Day 12: Grand Aoili, Mushroom Toasts, Cultured Butter, and Creme Brûlée

First things first: Aoli is not a method, it’s not an umbrella term for different types of dressings. It refers to one particular recipe and ratio of ingredients:

• 2 cups of mild oil (olive oil, though not extra virgin, or canola), 2 egg yolks, pinch of salt and 1-2 cloves of garlic

If you’re making something that has other ingredients (say, herbs or spices) then its a mayonnaise, which IS an umbrella term for a sauce generally made with oil and egg yolks

Method:

• Crush your garlic. If you sprinkle the salt directly onto the garlic, it will help break it down and crush much more easily. Salt takes a long time to absorb into your sauce, so you’ll want to incorporate this early - if you wait until the end, you won’t be able to taste it and then you may end up adding too much.
• Get a bowl, a pot, 2 towels and a whisk ready. Place one towel below the pot, one towel in the pot, and then place the bowl in the pot. The towels help steady so that when you’re vigorously whisking, stuff doesn’t skid all over the place
• Start whisking your eggs with the salt garlic mixture. After incorporated, drizzle the oil in drop by drop - teeny drops are critical! If you add too much oil, you won’t get a stable emulsion and it will break. You’re trying to get the molecules from the egg and oil to incorporate fully, and starting slow is critical to that happening.
• Once the texture of your mixture becomes smoother and stable (typically after adding about ½ cup of oil) you can start to drizzle in the olive oil more rapidly.

• If your aoili starts to get too thick, you can add a few drops of water in it.
• If your aoili does break, get a new bowl and add one egg yolk. Start to incorporate your broken aoili into the new egg yolk mixture drop by drop, like you did the oil. Once that’s fully incorporated, start adding the oil back in slowly and you should have a more steady emulsion.

This aoli is broken! See how its streaky?

Hard boiled eggs

Perfectly jammy hard boiled eggs

Some tricks for the easiest hard boiled eggs!

• Don’t use super fresh eggs - you won’t be able to peel them
• Use room-temperature eggs
• Bring water up to a boil and pop the room-temp eggs into the water for 7 ½ minutes
• While eggs are cooking, get an ice bath ready
• When eggs are done, place them in an ice bath for 30 seconds, or until cool enough to handle. Crack the egg and then place back into the ice bath to cool fully. The water will enter the crack in the egg and separate the peel, so that its easier to remove!

In class, we used the aoili in a delicious lunch called Grand Aoili - this is a French dish that is just simple vegetables dipped in aoili. We made blanched green beans, steamed beets, boiled potatoes, grilled endives, and our hard boiled eggs, all just seasoned slightly with salt (and in some cases pepper).

Tips for plating: keep it natural, and let the beets sit where they fall!

Grand Aoili!

Mushroom Ragu

We also made a fabulous mushroom ragu, which we served over toasts with a little watercress for garnish and freshness. Would also be delicious worked into a risotto, or over pasta. You could do this without the porcinis, but it will have less mushroom flavor.

Serves 6:

Ingredients:

• ½ oz dried porcini
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 pounds fresh mushrooms (can use any kind!)
• 2 oz butter (4 tbsp)
• 2 tbsp shallots brunoise (fancy term for finely diced shallots)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Salt and pepper
• 6 slices nice bread (french bread, sourdough, pain au levain, etc)
• 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp minced garlic

Method:

• Rinse porcini and place in a saucepan with the chicken stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 30 minutes. Strain the stock through a cloth/ coffee filter; rinse porcini and chop roughly
• Trim fresh mushrooms and cut into halves (or quarters if large). Melt butter in a large saute pan and brown the mushrooms over high heat. You want a skillet that will fit all the mushrooms snuggly but without being crowded.

• When all mushrooms are browned, remove and saute shallots in the same pan over low heat, adding more butter if necessary
• When shallots are soft but not brown, add strained stock, chopped porcini, cream and any liquid from the sauteed mushrooms and simmer to reduce. Add the sauteed mushrooms and reheat in sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper

• Toast or grill the bread and spoon mushrooms on top. Mix parsley and garlic and sprinkle over the mushrooms

Cultured Butter

Cultured butter is just made with cream that has had a culture (like buttermilk, or yogurt) added to it. You'll want to let the cream sit overnight so that the cultures can start to grow a bit. But then, make it just like you would butter! The only difference: the buttermilk left over from the end is actually now like the buttermilk you would find at the store, ready for you to eat or cook!

Also, cream that has a culture added to it is just creme fraiche! 

Creme Brûlée

Creme Brûlée is one of my all time favorite desserts so I was super excited to make this. The method is similar to Creme Caramel, except Creme Caramel includes the whole egg - the white has more protein in it than the yolk, so that helps the creme caramel hold together when it comes out of the ramekin.

Creme Brûlée, however, is *just* egg yolks. This keeps it really creamy but means it wont hold itself together if you tried to take it out of its baking dish.

Also! If you do multiple layers of sugar withe the torch, you’ll get an shatteringly crispy crust!

Ingredients:

• 6 egg yolks
• ¼ cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups heavy cream
• Generous ½ tsp of vanilla extra (would also personally recommend the whole vanilla bean)
• More sugar for caramelizing

Kitchen Tools:

• Pot
• Metal bowl
• Mesh strainer
• 6 ramekins
• Baking dish
• blowtorch!

Method:

• Whisk egg yolks with ¼ cup sugar and salt until just mixed.
• Heat heavy cream to a simmer, and pour slowly into egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly, so as not to curdle your eggs!
• Add vanilla and strain
• Preheat oven to 300 degrees
• Pour custard into 6 4 oz ramekins, place in a baking dish and pour boiling water into the dish two thirds up the way of the sides of the ramekins.
• Cover with a layer of saran wrap and then tin foil (saran wrap will help keep the steam in, and plastic is fine up to about 325 degrees) and then place in the oven for about ~20 minutes - the custard is done when it’s just set, with a slight jiggle in the center. Remove from water and cool completely. Chill for at least 1-2 hours
• Spread an even layer of sugar on top of each custard. Avoid getting sugar on the sides of the ramekins, because that will burn - wipe the edges if you get any on there.
• Blowtorch that sugar!
• Repeat with additional layers of sugar and torching