The Zilte undertaking

After the failure I made  last time I decided to throw away the bread into a bin and simply buy some brioche bread from the supermarket.  For those thinking that the next dish is simply going to be toasted brioche bread I am happy to inform you that the next dish is quite complicated with a fair bit of components. One of which will be indeed the brioche bread roasted in the oven with some hazelnut butter on top. The end result looked like this:  Added to it will be crab meat to which mayonnaise, ketchup and green tabasco are added to make the following combination:  Together with some mashed boiled egg yolk this will be the dish that will be served.  That is however not all. I will also serve it with an actual egg. First I'll cut open the egg and add a flan to it which is a mixture of dashi and egg.  Added to it on the bottom will be a mixture of potato, chives and olive oil, which ends in a sticky mixture.  Added to it is a beurre blanc of wine, shal...

Bread is something that most people would be familiar with. We all put things on top of it and then start eating it. I was however not as familiar with the way that bread is made. I have certainly used flour, eggs and butter before, but it was mostly used for roux and emulsions. Never have I used yeast in any of my creations. This may thus very well be the first time in a long time that I created bread.  The book states that you have to create a dough that is a mixture of puff pastry and brioche. I am aware of how to create puff pastry because I have done it myself many times. Brioche pastry is something I, however never have done before.  Most who come along with the Zilte cookbook may see that the recipe for brioche bread is at the tail end of the book, but it is necessary to have this bread for the third course of the book. We are thus beginning with the end.  The first thing you have to do is roll out the butter. After rolling it out with my rolling pin this is the re...

Unlike unprepared oyster oyster au gratin is something that I never had before, so I am eager to try it.  The very first thing you have to do is chuck the oysters, cook them for 45 seconds and then to put them into freezing water, which is pretty much the thing that I did.  After that comes the sabayon of vin jaune, which is obtained in a similar way to a hollandaise, but the difference is that you are going to mount the sauce with cream instead of with butter.  There is also a step involved in which you fry shallots and celeriac followed by a grill in the oven and adding them to cooked kale.  The end result, after adding everything together, looks like this:  I think that the idea of this dish was to have an oyster filled with crispy and nutty flavours, and as simple as the idea of the dish may be I think it delivered exactly what it wanted. 

Oyster has been something that I used to prefer raw with some bread and butter on the side. There's nothing as enjoyable as the taste of sea water with something enjoyable and fairly neutral-tasting next to you. As you can imagine from my description I kind of went in panic mode at the suggestion that I would create an oyster dish that demanded preparation beyond just chucking the oyster and serving it with bread and butter, but as the first course and also the course of which I already had a lot of ingredients ready, I couldn't help but try it out.  The first thing you had to do was to chuck the oysters, separate the sea water from the meat and let them marinate in salt water, as I did there:  After that you have to mix a few ingredients into a bowl. For me, the resulting mixture looked like this:  A somewhat tricky part is the creation of the sesame emulsion, in which you mount a mixture of miso, rice vinegar and lemon juice with a mixture of oils. Those who have alread...

I decided to cook my way through the Zilte cookbook. Although it sounds difficult, if not downright insane, there is a certain fun to be had trying to challenge yourself to do and complete the recipes in something written by a three-star chef.  It is definitely true that I did try to complete the recipes in other cookbooks before this one, including one by a two-star chef (Nick Bril), but this might be the first cookbook where I'll attempt to make dishes that are served in three-star restaurants.  You learn so much by imitating the best. It is only by cooking from cookbooks that I learned about stuff like how to prepare your own emulsions, broths and how long something should cook in the oven. I'll be happy if something great comes out of it.  Having a cursory glance at the book I can tell you that it is divided into different parts. First there is an introduction by the staff. This is then followed by a collection of essays regarding the value of many different ingredien...