Day 9: Palate Push-Ups
Liquid nitrogen and parsley nitro-shots, well I never!
I walk, like some weirdly dressed cocktail waitress, smoke billowing from the canister, around the kitchen towards my station shouting “Quemo! Quemo mucho!”
I burn, I burn mucho!
“Quemo! Quemo mucho!” I shout the warning out to other chefs in the kitchen as I walk past them holding the canister in front of me, “I burn, I burn mucho!”
Or should it be I freeze mucho? For in the canister, I’m carrying is liquid nitrogen.
Liquid nitrogen, with a boiling point of minus -195.8 °C, will freeze practically anything on contact.
Put your finger in this canister and the live tissue will freeze, go rock solid and fall off.
So, I’ll avoid that.
Instead, I’ll drop parsley oil into it.
As the parsley oil droplets hit the LN2, they will instantly freeze into tiny green spheres and form parsley nitro-shots.
Parsley nitro-shots. Well, I never. How did I get here? From sweaty dojos to parsley nitro-shots? I’m not quite sure … but here I am none the less.
It’s day 9 of a 100-Day Chef Stage and I’m working alongside one of Spain’s best chefs, Maria Jose San Roman.
Owner of El Monastrell restaurant, Maria Jose is a chef who likes to push the boundaries with saffron/olive oil ice cream, and manchego foam kinder eggs.
It’s no surprise she’s experimenting with liquid nitrogen.
Nitro-cooking. The science is fascinating.
Liquid nitrogen is incredibly cold and it will freeze food on contact; the cold having a similar effect on food as heating - it removes the water content.
This allows chefs to change texture, as well as temperature of food - berries can be transformed to dust, herbs can be powdered and ice cream can be made instantly.
Whisk a flavoured cream base with LN2 and you’ll get the smoothest, silkiest of ice creams; the super fast freezing process means smaller ice crystals.
Heston Blumenthal, a nitro-cooking pioneer, found he could use liquid nitrogen on just about anything. So, he did and created bacon and egg ice-cream. Like you do.
Quickly, I realise this isn’t one to try at home.
As much as pulling off instant ice-cream at my next dinner party appeals, the reality would be I’d probably lose a finger, or blow the house apart or asphyxate.
Insulated vacuum jacketed pressure containers are needed to store LN2.
It can’t be sealed, as pressure builds and builds until … boom! One cubic foot of liquid nitrogen expands to 700 cubic feet of gas.
And it must be used in well ventilated conditions. As it vaporises, it displaces the oxygen in the air, making it difficult for any humans around to breathe, leading to unconsciousness and death.
I know I often say I’d die for an ice-cream but.
Back to the task, and I pour the liquid nitrogen, ever so carefully, into a bowl.
Next, I take a syringe, pull back the plunger, the barrel fills up with green emulsified parsley oil.
Then, drop by drop, I let the oil fall into the liquid nitrogen below.
Vapour spills out over the bowl, evaporating around my hands, in a cool misty waterfall.
In mili-seconds, the droplets have frozen into dark green beads. Nitro-shots!
Amazing! But it begs the question, why?
“It’s a palate cleanser,” María José tells me.
The purpose of these parsley nitro-shots are to reset your palate, so you can fully appreciate more flavours in the dish.
It appears these cold, little green balls have a big job to do.
Palate cleansers (wine, sorbet, citrus) help us distinguish new flavours by cleaning the mouth of residual tastes.
And we are all capable of tasting much more if we train our palate but only if you give it a good work out.
A bit like going to the culinary gym. Palate push-ups, if you like.
And just like at the gym if you repeat the same old exercises, then you will develop the same old muscles.
To improve you need to bombard those taste receptors with new ingredients and cuisines.
The more you train your palate, the more it improves. But the more options you give it, the more intelligent it becomes.
The trick is to taste consciously. Concentrate on recognising and identifying the new flavours in your mind.
“You must always taste new ingredients and be asking yourself what is that? and that? and that?” Maria Jose tells me.
I peer back into the metal bowl - all the liquid nitrogen has now vaporised.
A quick look around at my colleagues and good news - they are all still breathing and alive.
It’s taken some time, but I now have a tub full of small green parsley nitro-shots to store in the freezer until service.
They are added to a bowl of hot of leek and tuna ventresca soup.
Do they work?
While I’ve been training my muscles at the gym for as long as I care to remember, training my palate is a whole new ball game for me.
It’s time to do some palate push-ups. So I dip in a spoon, to taste these nitro-shots and answer the all important question.
Do these tiny, expensive, time consuming green balls work?
I have to admit, I think they do.
Clean and grassy, the parsley cuts through the fatty tuna-belly but what surprises me and my mouth the most is the cold.
The bursts of freezing cold against the hot soup shocks and refreshes.
A kind of taste-bud wake up call.
Want to join me on this journey?
For the next 100 Days I’m staging in Spanish Michelin star restaurants. In the next episode, things get delicious. I learn how to make torrijas (eggy bread.)
If you want to join me for the next episode, add your email to the list. It’s free!
The journey so far:
Very interesting. I would have loved to have seen a photo of the Parsley Nitro-shots and the Manchego Cheese Kinder Eggs. Perhaps you weren't allowed to. Secret, innovative stuff I'm sure. By the way, I suppose it is extremely difficult to reserve a table at the Monastrell Restaurant. We're coming down Alicante way for the December short break. Sxx