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 Hello, esteemed guests and colleagues. My name is Dr Hannibal Lecter. You may know me from my cooking show, Friday evenings on NBC, which they continue to insist is a drama for some reason. I was not always a cook however. I was once an esteemed surgeon, but left the field after I killed a patient. Or rather, I could not save him. It felt like killing him. I went into psychiatry instead, and transferred my passion for anatomy into the culinary arts. It would give me great pleasure if you would come to my home for a banquet. Please, won't you join me? I would love to have you for dinner. Before we begin however, I must warn you; nothing at this table will be vegetarian.    Ingredients: prosciutto, 1 inch watermelon cubes, chocolate mint leaves and hand-decorated toothpicks.  I often tell my psychiatry patients that I can cure them as easily as I cure my prosciutto.  A good prosciutto should have a powerful fragrance of heated butter and aged cheese. If you are unable to butcher and cure your own long pig, an acceptable substitute would be getting prosciutto from a reputable deli counter.  Searching for information on how to roll prosciutto roses may be disheartening, because all the articles you will see are about making bacon roses, and not only that, but in the shape of unblossomed rosebuds. To make a prosciutto rose, arrange your prosciutto slice into a long horizontal strip. You may need to fold the prosciutto slice to do this. From the left, roll a small cone, which will make the center of the rose. Then lift the tip of the cone upwards about 45°. From there, roll the rest of the rose. The more open rolling of the prosciutto strip will make it look like an open, blossoming rose. Also, make sure that the fattier side of the prosciutto is up, so that it looks like the rose has white highlights.  To vacuum-compress the watermelon, the easiest method is to simply use a high end chamber vacuum. If you have a consumer vacuum compressor, you can first freeze the watermelon cubes overnight, thaw them out and then vacuum them. The ice crystals will loosen up the plant fibers, allowing a more modest home vacuum to compress it. The effect removes air from the fruit, and the contiguous liquid in the piece creates a gem-like effect, darkening the color and creating the illusion of greater juiciness.  So juicy in fact, it looks like rare meat sitting on my cutting board.   Kholodets is a Ukrainian aspic, whose outcome can never be fully predicted. The Latin root word gelatus translates to frozen. The aspic provides a three-dimensional canvas in which one may stage a scene.  Aspic is derived from bone, as a life is made from moments. For this Kholodets recipe I have boiled and simmered together several trotters, a chicken, a carrot, an onion and some pickling spices. Not pictured is also a pound of beef shank.  You can use any other bones you'd like however, as I have put in some other random bones I had laying around as well. Once the stock is done, reserve the meat. The stock is cloudy, and we want it to be clear in order to provide a canvas for a three-dimensional sculpture.  Using whisked egg whites, I bring the stock from 135°F slowly up to 190°F, stirring gently the whole time. The coagulating proteins of the egg whites clarify the stock.  Filter the clarified stock through coffee filters. The resulting liquid consommé is dramatically clearer.  Although it is not in the traditional recipe for kholodets, I have elected to build a sculpture in it made of silver anchovies.  In a large bowl, suspend a bunch of seafood mushrooms upside down with chopsticks. At the bottom, I have put in a circle of fish, and poured in some of the consommé. Setting this over a larger bowl of ice will allow the consomme to solidify into a gelatin.  Continue to pour in more consomme and allowing it to solidify.  In order to speed up the process, pour several portions of the hot consomme into plastic bags, then submerge these bags into an ice water bath. The maximized surface area will cool the consomme down to 50-60°F within seconds, after which pouring it into the bowl will allow it to gelatinize at 40°F much quicker.  Near the top, embed a cup of cooked peas and carrots  Then, add the reserved meat and top off with consomme. Cut off the excess mushroom.  When it is time to serve, place the bowl in a hot water bath for a minute or two. Once the aspic has loosened, you can flip it upside down onto a plate, and serve.  "The eternal chase" as my friend, FBI agent Jack Crawford would call it. An evocative shape, like the ouroboros dragon that eats its own tail, except now there are many fish, and they are eating each other's tails. Is the FBI investigating me, or am I hunting the FBI? At a certain point it becomes impossible to know who is pursuing whom. Either way, I intend to eat them.  With glass plates on a glass table, one can place flashlights below to inspect the mysterious shapes lurking inside the kholodets.  A closer look at the mushrooms inside.  Before serving, one may elect to remove the silver anchovies for the sake of the guests, as it is commonly regarded to be unappetizing. You can do so with the use of your garotte.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgkVzYe7p_A Roast thigh of pig, wrapped in lotus leaf and clay. This was a particularly greedy pig named Abel Gideon, he was taking credit for some of my achievements.  If you are unable to procure a long pig thigh, you can butterfly two pork loins, then glue them together using meat glue (Activa RM).  Butterfly your pork loins.  Sift the meat glue over the areas you'd like to stick together. Be very generous with application.  Once the meat glue is applied, cover both sides with plastic wrap to prevent the meat glue from sticking to other areas. Using a cutting board and a full sheet will help in flipping the roast over.  Roll up, and then refrigerate overnight so that the meat glue can take effect.  Soak some dried lotus leaves for 30 minutes in water to make them pliable.  Get about 12 pounds of pottery clay. Cut them into two large slabs using your trusty garrote if you have one. One slab should be slightly larger than the other.  Using a rolling pin and parchment paper, roll out the slabs to be large enough to envelope the roast.  Season the roast, then stuff with rosemary, thyme, apricots, yellow dates and figs, and tie it up with butcher's twine. I remember when my aunt-in-law, Lady Murasaki, taught me shibari, the Japanese art of rope bondage. I think of her every time I tie up a breast or thigh.  Bard your meat with prosciutto. Roll up in lotus leaves and tie.  Place the rolled up roast on top of the smaller slab of clay, then drape the larger slab over it. At this time you might want to leave in a probe thermometer. Then seal up the clay.  Place into a 350°F oven for about 3.5 hours. If you have time you can also fashion some clay decorations for the roast.  Once done, remove the roast and surround with treviso. Because of its thick outer shell, there may be enough carry-over to take the roast another 20°F higher even after you remove it from the oven, so keep that in mind when deciding when to remove the roast.  Open the sarcophagus to reveal the mummy inside.  Serve your fellow man.   Chocolate blood orange ice cream. Oh no, not blood orange, they're not in season. Chocolate, and blood and orange. This ice cream is made with blood.  Blood is a wonderful cooking ingredient, almost as versatile as eggs because of its similar protein content. Many cultures will use blood as a thickener in sausages and puddings. In asia you may see coagulated blood as a tofu-like protein or as frozen blood popsicles and hot blood cakes on a stick. In the Italian countryside, where families may own a single pig to provide themselves with meat for an entire year, they must find ways to use every part of the pig. After all, the tragedy would not be to die, but to be wasted. As such, they have a traditional pudding that uses blood instead of cream and eggs for its liquid protein content. We will make an ice cream based on this tradition.  However, shopping for pork blood may be difficult. Pork blood has a notorious affinity for coagulating. Often times the blood you find at asian markets will be treated with salt as a preservative. The best blood is the kind you can butcher yourself, fresh and raw.  If you do not have the ability to butcher your own blood, you might ask around for a butcher shop that owns its own slaughter house. They will be able to special-order blood for you.  Ooops.  That won't do.  Being a psychiatrist, I must ask you; what do you see in the blots? I see an eight season series about a serial killer that should have stopped after their fourth season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcR4qldWPG4 Combine 1.5 cups sugar, 2/3 packed cup of alkalized (Dutch) cocoa, 4 tablespoons of corn starch, 1 teaspoon ground ginger and a couple pinches of sea salt into a sauce pan. Whisk in 2 cups whole milk, and 1 cup pork blood (run the blood through a strainer to make sure any coagulated bits are left out).  The color should be a bright red.  Heat and stir. At about 140°F, there will be a change in color from red to brown. Then at 185°F, there will be a dramatic change in the thickness of the mix, occurring over the course of five seconds. Take it off the heat right after. Mix in 4 tablespoons of orange liqueur, 1/4 a teaspoon of fresh ginger and the zest of two oranges, then refrigerate overnight. The next day, process through an ice cream machine.  Sanguinaccio dolce ice cream tastes very close to chocolate ice cream, with a slight hint of protein, similar to Asian red bean desserts. The orange liqueur, ginger and orange zest masking any hints of blood's infamous metallic taste. Garnish with... what else? A slice of blood orange. You could say that this dish was foraged. After all, I had to cut up some ginger from my neighborhood for it. And to finish the evening...  ... a nice chianti Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 10:33
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Creepily delicious or deliciously creepy? Can't decide.
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Sep 8, 2014 12:18
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This was absolutely magnificent.
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Sep 8, 2014 16:54
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Yes! This is the best ever. I'm really impressed by your aspic technique. Janice got it clearer, but yours looks more beautiful and ethereal.
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Sep 8, 2014 17:55
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On the one hand, you've made some absolutely wonderful and fantastic dishes. On the other, you posted pictures of some dude who is most certainly not Dr. Lecter.
Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 18:10
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I feel so uncomfortable right now, so good job there pal.
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Sep 8, 2014 18:37
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Mr. Wiggles posted:some dude is most certainly not Dr. Lecter. You don't know what you are missing, non-show-watcher
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Sep 8, 2014 18:39
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Mr. Wiggles posted:On the other, you posted pictures of some dude is most certainly not Dr. Lecter. Scorn the non-show-watcher! But in all seriousness, it's a great show. Great job on the food Steve.
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Sep 8, 2014 18:48
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Holy sheeeit, amazing. Props for going full-out on the roti de cuisse.
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Sep 8, 2014 19:12
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Oh man, I wish I could cook like you. Both hilarious and incredibly impressive.
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Sep 8, 2014 19:40
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Not submitted for consideration, but I also made a prosciutto fig arugula salad Rurutia posted:I'm really impressed by your aspic technique. Janice got it clearer, but yours looks more beautiful and ethereal. Mr. Wiggles posted:On the one hand, you've made some absolutely wonderful and fantastic dishes. On the other, you posted pictures of some dude who is most certainly not Dr. Lecter. Also, the show is a great showcase for cooking that even GWS regulars would appreciate. Jose Andres is the cooking consultant on the show, and despite being known for modernist stuff he really shows off a lot of old-world cuisine on the show. Ortolan bunting flambé, headcheeses, boudin noir from Ali-bab's Gastronomie Pratrique, beer brewed in wine barrels and steeped with offal, etc. One of the things I was trying to do for this was separating plasma from blood, since that features in one of the episodes. Unfortunately I don't have access to a centrifuge and I can't get a salad spinner or bicycle to do 2500 rpms for 20 minutes. There is absolutely no information about cooking with plasma on the internet other than the mention of a lecture Jose Andres did at Harvard a few years ago. He's definitely working on plasma recipes but none of it's public information at the moment. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 19:54
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Steve Yun you're my hero!
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Sep 8, 2014 20:25
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I love everything about this entry.
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Sep 8, 2014 20:42
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This is fantastic.
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Sep 8, 2014 22:17
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This is a v. lovely thing.
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Sep 8, 2014 22:37
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You're a magnificent inspiration, just in time for an ever engorging freezer.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:39
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Holy poo poo 
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Sep 9, 2014 00:43
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That aspic is crazy, man. Kudos. Amazing patience and attention to detail.
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Sep 9, 2014 01:04
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Love the theme and intricacy.Mr. Wiggles posted:On the one hand, you've made some absolutely wonderful and fantastic dishes. On the other, you posted pictures of some dude who is most certainly not Dr. Lecter. Mads is the best Dr. Lecter. Even better than that Hopkins guy. 
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Sep 9, 2014 11:07
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This is beautiful. I usually have a strong distaste for aspic dishes, especially when it's all aspic, this I would eat. And I'm really considering using that ice cream recipe for a Halloween / baby shower party we're having in late October.
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Sep 9, 2014 15:36
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Some notes, mistakes and advice in case any of you decide you want to try your hand at some of these and maybe even do a better job than I did: JAMON IBERICO ROSES ON TAIWANESE WATERMELON  I consider these to be a failure. Jamon Iberico is amazing but something about the flavors clashed. Taiwanese watermelon is much less sweet than other varieties, and that's when a watermelon's underlying bitterness starts poking its head out. I guess I could have made a joke about the meat being bitter that it was dead, a joke Will Graham made in the series. Jamon Iberico is so complex on its own that it seems like a shame to pair it with anything else anyways. I think the quality of Iberico varies a lot between hams as well, even between hams from the same brand and quality grade (Bellota). Slices I had from one ham tasted less like meat and more like honey, dried figs and acorns, while the next time I got some from the same brand and grade and it tasted more like sweet sausage. KHOLODETS Simmer the old-fashioned way for six hours. Pressure cookers can make stocks that taste just as good, but they will definitely be cloudier. Also, I'm not 100% sure about it but I get the impression that pressure cookers will make the stock darker. The goal was to get it yellowish like on the TV show, but since I was stuck with a brown color I tried to make the most of it by putting flashlights underneath and emphasizing that it looked like the Eye of Sauron or some gateway to hell. GrAviTy84 and one other goon whose name escapes me right now deserve credit for telling me that clarifying stock is a thing, without them I would've had a really cloudy aspic. Also, seafood mushroom is a bit big. I think if I were to do it again I would use enoki mushrooms, which are smaller but more populous, and I'd put several bunches in. If you're going through the trouble of making a multi-stage gelatin pouring, then putting a couple more pairs of chopsticks on and five or six bunches of mushrooms isn't much more work. You could make a whole mushroom forest which I think would look pretty awesome. This was my first aspic, and I think I'm not a big fan of cold cooked meat. If I were to do it again I'd experiment with cold cuts or some other meat that tasted good cold/roomtemp. Maybe even prosciutto? Hmm… ROTI DE CUISSE In the show, the clay cracks open like pottery, but mine was like a giant leather egg and I had to saw it open with a cleaver. If I could do it again while it was leathery, I should've done a Y cut like an autopsy. Janice Poon, the food stylist for the show, said she rolled her clay to 3/4 inch thickness, but I think that might've been too much in my case. Maybe it's because my oven is gas and steam is one of the waste products of propane burning? I dunno. Either way, I think if I were to do it again I would roll it to 1/2 inch thick. Also, a seam broke and a lot of liquid spilled out. Gotta make sure to smear the hell out of the seams and get a good "weld." I didn't apply enough meat glue and the two pieces were ready to rip apart if any force was applied. Apply very generously, and use a small strainer to sift it evenly like a powder coat. I should've stuffed it with a lot more dried fruit. Carryover is a monster. I pulled it out of the oven when it got to 140°F, but it kept climbing to 160°F over 45 minutes. Next time I think I'll pull it at 125°F. The center was still okay, but the edges and the ends were definitely tough and dry. SANGUINACCIO DOLCE This recipe isn't actually in the Hannibal series, but the first season featured French cuisine for its episode titles, the second season featured Japanese episode titles, and they just announced that season 3 will feature Italian episode titles, so I'm betting that sanguinaccio will be featured in the upcoming season *fingers crossed* I haven't tried the frozen blood they have at 99 Ranch. They say they have water and salt added and don't say how much so I have no idea how that will affect their thickening properties. Maybe it'll work, I dunno? If you're in Los Angeles, I used the Bel Campo meat company for blood. Most of the other butchers I called said that they're actually prohibited by regulations from selling blood, but since Bel Campo owns their own slaughterhouses they can guarantee food safety chain of custody blahblah bleep bloop something something. The manager there has his own blood recipes but I haven't gotten around to getting them from him yet. Also they have a deli and tables where they sell food made from their own meats, and everyone who works there is pretty good looking (especially the guys according to my friend who picked up the blood for me) so you can get lunch and a show. http://www.belcampomeatco.com/ I used a modernized ice cream version of a traditional Italian blood pudding recipe, which you can find in Odd Bits, except that I tossed out the candied fruit, added orange liqueur and added a little bit of fresh ginger specifically just so I could make the "this was foraged because I cut up a local ginger" joke. http://www.foxnews.com/recipe/chocolate-blood-ice-cream Nordic Food Labs has a pretty awesome article from January about cooking with blood. They worked out that 65g of blood is roughly equivalent to an egg. They also have their own ice cream recipe, but since it uses koji instead of cocoa powder and guar gum instead of corn starch, you are probably really going to taste blood when you eat it. I followed their advice and cooked my blood to 167°F, but found that it left too much metallic blood aftertaste, even with the orange flavorings attempting to mask it, and that it also had trouble staying frozen. It would melt as soon as I took it out of the freezer. Cooking to 185°F coagulated it more and it stayed nice and thick when served as an ice cream. Check out their article anyways though, they have other weird recipes like pancakes and meringue. http://nordicfoodlab.org/blog/2013/9/blood-and-egg Some more stuff about sanguinaccio dolce, the traditional pudding from which sanguinaccio dolce ice cream comes from. http://www.grubstreet.com/2011/02/bloody_delicious_a_forbidden_d.html http://www.chicagonow.com/cooking-cop/2014/03/sanguinaccio-dolce-is-a-bloody-good-treat-2/#image/1 Here's Mario Batali's recipe, which everyone rated 1 star because it doesn't have blood in it http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/chocolate-and-cinnamon-pudding-sanguinaccio-recipe.html Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 21:36
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This is badass. What's aspic taste like? That looks kind of unappealing, but kind of intersting all at once.
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Sep 10, 2014 00:06
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THE MACHO MAN posted:This is badass. Imagine the flavor of meat soup, but as a cold gelatin with no aroma. I originally had 2 quarts of stock but messed up the clarification a couple times and didn't have enough volume so I had to pull out old meat stocks I had in the freezer and clarify them so the end product was like, turkey, pork beef, chicken stocks. Ugh, I mean, it's meat soup and everyone likes meat soup but that's because it's hot and it tastes good when it's hot. When it's cold jello it's not as appetizing IMO. In the olden days, and especially in Eastern Europe, doing an aspic was a sign you were rich because you could afford a refrigerator, but nobody stopped to ever ask, hey wouldn't this be tastier as a hot soup? So really, I'm just going to heat up the kholodets leftovers, add some noodles and eat them like soup later. Screw aspic. Except as a fancy way to make a food sculpture as a giant middle finger to the FBI agent who's investigating you while you're sitting at the same dinner table. That's pretty much the only good reason to do an aspic. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 00:20
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I really think you should tweet some pictures of this to Bryan Fuller; it's a gorgeous and delicious-looking homage. Also, what's the ice cream like? Can you taste the blood at all or does the orange and ginger mask it?
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Sep 10, 2014 03:42
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As a fan of the show who always thinks Hannibal's dishes look delicious, I am blown away. Beautiful work! You definitely need to tweet this to Bryan Fuller and Janice Poon.
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Sep 10, 2014 03:56
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Astrofig posted:I really think you should tweet some pictures of this to Bryan Fuller; it's a gorgeous and delicious-looking homage. Also, what's the ice cream like? Can you taste the blood at all or does the orange and ginger mask it? I don't have a twitter but maybe I'll sign up tomorrow. After about 3-4 batches I got the ice cream to not taste like blood at all, other than the high protein content which is the tiniest bit chalky and will remind you of asian red bean popsicles. If you want it to taste like blood, cook to below 175 and add a little more thickener (corn starch or guar gum) to make up for the less thorough coagulation. Guar gum has 8x the thickening power of corn starch, so keep that in mind According to Nordic Food Labs, there's some research to suggest that acidity interferes with your tongue's ability to sense metallic flavors, hence the zest and liqueur.
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Sep 10, 2014 04:25
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This is amaaaazing. Good work!
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Sep 10, 2014 17:59
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This whole thing looks amazing, Steve. Well done.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:59
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I remember when you first came into gws as a noob asking ridiculous questions and now you can cook all of this stuff. This is fantastic! ~GWS success story~
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Sep 11, 2014 19:18
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Correction: it seems I was misinformed and there's no fat in pork blood, it's all about the protein. Your entire daily allowance in 8 ounces in fact. Edit: emailed Janice Poon, she loves the photos and says she'll post them on her blog when she starts posting again No response from Bryan Fuller on twitter though Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 21:20
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We need to give Poon more love, she does so much of the food you see on the show.. and spends so much time making the little things work, like the grapes for example. That was literally pulled out at the last second. http://janicepoonart.blogspot.com/
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Sep 12, 2014 16:21
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Everything about this is amazing. I don't think I can get pig's blood around here. Maybe I can donate blood and ask them to take a second pint that I can bring home for culinary purposes.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:23
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contrapants posted:Everything about this is amazing. Go to a Mexican market. It's usually frozen in one gallon jugs.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:54
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Go to a Mexican market. It's usually frozen in one gallon jugs. Thanks. My blood would have lacked that tasty porcine erythrocyte membrane.
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Sep 12, 2014 17:05
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So it looks like my friend in Denver has a centrifuge and will let me have it for free. If I get it soon I will be posting an addendum with blood plasma recipe experiments.
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Sep 13, 2014 07:19
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This is loving awesome. Great work.
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Sep 13, 2014 21:00
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Other random findings: the coffee filters in the Clever Coffee Dripper allowed cloudy consomme to get through, whereas the Hario filters got very clear results from the egg-clarified consommé (albeit much slower)
Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 19:22
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This was absolutely brilliantly done, both in quality of food and tone of post.
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Sep 15, 2014 04:31
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Even as a lurker, just wanted to chime in and say this was pretty incredible.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:35
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Another addendum: Prosciutto comes in roughly rectangular slices. I said to fold them to bacon dimensions, but after fooling around with them again, I think it's better if you take one slice and cut it into two long slices, then overlap those lengthwise to make an extra long strip. It makes for a much more attractive looking and bigger rose.
Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 23:43
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