FoodieFellas - Kerri's popup cooking class

In an age of Comme des Garcon guerrilla stores and pop-up retail, it's not surprising that FoodieFellas would try their hand at organising a pop-up cooking class featuring Chef Kerri yesterday! In true private kitchen style, it was held in a recently-vacated apartment in Marine Parade, and limited to a small intimate group of enthusiastic foodies.

At the appointed time on a sunny Saturday, students arrived, and welcome drinks were served.

The first creation: a smooth and buttery (yet light) sea salt and caramel cheesecake. Castor sugar was used to make the caramel to get a better toasty rich flavour due to its finer grain and larger surface area exposed to the pan. Although brown sugar is traditionally used to make butterscotch, Kerri explained that a little could be mixed into the castor sugar to add even more complex taste notes to the caramel sauce. (Click the images to load the larger size version, which is quite a bit clearer.)

The next dish: country-style battered mushrooms with a herb-infused vinegar dip. Kerri's secret: the addition of a pinch of baking powder to the batter to fluff up the mushroom pieces in the hot oil, and the judicious addition of thyme, tarragon, white peppercorns and garlic pieces to white wine vinegar - it really tasted and smelled so much more aromatic! Kerri explained that this was due to the garlic mellowing the vinegar. There's also a special dipping/batter technique, and an optimum temperature for the oil, but I shouldn't reveal too much here!

Finally, a dessert of poached pears and figs in mulled wine spiced with cinnamon, vanilla bean, lemon zest, and other yummy spices! The wine, mixed with the fresh citrus notes and dusky aromas of spices, yielded a balanced combination. The longer the soak, the deeper and richer the colour!

Finally, in the grand FoodieFellas tradition - time to taste the food creations, drink, relax and chat about food tips, recipes and techniques. Some more pop-up cooking classes are in the works. Check back at this website or email foodiefellas (at) gmail.com to be kept updated on future sessions.

New American Foodways: coming to a farm near you

Perhaps it could be said that food trends in the USA come in overlapping waves. Two of New York's hottest tables, Momofuku Ko and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, point the way towards what could be next to come.

In the 1980s, new advances in food processing technology and transportation brought innovative products to households that enhanced the repertoire of busy homemakers: Boboli readymade pizza crusts, salad in a bag, and microwave popcorn. To keep up, American restaurants experimented with recipes that exploited new taste combinations such as lobster with curry mayonnaise, tempura eggplant with red onion relish, and tomato granite with pernod.

The 1990s and early 2000s saw an explosion of culinary innovation foreshadowed by visionaries such as Herve This and Michel Bras, and the increasing popularity of restaurants such as Ferran Adria's El Bulli and its emphasis on elaborations (i.e. increasing levels of abstractation using the original ingredient). While Adria himself shuns the term "molecular gastronomy" as being only one part of his culinary toolbox, other chefs - from Edward Voon in Singapore to Heston Blumenthal in the UK - adopted and modified these exciting new techniques in their never-ending search for new and more sophisticated methods of food preparation and service. It could be called "the chef as performance artist", with helium-filled balloons, iPods playing the sound of waves, wispy clouds of dry ice and colourful candy figurines appearing at the dining table. Jaded gourmands with palates accustomed to Japanese maccha, lingonberries and kaffir lime sought bragging rights through naming the most outlandish and elaborate dining experiences, and temples of fine dining sought to outdo each other.

Even then, towards the end of this period, the seeds of a growing reaction against flashy culinary pyrotechnics and "two peas and a smidgen of sauce" haute cuisine had been sown. The most sophisticated diners tired of sprinklings of crystallised violets or the finishing of beef dishes at the table in clouds of burning hay, preferring instead food, as one New York reviewer put it, that was "technically complex without being exhibitionist, highly refined without being effete".

This trend is now coming fully into itself. It's a promising melding of certain foodways: farm market sensibilities and "localvore" sustainability, more diverse culinary intermarriages, and a growing desire to return to something more simple and fundamentally true, a Michael Pollan-esque awareness of what we are eating, where it comes from, and what that means. In some ways it's a return to the natural, but with a highly deliberate intensity that is paradoxically stage-managed to the nth degree.

And this brings us, after some context-setting, to two meals I had recently at Momofuku Ko and Stone Barns at Blue Hill (SB@BH). For the avoidance of any doubt, both were extremely good, and I believe they serve well as minor revelations of things to come.

Both are fairly young restaurants - David Chang's Ko (March 2008) is a sparse and intimate 12-seater distinctively recalling a Japanese omakase sushi bar, the aesthetics reflected in the no-choice 8 course tasting menu for US$85. The restaurant favours younger, more tech-savvy diners through its online-reservations-only model with strict booking sequencings. With its Sunday 4 course farmer's lunch also at US$85, SB@BH (Spring 2004) infuses the farmhouse slow food model with a new inventiveness (diners at different tables are served different dishes even if both order the same tasting menu). The restaurant is a juxtaposition of equal parts elegance (starched white tablecloths and jackets recommended), enthusiasm (baskets of fresh veg, eggs, honeycomb and even charcoal are brought tableside to educate diners on the contents of their meal), and old fashioned common sense (the Barbers' tie-up with the surrounding Pocantico Hills working farm and education centre Stone Barns provides a great source of fresh farm produce).

What unites these seemingly disparate restaurants is an intense devotion to natural, artisanal ingredients, simply yet inventively adorned. Take Ko's serving of kusshi, small Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) cultivated in British Columbia, and amazingly flavourful and umami-infused black trumpet and Maitake (Sheep's Head) mushrooms from the East Coast. Chilled (yes, chilled) Hudson Valley foie gras was served in a refreshing pile of delicate shavings, on top of lychees and riesling jelly. One of the desserts featured a gorgeous ball of fried condensed coconut milk served with banana caramel and tasting for all the world like a coconutty goreng pisang.

BH@SB is a much more classic farm-to-table experience. Its chefs display total devotion to local cultivation enhanced by judicious hunter-gatherer finishes. Dishes feature seasonal roots, veg, fruit and flowers that were sitting in the soil earlier that morning, locally raised chickens, pigs, cows and deer, freshly hunted game and fish, and trimmings and garnishes (e.g. ramps foraged by the serving team and pickled for martinis). What they can't or don't grow they buy from other upstate New York farms.

A refreshing shot of dandelion and cucumber spritzer was followed by bite-sized tomato burgers, grilled zuchinni breaded with sesame seeds, warm crusty country sourdough bread, melon granite with Stone Barns pork face-bacon, and a dazzling salad of radishes, cresses, edible flowers, quail eggs and raspberries. Ingredients such as locally caught brook trout, Maine lobster and Berkshire pork were enhanced by light trimmings of fresh herbs and leaves (golden purslane, Galisse lettuce, peppery cresses), pulses, berries and nuts. Sauces were minimally invasive and brightened the meats and seafood without masking them. The petit four? A golden dripping piece of honeycomb straight from Stone Barns' own hives, which made a perfect complement to a slice of great chocolate cake topped with white cherries.

Stone Barns allows diners to complete the educational/sensory experience with a post-lunch stroll through the working farms or along the trails that lead further into the Pocantico Hills countryside, or with a fruit and vegetable tour for a nominal fee. Veg patches are well-signposted with educational facts and some feature a dazzling variety of species (e.g. the wild-looking patch where apple mint jostles merrily with ginger mint, pear mint, chocolate mint, Japanese black peppermint, spearmint and pineapple mint, and guests are invited to pick and taste leaves). Staff happily explain the agricultural philosophy of Stone Barns (closely derived from Eliot Coleman's writings) and discuss new farm projects like biochar (limited success), ethical foie gras (no success), and crop rotation (much success). It's all done with enthusiasm and verve, without any hint of pretention, by a young service team that appears to buy in totally to the organic, free-range, farm to table paradigm of eating.

And yet, strolling amongst the ripening blackberries, one realises that not everybody on the planet can eat this way - there's an artisanal, hand-picked Tarrytown gentility about this that commands a significant price premium, a far cry from the gritty realities of peasant farming discussed in such books as F. H. King's "Farmers of Forty Centuries" or Hu Shiu-Ying's "Food Plants of China". It's land-intensive in a different way: if everybody used 10 acres and 40 hardworking staff to serve about a hundred meals per day, we'd run out of arable land (and staff!) Yes, the understated country chic and localvore innovations playing out in intimate parlours like Ko and Blue Hill are heralds of a new fine dining trend. But given the constraints of time and space, such a trend is much more likely to remain within the rarefied confines of artisanal kitchens, rather than usher in a new age of mass local farming and eating.

how to boil an egg

The derisory comment "he can't even boil an egg" is sometimes used on people who can't cook. However, when it comes down to it, how many people can really make a good boiled egg? Julia Child's "The Way to Cook", a nationwide bestseller in the UK, devotes page 62 to how to boil the "perfect" egg. While its attention to fundamentals is noteworthy, it implicitly presupposes that there is only one "perfect" type of boiled egg - one with a hard white, and a firm yolk that is not overcooked.

The Japanese, with their onsen tamago and nitamago and even "inside-out" eggs (with the yolk wrapped around the white), have their own notions of what makes a good boiled egg. The art of making nitamago illustrates this. The objective is to achieve a firm, springy, evenly seasoned white, and slightly gooey, though not totally runny, yolk that is positioned nicely in the centre of the egg.

From a quick survey of the culinary literature, several things seem to be almost universally agreed upon. First, the egg should be fresh, but not too fresh. It's essentially a tradeoff. The firmer white in a fresh egg will be better able to "support" the yolk in the centre. However, fresh eggs (1-2 days old) are incredibly difficult to peel as the membrane beneath the shell sticks tightly to the shell. After a few days in the refrigerator the egg becomes easier to peel. However, as eggs age (more than 14 days or so in the fridge, depending on storage conditions), the egg yolk expands, the white thins, the air sac grows and the membrane weakens, and there is a corresponding deterioration in terms of flavour and texture.

Second, it is not necessary (and often counterproductive) to keep the water at a rolling boil since egg whites and yolks coagulate well below 100°C. Egg whites begin to thicken at about 60°C and solidify when the temperature reaches 65°C. The yolk protein will start to thicken at 65°C and will harden at 70°C. If eggs are cooked at boiling point for too long they will get rubbery and an unsightly (but harmless) greenish-grey film will develop over the yolks (due to the sulphides from decomposition of the amino acids in the white reacting with iron in the yolk; but you really didn't need to know that). Plunging the cooked eggs into cold water briefly can stop this film from forming.

Third is, to coin a broad phrase, saucepan technique. Most cooks recommend a tall saucepan that can accommodate all the eggs one wishes to boil in one layer, as piling eggs on top of each other will make cooking time vary too much. Water should cover the eggs by an inch or so, and the eggs should either lay on their sides or turn onto their tips (due to the air sac) but should not float - they are rotten if they do. Some advocate adding a pinch of salt or a spoonful of vinegar to the water, in order to "set" the white more quickly if a crack should develop in the shell and the white start to flow out. (On a related note, many cooks also recommend gently piercing the broad end of the egg with a pin prior to boiling, as this punctures the air sac and relieves the pressure on the shell that can cause it to crack if the egg is plunged into boiling water.) Lastly, to centre the yolk, some advocate turning the egg gently with a wooden spatula every 30 seconds or so that the egg is in the hot water.

Having gone on at length, the million-dollar question is "how long do I boil the eggs for"? Sadly, there is no one answer. Timings vary according to the starting temperature of the egg, the egg size, and the desired result, among other things. Here we will standardise some variables as follows: using eggs that weigh approximately 55g, taken directly from the fridge (i.e. about 4°C). We'll use lightly salted water covering the eggs with an inch to spare. We will try also for nitamago excellence - firm outer egg white which has soaked in the flavour of the marinade, a slightly jelly-like inner white layer, and deliciously gooey but not liquid yolk.

The cooking method will be as follows (there are of course different methods, so it's necessary to specify which one I've used): after testing the correct level of water, remove the eggs. Then, bring the water to a rolling boil. Place the eggs into the water with a slotted spoon or similar implement. Once the water returns to a boil, turn the heat down to a gentle, simmering boil, and begin timing without covering the saucepan. Once the target time is reached, remove the egg, and soak in ice water for a few minutes to halt the cooking process.

The verdict: it takes 6.5 minutes to produce the desired result using the given egg size and the corresponding conditions.

[To go a step further and make nitamago, peel and then soak the eggs in freezer bag containing a mixture of 100ml of water, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 2 tbsp of mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine), a few slices of ginger, and 2 tbsp of sugar. (Vary the proportions according to taste.) Place the freezer bag in the fridge for about 3-9 hours (the longer the egg is soaked, the more intense the colour and flavouring).]

As a side note, yolk colour is sometimes used as an indication of egg quality; the more deeply-coloured the yolk, the happier and healthier the chicken. This is usually associated with chickens raised on open pasture and fed organic food (grains, worms, seeds etc). However, there is a caveat to this - commercial poultry feed often contains additives such as canthaxanthin that gives the yolks of eggs laid by battery hens a healthy-looking orange tint. According to the UK's Food Standards Agency, canthaxanthin (E161G) is a type of carotenoid. These substances are related to beta-carotene, the red/orange pigment present in carrots. The presence of canthaxanthin in poultry feed can lead to a more intensely-coloured yolk (it is also used in fish feed to give farmed salmon and trout richer-coloured flesh). Currently, the EU has established a limit of 80mg/kg of feed, though in practice the norm is 20mg/kg for poultry. There is some evidence that high intake of canthaxanthin can lead to deposition on the retina (not sure what this results in - yellow vision??), but this is not believed to be permanent. The point, I suppose, is that more intensely golden eggs don't always mean they are "better" or "healthier", unless one can be certain that the chickens are organically raised on feed with no chemical additives. Makes rearing chickens seem attractive.