Now, I want to share some unusual in the world of cooking.
1. Sous vide (meaning “under vacuum”) is when food is vacuum packed and cooked in a pot of boiling water until it is done. The benefit of this type of cooking is that meat can be cooked for hours without over-cooking. For example, beef can be cooked to medium rare by boiling it in a vacuum sealed bag for one and a half hours at 160 degrees. Oxtail will cook perfectly in eight hours at 165 degrees. Because the water can be kept at a constant temperature (with the use of a thermometer), you can not overcook the meat. When the meat is done, you can brown it with a blow torch or in a frying pan – guaranteed perfect results every time – and the most tender meat you could imagine.2. Slow Cooking. No doubt we are all familiar with the good old slow cooked stews that our parents made. But modern cuisine has to take things further. First, a little science: when cooking meat at a high temperature, the flesh contracts and pushes the liquid out – the end result being a dry lump of hard meat. The solution to this is to cook the meat at the perfect temperature for eating – low enough not to cause constriction of the flesh. Master chef Heston Blumenthal has a recipe which calls for beef to be cooked at 50 degrees for 24 hours. When it is done, you sear it with a blow torch to brown it and flavor it. The resulting flesh is so soft it can be cut with a spoon. In his restaurant (the Fat Duck), he roasts a chicken at high temperatures for the juices (and does not serve the meat), and then cooks one at low temperatures for the soft meat – this is served with the juices from the first bird. Expensive, but worth it.
3. Methyl Cellulose. This is an incredibly exciting product being used in cooking. Methyl cellulose is a compound that turns to a firm gel when it is heated. For this reason, many bakeries mix it into their pie fillings to ensure that they don’t spill out of their pastry shells when cooking. But, the molecular gastronomers have found a more exciting use for it in their restaurants: hot ice cream! This is done by mixing a standard ice cream base with methyl cellulose (1.5% of the total recipe) and submerging a scoop filled with the liquid into a pot of hot water. The hot water causes the ice cream to go hard. This is served immediately and as the ice cream cools down, it melts!
I think that's enough for today but all of the above is just a little part of cooking world. Cooking world is extensive and very interesting. I must explore about cooking world more and more so I can improve my knowledge about cooking.
