A Razor, A Shiny Knife Part II

The universe really is looking out for me lately. I think this means I'm about to be hit by a cab. Regardless, last night I got to participate in my new favorite food porn pastime--being kitchen help at the latest dinner by A Razor, A Shiny Knife.

If you read my blog, you've read about the previous dinner with them. This one was much smaller and more low-key, held at the personal home of Michael Cirino. My friends all think I'm a gourmet cook, and maybe I am--but when I see kitchens like Cirino's, then I know myself for the rank amateur I actually am. Next to the induction burners, the micro-scales, the Riedel glassware, the handmade knives, and the liquid nitrogen tank, my cast-iron dutch iron seems very puny in comparison. Yes, there was an actual liquid nitrogen tank, which he used to flash-freeze raspberries for the dessert. I can only imagine the fun my drunk friends would have with that. My personal favorite was the infrared thermometer, which uses a laser to immediately measure the temperature of anything; how I've managed to live so long without one is a great mystery to me.

Being unemployed until very recently, I offered my services as unpaid kitchen slave for this dinner so that I could do what I really wanted to do at the last one--peer over the shoulders of everyone in the kitchen and take mental notes on all the gadgetry. I saved myself $100 and got about as much food as I got last time, although I never once sat down and burned the ends of all my fingers on the hot plates. A small price to pay, however. I apologize for the lack of photos--I got notification of my kitchen slave status while at work (second day of my new job) and so was caught without my camera.

This dinner was a variation on vegetable themes, mostly using cauliflower. The dinner was completely vegetarian (no chicken broth), which we can all appreciate on a theoretical level, but really, a little chicken broth or bacon fat would have contributed so nicely to most of the dishes. The beurre noir nearly failed because there was no fat to bind the butter to.

The first course was a butternut and delicata squash soup with a coconut milk creme and spiced pumpkin seeds. The squash were roasted and pureed, then combined with leeks cooked down in olive oil and coconut milk and then pureed. The creme was a whipped concoction of more coconut milk with soy milk. The sweetness of the coconut milk was a really interesting and lively touch--I'm now inspired to do more things with it in my own cooking. The spiced pumpkin seeds added a much needed savory touch--some fennel pollen dusted over the top would also have been yummy.

Next up was a sweet pea puree with basil and some peppers, served with thick cauliflower steaks and cooked baby carrots in a caramelized blood-orange glaze. The pea puree had a very delicate touch of the peppers (I could have handled more). The cauliflower steaks had been cooked at 85 degrees Celsius for about an hour and twenty minutes, then seared in olive oil. They were very tender and very flavorful, but I wasn't sure I could tell the difference between the slow-cooked kind and the cooked-the-regular-way kind. The blood orange glaze on the carrots was the best part; it pulled together the sweetness of the puree with the savoriness of the cauliflower, and added a bright touch of fruity acidity to the whole thing.

Then there was a variation on black and white, with black tagliatelle served with a mushroom beurre noir, with sauteed black mushrooms on the side. A little sauteed cauliflower was sprinkled over the black pasta, and a small black truffle custard (which was also white) was nestled on top, along with a very gently poached egg yolk and a little shaved basil. The basil had been set in a block with agar, so that it was more of a basil Jell-O, which could then be sliced (or shaved, as it was here). Obviously this was very rich and very heavy, a feat for a completely vegetarian dish; but frankly the truffle custard and the shaved basil were unnecessary. The mushrooms and the black pasta went together so well, especially with the addition of the cauliflower and the egg yolk, that any other flavors were distracting.

The final main course featured a cauliflower veloute (the cauliflowers was boiled, then pureed with cream) served with an olive cracker, an olive powder, an onion powder, dehydrated cauliflower, sauteed cauliflower greens, and tiny onion soup gelatin dots. More fun with gels and powders. All these seemingly random elements went very well together, but it seemed like an awful lot of effort for essentially four bites of food.

Dessert featured chocolate truffles with a liquid center, made with a smoky lapsong tea. The smokiness was a surprisingly effective touch; further experiments had been done with a smoky tea Jell-O, but that didn't really work. The truffles were served with a blood orange puree, a gooey chocolate cake circle, the flash-frozen raspberries, and a black truffle custardy thing.

Cirino is one of those cooks who's more like a chemist. He uses binding agents, liquid nitrogen, sous vide, agar, heats things to a very precise temperature, weighs out 1.2 grams of a specific spice. I'm not that kind of cook, and I'm not sure I want to be, either. Which is not a bad thing. Cirino, like his mentors Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz, are on the vanguard of cooking, using foams and powders and gels to bring out new textures and flavors. I can appreciate an olive powder and a black truffle gel as much as the next person, but at the end of the day, I think I appreciate the old-fashioned way of cooking more. I'd rather have a pork shoulder or lamb ragout, cooked in my plain old cast iron dutch iron, than a beef tenderloin cooked sous vide served with a whole host of foams. For me, cooking is about the food, but it's also about the social aspect. I think that's why I appreciate the "peasant cuisines" (for lack of a better term)--French, Spanish and Italian country cooking, soul food, Indian and Thai. It's flavorful, it's simple, and it's best shared with others. Give me a plate of pate with friends any day over a smoked tea Jell-O in fancier environs.