Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef: Announcing They Go Really Well Together #18 - Plum And Blue Cheese

Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef: Announcing They Go Really Well Together #18 - Plum And Blue Cheese

TGRWT #18: Plums and gorgonzola chip cookies in a sandwich shape!

Since I discovered foodpairing, I started reading a lot of recipes with amazing combinations. A few days ago, in the blog of Martin Lersch, Blog.khymos, I read there was a round of TGRWT that means "they go really well together" and the challenge was to make a dessert with plums and blue cheese. I got excited about this idea, so today I bought gorgonzola cheese and other ingredients, I got the plums from the garden of one of my friends, organic yellow-green sicilian plums and went back home to make a dessert for lunch. The result was amazing, a great combination, a great dessert, I attach here pictures and recipe:

Plums and gorgonzola chip cookies in a sandwich shape

Ingredients
A) For chip cookies (My version)
140 grams of flour (type OO)
60 grams of unsalted butter
30 grams of water
1 egg
B) For Gorgonzola cream
100 grams of Gorgonzola cheese (italian sweet type)
4 spoons of milk
C) For plums marmalade
5 plums (yellow-green ones)
70 grams of white sugar

Directions
A) For chip cookies (My version)
Mix all the ingredients A until they are well mixed and keep storing for 1 hour. Then make with hands chip cookies and put them in a oven at 180 °C for 25 minutes around.
B) For Gorgonzola cream
Cut Gorgonzola cheese in little pieces and put them in a bowl, then add 4 spoons of milk and mix until you have a smooth cream.
C) For plums marmalade
Cut plums in little pieces and put them in a pan, add sugar, mix and heat up slowly for 20 minutes around or until they appear soft and gelee.
D) Final composition
Put Plums marmalade and Gorgonzola cream between two chip cookies and put all in the oven at 180 °C for 10 minutes.
Then...This is what you will eat...

Walking under the foodpairing trees

Last saturday I joined a group of friends in a place in which there was a show in which you had to answer to some questions about several topics, from literature to science. During the game there was this question: how does it taste an high concentrated solution of saccharin? First of all, remembering saccharin is an artificial sweetener, the answer came out of my mind was "exteremely sweet", but the right one was: bitter. By searching how this molecule could work and give different senses by changing only concentration of it, I found the mechanism is not yet really well explained. Anyway, reading and reading, searching and searching about chemistry of senses, I arrived under the foodpairing tree and it was a great emotion!
Foodpairing bases on the fact the food combine well when they have most of the flavor compounds in common. There is a website in which it is possible to find these foodpairing trees in which are amazing combinations between really different or distant food. A food product has a distinctive flavor because of a specific combination of different flavor compounds. In this way it is possible to build up the flavor of any food, by combining different food. You can have a look at this website to find beautiful combinations: Foodpairing
Happy food to everyone!

Jellyfish salad, when the denaturation of proteins works!

Yesterday I read in one of the italian newspaper that groups of chinese people along the italian coasts from Tuscany to Sicily rent pedalò early in the morning to go fishing jellyfish they use to cook fried or to make a salad. It is interesting to see how one of the cultural differences between asian and mediterranean food could be used to write an article for a national newspaper, by the way, it is interesting to investigate at the same time how to cook jellyfish and if it is safe! Generally jellyfish are considered dangerous marine creatures and there are some of these jellyfish like the so called "box jellyfish" living out of the australian coasts that can kill humans within minutes! This is why only a few species are good to be cooked. Generally some of the species we have in the mediterranean sea are good to be cooked. Jellyfish are amongst the most fragile and simple creatures in the oceans. Only 5% of their body mass is made up of solid organic matter. They do not have any specialized systems for digestion, reproduction or defense. The survival of the jellyfish depends upon their venom apparatus. It helps them procure their food and keeps large predators at bay. The venom apparatus of the jellyfish consists of numerous nematocysts along their tentacles and oral arms. These nematocysts are hollow and capsule like. Inside these hollow capsules is a thread which is tightly coiled. The venom of the jellyfish is trapped within this thread. Depending upon the species of the jellyfish, the number of nematocysts, their location and the toxicity of the venom will vary. The jellyfish does not have a brain to control this venom apparatus. The nerve receptacles of a rudimentary nervous system are equipped to sense as well as react to external stimuli. They can sense changes in light, odor, pressure, etc. When the tentacle of the jellyfish comes in contact with any hard surface, the nervous system immediately triggers the venom apparatus. The nematocysts burst open and the thread within begin to uncoil. They are then shot forward and they lodge themselves in the flesh of their victim or prey and inject the venom into them. This is how a jellyfish stings.
Jellyfish use their sting to paralyze or kill small creatures that they can eat as food. On the other hand, when faced by an attack by a large predator, they use their sting to paralyze them to get enough time to escape. When humans enter the same waters as the jellyfish, the jellyfish just reacts to the human presence in the same way as it would react to the presence of a predator.
So How to cook them?? The venom of the jellyfish is a protein type toxin and it could be inactivated by common processes that we use for the "denaturation of proteins", that is the desctruction of any secondary or tertiary structure of the protein itself and that is responsible for its biological activity. Hence, temperature, pH, presence of some metal cations can do this work. You can soak jellyfish in hot water and change it several times, or treat it with salt and alum, or soak a with vinegar solution. Then you can cut it in small pieces and prepare a salad or prepare it to fry! Here a nice thai recipe for a jellyfish salad:

YAM MAENG KAPHRUN
INGREDIENTS
2 cups jellyfish, cleaned and cut bite-sized
1/2 thinly sliced onion
2 thinly sliced shallots
8-10 crushed hot chillies
1 tsp. thinly sliced red spur chillies
1 1/2 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tbsp. lime juice

PREPARATION
1. Immerse the jellyfish in boiling water then remove and immediately plunge into cold water for a few moment. After removing from the water, drain. Thia will give the jellyfish the right munchy texture.
2. Toss the jellyfish with the onion, shallot, and chillies, seasoning to taste with fish sauce and lime juice. Put onto a plate on which lettuce has been arranged and decorate with slices of red spur chilli.

Some chemical cocktails!

Here a video with an example how the same metal can form complexes with different colors depending on the ligands and coordination number! The same heart, but different colors! Life is always on!

Funny things: the elephant toothpaste!

One of the most important tools chemists have to explain chemistry is the experiment. Generally, teaching to young students is really hard, so funny experiments are important to attract them to our science. It is great to have the possibility to find a lot of funny experiments on Internet. By chance I found this beautiful experiment explains the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, the role of catalysts in chemical reactions. Here there is a simple and safe recipe.
Materials:
• 125ml 6% Hydrogen Peroxide (also labelled 20Vol)
• 1 Sachet Dry Yeast (powder) + 4 tablespoons of warm water
• Detergent
• Food colours – optional (not cochineal)
• Empty bottle
• Funnel
• Plastic tray or tub
• Dishwashing gloves
• Safety goggles
* 6% Hydrogen peroxide (20Vol) is available in 400ml bottles from most retail chemists and cosmetics suppliers and some supermarket
Instructions:
1) Put the dry yeast in a cup, add 4 tablespoons of warm water and stir untill is well mixed
2) Put hydrogen peroxide (use the funnel), the detergent and some food colours into the empty bottle
3) Pour the yeast solution into the bottle, you will start seeing the production of foam quickly! The excess of the foam will pour out of the bottle!!!

Something on toxin analysis!

To complete the previous post, I wanna add this video in which it is described a method of mycotoxins analysis, happy days to all of you!

Take me there again some day!

In the previous post I talked about chilli peppers and how to make a good chilli peppers extra virgin olive oil. One of the most important steps is to dry the chilli peppers under the sun and to do it as quick as possible. One problem could be the growth of some fungi that can produce as secondary metabolites toxins, called mycotoxins. Most fungi are aerobic (use oxygen) and are found almost everywhere in extremely small quantities due to the minute size of their spores. They consume organic matter wherever humidity and temperature are sufficient. One mold species may produce many different mycotoxins and/or the same mycotoxin as another species. Major groups of these mycotoxins include aflatoxins, ochratoxin, patulin, fusarium toxins. Most official control methods all over the world are based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and it explains the important role of the chemist. There are several methods to prevention of the growth of these fungi and/or the decontamination of mycotoxins from food. How to prevent growth and invasion of pathogenic fungi in agricultural commodities is very important in preventing mycotoxin contamination. The inhibition of fungal growth as well as the decontamination of mycotoxins can be achieved by physical, chemical and biological treatments. Chemical treatment has been used as the most effective means for the removal of mycotoxins from contaminated commodities. The method should be sure that the detoxification system is capable of converting the toxin to a nontoxic derivative (s) without deleterious change in the raw product. Many common chemicals have been brought to test the effectiveness in detoxification of aflatoxin. These chemicals include the followings:

* acetic acid
* ammonia gas or ammonia solutions or ammonium salts, 3-5%
* calcium hydroxide
* hydrogen peroxide
* ozone gas
* phosphoric acid
* sodium bicarbonate
* sodium bisulfite
* sodium hydroxide
* sodium hypochlorite

The chemical reactions of detoxification of aflatoxin are primary addition of the double bond of the furan ring and oxidation involving phenol formation and opening of the lactone ring. Of course among the chemical treatments, a good recipe could be to wash the fruits or vegetables, firstly with water/acetic acid from vinegar, then with a solution of sodium bicarbonate and at the end with a water solution containing some active substances that produce chlorine, like Amuchina solutions.
In any case we have to remember the prevention starts during the growth of crops, then in pre-harvest and harvest time!

Chilling out!

I am relaxing in these summer days and reading a lot. Yesterday I read an article on a recent congress about chemistry in food. It is interesting how amazing is the contribute of chemistry and chemists to the safety but also the creativity of any food. Today I would like to talk about capsaicinoids, and particularly about capsaicin, the molecule that is the cause of burning sensation in chilli peppers. Of all the capsaicinoids, only two compounds are responsible for 80-90% content of pepper, these are capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin. Different concentrations of capsaicinoids give different pungencies and this therefore is the reason why some peppers are hotter than others. Capsaicinoids come from a larger family of chemicals called the vanilloids. The only difference between capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin is the presence of a carbon-carbon double bond. The amount of these capsaicinoids depends on the harvest time and the variety of peppers. Wilbur Scoville developed a tool of measuring pepper ‘hotness’. He found some ‘mad’ volunteers to taste chilli powders on their own. The powders were then diluted down using sugar and water until they no longer burned the taster’s mouths. The more sugar that had to be added, the hotter the pepper. For example bell peppers were measured to be about 100 Scoville units, whilst the hottest known pepper was 577,000. Pure capsaicin has a value of 16 million Sc.units. Capsaicin is soluble in fats and oils but not in water. Therefore milk, ice cream and peanut butter can calm the pepper whilst water will spread the flames!
In Italy it is used the well known "olio piccante", which is extra virgin olive oil in which it was infused crunched chilli pepper. To make it, observe these points:
1) Dry chilli peppers under the sun, by checking them often (it is better to do it during the summer when it is hot and they can be dried in a few days).
2) Crunch them in little pieces.
3) Put a cup at the bottom of a cleaned glass bottle.
4) Fill up with pure extra virgin olive oil.
5) Filter after 2 weeks.
Chill out now!!