Tomatoes and Goats cheese, Warm Dark Chocolate and Nutmeg Powder, Raspberry and Basil Vodka.

This is a really genuinely delicious starter which is beautifully simple and effective in how the flavours marry together. The principles of this dish are pretty straight forward but you do need a little equipment (and iSi cream whipper and Nitrous Oxide) and a specialist ingredient (Tapioca Maltodextrin), both of which are cheap and easy to get hold off, and available from www.Modernist-Chef.com
I’m really happy with this dish, I had a lot of fun working on it (possibly due to extensive vodka tasting), and it has some of my favorite flavours complementing and accentuating each other but most importantly it tastes great. The tomato and goats cheese is just lovely and needs no messing with, it speaks for itself. The Chocolate and nutmeg powder works amazingly with all the other flavours of the dish and instantly turns from powder to liquid chocolate in your mouth. The Final piece of the dish, the Raspberry and Basil infused and sweetened Vodka is delicious on its own but I specifically designed it to go with this dish and it is the finishing touch that completes the starter.

Tomato and Goats Cheese

First grab a couple the best tomatoes you can get your hands on, ideally get smallish sweet tomatoes. Slice the Tomatoes to bite sized pieces and arrange them on the plate. Crumble some goats cheese over the tomatoes then simply drizzle over a good olive oil and finish with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. It’s that easy.

Raspberry and Basil Vodka

170g Fresh Raspberries
7g Dried Basil (you could use fresh basil but this will alter the flavour)
250g Vodka
100g Simple Syrup (50g water with 50g caster sugar, heated and stirred till sugar dissolves then cooled)

Place the raspberries and basil into an iSi cream whipper and pour the vodka over them. Charge the whipper with one Nitrous oxide cartridge, shake for thirty seconds, then rest the whipper for thirty seconds, now vent the nitrous and strain the liquid through muslin. This is utilizing the same ultra quick infusion technique devised by Dave Arnold that I talk about here. Take 200g of the infused Vodka and mix in 100g of the simple syrup. Serve it in a shot glass with a few 2mm cubes of tomato flesh floating in the Vodka.

Warm Dark Chocolate and Nutmeg Powder

100g Really good quality dark chocolate
One whole Nutmeg freshly grated
About 20g Tapioca Maltodextrin (Texturas Malto)
Tiny Pinch of salt

Break up the chocolate and place it in a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water. As the Chocolate begins to melt add the grated nutmeg and a small pinch of slat. Once the chocolate is melted stir to mix in the nutmeg. Now bit by bit, whilst stirring, add the Tapioca Maltodextrin until the chocolate has the look of breadcrumb consistency. Press the chocolate powder though a sieve to form a fine powder. When your ready to serve the dish heat the powder in a dry frying pan for about a minuit until you just begin to smell the chocolate scent rising from the pan, it won’t melt or alter the texture and will remain a powder which you can spoon onto the plate and as soon as it comes into contact with moisture in your mouth will instantly turn back to smooth melting chocolate on your tongue.

Cinnamon and Ginger Infused Gin and Sparkling Pressed Cox Apple Juice with a Lime and Pomegranate Froth

This is the first recipe for a drink I’ve put on the website and also my first go at doing something quite like this. The idea with this drink is that its made up of two distinct but complimentary elements – the drink and the foam. And if your thinking that a foam on a drink is an odd idea just think of beer and the contrast the head on it gives and its importance to the character of the drink. This wee taster has lovely warm flavours but absolutely needs to be served really cold to work properly.

Cinnamon and Ginger Infused Gin –
300ml Gin
30g Chopped peeled Ginger
30g Broken Cassia Bark

This infusion technique is the brain child of Dave Arnold of the French Culinary Institute (and www.cookingissues.com), and it’s a fantastic quick and easy infusion technique which eliminates some of the problems with some other methods of infusion and is so quick and fun to play with that if your anything like me you’ll compulsively want to experiment and thus end up with a ton of various infusions in bottles stashed everywhere after only a day or so of first trying this technique. You can read Dave Arnolds own fantastic description of the technique here.

So to make the infused gin simply place the Ginger and Cassia Bark into an iSi cream whipper and pour the gin in over the spices. Charge the iSi with two 8g cartridges of Nitrous oxide, gently agitate the whipper for thirty seconds then let it sit for thirty seconds before venting the gas. Now strain the now infused Gin.

To Make the Drink –
Mix 550ml Pressed Cox Apple juice with 250 ml of the infused Gin. This should give 800ml of the drink mix. Set half to one side and place the remaining 400ml of drink into the iSi whipper, charge this with 2 cartridges of Carbon dioxide to carbonate the drink. Give the whipper a gentle shake then place it the freezer to chill for about half an hour. When ready to pour the drink turn the whipper upside down and gently use the trigger to pour the drink into glasses. It should be now nice and fizzy.

Lime and Pomegranate Froth –
200ml Simple Sugar Syrup (100g Caster Sugar and 100ml water heated to combine)
150ml Water
100ml Lime juice
60ml Pomegranate Molasses
10ml Lemon Juice
3 Tablespoons Honey
3 Drops Tabasco
½ Teaspoon Tamarind Paste
Pinch Salt
6g Soy Lecithin

Blend the ingredients except the Lecithin together in a tall jug using an immersion blender until well mixed, now blend in the Lecithin. Pour the Mixture into a bowl and cover with cling film, slide the immersion blender under the clingfilm and into the liquid so that it is semi submerged at an angle and froth the mix. A light foam will form on the surface of the liquid, you can now set the mix to one side ready to spoon off the froth when ready.

Putting it together -
Having placed you carbonated Apple and infused gin drink into small glasses simply spoon a little of the Lime and Pomegranate Froth onto the top of each drink and serve.

Whippers and Chargers Available from -

www.Modernits-Chef.com

Miracle Fruit and Flavour Tripping
Turning the Sour beautifully sweet

A plate of fresh lemon and lime pieces or perhaps sipping vinegar might not sound like a tempting sweet treat but they can be if you fancy trying a little flavour tripping with the aptly named miracle fruit.

First off to put your mind at ease its worth saying Miracle fruit is absolutely natural, and its effect of making sour and acidic things taste sweet is harmless, temporary and most importantly fun and interesting.

Ok so I should basically explain what it does and how it works. Essentially whats happening when you eat miracle fruit (whether fresh, freeze dried or as extract in tablet form -see below), is that the ‘Miraculin’ (a glycoprotein molecule) found in the fruit attaches to the taste buds on our tongue, temporarily distorting our sense of taste so that sour and acidic foods are received as tasting sweet. That is our sweet taste buds are for a short period activated by sour products. The effects of Miraculin are pretty short lived and will have completely worn off after an hour maximum.

I think playing with this effect makes for a great and possibly informative food and taste experiment. Or a cool thing to do with guests after a dinner party or just with friends over drinks. So far I’ve resisted the temptation to create an incredibly sour dessert that tastes sweet after miracle fruit (maybe guest could receive and taste it as sour at first then be given miracle fruit to flip it to a sweet dish). A major reason I’ve not done any such dish so far is two-fold. 1- Its risks being over novelty based, and would it actually be good? 2- The acidity which makes many things taste sour is obviously still present in them even if they now taste sweet. And much more than relatively small amounts of acidic products is going to mess with your insides and sting you lips etc (probably not what you want from say a dessert).

The best thing I recon is just to have some fun with this and experiment abit with how it alters how things taste.
Some cool things to try tasting I’d recommend include-
Fresh Lime - Tastes amazing, slightly addictive.
Fresh Lemon - Becomes abit like lemonade or sherbet
Various Vinegars - Because you just have to try them
Blue cheese - This is odd but interesting
Any sour or sharp booze - Booze is always a good plan
Essentially anything sour is worth a go but these are a good place to start.



I found it easiest in the UK to get hold of Miracle Fruit tablets. You just let them dissolve on your tongue and leave it a couple of minuits before you start tasting, using water to cleanse your palate.
You can get hold of the tablets here - http://miracleuk.info/

Have Fun