First, get the Alinea cookbook. Some of the recipes are insanely hard, some are fairly easy but require you to purchase various compounds off the internet to make. A fair number (30-50?) can be made with simple gelatin sheets or less. And the book just looks stunning. Amazing coffee table material.
In my case, I had no time to order anything and was cooking a bit last minute and made two dishes.. the "Dry Shot" and "Sour Cream"
along with seared scallops in a vanilla and passion fruit infused Buerre Blanc sauce topped with a caramelized cauliflower that went over like gangbusters.. it was my attempt to recreate a dish I had at L2O (another 3 star Michelin eatery). I was pretty happy with the results myself, but I didn't let the white wine base cook long enough and the whole sauce was a bit tarter than it should have been. I also think half a vanilla bean would have done the trick instead of the full that I had cooked with. I garnished the plate with passion fruit seeds and it looked just stunning once the butter sauce was poured over them.
I forgot to nab a photo of my dish, but this was the inspiration at L2O.. simply amazing.
The Dry shot was easy, but extremely time consuming. You dehydrate bell peppers, thrice blanch elephant garlic in milk then dehydrate that, dehydrate some nicose olives, fry some oregano and then dehydrate that, create a few croutons [shove buttered bread in an over on low heat for 2 hours) and pan fry some capers.. I mortar and pestled all of them (except the oregano and croutons), mixed them together topped with the dried oregano and then added a crouton or two.. threw them on some parchment paper for serving.
them mix them together in a dry shot that tastes exactly like an amazing bite of pizza. Everyone lost their shit at how amazing good this one was especially given that it looks like popuri.
The next dish was as much science experiment as it was food and really easy.
1) cut a smoked salmon into 4x4" cubes, wash and freeze overnight.
2) take some pink peppercorns and mash them into a fine mesh strainer to remove their skins
3) get some sorrel leaves
4) buy some nice sour cream and mix with a bit of simple syrup - put in a squeeze (ketchup) bottle.
5) buy dry ice, put cookie sheet on top of it. - let get really cold (5 minutes)
You simply squeeze a dollop of the sour cream mix onto the home made anti-griddle, then shave a little frozen smoked salmon on it, a dash of pink peppercorn flakes, a single pink peppercorn and then place a few sorrel leaves on top. Let the whole thing it freeze solid over the course of 60 seconds or so (you have to move fast adding the toppings).. and eat.
FUCKING AMAZING. AMAZINGLY good. Everyone kind of looked at me like a mad scientist then I wound up creating about 3 of these for everyone. Super easy to make at home as well once you get the dry ice.
Again, the book is amazing. There are several more things I want to make including the "hot potato/cold potato soup" a few apple dishes and a few celery dishes that look very achievable for the home cook.
Eventually I will start ordering the insane sodium whatchamacallits and go completely nuts making foams, cotton candy and sphering agents.
