Hasta La Ideas

Mastering a good egg on the ground or in the air

On the ground or in the air, properly cooked eggs present a challenge to be mastered. Helen Davey worked for many years as a Pan Am stewardess, and her account of a harrowing experience making fresh scrambled eggs for an entire plane yielded impressive yet hilarious results. The good news: the passengers claimed it was the best breakfast on a plane they had ever eaten. The bad news: while Davey was able to crack and cook 350 eggs, she later left the plane covered in the ones that splattered during the intense turbulence that hit while she was in the middle of her seemingly insurmountable task. Davey arrived home to find more of the spilt egg had even made its way into her bra.

In professional kitchens of the on-land variety, chefs have turned cooking eggs into precision maneuvers. Heston Blumenthal’s method for perfect poaching involves a fresh from the farm egg, a ceramic dinner plate in a pan of precisely heated water, a slotted spoon, and some careful finesse. Many 63° and 64° eggs cooked in sous vide water ovens have made their way onto the menus of everyone from Michael Voltaggio (63°) to Ludo Lefebvre (64°). Precision is key. In the world of Modernist Cuisine, Nathan Myhrvol’s egg techniques includes a Modernist Tea Egg with a liquid center and marbling created from beet juice. He also developed a new process for laser etching images onto an omelette (in the video the printing process reveals Jimmy Kimmel’s face).

With all of these precise preparation recommendations, how can a flight crew even attempt serve a properly cooked egg to a large number of people on a long haul flight?

Understanding the anatomy of an egg reveals some helpful hints. The Exploratorium in San Francisco encourages playful investigation of science, art, and human perception. Their Science of Cooking project explores how egg proteins change when they are beaten and mixed with other ingredients. Eggs that are mixed to be scrambled or prepared as an omelette have added cooking challenges, because the eggs have now “formed a network of interconnected proteins”. When eggs are cooked at high temperatures for too long, the whites can becomes rubbery. For eggs that are being served on a plane, the added the challenge of tight quarters in an airline kitchen and high altitudes, the goal of serving fluffy eggs becomes a near impossible task.

Only first-class cabins are equipped with enough kitchen space to store chilled eggs and crack them fresh for breakfast. For the rest of the plane, most egg dishes must be pre-made in catering units with special techniques to ensure the eggs remain creamy, like folding in bechamel sauce to the basic recipe once it’s been chilled. For a fresher alternative, some airline kitchens prepare fresh pasteurized liquid egg into cardboard cartons that are kept in chilled stwage in the first class galley. Despite careful methods of preparation, cooking scrambled eggs at 30,000 feet still poses a challenge, and cabin crew members are therefore trained to make fresh scrambled eggs under limited, unpredictable conditions. One technique involves a bain marie, created by putting two smaller foil containers into large foil tray filled with water. Fresh pasteurized mixed eggs and cream are poured into the smaller trays, carefully loaded into the oven, and mixed every three minutes, then hit with a dash of cream at the end, proving that creamy scrambled eggs with a fluffy consistency can be made even in the tiny galley of a plane.

Armen Petrossian and chef Giselle Wellman give a culinary lesson in California sturgeon

Often regarded as the ultimate indulgence, caviar consists of non-fertilized, salted sturgeon roe. The prehistoric sturgeon has become a significant symbol in Russian culture, but the depletion of the once-prevalent population in the Caspian Sea compelled the government to issue a ban on fishing in 1998, which was extended another four years in January 2012. As a result, farmed caviar has become the most viable option for meeting demand for the tiny, bead-like delicacy.

Three Transmotanus varieties farmed in Northern California have become best sellers for industry-leader Petrossian in their Beverly Hills store—Classic, Royal and Averta President. Armen Petrossian calls the Transmotanus—which means “crossing the mountains”—an “excellent large fish with good flesh and bountiful eggs.” We recently had the opportunity to take a caviar master class at the store to learn more about caviar’s ocean-to-table journey and sample a rich array of freshly farmed sturgeon roe.

Petrossian gets their supply from Sterling Caviar‘s Northern California farms, one of the first complete sturgeon aquaculture operations in the world. Sterling raises the fish in above-ground freshwater tanks that are monitored for water flow, oxygen levels and temperature and, during the caviar harvest—which this year began in early March—females deemed ready have their ovaries removed and eggs extracted. The eggs are carefully cleaned in cold water, weighed and then lightly salted and mixed by hand. The period from which the female is first identified on the farm to when she has her eggs removed lasts about eight years (during which time eggs are checked for color), but the actual process of removing the roe takes less than 30 minutes.

“Transmotanus is raised mainly in California, I prefer to call it California sturgeon caviar,” said Petrossian, describing the process of sorting and grading the fish to sell at its optimal state. “We also made a name for it—we call it Alverta. This is a very interesting caviar because it is a large fish, with good meat and eggs that is close in taste to the ones from the Caspian Sea. You get more flavor with age. The complicated thing with caviar is that no one fish is comparable to another. That means that even in the same family and the same place, you will have huge differences between one fish and another. The difficulty is to forecast each fish in order for you to have it at the best condition.”

For the master class, chef Giselle Wellman created a five-course menu to celebrate the flavors of the sea and highlight some of Petrossian’s newest and most popular caviars. Chefs in the Petrossian kitchens have found inspiration in the nuanced flavors of the tiny eggs, and a standout dish was a house-made caviar-flavored fettuccini topped with light cream sauce and caviar.

The class included a tasting, which started with what Petrossian calls a “not caviar” paddlefish roe, followed by the American Hackleback, Royal Transmotanus, Alverta President, Tsar Imperial Siberian, Shassetra and Tsar Imperial Ossetra. The flight finished with a rich Kaluga ($481 for 50 grams), the progression offering a clearer understanding of the subtle differences in flavors and textures.

“What we are bringing is like when they are making a bag at Hermes,” says Petrossian on the quality of their product. “It is not only a nice piece of leather, or a good grape to make wine. It’s not just because you have the raw material called sturgeon roe caviar. You need to have specific knowledge and experience in order to know how to separate and grade the caviar. That’s our job, to create levels, to create the quality of the caviar and to create the grades.”

New in the Petrossian boutiques and online shop is Caviar Powder that offers the flavor of caviar with a longer shelf life. The powder can be eaten by sprinkling full beads or grinding the dried pearls into a powder that taste can be served with eggs, potatoes, pasta, smoked salmon or anything that would be more delicious with the addition of caviar flavor. Petrossian also makes Papierusse, which comprises thin sous vide sheets of caviar. Paired with a bubbly glass of champagne these creations are sure to induce decadent caviar filled dreams.

Improve your technique with this comprehensive culinary tablet

Scaling back the general capabilities of all-purpose tablets, the French-made QOOQ (pronounced “cook”) delivers a highly specialized kitchen assistant. The recently upgraded model is about to hit the U.S., and, while it doesn’t set out to revolutionize the tablet market, QOOQ offers an easy-to-use interface with seemingly limitless options for foodies.

Content-wise, there simply aren’t any cooking apps that can match the QOOQ. The tablet contains 3,600 recipes—including 1,200 videos with expert chefs—available 50 at a time with a monthly subscription. Besides offering recipes by acclaimed chefs, QOOQ encourages users to upload their own family recipes. One of QOOQ’s most impressive features is the recipe calculator, which enables users to adjust recipe measurements according to the number of people being served and, once you know what you’re cooking, the tablet generates a shopping list. Schedule a week’s worth of meals, and QOOQ will send you off with all the ingredients you need, streamlining your family meal-planning.

The hardware is set up to withstand culinary beatings with a splash-proof 10-inch screen and rubber feet to ensure a secure grip. The attractive red casing is robust enough to take some punishment without negating the tablet’s mobility. The software is built off of a customized Linux OS, with web browsing, media streaming and social media enabled.

In the new version of the device, the artisanal French recipes have been slightly modified to fit the American palate. QOOQ also offers access to online content if you’re not interested in the full tablet experience, or simply want to check out the goods before you splurge. While $399 might seem a bit high for a single-purpose device, the French-made construction and abundance of regular content justify the investment.

The English version of QOOQ will launch in the U.S.A. this Fall, while the French version is available now through the QOOQ shop.

An intensely personal cookbook by brothers and chefs

The day before Michael and Bryan Voltaggio‘s collaborative new cookbook VOLT ink. hit the shelves this week we talked over a delicious lunch at chef George Mendes’s Aldea. Sharing a meal with the Voltaggio brothers is a lens into their worlds and their bonds—to each other, their families and the people they work with. The heavily-tattooed, good-looking and highly-acclaimed chef brothers have achieved great professional success by their early thirties—having conquered Top Chef’s 6th season (Bryan came in second, Michael first), and opening eponymous restaurants (Bryan’s VOLT in their native Frederick, VA and Michael’s just-opened MVink and ink.sack in Los Angeles).

Their new cookbook is cleverly constructed around families—the one they share, their respective professional families in the kitchens of their restaurants, and the food they cook with, which is presented in an unusual arrangement of 20 family groups (from avian to goosefoot to nightshade). Each brother contributes half of the book’s 80 recipes, and this is where it gets interesting. Though they share a common family and childhood history, one that drew them both into the kitchen, their educational, professional and life experience has taken them on different though sometimes converging paths (they both worked for chef Charlie Palmer, for example, but in different restaurants in different cities). These adult experiences are the twist that brings flavor to the dishes and the methods for creating them, as the brothers seldom have the opportunity to cook together.

The book is naturally highly personal, with several of the recipes reminiscent of their childhood memories of food and meals with family and friends. Michael’s Smelt Fish Sticks with Tomato-Hazelnut cream recalls the tartar-topped fried fish stick of his youth, and Bryan recalls a trip to Memphis in his BBQ Sable Fish dish.

The beautiful book features photos by Ed Anderson, capturing both the finished dishes and the spirit with which they were made. More of an artistic achievement better suited to special meals than a useful tool for day-to-day cooking, the book features extensive use of Voltaggio favorites like sous vide, liquid nitrogen and dehydration, though each recipe offers alternatives for less skilled or less equipped cooks. The layout of the book is especially helpful for cooks looking to produce seasonal dishes, as you can browse by whatever ingredients are fresh and available.

Some highlights include Bryan’s Mock Oyster, which plays with oyster leaf and salsify (aka oyster plant) to create a dish that mimics the plants’ namesake. We also really liked the look of Michael’s Pork Belly, Big Squid Ramen in which he substitutes sliced squid for noodles.

The book’s celebration of family and the contrasting styles of the two brothers reminds us all of the intensely inter-personal nature of food and its role in our lives. The physical book is available from Amazon; an iBook version with bonus recipes and video content is available in the iTunes store.

Photos courtesy of Ed Anderson; portrait by Evan Orensten

The pro chef spice resource now available for home cooking

Referred to by esteemed chefs around the world as simply “The Spice Guy,” Jing Tio is the man behind many of the distinct flavors found at restaurants like El Bulli, Eleven Madison Park and WD-50. For the past half decade, the Indonesian accountant-turned-spice purveyor has quietly set a new benchmark for quality by tracking down farmers using the best harvesting methods, ultimately leading to insanely fresh and flavorful spices.

Telling CH he “probably knows more about star anise than anybody out there,” the San Francisco-based mastermind enjoys working with university professors on research around farming and harvesting. He visits new growers to check out their processes and equipment—particularly the drying and sorting machines—as a way of constantly refining his supply. Having nearly nearly reached the maximum with discovering new spices, Tio is now focused on using his extensive knowledge to create uniquely powerful blends, which he peddles to the public (along with classic ingredients) under the name See Smell Taste.

Although Tio says people are currently more interested in Southeast Asian spice blends, one he’s excited about in particular is the French-inspired Indian spice called Vadouvan. Tio’s Vadouvan Golden Mix is a potent fusion of onion, garlic, shallot and his special curry blend that works best as an accent seasoning. Thanks to shows like Top Chef, Tio says people are becoming more familiar with exotic spices and are experimenting more when cooking at home.

Tio’s tip for at-home chefs is to “have fun with it!” He encourages creativity when cooking by diverging from specific recipes, explaining “The beauty of the spice blend is you have to smell it and use your imagination for what to use it for.” If you try to hard to follow strict cooking instructions, you will never cook that dish again.

The spice blends sell online at See Smell Taste and at the Le Sanctuaire San Francisco shop in Mini, Midi and Maxi sizes at varying prices, along with single spices which you can order in bulk. You can also find them at Dean & Deluca in NYC and online at Gilt Taste.