Aki Kamozawa - Maximum Flavour: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

First published in the United States by Clarkson Potter Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

This edition published in 2014 by Hardie Grant Books

Hardie Grant Books (Australia)
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Hardie Grant Books (UK)
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.

Copyright 2013 by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au
Maximum Flavour
eISBN 9781743581780

BOOK DESIGN: Laura Palese

WE LOVE TO PLAY WITH FOOD. In fact, we love it so much that weve made careers out of it. When we cooked professionally, we started experimenting in our free time, teaching ourselves new approaches and embracing innovation to make food taste better. We eventually made the jump to opening our own business and now consult with restaurants and companies big and small to help them solve kitchen conundrums and think more creatively about cooking.

As a result, youll find lots of kitchen science in these pages. When, years ago, we became fascinated by figuring out the hows and whys of what happens in the kitchen, we started chronicling our adventures on our website and blog, Ideas in Food. Modern cooking, aka molecular gastronomy, has inspired many chefs and cooks to explore new ideas in the kitchen, which is always a good thing. But some of its techniques can be too over-the-top for most home cookslike using liquid nitrogen to freeze ice cream. So in this book we focus exclusively on recipes that can help home cooks make better meals every day. And while there are many cool things you can do with food, were only ever interested in the tricks and techniques that help deliver maximum flavour.

Often well take a standard recipe and see if we can improve it by experimenting with different ways to prepare it. When you make , which also break some culinary rules; contrary to popular belief, burgers cook more quickly and evenly if you flip them regularly.

We also use pantry ingredients strategically to maximise flavour. It turns out that the secret to the best ).

In many recipes, we take advantage of common kitchen equipment that home cooks may otherwise overlook. Take the microwave. This often-maligned machine is actually very useful. We put it to use in making cheese ).

We want Maximum Flavour to be a helpful kitchen guide and a source of inspiration. So not only does each recipe offer some sort of insight into how food works and how you can make it taste better, but, throughout the book, weve also included sidebars with discussions on topics such as gluten-free mixes for baking, how to balance salty and sweet flavours and what fermentation is and how it makes sourdough so deliciousall to help inform your day-to-day cooking.

Youll find that measurements in the ingredients lists are given in standard volume measurements and also by weight in grams. The volume measurements are the ones that most home cooks are more comfortable with and we want everyone to cook from this book. That said, using the gram measurements will provide the most accuracy and we strongly encourage the use of a scale for all of the recipes with an emphasis on baking; volume measurements for ingredients such as flour, cornflour and icing sugar vary greatly as the ingredients tend to get packed down in their containers.

We hope that Maximum Flavour gives you lots of interesting ideas and helpful information to boost your own kitchen creativity. The recipes in this book can be adapted and altered to suit your own palate and the techniques can be applied to other dishesthe handy freezer shucking tip in the recipe just may make cooking quick seafood dishes on a weeknight more of a reality in your house, too.

BACON & DEVILLED EGGS

CLASSIC DEVILLED EGGS ARE ALWAYS A FAVOURITE, BUT THEY can be a challenge to pull off perfectly every time. We prefer the technique of steaming eggs to hard cooking them, because it gives consistent results with the added benefit of making the eggs easier to peelmeaning you can say goodbye forever to that green tinge around the yolk and also to whites that are pitted and unattractive to set out. The smoked tea brine bath seasons the eggs after theyre cooked and makes them look beautiful and festive. Leftover pickle (gherkin) juice (or olive brine) is often thoughtlessly discarded but makes an inspiring addition to dishes such as this one. The glazed bacon is crisp, sweet, spicy and the perfect accent to the creamy eggs.

MAKES 24 DEVILLED EGGS

DEVILLED EGGS

12 large eggs

4 cups / 907 grams cranberry juice

15 grams Lapsang Souchong tea (about 6 tea bags)

1 tablespoon / 18 grams fine sea salt

cup / 100 grams mayonnaise

1 tablespoon / 14 grams Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon / 14 grams sweet pickle (gherkin) juice

2 tablespoons / 43 grams red pepper jelly

GLAZED BACON

6 slices bacon

cup / 85 grams red pepper jelly

COOK AND BRINE THE EGGS: Set a stovetop steamer over high heat and bring the water to a boil. Put the eggs in the steamer basket, add them to the pot, cover and steam the eggs for 14 minutes. While the eggs are steaming, prepare an ice water bath. When the eggs are cooked, transfer them to the ice water and let cool for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the cranberry juice, tea and salt, stirring until the salt is dissolved.

Take the eggs out of the ice water and use the back of a spoon to uniformly crack the shells all over without piercing the eggs or removing any of the shell. Put the cracked eggs into the brine and put another bowl on top of the eggs to keep them submerged. Refrigerate the eggs for 48 hours.

After 48 hours, take the eggs out of the brine and peel them, discarding the shells. Halve each egg lengthwise. Remove the yolks and set the whites aside. In a small food processor, combine the egg yolks, mayonnaise, mustard and pickle juice and puree until smooth. Scoop the devilled egg mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a star-shaped nozzle and put the bag in the refrigerator.