Finalbook by Wei Yang Hsu

The Elegance of Different Pieces of Eggs

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

E/G/G THE ELEGANCE OF DIFFERENT PIECES OF EGG

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 5600 www.bloomsbury.com Registered Office: 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher. Critics, however, are welcome to quote brief passages by way of criticism and review.

To everyone who ever cooked eggs for me. Specially to my grandmother, her steam egg is the best dish ever.

CONTENT INTRODUCTION

CUISINE AND ARCHITECTURE

EQUIMENT

INGREDIENTS

SOUS-VIDE

NARRATIVE

CHAPTER 1

POUCHED EGG POACHED EGG WITH ENGLISH ASPARAGUS, CURED HAM AND GRAIN MUSTARD DRESSING POACHED EGG WITH ROASTED ONION CONSOMMÃ&#x2030;, LEMON THYME AND SMOKED DUCK

19 21 23

CHAPTER 2 BENEFIT OF EGG

SALT CURED EGG YOLKS SMOKED SALMON EGG STUFFED AVOCADOS SOUS-VIDE EGG YOLKS WITH ARUGULA-RACLETTE PESTO

29 31 33 35

CHAPTER 3 HERVÃ&#x2030; THIS

MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY

43 45 47 49

OUR HENS EGG, COOKED INSIDE OUT AND TRUFFLED EGG, BREAD, TRUFFLE EGG FOAM WITH CHIVE INFUSION

CODICIL INDEX

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INTRODUCTION

Introduction

People have been eating the eggs since there first started to have people, about six million years ago. Eggs have a lot of protein in them, and they don’t fight back - you can get them just by climbing to where the nest is and picking them up. By about 7000 BC, people in China and India were keeping chickens and eating their eggs, so they didn’t have to go hunting for wild bird eggs anymore. Chicken eggs didn’t reach West Asia, Egypt, or Europe until about 800 BC, or even later, and people in southern Africa didn’t start to eat chicken eggs until about 500 AD. Before that, Europeans and West Asians kept ducks and geese for their eggs. About 300 BC, chicken farmers in both Egypt and China worked out ways to incubate chicken eggs in warm clay ovens, so that they didn’t need to have hens sit on their eggs to hatch them, and instead the hens could lay more eggs. This factory system made chicken eggs cheaper, and more people began to eat them. All through antiquity and the Middle Ages, right up until modern times, chickens only laid eggs for part of the year - mainly in the spring, when there was plenty of daylight but it wasn’t too hot out. That’s why we

have Easter eggs and the egg on the Seder plate - to celebrate the return of eggs in the spring. A lot of traditional egg recipes call for other foods that are in season in the spring, like chives or asparagus. (Today chickens lay eggs all year round because farmers keep them inside in big barns with electric lights and air-conditioning so they can control the temperature and the amount of light.) Thousand year old eggs At first people ate their eggs raw, but once people began to use fire, about a million years ago, they often roasted eggs in the coals. With the invention of pottery, about 5000 BC, boiling eggs gradually became more common. In ancient Rome, hard-boiled eggs were so common as an appetizer that people said “ab ova ad mala”, from eggs to apples, meaning from the beginning of the meal to the end, or from start to finish. People also began to use eggs in breads, cakes, and custards. Eggs would keep for only about a month before you had to eat them. To make them keep longer, people would often pickle eggs in salt water and vinegar. In China, people fermented eggs to make them keep longer. They called this “thousand-year-old eggs” but they are really only a few weeks or a month old.

CUISINE AND ARCHITECTURE: 3

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BEAMS AND BONES â&#x20AC;&#x201C; EXPOSURE AND CONCEALMENT OF RAW INGREDIENTS, STRUCTURE AND PROCESSING TECHNIQUES IN TWO SISTER ARTS

Cuisine and Architecture

The most familiar and enduring example comparing architecture and cuisine hails from the early nineteenth century and the magnificent edible fantasies of Marie-Antonin Carême, king of chefs and chef of kings. Carême is credited with having said, ‘The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Poetry, Sculpture, and Architecture – where the principle branch is Confectionery, and indeed his cakes were discernible only in scale from their non-edible counterparts. Other examples also come to mind: the towering stacks of food faddish in the 1980s, not to mention structures which themselves recall wedding cakes like the monument to King Victor Emmanuel that hovers over the Roman Forum, or Brighton Pavilion. But these examples obscure some of the deeper aesthetic affinities between these sister arts. Their origins follow a directly parallel development: at a vital juncture in our evolution, hominids came to depend not only on fire but also upon mechanical means of processing the raw materials, rendering them edible through cutting, pounding, soaking, drying and fermentation. Therefore cuisine was born. At a comparable stage, humans employed natural materials which are wood, stone and hides to fashion shelter to protection from the elements and predators. While early forms of architecture may predate the invention of cooking, both these arts have since become indispensable for human existence; both are resolutely functional, as a building one cannot enter becomes sculpture, likewise an inedible meal. Architecture and gastronomy employ, in the similar way, compositional principles of balance, contrast, proportion, scale and emphasis. Those visual and structural elements find parallels in the organization of flavours and the schema of their

presentation. Not surprisingly, they also share a similar aesthetic vocabulary that could describe the complex relationship to their raw materials, at times seeking to emphasize and lay bare the natural or organic origin of ingredients, as well as the basic means of construction, while at other times seeking to hide through artifice the creative process to highlight the inventiveness of the artist as a moulder of unformed matter. We might then describe two fundamentally opposed approaches to raw material as a function of the prevailing aesthetic trends. Roughly speaking, these trends divide into oppositional pairs that familiar from the language inside the art history: classicizing and romanticizing, Poussinists and Rubenists, disegno ou colour ( line and colour ), Picasso and Matisse. Of course, while aesthetic developments represent the continual process of synthesis, absorption and rejection of competing ideologies and practices, one persuasion usually dominates. For example, during one phase of a period artists may intentionally lay bare the beams that conceptually and physically hold a structure together, emphasizing the comprehensibility of its organization and character of materials. Likewise some cookbooks have expose the structural bones of a meal, it is not only as in the actual bones on a plate but also in emphasizing the origin and straightforward honesty of the ingredients, prepared without fuss or extravagance.

Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, a style of cooking of particular region, and the science of good eating.

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Gastronomically, we are in the middle of exactly such a period and one could argue likewise architecture is undergoing an organic, sustainable phase, literally and figuratively speaking the same language as cooking. Witness the current popularity of home gardening and butchery, and the premium placed on locally sourced materials. The do-it-yourself approach to home renovation stems from the same basic impetus. The impulse to present natural unaffected ingredients which stretches from the home cook and builder right up to the most expensive restaurant and professionally designed architecture. Such periods stand in contrast to those in the ingredients and the process are less important than the artistic statement, when the creative genius of the artist turns raw matter into something novel, intellectually stimulating, and occasionally intentionally obscure and difficult to read. In cuisine, the most contemporaneous example which would be the disguised and scientifically transformed inventions of the molecular gastronomy, the Ferran Adriàesque colloidal suspensions and foams. Adrià’s late twentieth-century architectural parallel is Frank Gehry, in particular his geometrically gymnastic exteriors of the Disney Concert Hall and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. It is not to say this approach cannot exist at the same time as more ‘natural’ artists are working, but one approach tends to prevail at a particular time. What triggers alternating currents of approach is a matter for speculation. In periods of austerity it is likely that people tend to forgo expensive, fussy white tablecloth meals and return to simple ingredients and traditional preparations. Contrariwise, a wildly speculative economy with fortunes quickly made leads

hidden. Bold fluted columns comprise the peristyle. The abiding aesthetic is perfectly analogous to Archestratus’ cooking. It is practical, solid, earthbound and resolutely functional. Its boldness comes from scale, balance and compositional integrity. The ingredients and techniques are allowed to speak for themselves through purity without artifice. One might argue that the opposite approach is apparent in the next great cookbook of ancient times, usually known as De re coquinaria, attributed to the first-century AD Roman gourmand Apicius, though probably a compilation made several centuries later judging from the language. In any case, the Apicius’ cookbook employs a wide array of exotic ingredients: flamingo tongues; dormice; ostrich; and sow’s womb, with flavours dramatically juxtaposed through use of salty fish sauce called garum or liquamen, the sweetness of honey, the bitterness of herbs like rue, the sourness of vinegar and piquancy of imported pepper. Moreover, texture of these dishes often pounded the fine (like the rose patina, a smooth mixture of brains and rose petals) or cooked into the jumble of ingredients suggests that basic elements are intentionally obscured. One would have to guess the welter of ingredients that enter into most of the dishes. Why, one may wonder, the distantly sourced flavourings, the curiously named dishes (a la Apicius or Vitellius)? These are meant to create distance from the aspiring nouveau riches. They are over-the-top inventions possible only within a massive empire of unbounded social mobility, and in particular one in which the old landed wealth feels threatened by social upstarts. The impression one gets from the cookbook is that it may well have been written for exactly this

Cuisine and Architecture

to stiff competition for restaurants to attract ever-wealthier clients, which they do with hyper-designed food fantasies. The same process is of course involved in physical structures, going over the top when patrons want to display their wealth, sophistication and coming more ‘down to earth’ when tight budgets focus concerns on conservation and efficiency or a return to ‘traditional’ values. An ancient example will illustrates the perennial juxtaposition of these two basic approaches to ingredients and techniques and their relation to status. In the mid-fourth-century BC the ancient Greek connoisseur Archestratus composed a verse book of recipes (Hedypatheia or Life of Luxury) at Gela on the south coast of Sicily. It survives in fragments in the compilation of Athenaeus written several centuries later. There has no doubt that Archestratus was responding to what he considered excessively fussy cooking using brash combinations of contrasting flavours. In one recipe for amia, a small bonito, he warns not to use too much oregano, no cheese, other fancy nonsense. Instead he focuses on the finest ingredients, sourced from places will only the well-heeled traveller could expect to access and recognize. His gastronomic approach favours simple direct presentations in which the techniques are straightforward with quality and freshness. This is a kind of sophistication that reflects not mere profligate wealth or abundance, but the cultural capital of knowledge, experience and savoir faire. The architectural equivalent of Archestratus is a Doric temple about forty-five miles to the west in Agrigento. The Temple of Concord is among the best preserved of all ancient Greek temples, and not a single structural element of its perfect geometric balance is

sort of person, one who is trying hard to impress, and ‘pass’ among social superiors. The general tone of late Imperial architecture follows in the same spirit. A shifting axis of influences brings motifs and flavours from the east as well as a revision of ancient sources. Combined with the technical innovations afforded by the use of tile-covered concrete and brick, architecture experiences a leap to free-flowing interior spaces and decorative impulses delighted with doodads: swags, putti, balustrades, medallions in relief and stairs leading nowhere. Straightforward structural columns are replaced with marble pilasters and faux colonnades that line façades for decorative effect. The structures themselves become imbalanced, top heavy and strewn with frou-frou. Consequently, they become hard to read; the form outweighs the function and at times even defies it. The Arch of Constantine is perhaps the most analogous structure to Apicius’ cookbook, not only because it too is a mishmash of earlier borrowed elements but also because the elements are tossed together in such frenetic profusion. It is almost impossible to read and the entire mass is squat and ungainly, especially compared to the much earlier and classically balanced Arch of Titus, which stands nearby to the northwest. Additionally, its purpose is purely propagandistic: it serves to declare the greatness of its subject, his conquests and the extent of his massive empire. It is meant to overawe in much the same way Apicius’ recipes are often merely for shock value.

Hedypatheia (Life of Luxury) written in hexameters but known only from quotations, advises a gastronomic reader on where to find the best food in the Mediterranean world.

The Arch of Constantine (Italian: Arco di Costantino) is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.

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Cuisine and Architecture

However, the switch from one approach to another need not be simply a matter of resources, political clout or patronage. A style may, on its own accord, evolve in excessively self-referential and sophisticated ways due to theoretical elaboration or because it is driven by the processes of social emulation. For example, once the direct trade routes opened up to Asia in the sixteenth century, spices arrived in Europe in much greater volume and people had greater access to them. The wealthiest of customers therefore gradually abandoned spices in most dishes or marginalized them to the dessert. Thus, when fashions – culinary as well as the architectural – can be imitated by social aspirants (i.e. nouveau riches), the style no longer serves as a mark of distinction, and something new must be invented to re-establish that distance in taste and discernment. At this juncture style may look backward again to reinvigorate traditional forms. Such is the case in Renaissance Italy beginning with one of the perfect examples of humanistic architecture, the Tempietto of Donato Bramante within San Pietro in Montorio, on the Janiculum Hill in Rome. Built in 1502, it is mathematically proportioned, and perfectly balanced, showing restrained surface ornament. Most importantly, this small martyrium, a miniature house of worship, is on a human scale, not attempting to overawe, but meant for quiet reflection and the kind of direct spirituality that would so heavily influence the Reformation just a decade later. Its harmonious unity is a product of resolute belief in the values of Classical antiquity synthesized with Christianity. Without pretension or erudite reference, the small domed temple symbolizes the pinnacle of High Renaissance style. The cookbook and health manual

of Bartolomeo Sacchi, known as Platina (De honesta volupate), is a few decades older but comparable in its use of Classical references to describe the properties of individual ingredients. Like the Tempietto, it is balanced, sober and self-assured. It goes so far to combine health advice with a cookbook by Martino of Como, which is a slightly older work, at least stylistically. At times his recipes are a little too extravagant or certain ingredients a little too dangerous in Platina’s mind and he does not hesitate to respond to these with comments like ‘I would only feed this to my enemies’. But as a whole the text is equally an expression of Renaissance taste: health is balanced with pleasure, meals should be rational, flavours balanced so as to generate the best humours and flavourings used judiciously. It is the logic of Platina’s diet is easy to understand – the strange, extravagant and exotic make way for well-tempered meals. If we move into the next century to the age of Mannerism, the spirit of the arts has shifted entirely. Mannerist art and architecture are both intentionally obscure, crowded, dizzying. The clarity of proportion and human scale of the Renaissance give way to surprises, marvels and sheer technical proficiency. Exoticism prevails. Arnold Hauser called this an age of anxiety, the result of recurring invasion by Spain and France. But it seems there too the engine of social mobility may once again have been at play. The sixteenth century was a period of rapid inflation and population growth. Even if one was fortunate not to have been among the lower social strata, both land and basic foodstuffs still held a high premium. In such periods, social mobility runs rampant, and the ‘old’ nobility naturally try to protect their position, which is reflected directly in the

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hyper-sophisticated palaces they built for themselves. They are meant to be ‘artificial’, again a positive value for them. Take, for example, the Palazzo del Te outside Mantua designed by Giulio Romano in the 1520s– 1530s. On the elongated courtyard façades, triglyphs on the frieze appear to have slipped out of position, threatening to fall on the heads of observers. The joke is of course apparent only to those who know where these should be, only to the aesthetically savvy. The inside joke is brought to seeming the reality once one enters the Hall of Giants, where the ceiling literally comes hurtling down from above, the walls disappearing beneath the cascade of tumbling giants and boulders. The structure is intentionally hidden, not merely through trompe l’oeil effects, but literally transforming into sculpture above one’s head. The function of the room, beyond funhouse, is not apparent. But it does serve to distinguish the Gonzaga patrons as connoisseurs of the most titillating and bizarre art imaginable. Operating on the same level is the exactly contemporaneous Mannerist cookbook of Christoforo di Messisbugo written at the Este court of Ferrara, which was closely related to the Gonzaga court through marriage. Here we find pearls and coral ground into food, not for any medicinal or gastronomic reasons, but merely to flaunt wealth. In those meals has described, courses proceed in staggering profusion, each laden with sweets and savouries, soups and pastries, roast fowl, fish and meat in defiance of any recognizable order or progression. Some ingredients are presented in every single course, though prepared differently in each, to showcase the genius and inventiveness of the cook (exactly as in Guilio Romano’s work). Most importantly,

the flavours are wildly erratic, food is disguised and sugar and cinnamon are strewn liberally on practically every dish. Foreign recipes abound – from Turkey, Hungary, France, even a Hebraic dish – the more exotic the better. Where the ingredients come from, whether they are discernible in the final meal, is not important, but rather technical sophistication of how they are prepared, transformed, even if they ultimately confuse and repel the diner. How else can one account for a pie filled to the brim with eyeballs of tuna? The taste, if not the function, is sacrificed to the creative spirit of the chef. It may be that every style ultimately evolves into a kind of Mannerist phase before being completely abandoned to something new. The Mannerists of the sixteenth century saw what they were doing as the perfection of Renaissance style until their works became so busy, fussy, difficult to read and filled with bizarre and obscure references that eventually they were replaced by the very straightforward, direct style of the early Baroque.

Cuisine and Architecture

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EQUIPMENT

a01 a04 a06 c02 c06 c11 e04 e09 f06 f11

WHISK DROPPER SEALING KNIFE FRYING PAN MICROWAVE OVEN FILTER POT BLENDER OVEN

Equiment

b c

d e

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INGREDIENTS

EGG

Chicken eggs are widely used in many types of dishes, both sweet and savory, including many baked goods. Some of the most common preparation methods include scrambled, fried, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, omelettes and pickled. In addition, the protein in raw eggs is only 51% bioavailable, whereas that of a cooked egg is nearer 91% bio-available, meaning the protein of cooked eggs is nearly twice as absorbable as the protein from raw eggs.

OLIVE OIL

Olive oil is a fat obtained from the olive (the fruit of Olea europaea; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. The oil is produced by pressing whole olives. It is commonly used in cooking, whether for frying or as a salad dressing.

SALT

Salt is essential for life in general, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. The tissues of animals contain larger quantities of salt than do plant tissues. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and salting is an important method of food preservation.

BLACK PEPPER

Dried ground pepper has been used since antiquity for both its flavour and as a traditional medicine. Black pepper is the world's most traded spice. It is one of the most common spices added to cuisines around the world. The spiciness of black pepper is due to the chemical piperine, not to be confused with the capsaicin characteristic of chili peppers. Black pepper is ubiquitous in the modern world as a seasoning and is often paired with salt.

BUTTER

Butter is a solid dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk, to separate the butterfat from the buttermilk. It is generally used as a spread on plain or toasted bread products and a condiment on cooked vegetables, as well as in cooking, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying. Butter consists of butterfat, milk proteins and water.

Ingredients

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Terry Hsu

DRAWN BY:

Terry Hsu

DATE:

09/09/16

CHECKED BY:

Areil Grey

APPROVED:

Areil Grey

SHEET NUMBER:

EGG-18

CHAPTER 1

SHEET TITLE

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PROJECT TITLE

NO.

POACHED EGG WITH ROASTED ONION CONSOMMÃ&#x2030;, LEMON THYME AND SMOKED DUCK

ASPARAGUS, CURED HAM AND GRAIN MUSTARD DRESSING

POACHED EGG WITH ENGLISH

POACHED EGG

DESCRIPTION

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OUS VID

SOUS–VIDE

A perfect soft-boiled egg is a thing of beauty: a yolk with the texture of sweet condensed milk surrounded by a white that is tender but not runny. But for generations, great cooks have differed on how to achieve this state of perfection reliably. Some authorities say you should drop a whole egg into boiling water for about three minutes— a bit longer if the egg is extra-large— and then gently peel away the shell. That can leave the yolk too runny, however. And when the egg is peeled, it is all too easy to tear the tender white into a mess. The legendary Julia Child advocated a six-minute boil (for large eggs starting at room temperature, or a minute longer if chilled), followed by a rinse with cold water before and also during peeling. That certainly works for the white, but often overcooks the center. The French food scientist Hervé This argued some years ago that temperature, not time, is all that matters to the egg— cook it to 65 °C / 149 °F, and the result will be heavenly no matter how long it sits in the water. Or so it was thought. For a while, the 65°C egg was all the rage at high-end restaurants. But more recent research by the food chemist Cesar Vega , an editor and

coauthor of the 2012 book The Kitchen as Laboratory, conclusively showed that both time and temperature matter. Moreover, the white and the yolk contain different blends of proteins, so the white gels at a higher temperature and a different rate than the yolk does. Vega’s rigorous experiments have armed scientifically inclined chefs with the information they need to cook eggs to whatever texture they like.

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POACHED EGG

Recipe

POACHED EGG

Creating a well-made poached egg—a fundamental technique that often eludes even the finest cooks—became infinitely easier, and perhaps even foolproof, with the rise of sous vide cooking. No more confusion over whether to stir the water; how to drop the egg into the pot; or how to remove it properly. Now, we need only to accurately measure time and temperature to ensure a perfect product.

1 extra large eggs

2 3

Place fridge-temperature egg in a 167 °F / 75 °C water bath, and cook for 13 minutes. This recipe works best for extra large eggs, which are usually about 64 g each.

For easier removal of several eggs, you can cook them in a zip-lock bag. To do this, attach the bag to the side of the bath by using a clip, or by simply resting the lid on top of the bag. If you're using room temperature eggs, the cooking time will be slightly less.

Immediately serve the egg or shock in ice water and reserve in the refrigerator until needed. To reheat a chilled 75 °C egg, place in a 145 °F / 63 °C bath for 15 minutes.

DESCRIPTION

STEPS

INGREDIENTS

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This poached egg recipe with asparagus by Matthew Tomkinson is a fantastic way to celebrate the English asparagus season. The grain mustard dressing can also be used in salads and other dishes that could use a bit of an extra

10ml of white wine vinegar 1 1/2 tbsp of honey 2 tbsp of white wine vinegar 25g of grain mustard 16 asparagus spears

Crack the eggs into 4 individual cups and, using a whisk, stir the vinegar water vigorously to create a whirlpool. Working quickly, gently place the eggs one by one into the center of the whirlpool and allow the water to simmer.

Poach the eggs for approximately 3 minutes until still runny inside. Lift from the water with a slotted spoon and keep warm. In the last minute of egg poaching time, place the asparagus in the salted water and boil for 1 minute until tender. Remove, season with salt, pepper and keep warm.

On four warm serving plates divide the asparagus spears and place a slice of ham over them. Top with a warm egg and drizzle with the vinaigrette. Season the top of the eggs with salt, pepper and sprinkle with some chopped chives.

2 3 4

4 eggs

black pepper

1 tbsp of chives 4 slices of Parma ham black pepper

POACHED EGG WITH ENGLISH

50ml of olive oil

ASPARAGUS, CURED HAM AND GRAIN MUSTARD DRESSING

Combine the mustard, olive oil, honey and vinegar and mix well to create the vinaigrette. Prepare the asparagus by removing the woody bases and peeling. Bring 2 large pans of water to the boil and heavily season one of them with salt. Add 2 tbsp of vinegar to the other one.

INGREDIENTS

STEPS

DESCRIPTION

Recipe

POACHED EGG WITH ENGLISH ASPARAGUS, CURED HAM AND GRAIN MUSTARD DRESSING

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POACHED EGG WITH ROASTED ONION CONSOMMÃ&#x2030;, LEMON THYME AND SMOKED DUCK

Recipe

125ml of Madeira 1.5l vegetable stock

50g of butter 3 small onions 2 garlic cloves

1 2 3

3 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 button onions 1 sprig of lemon thyme 300ml of vegetable stock

2 eggs

50g of smoked duck breast wood sorrel 2 2/3 handfuls of pea shoots 1 sprig of lemon thyme

4 5 6

DESCRIPTION

INGREDIENTS POACHED EGG WITH ROASTED

ONION CONSOMMÉ, LEMON THYME AND SMOKED DUCK

5 large onions

STEPS

Simon Hulstone's onion consommé recipe features a unique combination of rich flavours. Serve as an impressive starter to your next dinner party.

Preheat the oven to 190˚C/gas mark 5. Start the consommé by cutting the onions into quarters. Place into a deep tray and roast in the oven until a dark golden brown colour, approximately 30-40 minutes.

Remove the tray from the oven and pour in the Madeira, scrape the onions that have stuck to the tray with a wooden spoon. Add the stock and place back into the oven at 125˚C/ gas mark 1/2 for 2 hours. Remove from the oven and strain through a fine strainer and coffee filter, or alternatively a few layers of muslin. For the onion compote, melt the butter in a heavy based saucepan. As soon as it begins to foam, add the onions and garlic and sweat down without any colour. Add the thyme sprigs, cook until very tender, drain off excess oil.

For the petals, peel and break down the onions into individual petals, pick the lemon thyme leaves and set aside. Blanch the petals in the stock until tender, approximately 1 minute, drain and mix with the lemon thyme.

Seal the eggs in a vac pack bag and into a water bath at 63˚C for 90 minutes. Peel when ready to serve. Alternatively you can poach the egg as normal in gently simmering salted water for 3 minutes

To serve, place the onion compote in the centre of each plate. Arrange the peeled egg on top, followed by the button onion petals, slices of the duck breast and herbs. Serve at the table with a hot jug of the consommé

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Terry Hsu

DRAWN BY:

Terry Hsu

DATE:

09/09/16

CHECKED BY:

Areil Grey

APPROVED:

Areil Grey

SHEET NUMBER:

EGG-28

CHAPTER 2

SHEET TITLE

E/G/G

PROJECT TITLE

SOUS-VIDE EGG YOLKS WITH ARUGULA-RACLETTE PESTO

SMOKED SALMON EGG STUFFED AVOCADOS 33

SALT CURED EGG YOLKS

DESCRIPTION

NO.

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Benefit of Eggs

Eggs are considered to be one of the best sources of protein available. One mediumsized egg weighing 44 g typically contains 5.53 g of protein. Nutritionists often be a point of comparison when assessing whether another food is a good source of protein or not. Around 12.6% of the edible portion of an egg is protein.Around 9% of an egg's content is fat, found almost exclusively in the egg's yolk. The majority of fat in an egg is that which is generally regarded to be the most healthy; approximately 38% is monounsaturated and 16% is polyunsaturated, with only 28% being saturated. Eggs are also a rich supply of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. These are predominantly in the form of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) which helps with the maintenance of brain function and normal vision. These fatty acids are most commonly found in oily fish and so eggs provide an alternative source for people that are unable to eat fish.

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SALT CURED EGG YOLKS

Recipe

SALT CURED EGG YOLK

In regard to taste, these little guys are beautifully rich and flavorful, like a salty, umami punch in the jaw. They have that old familiar bold, eggy flavor of a soft boiled egg yolk that we all know and love, but with the added bonus of a unique texture. They resemble the texture of a semi-soft cheese, like Gruyere.

six egg yolks 1 1/2 cups kosher salt six cup muffin tin

Layer the bottom of each muffin tin cup with 2 tablespoons of kosher salt. Make a small depression in the first layer of salt right in the center of the muffin tin cup. Set one egg yolk in each cup. Cover each yolk completely with remaining salt. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4-5 days.

Preheat oven to 150 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove yolks from salt and gently brush off excess salt. Rinse under cold water and dry with a paper towel.

Arrange yolks evenly on lined baking sheet. Bake for 1 1/2-2 hours. Check after 1 hour and turn yolks over. Bake until yolks are dry and similar firmness to Gruyere cheese.

DESCRIPTION

STEPS

INGREDIENTS

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Arrange the avocado halves on a cookie sheet, and line the hollows with strips of smoked salmon. Crack each of the eggs into a small bowl, then spoon the yolks and however much white the avocado will hold.

Add salt and fresh cracked black pepper on top of the eggs, to taste. Gently place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Sprinkle chili flakes and fresh dill on top. Serve warm.

4 avocados 4 oz smoked salmon 8 eggs

2 3

Chili flakes black pepper Fresh dill

SMOKED SALMON EGG STUFFED AVOCADOS

Preheat oven to 425Â°F. Halve the avocados remove the seed. If the hole looks small, scoop out a small bit at a time until it can hold an egg.

INGREDIENTS

STEPS

DESCRIPTION

Recipe

SMOKED SALMON EGG STUFFED AVOCADOS

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SOUS-VIDE EGG YOLKS WITH ARUGULA-RACLETTE PESTO

Recipe

WITH ARUGULA-RACLETTE PESTO

SOUS-VIDE EGG YOLKS

Lee uses eggs from a Japanese farm that raises the chickens on sunflower seeds flowers and herbs to lend a vibrant orange color to the yolk. Use the freshest you can find. She also notes: â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the restaurant we usually sous-vide the eggs. This makes the eggs yolks perfectly cooked, where the yolk is soft and creamy without being runny. It would be difficult to re-create this at home but the dish is also beautiful with a poached egg on top.â&#x20AC;?

2 2 slices thick sandwich bread

8 farm-fresh eggs

3 4 5

To make the pesto: Blanch the basil and arugula in hot water, then shock it in an ice bath. Squeeze out the excess moisture, then chiffonade (slice thinly).

Place the greens in a food processor along with shallots, raclette and Parmesan, and olive oil. Pulse for 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until all ingredients are medium grain size. Add the diced garlic and pinenuts and pulse another 30 seconds to 1 minute, being careful not to over process. Season to taste with salt & pepper. To make the toasts: Cut the bread into small squares large enough to hold an egg yolk (or if you are poaching the eggs, the whole egg). Butter the bread on all sides. Heat a non-stick pan or medium high heat and toast on both sides until lightly golden brown.

To sous-vide the eggs: Separate the eggs and cook the yolks for 1 hour and 20 minutes at 60 degrees celsius in a sous-vide machine.Alternatively, for a soft boiled egg: Set the eggs in cold water in a small pot. Once the water begins to boil, set at timer for three minutes. Take the pot off the heat, cool for five minutes before serving. To assemble, spread enough pesto on a toast square to generous cover, and carefully top with an egg yolk or whole egg. Sprinkle a few microgreens on top and serve immediately.

DESCRIPTION

STEPS

INGREDIENTS

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Terry Hsu

DRAWN BY:

Terry Hsu

DATE:

09/09/16

CHECKED BY:

Areil Grey

APPROVED:

Areil Grey

SHEET NUMBER:

EGG-40

CHAPTER 3

SHEET TITLE

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PROJECT TITLE

EGG FOAM WITH CHIVE INFUSION

EGG, BREAD, TRUFFLE

OUR HENS EGG, COOKED INSIDE OUT AND TRUFFLED

DESCRIPTION

NO.

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Hervé This (French: [tis]; born 5 June 1955 in Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French physical chemist who works for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique at AgroParisTech, in Paris, France. His main area of the scientific research is molecular gastronomy, that is science of culinary phenomena (more precisely, looking for the mechanisms of phenomena occurring during culinary transformations). With the late Nicholas Kurti, he coined the scientific term of "Molecular and Physical Gastronomy" in 1988, which he shortened to "Molecular Gastronomy" after Kurti's death in 1998. Graduated from the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris, he obtained a Ph.D from the University Paris VI, under the title "La gastronomie moléculaire et physique". He has written many scientific publications, as well as those several books on the subject, which can be understood even by those who have little or no knowledge of chemistry, but so far only four have been translated into English. He also collaborates with the magazine Pour la Science, the aim of which is to present scientific concepts to the general public. Member of the Académie d'agriculture de France since 2010, he is the president of the Section "Human Food" since 2011. In 2004, he was invited by the French Academy of sciences to create the Foundation "Food Science & Culture", of which he was appointed the Scientific Director. The same year, he was asked to create the Institute for Advanced Studies of Taste (Hautes Etudes du Goût) with the University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, of which he is the President of the Educational Programme. In 2011, he was elected as a Consulting Professor of AgroParisTech, and he was also asked to create courses on science and technology at Sciences Po Paris. The 3rd of June 2014, he created the International Centre for Molecular Gastronomy AgroParisTech-INRA, of which he was appointed the Director. The same day, he announced the creation of the Free Open International Journal of Molecular Gastronomy. Some of his

discoveries include new ways of cooking eggs, what he called "eggs at 6X°C"[citation needed] (around 65 °C, the white coagulates, but not the yolk), but a large number of colloidal systems. He also found that beating an egg white after adding a small amount of cold water considerably increases the amount of foam produced. Every month he adds one new "invention" in the Art et Science section of the website of the chef Pierre Gagnaire. Although his main focus is on physical chemistry, but he also attributes great importance to the emotional aspect of cooking, as the title of one of his books shows: Cooking is love, art, technique. Aside his scientific work, the latest "political" work by Hervé This has been the invention (in 1994) and the promotion of Note by Note cuisine - the next stage in the application of science to the kitchen after molecular cooking. Note by cooking involves taking the molecules that compose ingredients used in cooking, and using these as raw ingredients for making dishes. “If you use pure compounds, you open up billions and billions of new possibilities,” Mr This said. “It's like a painter using primary colours or a musician composing note by note.” As part of the 2011 International Year of Chemistry, The French Embassy in Ireland in association with the Institut Français, the Alliance Française Dublin, the Lycée Français d’Irlande and the French Trade Commission UBIFRANCE put on a number of lectures around Dublin, Ireland where Hervé This performed demonstrations and promoted the new concept of 'note by note' cuisine.

Hervé This

HERVÉ

THIS

Molecular Gastronomy blends physics and chemistry to transform the tastes and textures of food. The result? New and innovative dining experiences. The term Molecular Gastronomy is commonly used to describe a style of cuisine in which chefs explore culinary possibilities by borrowing tools from the science lab and ingredients from the food industry. Formally, the term molecular gastronomy is refers to the scientific discipline that studies the physical and chemical processes that occur while cooking. Molecular gastronomy seeks to investigate and explain the

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chemical reasons behind the transformation of ingredients, as well as the social, artistic ,and technical components of the culinary and gastronomic phenomena. Many modern chefs do not want to accept the term molecular gastronomy to describe their style of cooking and they prefer other terms like “modern cuisine”, “modernist cuisine”, “experimental cuisine” or “avant-garde cuisine”. Heston Blumenthal says molecular gastronomy makes cuisine sound elitist and inaccessible, as though you need a degree in rocket science to enjoy it. In the end, molecular gastronomy or molecular cuisine - or whatever you want to call this cooking style - refers to experimental restaurant cooking driven by the desire of modern cooks to explore the world’s wide variety of ingredients, tools and techniques. Molecular gastronomy research starts in the kitchen where chefs study how food tastes and behaves under different temperatures, pressures and other scientific conditions.

Molecular Gastronomy

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OUR HENS EGG, COOKED INSIDE OUT AND TRUFFLED

Recipe

OUR HENS EGG,

COOKED INSIDES OUT AND TRUFFLED

This is another brilliant dish created by Chef Eneko Atxa of Azurmendi. An egg yolk is carefully pierced, half of the yolk is extracted and then replaced with hot truffle broth which starts cooking the yolk from the inside. An explosion of flavor!

54ml melanosporum truffle juice 5g truffle Aestivium 3.8g Resource ThickenUp

5 eggs

3ml white truffle oil

1 2

Heat the truffle juice and thicken with the Resource. Strain and reserve. Slice the truffle thinly and cut into strips.

Separate the yolks from the whites and reserve the yolks in cold water. Place a spoon on a serving plate with an acrylic support to secure the utensil. Or you can use an appetizer spoon too. Drain the egg yolk well and place it on the spoon. It needs to be dry, use a slotted spoon and a paper towel if necessary.

Place 2 drops of truffle oil on the yolk. Gently pierce the yolkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s membrane with a brochette stick and drain a little more than half of the yolk using a syringe.

With another syringe, inject hot truffle broth into the yolkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s membrane. Garnish with julienned truffle to cover the hole in the membrane.

DESCRIPTION

STEPS

INGREDIENTS

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Place the chicken wings in a tray in the oven at 180 °C (350 °F) until dark golden brown. Add water until you cover the golden chicken wings and leave them in the oven to deglaze the pan. Let the water reduce and then add more water. Repeat this process 2 more times. Pass the chicken wing juice through a fine sieve and reserve. Whisk together the olive oil and Maltodextrin in a bowl until it converts to a powder. To make it fluffier pass it through a tamis and reserve in a sealed container until needed.

In a large pot heat water with vinegar at 75 °C (167 °F). Cook the egg yolks one by one for just 1 min. Remove the egg yolks carefully without breaking them and place them in a cool water bath to stop the cooking process. Place two rectangular slices of bread crosswise on working surface.

Using a steel spatula, carefully place an egg yolk on the center and season with salt. Fold the bread slices on top of the egg yolk to cover it completely. Cut any bread excess if the bread slices are too long. Flip the wrapped egg yolk so the bread ends are at the bottom. Repeat for each egg yolk. Store in a container in the fridge until serving time.

Pour some olive oil in a frying pan and heat it. Once the oil is hot, quickly sear each wrapped egg yolk on both sides. Place a spoon of goat cheese cream on the plate. Place the seared egg yolk on one end of the cream. Pour a spoon of chicken wing sauce on one end of the wrapped egg yolk. Sprinkle with truffle oil powder and serve.

1 2 3 4

INGREDIENTS 75g fresh goat cheese 75ml milk 35ml heavy cream

300g chicken wings

25g Maltodextrin

dash of white vinegar 6 fresh egg yolks 12 rectangular slices of “pan de miga” (20 cm x 4 cm x 0.5 cm)

5 6

80g white truffle oil

EGG, BREAD TRUFFLE

Heat milk to 60 °C (140 °F), add goat cheese and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and add cream. Stir. Season with salt and pepper.

STEPS

DESCRIPTION

The buttery taste and lightness of this egg foam combined with a perfectly topped egg shell will make the perfect molecular gastronomy appetizer to start a meal. The diners will also have fun with the chive infusion in a pipette. They will try squeezing some chive infusion in the eggshell, on the spoon and even directly in their mouth after having a bite of the egg foam.

Recipe

EGG, BREAD, TRUFFLE

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EGG FOAM WITH CHIVE INFUSION

Recipe

EGG FOAM WITH CHIVE INFUSION

6 extra large eggs

50g cold butter 100g heavy cream Nutmeg (freshly ground)

3ml white truffle oil

100g chicken broth 30g chives

1 2 3 4 5

Boil eggs for 4 min (runny yolk). Eggs should be at room temperature before you place them in the boiling water or they may crack. Leave them out of the fridge for about 30 min or run them under hot tap water for a few minutes. If you have an egg piercer, also make a tiny hole to the eggshell to help prevent cracking during boiling.

Cut the top of the egg shell using the Paderno World Cuisine Egg Topper or your favorite egg topper. Carefully remove the egg from the egg shell using a small spoon. Combine the eggs with the butter, heavy cream, salt and nutmeg in a blender. Mix for aproximate 1 min in a blender.

Pass the mix through a fine sieve and pour into the ISI Gourmet Whip. Screw ISI cream charger (1 for ½L ISI Gourmet Whip or 2 for 1L ISI Gourmet Whip) and shake vigorously. Keep warm in bain-marie at 65˚C (150 ˚F).

For the chive infusion, mix the ingredients in a blender for approximately 1 minute and pass through a regular sieve (not too fine) and pour into a transfer pipette. The nicest pipettes to be presented on a plate are those that have a narrow and long stem.

Serve with freshly baked butter biscuit or bread.

DESCRIPTION

STEPS

INGREDIENTS

Egypt European Eat Europe Euqimennt

2 2 2 2 11

Resources Renaissance

Spring Salt Structure Style Sheer Sealing Salmon Sous-Vide

5 9 11 24

Protien Pepper Physical Palaces Pie Pot Poached Pesto

Old Oven Olive Oil Onion

Dishes Dinner Dropper Duck

2 22 3, 43 9, 18, 43 31 6 21, 50

2, 36, 47 6 9 12 13, 21 13, 24, 50

China Chicken Cuisine Chef Cured Chive Cultural

Bread Bonito Baroque Blender Black Pepper Butter

Marvel Microwave Oven Mustard Maderia Milk Molecular Gastronomy

Meal

3 3 6 21 33

2, 8

Asia

Art Architecture Arch Asparagus Avocados

2 2 4 8, 9 8 11 33 17, 36

8 9

2, 18, 30 5 6 9 9 2 20, 22, 36 36

8 12 13, 21 24

8 12 21 24 47 42

53 E/G/G

INDEX

Knife Lemon Thyme

K/L

India Ingredients

Health Hebraic Heavenly Honey Ham Herve This Heavy Cream

Garlic Cloves Goat Cheese

12 24

2 13

8 9 18 21 22 41 50

24 47

Yolk

West Asia Whisk Whole Egg White Wine Vinegar White Vingar

Ultimately

Traditional Texture Technical Turkey Tuna Toast Truffled

Factory Food Fantasies Flavours French France Frying Pan Filter

2 4 6 6 18, 42 8, 9, 42 12 12

18, 30, 36

2 11 18 21 47

5, 6 5 9 9 9 36 46, 47, 50

Index

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Colophon

This book is designed for Type 3 class, was designed by Terry Hsu, set into type by Terry Hsu, and printed by Terry Hsu. This is a student project only. The headings are set in Univers designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by the Linotype in Sep 14, 2000. The text is set in Serifa designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by the Linotype in Sep 14, 2000. Adobe Creative Cloud, InDesign, Illustration, Photoshop Printer is Epson Artisan 1430 The paper is MOAB Lasal 235. No part of this book or any other part of the project was produced for commercial use.

People have been eating eggs since there first started to be people, about six million years ago. Eggs have a lot of protein in them, and they don’t fight back - you can get them just by climbing to where the nest is and picking them up. By about 7000 BC, people in China and India were keeping chickens and eating their eggs, so they didn’t have to go hunting for wild bird eggs anymore. Chicken eggs didn’t reach West Asia, Egypt, or Europe until about 800 BC, or even later, and people in southern Africa didn’t start to eat chicken eggs until about 500 AD. Before that, Europeans and West Asians kept ducks and geese for their eggs. About 300 BC, chicken farmers in both Egypt and China worked out ways to incubate chicken eggs in warm clay ovens, so that they didn’t need to have hens sit on their eggs to hatch them, and instead the hens could lay more eggs. (Did they get the idea from their beehives and honey farms?) This factory system made chicken eggs cheaper, and more people began to eat them. All through antiquity and the Middle Ages, right up until modern times, chickens only laid eggs for part of the year - mainly in the spring, when there was plenty of daylight but it wasn’t too hot out. That’s why we have Easter eggs and the egg on the Seder plate - to celebrate the return of eggs in the spring. A lot of traditional egg recipes call for other foods that are in season in the spring, like chives or asparagus. (Today chickens lay eggs all year round because farmers keep them inside in big barns with electric lights and air-conditioning so they can control the temperature and the amount of light.) Thousand year old eggs At first people ate their eggs raw, but once people began to use fire, about a million years ago, they often roasted eggs in the coals. With the invention of pottery, about 5000 BC, boiling

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