Day 2 in the Ashburton Fusion Kitchen

Cooking extreme – more extreme!
So today was very dull, I hardly learnt anything new at all L HAHAHA, not really!!! There was compression, sous-vide, agar agar pearls, isomalt spheres, gellan gum F fluid gels, and the sheer magic of turning chocolate into powder!!  And as if that wasn’t enough, Chef Rob threw in a small embroidery lesson too!

It all sounded innocent enough – just a salady lunch, a bit of chicken, then a chocolate mousse. Ha, and then we got started! Chamber vacuum machine quickly into play – large chunks of watermelon were decompressed to stop them getting the bends.  Oh, or maybe they were compressed?? Either way – it went into the machine with a vinegar and sugar “gastrique” (I am learning the lingo, stay with me) – and came out looking like sushi grade tuna!

Next up – oh, just a few balsamic caviar-stylee “pearls” – and 1st mention of the day for a small firm somewhere in the North, selling everything you need to create mad food! Balsamic and agar agar whisked to the boil – then little droplets trickled into very cold oil – to form little “pearls”. Oh alright, so I admit to some “damn great pebbles” in among my pearls – I’d like to blame the equipment, but really I just couldn’t wait to have a bash, and impatience is not a virtue.

Turning our hands back to “normal” skills, there was the small and slightly intricate matter of butchering a poussin then de-boning his legs. Yes, I said a poussin. I believe they’d tried to find a smaller, trickier bird, but sparrows are not in season. Oh, and de-boning of legs had to be done with NO tears to the skin, as this was needed for us to practice what we had learnt during Chef Rob’s somewhat surprising embroidery demo. Having de-boned then stuffed teeeeny bird legs, in order to sew them back up, I thought I'd go with a fancy cross-stitch/French knot combo. Then I picked up the needle and thread, and instead turned the poor little bugger into something Heath Ledger’s Joker would’ve been proud of.

Next there was chocolate and custard and a pistachio tuile mix to make, with fancy powdered colouring to enhance the natural pistachio effect. Now I like green myself, but apparently a couple of unplanned green stripes on a follow-up pastry case can NEARLY turn a chef "a bit Ramsay". Nuff said.

Is it time for lunch yet, chef?

Almost lunch, but FINALLY the bit I really came for - making little “glass” baubles full of olive oil, aka doing MAGIC!  Sharp knives and poussin had not really upped the danger levels sufficiently, so we boiled some Isomalt and water – and had a bit of a competition as to who could get closest to fire. I maintain the lone male won at this one! Then we all had a bash at burning our fingerprints off, to achieve correct surface tension and in the manner of blowing bubbles, trickle olive oil through an isolmalt film into very cold oil. Hmm, perhaps an indescribable process. BUT A FUN ONE!

Then we were allowed to have lunch!

Compressed pickled watermelon, goats cheese mousse, balsamic pearls, olive oil sphere, glass tuile with cracked pepper, pinenuts and pistachios, balsamic jelly.

Lazy afternoon

Not much to do in the afternoon really. Just seal and vac-pac beef ribs and put them in the bubble bath to cook for 3 days so we’ve got something for tea on Friday, make a nice little puff pastry treasure chest, do a fancy layered Sauternes sauce, whip up a leek mousse, prep a bunch of wild mushrooms, shape and cook tuiles … oh, and throw together a little raspberry FLUID GEL (nothing artificial to see here, move along Gellan Gum F, you’re blocking the view).

After we’d knocked these few things on the head, it was teatime!

Roast poussin, galantine of poussin, sweetcorn, truffle and ham, treasure chest with leek mousse, wild mushrooms, spring veg - and a Sauternes sauce.

But before we plated up our luvverly dessert, Chef Rob thought it seemed rude not to add an extra finishing touch – so he turned some white chocolate into powder, proving he is Chief of the Magicians!

Dark chocolate cremeaux, pistachio tuile, raspberry fluid gel, gel-filled raspberries, white chocolate-raspberry powder.

“Eeeek!” award of the day: spider crawling out of my mushrooms (pre-cooking, honest!)

“Wow chef, where on earth can you buy that?” award of the day: joint winners – lone male Darren and a certain firm up north.

Push on!!