Gastronomy You Can Do At Home

Ian Rosoff  

Molecular Gastronomy isn’t something most people think they can do at home. This is partly true as it often involves procuring hard to find powders and impractical equipment, however molecular gastronomy is more about innovative and cool cooking techniques then it is about fancy tools. Simplicity is one of the most important tenets of cooking, and nothing is simpler then making an egg. Molecular Gastronomy chefs have been fascinated with the egg. Because it can be treated in so many different ways eggs have become a great vehicle for gastronomy. Wylie Dufresne has a particular affinity for the egg. He is a classically trained French chef who owns wd-50 in New York City. He makes a delectable poached egg, Caesar dressing, pumpernickel, and lily bulb dish, where the egg is cooked in a sous-vide thermal immersion circulator, which is a warm water bath that cooks food inside a vacuum sealed bag. The low temperature cooks the food evenly without it losing any of the original flavor or color. Origionally sous-vide cooking was used in the preparation of fois gras, but today it has been embraced by molecular gastronomists to make a multitude of dishes. For home chefs sous-vide techniques are a little bit trickier, especially immersion circulator sous-vides because unless you have hundreds of dollars to buy one most kitchens are without a thermal circulator.

We can try and recreate the technique or at least incorportate some of the principles into our home cooking. What makes sous-vide such an attractive cooking technique is that the vacuum packed food cooks in its own juices and the flavor intensifies. Adding spices or oil to the vacuum packed bag also brings out that flavor profile more than conventional styles of cooking. So a good place to start for somebody cooking in a small apartment or dorm room is to poach an egg and try to intensify flavor by sealing it in. We will replace a vacuum bag and immersion circulator with plastic wrap and a pot of boiling water.

For a molecular gastronomy egg with no molecular gastronomy tools you’ll need: plastic wrap, string, a coffee mug, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a pot of boiling water. First bring a pot of water about two inches high to a boil. While waiting for the water take two sheets of plastic wrap and lay them on top of each other, then brush it with olive oil and sprinkle liberal amounts of salt and pepper. Now line the coffee mug with the plastic wrap, crack the egg and gently slide it into the coffee mug. Pinch the plastic wrap together to encase the egg and tie the top with string. Finally trim off any excess string and put the sealed egg into the water to poach. Depending on how you like your eggs, cook for two to four minutes. Lift the egg out with a slotted spoon then cut the string. You should now have a poached egg packed with flavor.