Mushroom Swiss Burger, Starch Infused Fries, and Strawberry Milkshake

For such a long time, I looked at the impossible burger from Modernist Cuisine and thought, "huh, I wonder what it tastes like"? Turns out, it's pretty epic - but we'll get to that - more on this journey first. I've got a day job and essentially zero training as a chef (minus a comical stage at alinea) and was deterred by thoughts that it would take so much planning, going out and buying stuff, online purchases, calling butchers, and a ridiculous amount of actual cookery to do it. But the thought lingered for a long time... and shortly after I finally picked up the last piece of equipment I'd need to make it (a chambered vacuum sealer), I pulled trigger and decided it was time to go for it.

I figured that I should have some sides or something, so I decided I'd do the strawberry milkshake with dry ice and starch infused fries to go with it... I was already making dinner anyways so why not, right?

Epic Roast Chicken, Potato Puree, and Swiss Chard Stems

About two weeks after the release of Modernist Cuisine at Home, I got to see Nathan Myhrvold speak at Harvard's science + cooking course. There, he laid out the classic problem with whole roast chicken: either you can have well cooked meat OR crispy skin, but that the two are pretty much mutually exclusive. Then he put up a giant photo of a raw chicken surrounded by about 5 or 6 syringes and said something to the effect of "this is what I'd do".

He later pointed out that the best solution was to disassemble the chicken, separate the skin, cook all of the parts separately, then reattach the skin later... obviously a reference to using some good ol' fashioned meat glue! Just like mom used to make! Oh, and as a quick aside: when I picked up some meat glue for the first time a few months ago, I found out that it comes with a very ominous warning label reading, "handle this product the same way you would any other powdered enzyme". Ohhhh, of course. I feel so much safer eating this now. For my sake, hopefully the handling procedure for those other powdered enzymes is by putting on some nitrile gloves and crossing your fingers. I digress - back to the chicken.

Seared Pork Chop with Blood Orange and Shaved Fennel Salad

So I know its been a minute since my last post but I was on vacation! In Miami! Woooooo! Okay, so maybe I'm from Miami, but I never let that stop me from pretending like I'm not. After working a few hours more than usual, I wasn't really in the mood to make something too elaborate or complicated - so this is something more in the style of what I would do on a regular night.