Dinner is served

Well it is time for my first ever Daring Cooks Challenge, actually the potstickers were my unofficial first… but this is the first legit challenge and boy was it a doosey!  The challenge from Sketchy’s Kitchen is a foray into MC (Molecular Cuisine) and comes from Grant Achatz and his cookbook Alinea (page 230).  The recipe does not require alot of specialized tools and equipment but it does take a fair amount of time to make all the powders (read: do ahead of time).  But I am glad I participated.  It actually came at a good time for me as I have been exploring preserving from the garden and orchard, including drying herbs and even tomatoes.    

The concept - fish poached in a beurre monte and served over green beans and bananas with all the traditional fish flavorings served alongside… but as powders!

Fresh ingredients ready to dehydrate and pulverize

Powdering the ingredients requires blanching (for some) and dehydrating, then grinding and passing through a chinois.  The dehydrating can be done in the oven, microwave or a dehydrator.  This is the marathon portion of the preparation.  So grab something to keep you hydrated and lets do this!

Note: The recipe as given by Sketchy’s Kitchen is in italics with my kitchen notes in [block parenthesis] and additional notes at the bottom of this post.

Recipe

• 4 skate wings [I used cod]
• *beurre monte
• *300g fresh green beans
• sea salt/kosher salt
• 1 banana
• 454g butter - 4 sticks
• 300g lemons
• 5g citric acid/vitimin c tablet
• 150g cilantro
• 150g parsley
• 100g dried banana chips
• 300g spray dried cream powder or powdered milk [I used powdered milk]
• 100g minced red onion
• 200g capers (brined, not oil packed)

*For green beans, slice each bean into very thin slices (2mm)

*Beurre Monte - 454g butter (4 sticks or 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g water.  In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the butter 1 cube at a time.  This should form an emulsion.  Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees.  The emulsion will not break - this is your poaching liquid.

Powders - prepare ahead of time

caper/onion

lemon powder

cilantro/parsley powder

brown butter powder

Powders

Once dried, all powders should be pulsed in a coffee/spice mill or mortar and pestle then passed through a chinois or fine mesh strainer.

Citrus Powder

150g cilantro

150g parsley

blanch the parsley in boiling saltwater for 1 second, submerge the leaves in ice water for 3 minutes.  Dry on paper towels and place on dehydrator tray.  130d for 12 hours.  Grind and pass through chinois.

If you do not have a dehydrator, place in microwave for 30 seconds, turn over leaves and microwave another 30 seconds.  They should be dry by now, pulse in grinder, pass thru chinois and reserve.

[Repeat with cilantro.]

Onion Powder

100g minced red onions

dehydrator - 130 for 12 hours

microwave at medium power for 20 minutes.

pulse in grinder, pass thru chinois.

Caper Powder

200g capers (get the ones packed in brine/vinegar)

run capers under cold water for two minutes to remove some of the brine.  Dry on paper towels and dehydrate for 12 hours at 130 degrees.

Once dry, pulse and sift powder.  Mix with the onion powder.  [I left mine separate]

Brown Butter Powder

150g dried banana chips (unsweetened if possible - many are coated in honey - the freeze dried ones would be brilliant)

300g spray dried cream powder [What?!?!  I used Carnation instant milk]

If you cannot find the cream powder, you can substitute Bob’s Red Mill non fat dry milk powder, or even Carnation instant milk powder.  The substitutions will alter the flavor a little, but you will still get the general idea.

Preheat the oven to 350d, sift the cream powder into a fine layer on a silpat or parchment.  Bake for 4 minutes, then remove from heat.  If it bakes too long it will burn.  Be very cautious will all powders in the oven.  They will go from browned to burnt in a few seconds.

Grind the banana chips in a grinder and mix with the toasted cream powder.  Pass through a chinois and reserve.

Skate [Cod]

Prepare the skate - 50g v shaped cuts are recommended

Bring 100g water, 100 g buerre monte and green bean rounds to a boil over high heat.  Cook until water is evaporated (about 3 minutes), when the pan is almost dry, remove it from heat and season with 3g salt.

Bring 300g water and 300g buerre monte to a simmer over medium heat, add skate wings and simmer 2 minutes.  Remove pan from heat and flip the wing over and let rest in pan for two more minutes.  Transfer to a warming tray lined with parchment and season with 5g of fine sea salt.

Plating

Take the tip of a small spoon and make a small mound of the citrus powder, the onion/caper powder and the cilantro/parsley powder.  Swirl these around in a hurricane pattern.  I found it easier, and you get finer lines if you shake the plate to flatten out the mounds, then swirl the spoon through it to get the pattern.

Peel the remaining banana into very thick slices (3 mm) fan three slices on the plate, place green beans on top and place skate wing portion on top.  On the tall edge, sprinkle the brown butter powder.

The yellow powder is lemon,
the redish is red onion (no capers)
and the green is parsley-cilantro
My onion kept clumping!

Okay, so I was not able to get anything sufficiently dry using my microwave.  I thought the capers were okay - but after I blitzed them down in my Magic Bullet, they still had too much moisture to ever be considered a powder.  Then the onions set fire in my microwave *scary* and so I stopped using that method altogether and went to my toaster oven instead.  I put the onions (partially dry from the microwave fire, haha) in the toaster oven on convection at 175d for about 15 minutes and they were dry.  I put the capers (also partially dry and now once through the grinder) in at 175d for about 20 minutes.  I had put the cilantro and parsley in the microwave for 3 minutes at 50% power and finished off in the toaster oven for 3-5 minutes.  The lemon rind was processed in about the same time as the herbs…

I found greater success with partially drying, grinding, then drying and grinding again. I really encourage you to do all your powdering a day or two in advance.  The actual cooking and plating goes very quickly. 

Frankly, since I do live in the desert of So Cal I could have/should have put them outside… but I do not have any screens set up or bug protection and we have horses (read: flies).  Yuk.  I think that it would be good to get one of those vintage pie cupboards - the ones with screens not metal panels.  Then I could do alot of drying here.  In fact I have an old cupboard that could be cleaned up and reengineered…  *Hey Honey, are you listening?*

Overall I think this was an expensive dish to prepare.  The fish was $15.00, the green beans were cheap at $1.50, and most of the herbs, lemons and bananas can be had pretty cheaply (around $3.00 for cilantro, parsley, banana and 2 lemons).  But if you have to buy the capers at $4.29 and instant milk at $4.75, add in a pound of butter at $2.50 and citric acid at $5.00 it really adds up.  I was able to buy the dried bananas in the bulk section of my health food store but they were not freeze dried (I could never find those) and the price for 100g was only about $0.55, but at the market they were in larger packages for $4.00 and more.   So this dinner came in at a whopping $36.00. Yikes!  For fish and bananas and green beans?  My family was still hungry. Mind you I have a supply of citric acid, too. 

I suppose I am looking at this wrong - $36.00 is far cheaper than dinner out or even the price of the book Alinea. But still, $36.00 and 8 hourse in the kitchen yielded 1 meal only that didn’t even fill everyone up. I don’t regret making this dish that’s for sure. I have been wanting to poach fish in a sauce and now I have and will again (maybe not in a pound of butter…) and I was already on the brink of drying/preserving herbs - this just moved it along for me. So it was not all lost. It was a learning experience. And it’s not just the 8 hours, as I am not immune to spending all day in the kitchen to make dinner - but for $36.00 and 8 hours I could have made tamales to last us throughout the year or carnitas or pozole that would feed us for a week. Although they are not cutting edge MC. It is not fair to compare.

And the bananas with fish and green beans? It actually works.

~Blondie