I’ve had the pleasure of quite an adventure recently. It all started when a coded message addressed “to 007” popped into my mailbox. No, I’m kidding, but it was a night to remember.
I recently visited an upper shelf restaurant in the heart of Warsaw. The classic Polish culinary suggests that failure is when the guests manages to stand up from the dinner table by his own effort. On International airs, Tamka 43, however, serves delicate teasers of meat, fish, vegetables and fruit, accompanied by an escorting selection of wines for each dish separately - enough to highlight the uniqueness but not to steal the spotlight.
The main attraction however, is the introduction of molecular gastronomy, where the exact “temperature” of each dish is measured out with mathematical precision to the degree, stranding the food for whimsically various amounts of time in a hot vacuum, to acquire perfect consistency and flavour.
Not to mention that groovy vertical wine rack.
The evening set off with unusual Tomato Gazpacho, as shown on the photograph below.
Theoretically, the cold tomato-based vegetable soup from southern Spanish Andalucia is a blend of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions and garlic, olive oil, wine vinegar, and salt. All those, as you have probably been suspecting for some time now, are pigmented. Houston, we have a problem.
Why go out with fireworks, when you can start with them. I was utterly surprised with the soup teaser, which as it turned out, had been a fine specimen of molecular gastronomy. The tomato soup had been “deconstructed” so as to deprive the broth of its original colour yet retain the rich taste. Apparently there are a lot of other things you can do to tomato soup, here’s another taster: http://www.moleculargastronomynetwork.com/67-recipes/Reconstructed-Tomato-Soup.html
And for those who are still hungry, here came the second starter. Tender cooked halibut fish with citrus creme and what resembled a four-leaved clover. In our world, finding but one of these Irish charms is a rarity. But in the parallel universe of chic gastronomy, it seemed to be the norm for each guest to be received with a precious touch.
As the first cold starter from the degustation menu, in sailed in portions of golden sauteed girolles mushrooms with young onion, drizzled in gooseberry jelly and adorned with “edible dirt”.
Every dish brought about quite a surprise - the “edible dirt” turned out to be barley malt. The very basic, rough taste, resembling full-grain flour balanced out the smooth and acidic gooseberry flavour.
The dish was served cold, a wonder to me, but the girolles gained an additional chewy crisp to complete the whimsical salad.
The dish was accompanied by a white wine, Possessioni Bianco, Serego Alghieri.
The warm starter - fried scallops with stewed black currant and a verbena leaf. The dish came with a show. Namely, the sauce which had been intended to give creamy depth to the lean white meat was simultaneously poured by each waited onto each guest’s plate. The “Verbena sauce” broth-based, apparently gaining its essence from fish bone marrow, rather than meat.
This had been my favourite dish yet - the tenderness of the meat and creamy decadence of the scallop-and-verbena sauce were broken with a sharp accent. Not a typical spice to give the dish distinct taste, the defining touch for me was a play on texture. Specifically, the smooth tones contrasted with the salty coated crispy skin of the scallop, ‘caramelized’ with not sugar, but sea salt.
Served with the white Rieslieng Bodeckel.
Fittingly following a cold and warm starter, came a soup of sorts. With some flexibility, the soup could be found in the halibut fish served in a saffron and citrus broth. The key attraction was the method - prepared “sous-vide” (literally from the French “in vacuum”) in precisely (!) 58’C for 10 minutes.
Served with Sauvignon Blanc, Douithe No’1 - a white wine with a hint of citrus in its bouquet, not to steal the spot light from the dish.
As we moved into the red meat class, the proposed main dish was pork rib coked for 12 hours (!) in 72’C, also “sous vide”. I’ll explain the method at the very end of the post with some undercover detail from the restaurant kitchen. The ribs were shorty fried and served with hennel, a mysterious oriental sauce and apple salad. Once again, the meat was incredibly succulent white the sweet-sour-salty garnish of sauce and sea salt flakes infallible.
Accordingly, the wine selection now turned red - Gnarly Head Pinot Noir - corresponding to the more hearty nature of the meat.
With three dishes yet to go, an unexpected turn of events - dessert appeared so early? One cannot complain, never too many desserts after all. The intruder has been a passionfruit parfait with Greek yoghurt mousse and imported glucose-enriched chocolate prepared into a thin crusty cylinder. You could sense the passionfruit aroma in a few meter radius from the plate - an explosion of exotic scents, with the equally intense dark chocolate flanking it. The yoghurt mousse, almost savory, served as a backdrop for the wilder side of dessert. Accompanied by Esencia 27.
Apparently you can have too many desserts. This one was worth giving up even chocolate though - the dish of the evening in my eyes. The main dish was a beef loin steak cooked sous vide in 58’C for 15 minutes, followed by a quick fry, served with young cooked vegetables and with porto (sweet wine) sauce.
The phenomenon of the dish was in the mouthwatering softness of the meat, but what more, the vegetables bathed in the leek and porto sauce, as deep in taste as deglazed, became as creamy as the meat itself. A simple dish, but oh-how-so-well-done.
The wine? Finlot Pruntto, Barbera D’Asti.
And last but not least, as a second dessert - seasonal fruits, including red and back currants, strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries and blueberries, served with, again, yoghurt foam and verbena sorbet. As a grand finale, the leitmotif of edible earth - this time sweet - in the form of imported cacao.
The light and toned down dessert was accented by red dessert wine, porto - Pedro Ximenez, unbelievably dense like the best of liquors.
Nota Bene: A background on Molecular Gastronomy
By definition, molecular gastronomy is an interdisciplinary area of food science, which investigates the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients while cooking, and manipulates them to social, artistic and technical culinary ends.
The typical machines include foams-making immersion blender, liquid nitrogen for for flash freezing and shattering, ice cream makers for the most unusual flavours (after all, our verbena sorbet doesn’t appear in every supermarket after all), a food dehydrator, centrifuges to separate layers of the dishes, spherification apparatus for a caviar-like effect, syringes for injecting unexpected filling, edible paper made from soybeans and potato starch, for use with edible fruit inks and an inkjet printer and aromatic accompaniments.
On the photographs below is the thermal immersion circulator for sous-vide low temperature cooking and vacuum packed meat portions which are directly utilized for the slow process of cooking. The vacuum-pack allows food to retain freshness and be protected from bacteria when heated slowly even up to a few days.
So here’s an account of the trip to the culinary Cook islands, where common mortals have not yet set foot - a lesson in quality over quantity and a much recommended adventure of taste. All this, as you can well predict, has added up to a honourable mention in the 2012 “Main cities of Europe” Michelin restaurant guide, and has secured a Michelin star - an international cornerstone of gastronomical success.