Jason Logsdon - Modernist Cooking Made Easy: Infusions: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Flavorful Infusions Using Modernist and Traditional Techniques

From tea and French press coffee to flavored vinegars and oils and even many traditional soda pops, infusions have always been a part of our daily lives. Now they are becoming more and more prevalent as many talented bartenders and chefs are creating custom infusions for use in both cocktails and food.

These infusions can be used in unique and novel ways but they all stem from the same process, transferring flavor from herbs, spices, and other flavoring agents into a liquid. Exploring this process allows you to create many wonderful dishes, from custom cocktails and personalized sodas to flavorful vinaigrettes and sauces.

There are many different ways to create infusions but several modernist techniques turn the process from a multi-day, or multi-month, process into one that can be accomplished in just a few hours or even minutes.

This book covers the basics of what an infusion actually is, as well as how to create them through both the traditional, time-based process and the modernist methods of using a whipping siphon, sous vide, and fat washing.

Creating infusions is fun and easy and you will master this process in no time by using the more than 100 recipes in this book spread across infused alcohols, vinegars, food, soda, and water. There are also more than 50 recipes focused on using the resulting infusions in cocktails, vinaigrettes, shrubs, sauces, foams, gels, and spheres.

The bulk of this book is the more than 150 recipes it contains. Feel free to skim the recipes looking for something that inspires you, or turn to a specific method section to learn how that method can be used to make infusions. I have provided images of many of the infusions and finished dishes but for larger, full color images you can go to:

MCMeasy.com/InfusionsGallery

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An infusion is both the process of, and the result of, extracting flavors from food into a liquid. This is usually done by soaking the food in the liquid for a long period of time. The liquid is typically water, alcohol, oil, or vinegar and can be hot or cold. The infusion process also works both ways, with the food taking on some of the flavors of the liquid.

Infusions originally were used for several purposes including preserving food over the winter. Fruits and berries could be placed in alcohol or vinegar and they would go much longer without spoiling. People noticed that in addition to preserving the food, the liquid the food was stored in took on the flavors of the items being preserved and tasted much better. Eventually infusions began to be a way to flavor liquids instead of just preserving foods.

There are two main components to infusions, the liquid or food to be infused, and the flavoring agent. The two components are combined together and the flavors from the two meld into each other, leaving an infused liquid or food behind.

A simple example is infusing mint into vodka. The mint is the flavoring agent and the vodka is the liquid to be infused. If you take a handful of mint leaves and cover them in vodka you have started the infusion process. As the mint sits in the vodka, the alcohol slowly leeches out the flavors, aromatics, and essential oils from the mint, resulting in a mint-flavored vodka.

The flavor of the liquid also penetrates the food being preserved in it. In the mint example, this isn't helpful due to the mild flavor of vodka, but some infusions result in both a flavored liquid and a flavored solid at the end, like ruminfused raisins or Luxardo maraschino cherries.

Infusions can be made with either hot or cold liquids. The higher the temperature, the faster the infusion is made, though typically the bitter components are pulled out faster as well. In an open system such as a pot on the stove, many of the aromatics can be released into the air due to the heat, where they are lost, resulting in a less flavorful infusion. Using a closed system such as a Ziploc bag or Mason jar prevents this from happening.

Temperature also greatly affects how quickly the various flavor compounds are pulled out of the flavoring agents. Different flavors are extracted at different temperatures so varying the temperature will have an impact on the final flavor profile. The longer the liquid is infused for, and the hotter it is, the stronger and more bitter the resulting infusion will be.

The speed of the infusion also depends on the type of liquid being infused. For example, high proof alcohol pulls flavor out much more quickly than oil does. In general, alcohol is the best infusion liquid because ethanol is a natural solvent and quickly pulls essential oils out of flavoring agents.

Another determining factor in infusions that is normally ignored is pressure. The higher the pressure used, and the faster it is released, the more quickly the infusion takes place and the more flavor is extracted. The whipping siphon is the main piece of equipment used to control the pressure, though there are other ways of controlling the pressure including a vacuum chamber, a chambered vacuum sealer, and instant marinating containers.

Infusing results in a more even distribution than muddling or mixing does. It also pulls out more nuanced flavors over time.