I’m heading to Jamaica with Grant Achatz!

Scroll to the end of the post for a much easier and delicious recipe for Baked Buttery Cod with Garlic Brown Butter Panko Bread Crumbs!

Anyway…

Yes, I am really taking Grant Achatz to Jamaica with me!

I better start packing, pronto! I’m so excited! I hope he catches all fish barehanded and prepares them in exotic and unusual ways while we lounge on the beach in total, uninterrupted (except for drinks on demand and some reggae), culinary bliss!

Cod with brown butterplantain powder and other flavor dipping powders, plus green beans buerra monte. A dish by Grant Achatz of Alinea.I burned the plantains and it was too late to go out and buy more, so I flew with it.

OK, maybe the title of this entry is a little misleading.  Let me phrase it correctly..”I’m heading to Jamaica with a Grant Achatz dish..in a conceptual way.”

There, that’s better.

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge is an extremely unique fish dish created by one of the masters of Molecular Gastronomy, Grant Achatz, the founder and owner of one of Chicago’s most unique and heralded restaurants, Alinea.  I’ve always wanted to visit Chi-Town, and when that time comes, one of the first things I’d love to do is dine at Alinea, Moto, Tru, etc..and just explore Chicago’s food scene in general.

Cod with brown butterplantain powder and other flavor dipping powders, plus green beans buerra monte. A dish by Grant Achatz of Alinea.

Before I continue, I’d like to thank this month’s host, Sketchy, from Sketchy’s Kitchen who has challenged us to make Skate, traditional flavors powdered, from the cookbook Alinea by Grant Achatz.

When this challenge was first announced, I was on the fence about whether I was going to take part or not.  The reasons were simple; for one, also known as Excuse #1, I don’t flip over skate, but then again I don’t think I’ve ever tasted it fresh (think ammonia; it kind of reminded me of Trigger Fish aka Trash Fish) and/or prepared properly, and that was only twice in my life.  Well, we could use any fish we wanted, so that eliminates Excuse #1.

Excuse #2 – I don’t have a food dehydrator.  Well, my sister just so happened to have a food dehydrator, so there goes Excuse #2.

Excuse #3 – It seemed to be quite a bit of work, and I wasn’t sure who I would be serving it to, and whomever I did serve it to, would they get it and be willing to try it? My sister expressed interest in trying this dish, along with her husband, so goodbye Excuse #3.

You see, this dish is what you would call the lighter side of Molecular Gastronomy/Cuisine  (whenever I say or type MO-LEC-U-LAR, I can’t help thinking of our former President, Dubya, pronouncing nuclear –  NUKE-YOU-LAR) since it doesn’t require any special equipment outside of a food dehydrator, but you could also use the oven or microwave.

On a more positive note, I’ve always wanted to dabble in Molecular Gastronomy, but the sodium alginate, liquid nitrogen, among all the other ‘toys’ that a lot of it requires, are a little on the pricey side. Not to mention, I honestly believe it’s something you need to learn from someone who has a lot of experience with it (calling Grant Achatz, Sam Mason, Wylie Dufresne, Homaru Cantu, Jose Andres et al…), not something you try to wing yourself. Chemicals can do scary things to body parts.

Cod with brown butterplantain powder and other flavor dipping powders, plus green beans buerra monte. A dish by Grant Achatz of Alinea.                  I didn’t have one of these, but thanks to her nuptials, my sister did.

What makes this dish time consuming is that every component requires its own preparation.  Instead of just fish with sauce, you’re dehydrating ingredients and grinding them into powders, but not before you blanch or simmer in simple syrup, then dry completely, or add vitamin C to each and every one of them. If you’re using a food dehydrator, we’re talking another 12 hours right there.  On the plus side, we could create any kind of flavored powders we wanted.  The powders apparently provide an intense punch of flavor when you dip the fish into them, so this was definitely a new way of eating fish..or any protein for that matter.

Many might ask, including myself..”Wouldn’t this dish be too dry?”.  The answer to that would be a resounding NO, since you’re poaching green beans and the fish in a Beurre Monte (an emulsion of butter and water, mostly butter, and a lot of it, as in 1 pound a lot), so that provides the moisture, and the fat that’s going to make your arteries swell.  But hey, it’s not like most people eat like this on a regular basis, and you’re not consuming all the Beurre Monte, so one night of letting your arteries party won’t kill ’em.

Cod with brown butterplantain powder and other flavor dipping powders, plus green beans buerra monte. A dish by Grant Achatz of Alinea.Top row: Left to right – Toasted Coconut, Lemon-Lime, Blood Orange.  Bottom Row: Left to right – Brown Butter-Sweet Plantains with Macadamia, Scallion-Thyme with Garlic and Chives, Scotch Bonnet-Allspice; look at how bright it is!

Naturally, I didn’t stick with the traditional powders in the title of the recipe.  I decided to go tropical, as in the Caribbean..as in Jamaica, well, mostly Jamaica.  I’ve been to Jamaica several times, and one pairing that’s quite popular there, and throughout the Caribbean, is fish with plantains, so I knew that was a route I’d likely take (I worship sweet plantains).  I decided to dehydrate and powder some of the ingredients you find in jerk seasoning, such as scotch bonnet peppers, allspice, scallions, garlic, thyme, and lime.  However, I dabbled here and there, like lemon and lime and toasted coconut.

I also used some of the the leftover dried blood orange powder I had in the freezer, from the Daring Bakers cheesecake challenge, to give the dish a triple citrus punch, and dried sweet plantains instead of the dried banana chips in the brown butter powder that tops the fish.  As mentioned above, I also subbed fried sweet plantains (I burned them, as you can see in the photos) for the bananas that lie beneath the butter saturated green beans, and damn, it’s goooood.  In order, here are the powders I spent almost 24 hours concocting:

  • Scotch Bonnet with a touch of Allspice
  • Lemon-Lime
  • Toasted Coconut
  • Scallion-Thyme with a bit of garlic and chives
  • Brown Butter-Sweet Plantains with ground Macadamia

When it came to the fish, I went with cod instead of skate because, well, as I mentioned above, I just haven’t had a great experience with skate yet; we have yet to develop chemistry.  The fishmonger was extremely generous with the cod, giving me 4 HUGE filets, at least 9 oz each, without charging me extra.  This resulted in some big piles of fish and beans (the smallest one is in my photos!), and since I was having 3 guests for dinner, plus me, I decided not to cut each filet smaller, and just let everyone pig out.  On the negative side, the large filets of fish resulted in much less room on the plates, so I couldn’t pull off the powder hurricane design, instead just swirling what I could into whatever fit and looked decent.  But it doesn’t look decent, just kind of sloppy.

So, in retrospect, instead of several clean, small plates of fish and beautifully plated and swirled powders, I ended up with 4 sloppy Hungry-Man dinners.  This is the type of plate Grant Achatz would tell me to ditch and do over.  It’s a good thing I don’t work for him, but only in this case.

Cod with brown butterplantain powder and other flavor dipping powders, plus green beans buerra monte. A dish by Grant Achatz of Alinea.

Speaking of not so great experiences, I had a hell of a time opening the damn coconut.  Now, I know how to open a coconut, I’ve done it before, but for some reason, this little sucker wouldn’t budge.  I was literally bashing it with my quad cane at one point!  I even channeled Tom Hanks in Castaway, and every contestant on Survivor, and started bashing the damn thing against my strip pole the pointy top of the wood banister my brother-in-law built for me to hold onto by the kitchen steps.  At one point I was actually on the floor, slamming it against the floor.

By the way, no, I don’t have a stripper pole, I was just kidding, although I hear you can get a good workout on one.

In any event, I finally slammed a hammer hard enough into the eye with a screwdriver, and alas, coconut water all over my t-shirt and shorts.  After that fiasco, the small amount of fresh coconut I needed for the powder almost wasn’t worth it, but I made coconut milk and chowed down on some of the meat.  The rest I shredded and threw into the freezer for future uses.

Butter Emulsion Green Beans from Grant Achatz of Alinea.

Now, a few gems of wisdom regarding the scotch bonnet peppers. or habanero peppers for that matter.  When serving this dish, you might not want to swirl the scotch bonnet-allspice powder in with the other powders because it’s one of the hottest peppers in the world, and umm..a lot of people don’t like pain when they eat.  Keep it on the side and let them decide.  If you decide to swirl it in, use as little as possible or ask your guest/diner prior to service how much heat they can handle.  I swirled mine in for photographic purposes, but still tried to dip sparingly. I can handle some super, duper heat, but this was just over the top burn when dipped too much..

On another note, when you grind the dehydrated scotch bonnets, DO NOT, and I MEAN DO NOT, open that spice grinder immediately after grinding.  I made the mistake of doing just that, and my god, that heat went up my nose, into my brain, and out of my eyes in running faucet tears.  You’ve heard of brain freeze? Well, this is brain burn to the highest degree.  I was soaking my face with ice cold water for 10 minutes, and it still burned like hell.

Cod with brown butterplantain powder and other flavor dipping powders, plus green beans buerra monte. A dish by Grant Achatz of Alinea.

Finally, I overcooked the green beans and, as mentioned above, slightly burned the plantains.  I need to use my walker in the kitchen, so in between hobbling back and forth between burners, then manipulating myself up my infamous kitchen stairs to answer the phone, I didn’t get back in time to save them.  Regardless, I gotta say, it tasted great!  The fish was perfection, and the scallion-thyme powder was out of this world with the fish (it was everyone’s favorite except for one, who loved the lemon lime).  Even the green beans, although a little overcooked, were fantastic, but geesh, how can anything taste bad with all that butter?  In the words of the late but immortal Julia Child, “Use more BUTTER!”

Now, on to the very long traditional recipe, but nothing wrong with being nontraditional!  Take those powders off the beaten path, because you know Grant Achatz did just that when coming up with this gem of a recipe.

Skate, Traditional Flavors Powdered – with changes
•4 skate wings (I used Cod)
•* Beurre monte (butter plus water emulsion, see directions)
•* 300g (10 ounces) fresh green beans
•sea salt/kosher salt
•1 banana
•454g butter – 4 sticks
•300g lemons
•5g citric acid/vitamin c tablet
•150g cilantro
•150g parsley
•100g dried banana chips
•300g spray dried cream powder (or powdered milk)
•100g cup minced red onion
•200g capers (brined, not oil)

* For green beans, slice each bean into very thin rounds (2 mm)
* Beurre Monte – 454g butter (4 sticks = 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g (1/3 cup) 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 from 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 grinder/spice mill/morter and pestle then passed through a chinois or fine mesh strainer.

Citrus powder
300g lemons
1000g simple syrup
5g citric acid/vitamin c tablet

Zest 300g of lemons (10.6 oz), remove the pith from the zest and poach in the simple syrup three times. dry with paper towels and move to a dehydrating tray. 130 for 12 hours. pulse the zest in a coffee grinder, pass through chinois, and mix with citric acid/vitamin C powder.

If you do not have a dehydrator, place in microwave for 8 to 10 minutes at medium powder. Once dried, follow the other instructions.

Cilantro/Parsley 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. 130 for 12 hours. grind and pass through chinois.

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

Onion powder
100g cup minced red onions

dehydrator – 130 for 12 hours
microwave at medium power for 20 minutes.

Pulse in grinder, pass through chinois

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

Run the capers under cold water for two minutes to remove some of the brine.dry on paper towels and dehydrate for 12hours at 130 degrees.
Microwave instructions are unclear. Dry them as much a possible with paper towels, the microwave on medium for 1 minute. Check the moisture content and stir them. repeat for 30 second intervals until they are dry. If you use this method, pleas post the time needed to dry the capers.

Once dry, pulse and sift the powder. Mix it with the onion powder.

Brown Butter powder
100g Dried banana chips (unsweetened if possible – many are coated in honey – the freeze dried ones would be brilliant)
300g spray dried cream powder

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

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

* For green beans, slice each beans into very thin rounds (2 mm)
* Beurre Monte – 454g butter (4 sticks, 1 pound) cubed and cold, 60g (1/4 cup) 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 from an emulsion. Keep this heated, but under 195 degrees. The emulsion will not break – this is your poaching liquid. Bring 100g (1/2 cup) water, 100g (1/2 cup) beurre monte, and green bean rounds to a boil over high heat. Cook until the water has evaporated (about 3 minutes), when the pan is almost dry, remove it from heat and season with 3g salt

SKATE
Prepare the skate – 50G v shaped cuts are recommended

Bring 300g water and 300g beurre monte to simmer over medium heat, add skate wings and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and flip the wing over and let rest in pan for two more minutes. Transfer to warming tray lined with parchment and season with 5 grams 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 type pattern. I found that it is easier, and you get finer lines if you lightly shake the plate to flatten out the mounds, then swirl the spoon through it to get the pattern.

Peel the remaining banana into very think slices (3mm) 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.

SUBSTITUTIONS
The Skate can be replaced with flounder or cod.
If you can get skate that is not ‘prepared’ IE – Skinned- get the fish monger to prepare it for you.

The powdered cream can be omitted completely, just replace it with more banana powder, or pineapple powder. Possibly non dairy creamer, but I have NO idea what would happen if you tried to brown it.

The poaching liquid is pretty much butter – it could be replaced with other poaching methods. Water, wine, bay leaf, garlic clove, pepper, etc. Try to go easy on the salt in the liquid if you use a replacement.

Now, to make life a little easier in case all of the above made you go “What the…??”, here is a recipe that does NOT involve Molecular Gastronomy or dehydrated powders! It’s a buttery baked cod with brown butter garlic panko breadcrumbs, that I make all the time now. with whatever fish looks good, and the golden, powdered crumbs on top of the cod in these photos is what inspired me to create it! In this case it’s the aforementioned cod because I had so much of it!  It’s really really easy, fast and delicious!

Baked Buttery Cod with Garlic Brown Butter Panko Breadcrumbs
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Yield: 4 servings
 
This dish can be made with any type of fish fillet, so if you don't like cod, go for it!
ingredients:
  • 1 1⁄2 cups panko breadcrumbs*
  • 1½ sticks (6 ounces) butter
  • 2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped very fine
  • zest of one lemon
  • ¾ teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  • ½ cup parsley, chopped (optional)
  • 4 (6 -8 ounce) cod fish fillets
Optional
  • ½ stick (2 ounces) of butter (optional for extra topping)
  • 1 clove of garlic (optional for extra topping)
directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 400°F Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper and lightly brush with olive oil, or spray with the cooking oil spray of your choice.
  2. Heat the butter over medium-low heat until melted, then continue tocook it until it turns a light golden brown. Add the garlic and cook until garlic is just softened; DO NOT brown the garlic. Let cool for a few minutes, then stir in the lemon zest, kosher or sea salt, and chopped parsley if using.
  3. Place the cod fillets in a bowl and pour about ¼ cup of the brown butter mixture over them, Use your impeccably clean hands to coat each fillet with the butter mtixure thoroughly. Set aside while your prepare the breadcrumbs.
  4. Place the panko breadcrumbs in a food processor or blender and grind until almost powdered. Stir the panko breadcrumbs into all of the garlic brown butter in the pan until fully coated.
  5. Place the brown butter marinated cod fillets on your prepared baking sheet and press a small handful of the breadcrumbs on top of each cod fillet,making sure the top of each filet is fully covered with the breadcrumbs. Set aside any remaining breadcrumbs.
  6. Place the pan with the cod fillets in the oven.
  7. Bake until fish is firm, about 12-15 minutes (you want an internal temperature of about 145 degrees), depending on the thickness of the fillets. Sprinkle each cooked fillet with remaining breadcrumbs AND IF DESIRED, brown another half stick of butter with 1 clove of finely chopped garlic and drizzle over each breaded and cooked fillet . Serve with slices of lemon to squeeze on fillets, if desired.
notes:
* You can use plain, lightly toasted breadcrumbs if you cannot find panko bteadcrumbs.


Bookmark and Share

This entry was posted in Daring Cooks, Dinner, Fruit, Seafood, Vegetables and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

51 Responses to I’m heading to Jamaica with Grant Achatz!

  1. Jill says:

    WOW!! What a challenge this time! I really enjoyed reading your post and learned a thing or two about this technique (something I had never even heard of). I love reading your experiences, you do such a great job of giving such a vivid account of making this recipe. Beautiful pictures and now I’m intrigued to perhaps try this in the future.

  2. Plantains wow love them and your very vivid coloured powders are another WOW and the effort you put into this challenge is inspiring. LOL LOL about the very very hot chilli powder good advice. And the idea of blood orange is intriguing and sounds so delish – Jamaica that so hot and sunny at this time of year. I don’t think you overcooked the plantains they look perfect in the pixs that colour means flavour plus to me and BBQs etc. Wonderful posting as always I hope the “stripper pole”….er… the pointy top of the wood bannister wasn’t to damaged from the coconut bashing. Cheers Audax

  3. Forgot to mention fabulous plating love how the swirls move the eye about the plate and leads to the fish.I think I like the last powder spread reminds of wheat sheaves in an autumn storm. A

  4. Beautiful pictures and great flavor combinations!
    Scotch bonnet powder is nothing to sneeze at, but being a chilehead it sounds delicious.

  5. Pingback: I'm heading to Jamaica with Grant Achatz! « Parsley, Sage … | Jamaica today

  6. Trissa says:

    I love your ideas! Plantains – genius! Congratulations on your challenge.

  7. CHConrad says:

    Gorgeous dish, and such an original take on the powders.

  8. Luna says:

    Great flavor combos. Sorry to hear about your brain burn. That had to be an experience to not repeat. We uded plantains too, but I mashed them. It was pretty tasty! Greta job, ans so fun to read about your adventures!

  9. What a great idea with the Jamaican flavours. Awesome way to make this challenge your own! I chickened out and stuck to the traditional flavours.

  10. Margie says:

    You really are daring… especially with the scotch bonnet powder. Ouch! Your array of powders were so original and look fabulous on the plate. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from celebrity chefs on TV, it’s that those plantains are not slightly burned, they’re perfectly caramelized.

  11. lisamichele says:

    Thanks for all the sweet comments, all!

    ——

    Margie – Actually, they did burn on the bottom, as in black. I just turned them over to the good side for the photo LOL

  12. angiegazdziak says:

    Wow! Yours looks wonderful! I love how you made this challenge your own with all the distinct flavors!

  13. Valerie says:

    I absolutely love the flavours you used! Great post, as always, and I like the swirls/circles you used in the plating. And yes, the amount of butter used is one of the reasons I don’t see myself making this particular recipe very often… but when it comes to DC, I saw throw caution to the wind!

  14. Megan says:

    AMAZING job! I was a little too hesitant to take this one on. It did seem like it would be a lot of work, so I admit, I skipped it. Huge kudos to you for taking it on and making such an awesome (and I’m sure tasty) meal!

  15. Markus Saers says:

    That’s some nice colored food right there! Love the sound of the flavor combo too. Congrats on a well executed challenge!

    O, and saithe is pretty close to cod, but you can eat it with a clean conscience over here as opposed to cod (which is heavily over-fished).

  16. Wow, your photos look really stunning! The plating is beautiful and the flavors sound very delightful. I love this dish! Beautifully done!

  17. Love, love the plating, even if the plantains were hiding blackened bottoms! If I had been as smart as you, I might have done fried plantains in place of the bananas. Bananas? Hate! Plantains? More or less ok with them.

  18. climbhighak says:

    What you took up the nose is basically “Bear Spray”. No wonder it burned.

    I love your flavors on this. My mouth is watering thinking about something spicy right now. Excellent work as always.

  19. Debyi says:

    Wow, great powder choices! The toasted coconut with the brown butter/macadamia, as well as the scotch bonnet powders sound yummy. Too bad about the green beans though.

  20. Your powders look lovely!! I think I’ll haveto try the coconut and blood orange powders someday. mmm…yum. 🙂

  21. Rosa says:

    Wow, you did a wonderful job! A great dish. So original! A wonderful flavor combo.

    You can interview me any day ;-P!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

  22. Phoo-D says:

    Beautiful presentation! Now making a scotch bonnet powder- that is what I call daring! Wow. I love the use of plantains those would have been marvelous.

  23. Zita says:

    In a conceptual way it’s good, but I wish I’m going to go to jamaica for real, and I’ll take you along with me, it’s a better phrase, isn’t it?

    Beautiful flavorcombo and the colours are just amazing 🙂

  24. Claudia says:

    I’m new to Daring Cooks, too late for this one, but reading through the July posts was amazing. I’d never heard of MC, but like many things, you can take an idea and make it your own. You certainly did, and you have great writing talent as well. You made me laugh. Now I want to experiment with those powders.

  25. Lisa says:

    AWESOME!!! I love the flavor combos you picked.. delish! And as usual, your plating and photos are just spectacular!

    Hugs & Lotsa Lurve!
    xoxoxxoxo

  26. Ninette says:

    Hey LM, thanks for stopping by. I just put up the post a minute ago, so come back and take a look. I just made it tonight … talk about last minute! I see you have a dehydrator. Lucky you!

  27. Ninette says:

    I just came back to your blog to read it in its entirety since I finally posted my pics for approval on tastespotting and foodgawker. This is my first time to your blog, and I love your writing. A thoroughly enjoyable post, and your powders sound way better than the ones I made. Those were some HUGE fish (I only bought 7 oz. of fish for my hubby and me) and thank goodness you didn’t burn your eyes and nose membranes opening that grinder. Once I burned my face b/c I touched my cheek after eating wings with habanero sauce — it can happen.

  28. Juliana says:

    Wow, your fish sounds and looks fantastic with all the ingredients in it…great job! Love the pictures!

  29. abby says:

    what a brilliant idea for changing the flavour of the dish. well done – especially for taking all the bumps and burning powders (ouch!) along the way too!

  30. Michele says:

    Your powders are amazing! I love the plantain!

  31. Sophie says:

    Wow,…I am amazed!!

    Your fine dish looks superb! Those flavours: that would give a nice kick in your mouth!!!! Yummie!!

  32. Your plating looks so!!!!!!! delicious and great photography.

  33. We should all be so lucky to eat at your table with hungry-man sized cod fillets, caramelized plantains, and buttery bean rounds dredged in coconut, citrus, and thyme scallion powders. I can taste a little bit of the Caribbean and the tropical breeze, now if only I were on the beach with an umbrella drink! Great job as usual…

  34. debbmarie says:

    A food dehydrator definately was the way to go. I finally gave in and bought one after numerous disasters with the microwave. Scallion-thyme powder is on my list to make … it sounds wonderful. I have a feeling it would have been my favorite too. If I would have ground my jalapenos first i would have had the same experience as you did. I was lucky and ground the cilantro first … saved me a nose full of jalapeno! You did an amazing job.

  35. Marta says:

    This challenge looked like hard work! Dehydrating and powdering all those ingredients… but I’m sure it paid off, your dish looks delicious. The plantain is intriguing; this is a sure trip down to the caribean!

  36. sketchy says:

    A dehydrator made the prep for the dish much easier, but scotch bonnets. oh my

    really — oh my, I thought it was bad when the onion went up my nose and got in my eyes. I can’t even imagine.

    great work on the dish!

  37. The tropical twist with the powders sounds great! Looks really delicious too.

  38. Alana says:

    Oh, I wimped out on this one, and reading your post, I can’t say I regret it. All though I’m not quite up for cooking this dish, however, I am definitely up for eating it! Your flavor combinations sound amazing, and I think plantains are better a little burned. Fabulous job, as usual. You are so daring…

  39. Coco Bean says:

    I really do love plantains, I had never had one till I was in the Galapagos and then we ate them at every meal! Unfortunately I haven’t had one since.
    I love all the different powders you made, it looks like the dehydrator is a really good idea!

  40. Great job! Love your photos and the fabulous look the whole thing blend together – especially that harmonious gradient shades of swirls. Thumbs up!

    And I should say I love the storytelling… It is entertaining and funny, like the stripping pole part ha ha ha… You wrote fantastically.

    Regards
    Kris

  41. KayB says:

    oh wow… that looks really yummy, and what a variety on powders!

  42. Arlette says:

    Wow … this is a true gastronomy challenge …
    You did a great job, playing with this dish, and getting new ideas
    and flavours…

    the ingredients and spices used sounds very interesting
    Your presentation looks yummy and very appetizing… I love your dish. Thanks for the substitution note… I might try it one day.

    Awesome work as always

  43. shellyfish says:

    Your posts always have me in stitches! I just love your sense of humor! Between the W. jokes and knee-brace pole-dancing, well, thanks for making me smile!
    Your flavours are sensational! And such beautiful pictures, as always!!

  44. Blondie says:

    Love the beautiful plantains! My goodness that plate is gorgeous! I love the variation that you did.

  45. GoogleGuy says:

    Love the new look, keep up the great work the number of visitors must have increased?.

  46. Wow! I’m totally impressed in how you managed to make this dish! I skipped this month… too much work involved! But loves yours! Looks totally impressive (and here I was truly thinking that you were going to Jamaica.. lol)

  47. Lauren says:

    Beautiful job with your cod =D. I love all of the powders you made, each of them sound divine (especially the scallion-thyme one!)!!

  48. Jude says:

    That is so impressive. You got me going there for a second. I was thinking lucky you are to get to hang out with a master.

  49. spamwise says:

    Gotta love molecular gastronomy. 😉

    • spamwise says:

      PS. I’m in awe. Having been to wd-50 and Tailor, both here in NYC (the former is Wylie Dufresne’s restaurant, the latter by Sam Mason (formerly the pastry chef at wd-50)), I can honestly say I’ll never be courageous enough to attempt that style of cooking at home.

      But it was neat looking over your shoulder. Bravo!

  50. Pingback: Vegan Dum Dum and Dosas - parsley sage sweetparsley sage sweet

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *