Top five crème brulee
“Can I toss your salad? I am doing some special ones today. Blow-torched Salmon with ponzu butter.” A radically flawed attempt to help a struggling salad bar in San Fran. Not only did it have sexual connotations but it broke the fundamentals keeping the salad line functioning. Good one guest chef – Slow everything down during service rush. Stick to yacht parties.
Therapy – bombing Alaska. “Oo, ar.” Old people watching firworks? No, people appreciating my 60th dinner party cake show. Crisp charred meringue and the flow of complements has inspired a return to conventional blow torch use – burning sugar on custard.
Crème brulee has a loyal following, the; too loud American girl orgasiming. “Oooh, ah, mmm yeah they have brulee yay. I love brulee. Give it too me, bring me brulee. Wankers foodies – (Me) dish out lessons on appropriate technique for eating the French classic.
Crack the brulee with back of spoon
Custard heads follow twitter to seek out their fix in San Fransico. An illegal peddler makes it super-bad-arse-foodie-cool.
Crème Brulee Cart -http://twitter.com/cremebruleecart
Instead of the she’ll be right Kiwi attitude I shall attempt to be precise and create a recipe that is easy to follow. This undertaking is a monumental shift for me. Part of my philosophy is no two chefs will end up with the same product from the same recipe. Ovens work differently, gas verse electric and induction, the heat retention rate of the baking vessel, eggs are different sizes and I like to eyeball all measurements.
Recipes are just ideas and guides, don’t follow them exactly.
The Classic
Vanilla bean – Use the best you can find. (ramble about always getting the best ingredients) Look around I have found it varies in price and quality drastically. Peets coffee shop came out on top at $2.25 a piece.
Eggs try not to buy them from the supermarket.
Suburban San Jose eggs for 5 bucks a dozen.
Milk cow at 5am and skim off cream
Sugar- use refined, it goes against the rest of the philosophy and for future reference I discovered I am a complete hypocrite years ago.
6 yolks – 110 grams
250ml cream
25ml milk
One vanilla bean
110 grams castor sugar
Split and scrape out vanilla seeds into the cream and heat gently.
Whisk yolks and sugar until pale and fluffy
Add scalded cream, stir with spatula
Strain and pour into ramekins
Bake at 250 F in water bath covered but with holes for steam to escape
Check every half hour, cool, fridge
Sugar and torch
Baked apple brulee
The only use my melon baller ever gets. Scoop out apples for brulee ramekins. Many varieties work, my favorite is Fuji, tart green varieties are good too although can be a little trickier as they tend to collapse if over cooked.
The hard part – First you want to slice the smallest amount you can to make the apple stand up straight. Some won’t require any, then slice a small section off the top to give another flat surface. Scoop out leaving about half a centimeter of flesh intact with skin, at the bottom be careful not to go too far down, you will see that it can cause the liquid to leak out the bottom. Can be fixed with a plug of plastic wrap but best if you can manage to avoid it.
Scald milk and cream with vanilla and cinnamon, while hot pour into whisked pale yolks and sugar, mix well, set aside.
Assemble, place apples in dish deep enough to cover, pour strained mix into each apple filling just short of top, add a shallow water bath, cover with tinfoil, punch a few holes in it and bake at 150
Check regularly, done when holds shape when you gently tap the side of apple. Leave to cool covered in baking dish then carefully transfer to clean container and refrigerate until set, generally overnight but 3 or 4 hours should do.
Espresso and Grappa
Dining al fresco – the yachties night off in the Adriatic
“Grappa and espresso is better than cocaine.”
“Grappa, really? It’s gross, I’ve only had it once, thought it was the shot you buy for people you don’t like.”
“At the end of an Italian meal it aids digestion and stops that ‘I ate too much, can’t move’ moan of yours.”
“Ok I down for it.”
“Duo espresso, duo grappa, anyone else?”
It’s not a rustic Italian happy ending without espresso and grappa.
60ml strong espresso – make it like you are a ristretto snob
10grams sugar
250ml brulee mix (vanilla and cinammon scald)
Grappa cookies – grind nuts with flour, sugar and cinnamon, cream butter and vanilla, add grappa or Amaretto, eggs, dry ingredients
Green tea and yuzu
Or a citrus mix pretending to be as good as the Japanese sudachi or yuzu.
90ml cream
10ml milk, both fresh from the cow outside everyone has access to
<1gram green tea powder
-Scald
42grams yolk from the hens in those idyllic packaging photos
42grams super refined castor sugar
Zest of citrus – lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit – any or all of combo
-Whisk
60ml juice of mixed citrus
1gram bottled yuzu juice contains sodium
-Add
Divide into baking vessel and 250 F check every half hour, leave to cool in water or oven depending on how set they look. Shake them gently and check out their wobble
Rhubarb crumbrulee in the works, as is sweet potato bread….
