Wow. Live fire exercise with recipe errors — but battling through for an awesome load of excellence from the center of the culinary galaxy. Un-fracking believable.
One more time: you had to go to the front of the book and build a basic sauce — sounds simple. Not so if the dimensions of the ingredients make an Escher drawing on three hits of Acid look absolutely sensible. For an 8 1/2 cup recipe of sauce, it calls for FIVE cups of olive oil. Not to be outdone, the proportions for 1 3/4 gallons portion call for ONE GALLON of EVO. Really? These recipe errors must have set some sort of record. I used ONE cup for the 8 1/2 cup portion — and cut the salt in HALF — it worked.
Course one — you’re thinking “who cares, spaghetti?” Not so — Adriá has you throw in a handful of fresh basil leaves (still in sprigs) into the basic sauce for just a couple of minutes (crush the leaves in your hand, and don’t forget to lose the small blossoms/flowers/buds before putting them in the sauce.) Watch the basil callout for the sauce, though — the “60 leaves” for the serving for six seemed weird. Alright, it sounded idiotic, but I’m getting used to the surreal gotchas in this book. Just use a couple decent sprigs for the two-cup serving size. I actually treated the whole 8 1/2 cup batch to the basil awesomeness, it was that good. A couple of notes, though: really watch how fine you strain out the sauce. Depending on the mesh of your strainer you could end up with tomato soup on one extreme, or chuncky/seedy sauce on the other. Also, for reducing it by a third, a parchment lid and 325º for a couple of hours worked great.
The pasta was just epic — can’t say enough good about this. Incredible. Try to “finish” the pasta in the sauce, though — just take the pasta out a minute too soon and let it cook off in the hot sauce. It’s a great touch.
Second course: Not quite as epic — just a garlic infused oil vinaigrette with crispy garlic chips served over fried fish. I used whole Tilapia again, and it worked well. Just a little search-and-destroyish with the bones/fish structure. Nothing too weird, and the kids loved it. Only recipe caveat: just watch the oil-vinegar ratio, it seemed light on the vinegar.
Dessert: best one yet. And — BONUS — no recipe errors. I served six and had two bowls left over using the “for 20” serving size. Just be sure to make it ahead of time to give it PLENTY of time to cool. And don’t skimp on the fat content, straining, pouring slowly, etc. — to quote the Gospel of John: Do whatever he tells you to do –– it is amazing what you can do with sugar, eggs, and cream.
I only have the ISI half-pint version of the canister foam gun thingy, so I just filled/chilled it, and left the rest to chill in a bowl in the “outside fridge” — the snow — then filled/charged it again as needed. There was no chocolate syrup to be had, but somehow the gods of food managed a chance happening of Chocolate Agave syrup in the pantry. It rocked.
Very, very good.
Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Errata
One more time: you had to go to the front of the book and build a basic sauce — sounds simple. Not so if the dimensions of the ingredients make an Escher drawing on three hits of Acid look absolutely sensible. For an 8 1/2 cup recipe of sauce, it calls for FIVE cups of olive oil. Not to be outdone, the proportions for 1 3/4 gallons portion call for ONE GALLON of EVO. Really? These recipe errors must have set some sort of record. I used ONE cup for the 8 1/2 cup portion — and cut the salt in HALF — it worked.
Course one — you’re thinking “who cares, spaghetti?” Not so — Adriá has you throw in a handful of fresh basil leaves (still in sprigs) into the basic sauce for just a couple of minutes (crush the leaves in your hand, and don’t forget to lose the small blossoms/flowers/buds before putting them in the sauce.) Watch the basil callout for the sauce, though — the “60 leaves” for the serving for six seemed weird. Alright, it sounded idiotic, but I’m getting used to the surreal gotchas in this book. Just use a couple decent sprigs for the two-cup serving size. I actually treated the whole 8 1/2 cup batch to the basil awesomeness, it was that good. A couple of notes, though: really watch how fine you strain out the sauce. Depending on the mesh of your strainer you could end up with tomato soup on one extreme, or chuncky/seedy sauce on the other. Also, for reducing it by a third, a parchment lid and 325º for a couple of hours worked great.
The pasta was just epic — can’t say enough good about this. Incredible. Try to “finish” the pasta in the sauce, though — just take the pasta out a minute too soon and let it cook off in the hot sauce. It’s a great touch.
Second course: Not quite as epic — just a garlic infused oil vinaigrette with crispy garlic chips served over fried fish. I used whole Tilapia again, and it worked well. Just a little search-and-destroyish with the bones/fish structure. Nothing too weird, and the kids loved it. Only recipe caveat: just watch the oil-vinegar ratio, it seemed light on the vinegar.
Dessert: best one yet. And — BONUS — no recipe errors. I served six and had two bowls left over using the “for 20” serving size. Just be sure to make it ahead of time to give it PLENTY of time to cool. And don’t skimp on the fat content, straining, pouring slowly, etc. — to quote the Gospel of John: Do whatever he tells you to do –– it is amazing what you can do with sugar, eggs, and cream.
I only have the ISI half-pint version of the canister foam gun thingy, so I just filled/chilled it, and left the rest to chill in a bowl in the “outside fridge” — the snow — then filled/charged it again as needed. There was no chocolate syrup to be had, but somehow the gods of food managed a chance happening of Chocolate Agave syrup in the pantry. It rocked.
Very, very good.
Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Errata