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Part chemistry, part wizardry

Chefs use high technology to concoct culinary delights

Wasabi caviar, watermelon tartare, a smoking Manhattan – oh, my.

Liquid nitrogen, reverse spherification, immersion circulators – oh, dear.

Julia Child would not approve.

But a professional chef has to get his kicks, right? And what could be more fun than making a completely vegetarian dish look like an expensive, high-protein delicacy?

When chef-owner Sean Clark of El Moro Spirits and Tavern vacuum-seals watermelon to remove the moisture, chops it into pieces and serves it with a mango-juice egg yolk (prepared by using reverse spherification and an algem bath), customers have a hard time believing they’re not eating that hifalutin favorite, tuna tartare with a farm-raised egg yolk.

But tricking the eye while pleasing the palate is the fun of molecular gastronomy, a combination of science, food and plain old ingenuity.

“It’s a chef’s kitchen. We come up with ideas together and feed off each other,” Clark said of his experiments. “Yeah, absolutely, I’m making it up.”

He tickled partiers’ fancy at the Taste of Durango recently when he shucked oysters by submerging them in liquid nitrogen – looks cool and gets rid of the grit – and served them with wasabi caviar he made by adding a thickener and pushing the horseradish gel through an instrument intended to draw blood.

Clark says it’s easy – he got his starter kit online – but one might not want to try this at home (at least not without a fire extinguisher and medical gauze on hand). Still, you have to love a cooking method that alarms the health inspector, peeves traditionalists and impresses guests. It’s like a chemistry party trick, only with food.

And really, isn’t there something irresistible about genteelly sipping a Manhattan while cherrywood smoke billows out of your glass? That’s how they do it at the Ore House, where they use a contraption chef Ryan Lowe calls a little, cold smoking gun to smoke wood chips and then bottle the vapor. The smoke is simultaneously poured into your glass with the Manhattan, which always calls for a cherry garnish.

“There’s some theater involved in it,” the steakhouse chef admits a little sheepishly. “Part of our job is to entertain our customers, too.”

At East by Southwest, chef-owner Sergio Verduzco likes to make foams from different sauces by adding a hydrocollide thickener and whipping them with a hand blender. So, add soy lecithin to carrot juice and ginger, let stiffen and then zip to a froth. Or, create a ravioli shell from ponzu and gelatin, fill with raw tuna and taste as the ravioli explodes in your mouth.

And hard as it may be to believe, it’s not difficult or costly, Clark says. It’s not even exotic. He got started after eating some dishes using molecular gastronomy in a Chicago restaurant and wanting to try the cutting-edge techniques himself. He sources the liquid nitrogen from a welding company, the faux-caviar-making super syringe from a medical supply shop and the ever-handy immersion circulator from a restaurant supply store.

For home cooks with a secret chemist inside, the Internet is full of companies selling starter kits with gelatins, powders and molds and sites offering recipes for everything from oak moss vapor to see-through noodles to a pristinely white, perfectly square marshmallow cocktail.

But for some chefs, these high-tech techniques and imaginative contraptions are not about visual tomfoolery but professional efficiency. Several local chefs raved about immersion circulators, which can perfectly poach eggs in their shells and have them ready to serve an hour later with nothing more than a few minutes dip in hot water.

“You get a nice, even cooking,” Verduzco said. “It creates faster turnaround and more consistency for level of doneness.”

Others pay allegiance to the chamber vacuum-sealer and a cooking method called sous vide, where you place ingredients in a plastic bag, suck all the air out, then cook in water until ready to be finished on the grill or in the oven. That technique can marinate beef or chicken instantly, as well as maintaining food at the exact temperature of doneness.

But chef and co-owner Michael Lufty of Chimayo Stone Fired Kitchen is enamored of his enormous, German hi-tech combination oven. To hear him tell it, the 10-rack, 4-by-5-foot wonder does everything but garnish and serve the dish.

It’s computerized and programmable, with both steam and convection functions. It can bake tender crème brulees without a water bath, steam delicate shrimp in three minutes flat, cook pork shoulder in a humidity-controlled cabinet overnight. It can proof and bake the restaurant’s delectable brioche, steam potatoes to that just-right texture and give a piece of prime rib both a perfect crust and a succulent interior.

But want to know the absolute best thing about it, Lufty asks of the machine that costs more than a starting teacher makes in a year?

“It’s completely, completely self-cleaning,” he says.

For home cooks who lust after such a marvel, smaller versions (much smaller – think bigger than a bread box but smaller than a microwave) can be had for about $300.

Some professional chefs, of course, just don’t go there. Seasons Rotisserie & Grill executive chef David Stewart concedes molecular gastronomy and its accoutrements are cool, but they’re not his thing. And even Clark acknowledges that his tavern relies primarily on new American favorites like lamb burgers and short ribs to feed their crowd.

So don’t think we’ll get a New York City-style WD50 or a replica of Spain’s El Bulli – two restaurants famous internationally for helping to found the molecular gastronomy movement – anytime soon.

Durango is still the Wild West, and a good steak and salad with bleu cheese dressing will always be on the menu. You have to strike the right balance, local chefs say, between offering tried-and-true dishes and serving up the occasional high-tech experiment to boost your wow factor.

“It’s a blend of the old and new,” Clark said, “and the old will always be there.”

As for me, I’m on the hunt for that home combi oven. And I wonder how much counter space an immersion circulator takes up?

phasterok@durangoherald.com



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