Vegetarian | Home Cooked Heston

MOLECULARLY VELVET MASHED POTATOES

No Cream, No Butter and No Milk!

Just a little ingredient called Diastatic Malt Powder. The traditional way to make mash potato is to use loads of butter, cream, milk or a combination of the three. This completely hides the potato flavour, but you can get a velvety like texture mash potato just by only using five grams of this powder and potatoes.

INGREDIENTS

– 1Kg of Water

– 500g of Ruby Red Potatoes (peeled and cut into 2.5cm pieces)

– 15g Salt

– 10g Sugar

– 5g Diastatic Malt Powder

– Thermometer

METHOD

First pre-heat the SousVide to 52°. Place the potatoes salt and sugar into a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat slightly and cook for thirty to forty minutes or until very tender, then strain. Place the potatoes into a blender with the Diastatic Malt Powder and blitz until smooth and sticky. Pour into a vac-pac bag, seal and place into the SousVide and cook for thirty minutes. You can do this without a SousVide and this link bellow will show you how.

Its important to cook the potato at 50° as it activates the enzyme and it starts to breakdown all the starch. Lastly , transfer to a pot and heat until the mash reaches 75°. This stops the enzymatic activity. Season to your liking and serve immediately.

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Full credit to the guys at Modernist Cuisine: http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/diastatic-potato-puree/

RECONSTRUCTED TOMATO SOUP

So, the next step in my molecular journey is reconstructed tomato soup, tomato spaghetti or gelification. If you explore their website (link below) it takes you to some pretty amazing and very easy and very difficult videos on how to make molecular food. I’m starting out easy and eventually when I have the equipment (which for me is only 3 items away) I will start to take on the more difficult and daring recipes, maybe EVEN some requests if people have any.

INGREDIENTS

– 1 1/2 Cup of Water

– Half a Leek

– 1 Carrot

– 6 Cherry Tomatoes

– 1 Tbsp Each of Fresh Basil, Chives and Parsley

– 1 Clove of Garlic

– 1 Cube of Chicken Stock (Vegetable Stock is Fine)

– 2 Tbsp Tomato Paste

– Salt and Pepper to Taste

– 2g Agar-Agar (Specialty Ingredient)

– 1 Syringe and Clear Tube

METHOD

Combine the water, leek, carrot, tomatoes, herbs, garlic, stock, tomato paste, salt and pepper into a small saucepan, stir, bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for twenty minutes. Once complete, pour the contents into a blender and blitz until it resembles a soup like consistency.

Cover the saucepan with cheesecloth, pour the contents in from the blender and strain as much as liquid out as you can (This takes time!). Once you have the strained liquid, pour in the agar-agar and whilst stirring, bring back to the boil. Once Boiled, pour into a heat proof bowl and prepare an ice bath in another bowl.

Once you have the two ready, you will need to suck the soup into the syringe. Connect the clear tube (all shown in the video in the link below) and plunge, filling the tube full of soup. Once full, submerge into the ice bath for three minutes. place tube back onto syringe full of air and plunge the syringe pushing the now spaghetti like soup onto a clean plate. Arrange however you like and garnish with a cherry tomato, shaves of parmesan cheese and a few drops of quality olive oil.

Full credit to the guys at MOLECULE-R Flavors on the Web and Youtube.

Link to video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDSvaCkGivE

Specialty ingredient:

Agar-Agar can be obtained at most supermarkets in the Oriental section, at any Oriental Deli or the website below

http://www.redspooncompany.com/index.php/ingredients/modernist-cuisine.html