Recipe: Chilled Ginger Carrot Soup

This recipe is one of my favorite summer time soups. It is great to serve for an outdoor dinner party with a nice Pinot Grigio or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. If you can find Whitehaven S.B. it will pair up beautifully due to the intense grapefruit flavor profile of the wine.

Ginger & Carrot Soup
Yields 6 servings

Vegetable Stock Ingredients:

3 each Carrots
3 each Stalks of Celery
1 each Apple
1 each Onion

Ingredients:
3 lbs Carrots (Peeled and cut into 1/4" pieces)
1 each Yellow onion (diced)
2 Quarts Vegetable stock
2 Cups Orange Juice
3 Tbs Grated Ginger
3 Tbs Lemongrass (Smashed and Chopped)
1 Each Kaffir Lime Leaf (if not available make without)
2 ounces Light Olive Oil
6 Each 16/20 Shrimp (Peeled and Deveined)

Method:

Start the vegetable stock by adding the carrots, celery, apple, onion into a pot. Fill the pot with 1 gallon of cold water and place it on the stove. Allow the stock to come to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Let the stock simmer for about 30 minutes. Strain immediately and set aside.

Blanch the shrimp in boiling water for 2 minutes or until they are firm. Rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process and cut the shrimp in half lengthwise. Hold the shrimp in the refrigerator until the soup is ready to be served.

To start the soup you need to peel and cut the carrots. Preheat the same pot that you used for the stock and add some olive oil. Add your diced onions and sauté with the ginger, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf then add the carrots and cover the vegetables with the stock and orange juice. Bring it to a boil and turn it down slightly.

When the carrots are tender you will want to add them to a blender to puree. If necessary add some extra stock to thin it down. Season with salt and pepper. Allow the soup to cool. If you want you can prepare a day in advance.

Float 2 pieces of the shrimp on the soup and garnish with a cilantro sprig.

Enjoy!!

Please browse our website for beautiful bowls to serve this wonderful summer-time soup.

The Rise of Molecular Gastronomy

What is molecular gastronomy? Wikipedia defines it as " a scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking. It investigates the mechanisms behind the transformation of ingredients in cooking, attempts to explain them, and investigates the social, artistic and technical components of the ingredients."

When talking with chefs today about molecular gastronomy you will no doubt get a varied degree of opinions. Most "old school" chefs will probably tell you that it has no place in the traditional kitchen and that it is a fad that will mostly likely fade away with time. If you talk to the younger generations of chefs you will most likely get a reaction of instant excitement and enthusiasm about the new techniques and equipment that are used in molecular gastronomy. Equipment like liquid nitrogen or even a Class IV laser (the later not quite mainstream yet).

Most of the dishes prepared in molecular gastronomy are a result of a chemical reaction. Take spherification for example. Spherification is a process when you take a liquid and mix it with a natural substance called Algin (a natural product extracted from brown algae) and drop it into a Calcic bath (calcic is a calcium salt). The reaction creates a self contained sphere of the original liquid. Spherification is really one of the more simple processes of molecular gastronomy.

Ferran Adria (El Bulli Executive Chef) is the founding father of molecular gastronomy even though he considers himself as a deconstructivist, many chefs around the world look to him for inspiration and new techniques. Chef Adria after many years of research and cataloging his recipes decided to market and sell the very products he uses in his own laboratory/restaurant to create his masterpieces. The product line is called Texturas and are now available to the professional and home chef.

The Chef's Table at Home is excited to announce the sale of Texturas starting in the beginning of July. I encourage anybody who loves to cook and is interested in trying new techniques to try out some of the Texturas products. You don't need a laboratory or any special equipment to use Texturas. All you really need is imagination and the willingness to try new things.

In the coming months myself and a friend of mine who has been using the Texturas products in his restaurant will be producing some videos on this blog of new techniques and recipes that you can follow along with. Please send me any comments or suggestions on this subject. I would love to hear how many people are interested in molecular gastronomy.

Please feel free to visit my website (http://www.thechefstableathome.com/) or call our toll free number at 866-709-CHEF.

Recipe: Vegetable Stock

I don't know about you but I always seem to have a ton of vegetable scraps left over after cooking. Instead of throwing them away you can turn those scraps into a delicious vegetable stock. I love making soups and sauces using the vegetable stock as a base. You can make a true vegetarian curry or a wonderful Ginger Carrot soup using the vegetable stock. Sometimes using chicken stock can completely change the flavor profile of the dish, so I will use certain vegetables to make the stock depending on the dish that I will make. For example, I would just make a stock out of onions and carrots scraps for the Ginger Carrot soup and maybe add some of the ginger scraps into the stock as well.

Vegetable stock is incredibly easy to make and can be frozen for future use. I will usually save my vegetable scraps and place them in the freezer until I have enough to produce at least a couple of gallons of stock.

All you need to do is take your vegetable scraps (make sure there aren't any rotten pieces) and place them in a large stock pot. Cover the vegetables with cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow the stock to simmer for 30-45 minutes. Strain the stock through a chinois (fine mesh strainer) or you can use a coffee filter to remove all of the fine vegetable particles for a clearer stock.

If you are looking for a stockpot to buy you can find a great selection of Demeyere cookware on my site (http://www.thechefstableathome.com/). just follow the link below for the full selection of stockpots.

http://www.thechefstableathome.com/SearchResults.aspx?terms=stockpot

Bon Appetite

Chef's Tip - Cleaning Kiwi

This is a little tip on removing the skin from the kiwi fruit that I have learned through my many years in a professional kitchen.

It isn't so hard to use a knife or a peeler to clean kiwi when you are only cleaning one, but when you have an entire case of kiwi to clean you are always looking for a quicker and more efficient way.

STEPS:

1. Remove both ends from the kiwi.
2. Take a spoon (a normal dessert spoon will be perfect) and insert it just under the skin of the fruit.
3. Slowly rotate the spoon around the entire fruit. Now you can slide the pulp of the kiwi from the skin. It keeps its perfect shape w/out any gouges or bruises from a peeler.

Enjoy this tip and make sure you check in for more updated recipes and tips from the chef at The Chef's Table At Home.com