' SWEET CIDER CLAMS in PEA DASHI SAUCE .'

Sweet Apple cider poached Clams in Pea Dashi sauce with Pea butter, Shelled sweet peas, Fennel blossom and Thai Purple Basil flowers.

                      This little taster dish taking you from the shores to the garden bed doesn't look like too much has gone into it and this would be a great misconception and in fact is an example of the way contempory cooking is going. This dish is actually quite refined in the flavours and the techniques to reach the outcome. Modernists chefs or cooks out there today instead of just grouping ingredients together are dissecting individual ingredients, pulling them apart so to speak and refining or enhancing individual elements of a particular ingredient. In this dish the humble sweet pea has been tampered with dividing the watery part of a pea from its solid starches, in doing this the sweet, grassy flavours of a pea are more enhanced as the flavour is not diluted in all the starch of a pea. When this pea water thats been extracted is then enhanced with kombu seaweed and bonito fish flakes, ( the ingredients of a dashi broth) and then vacuum sealed and allowed to impart in the pea water via a 53 deg. c. sous vide bath, the resulting taste of this pea water is just incredible. Thicken this water up to a sauce consistency and serve with Sweetened cider poached clams for a heavenly taste sensation.                                                                      
                     I began making this dish by cooking some sweet peas in boiling water until soft and tender. Once drained I cooled the peas in a chilled water bath, drained and pureed in a blender with the smallest amount of water, just enough to help the blending process. This was then placed into a cheese cloth lined colander allowing the puree to drain its liquid, towards the end the pulp was squeezed through the cloth to get the remaining pea water. This process was then repeated with the collected water another couple of times until most of the solid matter was out of the water, leaving the water a vibrant lime green colour. The solids captured in the cheese cloth was then scraped into a bowl and set aside in the fridge, this is the pea butter. This separation is done using a centrifuge in a commercial kitchen and gives a more pure result and it would be a true statement if the purist would say my primitive separation doesn't have the same effect. But for those of us that can't afford a centrifuge for home cooking can still appreciate the concept to a certain point. The pea water was then frozen solid into ice cubes before being placed into a food grade plastic pouch along with a piece of dried kombu kelp and some bonito flakes. The pouch was then vacuum sealed and placed into a 53 degree C. sous vide bath for 30 minutes allowing the dashi flavours to infuse with the now defrosted pea water. The pea dashi was then  removed from the pouch and strained into a saucepan which was then brought to a slow simmer and then removed from the heat. With a small amount I made a paste with a little arrowroot flour adding this back to the dashi and returning the saucepan to heat for a minute, whisking to thicken the sauce. The sauce was then set aside. Just before serving I placed a saucepan on a medium heat with enough sweet apple cider to cover some clams, when the cider reached a simmer I placed the clams and chopped shallots to the cider and placed a lid on the pot poaching the clams until they open up. These were then removed from the stove and using a slotted spoon placed into a small pool of the dashi sauce in the centre of the plate, Smearing some of the warmed pea butter to accompany and finishing the plate with a forage from the backyard garden adding a hint of anise with the fennel blossom bursting with fennel flavoured pollen and some tiny purple basil flowers also carrying the flavour of its origin.                                  

' 54 deg . C BANANA PRAWN in PEA WATER .'

54 degree C. Sous vide cooked Queensland Banana prawn in a Chilled Pea water & Celery juice broth with Nameko mushrooms, Charred onions, Thai basil, Pea butter & greens.

               In many styles of food over the years, the chefs, cooks, housewives of the world abroad strive to cook meals with complexity and richness in flavour, with meals displaying layers of depth. In the modernists kitchens of today meals are being prepared using a minimalist approach to ingredients but showing execution of great techniques in showcasing these few ingredients and enhancing them. This dish is a good example of bringing out the raw flavours of each ingredient. The onions have been sauteed and caramelised to bring out the sweetness of the onion, the prawn was cooked in a 54 degree C. sous vide water bath with only butter and garlic to accompany. This allowed the prawn to cook evenly trapped in its own juices. I've seen the pea water prepared a little different to mine, with the use of a centrifuge, pea puree is spun at 1200 g's separating the liquid from the solid. My way still requires a pea puree but then this is manually passed several times through a cheese cloth filter. This technique removes the starch from the pea and it is starch which inhibits the body from tasting sweetness. So with most of the starch removed, it leaves the pea water tasting sweeter than the original whole peas used.
              I began by making the juices needed for the pea and celery water, first I put a pot of peas on the boil and roughly chopped celery into chunks. One serving requires 15 g of pea water and 5 g of celery juice so be sure not to over do it. I juiced the celery and ran it through a cloth filter several times before pouring into a glass jar and placing in the fridge to be chilled. Once the peas were cooked I drained them placing into the blender with some cold water and forming a puree. This was then ran through a cloth filter several times and poured into a jar before placing in the fridge to chill. While these were chilling I prepared the prawns in food safe plastic pouches along with a little butter and some garlic paste. This was then vacuum sealed with the food-saver and placed into a 54 degree c. sous vide water bath for 12 minutes. The pouch was then removed and placed directly into an ice water bath and the into the fridge to chill. In a skillet I quickly sauteed some nameko mushrooms and pearl onions before removing. I sliced the onions in half and returned them to a hot skillet face down to caramelise.
            To plate a placed 5 g of filtered celery juice and 15 g of pea water into the base of the bowl. In the centre of this I placed the sous vide prawn topped with pea greens and arranged the nameko mushrooms, micro purple thai basil leaves, charred onions and the pea butter around the edge of bowl.