizza (hence, the technique this week is called "steel plate cooking"). Typically, when my dad makes pizza, he uses a clay plate, but for this project, we decided to test out a steel plate. We did cook one pizza using the steel plate and the other using the clay plate just to compare and contrast taste and texture. I felt that there was no discernible difference between the two pizzas (both tasted great to me), but according to my parents, there is a subtle difference. 

According to the Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook, a steel plate has a high thermal capacity that allows the pizza (esp. its crust) to be cooked evenly, while "pizza stone" (which I think is the same thing as our clay plate) has "even heat distribution and develops a good crust color." However, steel plates are expensive and heavy, and pizza stones have "lower thermal capacity and less temperature stability."

The steel plate

I found this fascinating article that compares and contrasts steel and stone when cooking pizza. The author, J. Kenji López-Alt, writes: "Metal conducts heat better than stone and it stores more heat per unit volume than stone—both key characteristics to creating a pizza that cooks up both light and crisp with the characteristic hole structure and char that you look for in a good Neapolitan or New York-style pie." López-Alt then makes different types of "pies" (pizzas) using steel and stone and contrasts them. He explains that holes in the pizza and crust "develop when air and water vapor trapped inside the dough matrix suddenly expand upon heating in a phenomenon known as oven spring". If faster energy is transferred to the dough, there will be bigger the bubbles, and  the crust will be "the airier and more delicate".

Comparison of different types of surfaces for baking pizzas

Here's the vid (enjoy!):

Sequence of Events (from the vid):

1. Putting flour into mixing bowl.
2. Putting salt into mixing bowl.
3. Putting wheat gluten into mixing bowl.
4. Putting honey into mixing bowl.
5. Putting yeast into mixing bowl.
6. Hooking up the bowl to the mixer.
7. Adding water and turning on the mixer to a medium speed.
8. Stretching the dough after it is mixed.
9. Splitting the dough into four smaller pieces.
10. Stretching a small piece of the dough and shaping it into a ball.
11. Brushing olive oil on the dough balls and putting them into the refrigerator.
12. Cutting carrots and placing them into the mixer.
13. Cutting onions.
14. Blending carrots, onions, and garlic in a food blender.
15. Adding oil to a pan.
16. Adding the blend of carrots, onions, and garlic.
17. Adding crushed tomatoes to the pan.
18. Taking the dough out and gradually shaping it into a pizza.
19. Adding tomato sauce.
20. Adding toppings.
21. End product.

The Before and After

Stay cool ☯,
~A

Links/Resources:

• This cool article about Modernist Cuisine, Nathan Myhrold, and many super awesome and yummy dishes.
• Check out this link to the Modernist Cuisine website that features one of its products: The Baking Steel (steel plate for pizza)
• Harvard's Science and Cooking Lectures: I'm currently making my way through the first lecture, which is incredibly interesting. I've already learned a great deal about science and cooking so far.

My Comments:

• Lil
• Josh
• Jess
• She Likes Sweet Potato on Her Pizza
• AL

Just a Heads Up for Mr. P & M

My genius project blog posts begin with "Week 0", which is the first post. So, if you see "Week 3" on a blog post, then it means that it's my fourth.

Thanks and happy grading,
~A

Genius Week 2: Oh, it's you. I thought you were salmon else.

Ready for a terrible joke? "Why did the hipster salmon suffocate? Because the current was too mainstream." Here's creds for that. All puns aside, this week was dedicated to salmon. I used my precision (sous vide) cooker for the first time, which was very very exciting (and scary too...shhhh I didn't say that).

This week I learned just how disoriented and unorganized I have been while cooking. Instead of gathering ingredients ahead of time and memorizing the recipe to make the cooking process smoother, I frantically ran from the kitchen to the cookbook about a million times. Like conducting a science experiment, cooking a dish involves knowing what to do ahead of time (the procedure, the method, the materials, the amount of materials, etc.) to be able to quickly finish it without any hassle. My mom suggested that I visualize myself cooking a dish before I cook it, which has been proven to help one become quicker and more accurate when doing something. Other than that, I had a lot of fun making the salmon dish and I'm especially looking forward to cooking next time. While last week was more of a "starter" to ease myself into the kitchen, this week was more of hands-on experience and I felt as though I was actually "cooking", which was a good feeling.

So far, progress has been good and I feel like I have been learning a lot about the process of cooking as well as the involvement of science in that process. I've made a minor change to the timeline, so here it is now (I pushed pressure cooking back to week 4 and made week 3 steel-plate cooking):

Week 0: Intro to Modernist Cuisine
Week 1: Blanching

Week 2: Sous Vide

Week 3: Steel-Plate Cooking

Week 4: Pressure Cook
Week 5: Create My Own Dish

My recipe for the fish spice mix and salmon is featured below. As always, it came from the Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook, although I did make a few modifications, such as...

Original Recipe (Fish Spice Mix)

Fish Spice Mix:

• No toasting! - The original recipe called for toasted sesame and coriander seeds. I decided not to because (a) I did not have enough time and (b) the spice mix would end up in a frying pan anyway.
• Less is more! - I put in less of all of the ingredients (esp. salt), since I wouldn't need all of it for the salmon.
• Black over white! - My poppy seeds and sesame seeds were black, which caused the end product of the spice mix to look exceptionally dark (still tasted great though)

Flagrant Sous Vide Salmon:

• Rock sugar! - It was the only type of sugar I had for the brine.
• Over temp and time! - The recipe called for 113°F and 30 minutes of water bath time, but I did things a little differently.
• Less is more! - I put in less salt, oil, etc. to make the end result more mild



Original Recipe (Salmon) pt. 2



Original Recipe (Salmon) pt. 1

• Water displacement method...What?? - Instead of using the water displacement method as proposed by the book to seal the plastic bags before they went into the water bath, I just sealed them as best I could (as you will see in the video below).

Fish Spice Mix                                                             ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Gather 1/2 cup of raw walnuts, 1/3 cup of sesame seeds, 1 Tbsp of coriander seeds, 1/2 Tbsp of salt, 1 tsp of poppy seeds 1 Tbsp of dried chamomile blossoms. Grind in a mortar and pestle.

Flagrant Sous Vide Salmon                                                             ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Set up a brine solution by adding three cups of water, 1 Tbsp of salt, and 2 rock sugars into a bowl and mix. Place three raw fish fillets in the brine solution and refrigerate for four hours. After four hours, preheat a water bath (with the sous vide cooker) to 115°F or 46°C. Take the fillets out and place them in separate plastic bags. Add 1 Tbsp of Olive Oil to each of the plastic bags. When the water bath is ready, clip the bags with salmon on the sides of the water bath and leave them in for 45 minutes. Make the fish spice mix while waiting. Melt 3/8 cup of butter in a frying pan. Once it has been melted, put in the fish spice mix (amount to your taste). Once the butter starts bubbling and the salmon is done being "sous vided" (that's not a word...), gently place the salmon in the frying pan. Fry the salmon for one-two minutes per side. Serve!

The salmon was great. Compared to a restaurant's salmon, which can be extremely dry sometimes (believe me...I know), my salmon was somewhat juicy and soft. For my taste, it was still a bit too dry, which is probably because I left the salmon in the water bath for an extra 15 minutes just to make sure the salmon was cooked all the way. Furthermore, the fish spice mix offered a much desired crunchiness and overall, there was a strong melted butter taste. It was absolutely scrumptious, and I would say this past week was a big success (considering I took a giant leap from salad to sous vide salmon).

The ANova Precision Cooker

The technique/technology used was "sous vide". This involves vacuum sealing food in plastic bags and then submerging those foods in a water bath, which cooks slowly and at a low temperature. Orthodox methods of cooking food (searing, grilling, etc.) result in the food reaching various temperatures in every layer from the outside to the inside of it (this is apparent when searing steak). In a water bath, the food is slowly cooked and the temperature is not high, so overcooking would not occur and every layer of the food is allowed to gradually reach a constant core temperature throughout. Theoretically, the vacuum sealing of the food prevents the food from oxidizing and changing color (if the food is submerged for a day or more), and from being insulated by air (so it can be fully cooked). Afterwards, top chefs typically use a blowtorch or a quick searing/frying to brown the food after it has been submerged, since browning does not occur at the low temperatures of the water bath.

Although this may not seem obvious, sous vide poses a food safety concern. Since it involves cooking food slowly and at a low temperature, food may spend a while in a "bacteria-friendly zone above fridge-cold and below oven-hot" (a brilliant New Yorker article that discusses Modernist Cuisine and kitchen science in general). This is why some health officials do not approve of the technique (in fact, according to the New Yorker article, there is a health department in New York that is notoriously against the process of cooking food using sous vide). To learn more about the science behind sous vide, check out this article (one of the coauthors of this article is Nathan Myhrvold, who is the main author of Modernist Cuisine and who I briefly described in my last post...small world, huh?). 

Temperature Gradient of Salmon (from Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook)

My method of cooking sous vide, contrasted with the explanation provided in the above paragraph, is slightly different than the methods of big-time chefs. While cooking my salmon, I did not vacuum seal the plastic bags (since I don't have a vacuum sealer). To be honest, I wish I did, because it might have made the salmon taste a bit different ("cooking is just like fishing...[unless you don't pay close attention to what you're doing] you never know what you're going to get...it's unpredictable and it doesn't disappoint...if I move over there to fish, I might just be successful...you never know why you were successful and why you failed [if you don't understand this reference, just ignore it]..."). In addition to that, I noted that I do not have an official cover for my water bath (while I was perusing the Internet, I saw that most sous vide water baths had lids), since the ANova Precision Cooker just included the red thingy you see in the picture above (yep, the pot is mine). My mom gave me the lids of various Tupperware containers to use as a cover, but it doesn't look very professional...oh, well; that's only a minor detail.

Table of Best Temperatures to "Sous Vide" Various Fish  (from Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook)

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in the kitchen while making the salmon was food safety. In the beginning of the salmon-making process, it was required that the raw salmon be soaked in brine solution. This called for me to get my hands "dirty" and handle the raw salmon, which seemed frightening to me. However, I learned an important lesson that can even be applied to conducting science research: be careful when handling raw materials (or hazardous materials/toxins in a lab setting), and be meticulous and thorough when cleaning up after you've handled them. Everything that I touched (after moving the salmon into the brine) and everything that the salmon touched had to be cleaned. To be completely thorough, the counter-top surrounding where the salmon was and the sink had to be bleached, since germs and bacteria can spread. After this experience, I realized how important food safety is, since ignorance or neglect of a simple action (such as washing your hands) can lead to devastating effects (such as death). To learn more about the basics of the importance of food safety, watch this video.

Aaaannnnddd finally....here's the video; enjoy!:

Sequence of Events (from the vid):

1. Adding two cups of water to a bowl
2. Adding two pieces of rock sugar into the bowl.
3. Adding salt into the bowl.
4. Mixing the brine solution.
5. Adding raw salmon to the brine solution.
6. Setting the water bath to 115F.
7. Putting the salmon in plastic bags.
8. Putting oil in the plastic bags with the salmon.
9. Placing the bags into the water bath and clipping them to the sides.
10. The water bath + precision cooker (sous vide cooker)
11. Melting butter in a frying pan.
12. Adding the fish spice mix to the pan.
13. Adding salmon to the frying pan.
14. Awkward moment when I attempt to flip the salmon over and I majorly fail.
15. The rest is history.

Ain't she a beaut?

Keep it real folks,
~A

Links/Resources:

• The Modernist Cuisine Blog. Ughhh the latest post is amazingggg (for Valentine's Day, they created a "human heart" made out of tonka beans).

My Comments:

• Han-Banan
• My Euro Studybuddy
• Catelynnnn

Genius Week 1: A Romaine-tic Salad

Simple, yet delightful

You might be thinking: "A salad? That's easy!" Well, you've got to start somewhere right? For Week 1, I made "Green Salad with Romaine Dressing" (from the Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook), which was actually more difficult to make than it may seem. According to the cookbook, the salad should only have taken 1 hour, but I spent 2 hours just trying to make the dressing, which really took up the bulk of the time allotted for making the salad...

So far, I've learned that cooking is much, MUCH harder than it looks (and very time consuming, of course) and that I have a long way to go if I ever want to achieve "semi"-mastery. It's a very hands-on experience, almost like performing a science experiment except I eat what I make. Basically, my takeaway from Week 1 is my realization that I am a novice--at cooking--in every sense of the word (my parents also established this, since they were watching me "cooking"). This conclusion I have come to serves as the driving force behind my project: I will improve at cooking. I will not give up. In fact, I had a lot of fun making the salad this week and I'm looking forward to next week's dish and technique. Here is the timeline I know has been much awaited for (the dishes will not be revealed until my next blog posts):

Week 0: Intro to Modernist Cuisine
Week 1: Blanching

Week 2: Sous Vide

Week 3: Pressure Cook

Week 4: Pan-fry
Week 5: Create My Own Dish

My recipe for the salad is featured below. It is based on the recipe from the Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook, although I did make a few modifications, such as...

• No eggs! - The original recipe called for sous vide eggs and I don't have my sous vide cooker yet
• No butter lettuce! - When I went food shopping, I could not find any butter lettuce (according to my parents, it is not in season), so I settled with green lettuce
• No tarragon leaves! - I had no idea what those were and where to buy them fresh, so I just left them out of my dressing
• No cheesecloth! - I drained the greens (used for the dressing) by squeezing them with my hand...so not pro, but I did what I had to do
• 1 anchovy fillet vs. 3! - The anchovies I got from Costco were super high in salt content, so I only added one anchovy to my dressing

Green Salad with Romaine Dressing                                                           ❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦ ******************************************************************************************************** Set a pot of water to boil and put together an ice water bath. Weigh out 40g of Romaine Lettuce Leaves, 15g of Chives, 15g of Mint Leaves, and 5g of Basil Leaves. Place the greens (from above) into the boiling water for 1 minute, then place them in the ice bath immediately. After about 5 minutes, drain the leaves. In a blender, add 1/4 cup of Buttermilk, 1/3 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan cheese), 1 Anchovy fillet, 3 tablespoons of Olive Oil, and your greens. Puree until your dressing is smooth. Add lemon juice and salt (to your taste). Slice lettuce and red radishes, the main components of your salad Add the dressing and toss.

The salad and dressing were actually pretty good. The dressing had a strong cheese taste and was, according to my parents, a bit too salty. This was because the anchovies--who would have ever thought to put anchovies in salad dressing?--I got from Costco were VERY high in salt content. This taught me that next time, whenever I'm using processed foods, I should always check the nutritional facts to ensure that it is not too high in fat, sugar, or salt. 

The Original Recipe pt. 2

The Original Recipe pt. 1

So what was the technique that I used? Well, it isn't modernist per se, but it is pretty cool in my opinion: blanching. This involves boiling--in this case--leafy greens and then immediately plunging them into ice water. According to the website listed below*, blanching is used to preserve food (since it breaks down bacteria that normally cause food to spoil and rot, and enzymes that change the color of food), remove flavors you don't want (certain veggies and meats have strong flavors, and can be blanched to make their flavors milder), and texture certain foods (ex. tomatoes can be blanched to soften their skins). For this week's salad dressing, I believe blanching was used for all of the above:

• Preservation: The Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook mentioned that the dressing could last up to two days
• Removing flavors: Chives, mint, and basil all have somewhat strong flavors that were removed so that the dressing was light and simple
• Texture: All leafy greens were softened in the blanching process in order to ensure that they would be pureed smoothly

Here's the video of me making the salad:

Sequence of Events in the Video (every shot/scene is listed below):

1. Radishes soaking in water- I was washing them, along with the other veggies used in this salad
2. Peeling off romaine leaves
3. Measuring the leaves on my digital scale
4. Gathering mint leaves- we have a mint plant at my home, so I cut some mint leaves to use in my dressing
5. Setting a pot to boil (clearly, I didn't do things in the order I intended to do them in, as detailed in my recipe)
6. Adding a 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese to my blender
7. Adding a 1/4 cup of buttermilk to my blender
8. Adding 1 anchovy fillet to my blender
9. Pouring water into what will be my ice bath
10. Boiling the greens (blanching process pt. 1)
11. Placing the greens in my ice bath (blanching process pt. 2)
12. Placing the greens in a colander to dry them
13. Placing the greens in the blender and pureeing (basically means "blending until smooth" in fancy kitchen speak) the dressing
14. Cutting a lemon and juicing it (to add to the dressing)
15. Slicing radishes
16. End product

My attempt at being food-artsy. Yay or nay?

Modernist Cuisine is all about advancing and improving the process of cooking using science and technology. This week, the most technology I used was a digital scale (as well as a stove of course). This may not seem like a big deal, but it was cool for me to start using a scale of my own. Next week will be much more exciting technology-wise, since I will be using a sous vide cooker!

As of now, I have been using the Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook, since it encompasses every aspect of Modernist Cuisine. It has greatly helped me familiarize myself with the ideals behind Modernist Cuisine that serve as its foundation and the basics of cooking (food safety, neutral vs. flavorful oils, etc.). For the coming weeks, I believe this will be the main resource I will use. All of my recipes will most likely be coming from this book.

The main chef behind the Modernist Cuisine series is Nathan Myhrvold. He is quite a fascinating figure, and perhaps, my role model in science and cooking. Since he was young, Myhrvold always had a passion for cooking. He states in the Modernist Cuisine at Home book: "My interest in cooking was so strong that I might have become a chef, had my interest in other things--particularly math and science--not intervened." At the age of 14, Myhrvold started college. By the age of 23, he had a "Ph.D. in mathematical physics, a master's degree in economics, another master's degree in geophysics and space physics, and a bachlor's degree in mathematics" (Modernist Cuisine at Home xiv). Next, Myhrvold worked with Dr. Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University, and later, became Microsoft's first chief technology officer. After retiring from Microsoft at the age of 40 in 1999, he was "determined to spend more time in the kitchen" (Modernist Cuisine at Home xiv). And thus, a science and cooking genius was born. To read more about Nathan Myhrvold and Modernist Cuisine, visit this website.

If you don't have enough blogs to follow, check out the Modernist Cuisine blog. It features many cool dishes that the Modernist Cuisine kitchen has been working on. I found that they had made an amazing gingerbread house with many intricate details. It was very interesting to examine the process in which they made the gingerbread house; the technologies they used were very impressive. The video is shown below:

Ugh...why can't I do something like that?

Until next week ✌,
~A

Links/Resources:

• The Modernist Cuisine at Home cookbook; here's the Modernist Cuisine website
• Because the photography of Modernist Cuisine is pretty cool, check it out
• Blanching Technique*

My Comments:

• Allison
• Jess
• Nicole
• Hanna
• Lil

P.S. Strangely enough, after I finished writing this post, my sous vide cooker arrived (I guess you could say that today has been the epitome of the concept of "perfect timing"--esp. with the snow day and lots of homework piling up at my feet). Here it is, pictured below:

The ANova Precision Cooker feat. a fine-lookin' blender blade and a pestle in the background

To learn more about my new sous vide cooker, visit this website