Recipes, ingredients, techniques and batch logs. A dish keeps its name. Each change to it is a new revision, and every revision says what changed and why.
Shin, oxtail and tendon braised in merlot and set in their own gelatin, frozen as pucks and baked in individual puff pastry pies.
The South African garage pie, made as individual pies in 120 mm foil tins.
Roasted beef, marrow, chicken and lamb bones held at a light simmer overnight, with no salt
A brown stock made for the braise of the South African pepper steak pie. Beef bones and marrow bones roast first.
Louisiana-style crayfish boil for fifty, using Berlin’s invasive crayfish
A crayfish boil scaled for 50 people, built around the Louisiana crayfish that have become invasive in Berlin’s waterways. Includes where to actually get them.
Cheddar, Emmentaler and mozzarella on shokupan, toasted inside first and cooked low
A grilled cheese on shokupan for 2. Cheddar gives the flavour. Emmentaler and mozzarella give the melt and the stretch, and they hold the cheddar fat in.
Split-can tomato soup with fried paste, confit garlic and chipotle, mounted with butter
Tomato soup for 2 from one can of San Marzano tomatoes. Brown the tomato solids and keep the juice raw.
Poached eggs on garlic quark, with chilli butter and a heavy herb mix
Çılbır is a Turkish breakfast dish. Poached eggs sit on thick garlic yoghurt. Hot chilli butter goes over the top.
Raw beef, chopped by hand, mixed into an emulsified base of egg yolk, Dijon mustard and oil. Anchovy, Worcestershire sauce and ketchup give savoury depth. Capers and cornichons give acid and salt. Cognac gives a warm background note. Chop the beef immediately before you mix and serve. Do not use a food processor.
two mechanismsAn 8.7 kg basis. Single-vinegar wash, MSG in the dredge, 25 mm cut along the grain, and a hot-start then cool-finish drying curve aimed at a defined bark over a red interior.
one mechanismResearch on why Wellingtons fail and what the techniques that fix them are actually doing — octagonal searing, duxelles dehydration, layered moisture barriers and two-stage baking.
four mechanismsA naturally fermented mint lemonade built on the method of Fentimans Victorian Lemonade. A wild ginger bug ferments it. An oleo saccharum with juniper gives the lemon oil. A blanched and blended mint syrup makes the mint strong. Pear juice gives balance. The lemonade gets its carbonation in closed bottles. It ends near 7.4% sugar, against 11–13% for a typical US lemonade.
sixteen mechanismsRoman carbonara with a sauce of egg yolk, cheese, pork fat and pasta water. Four yolks dress 280 g of pasta for four people. The cheese is only 50 g, so the sauce tastes of yolk more than of cheese. The pepper is high at 20 g.
two mechanismsPointed cabbage is cut into wedges and seared hard on both cut faces, then basted in brown butter. The wedges braise for a short time in a tomato sauce with harissa and cumin. Lemon tahini, onions pickled in sumac, herbs and sesame go on at the end. The charred faces stay above the liquid so they keep their crust.
three mechanismsHard-fried pork with bloomed dried chilli, garlic, ginger and Yibin suimiyacai, on udon. A cold sauce of blended silken tofu and peanut satay binds the bowl. The sauce never touches heat. This version makes 5 smaller bowls, each with an estimated 45 to 50 g of protein. It uses no sesame paste. It departs from Chengdu practice in stated ways.
thirteen mechanismsClassical demi-glace with a dual-bone foundation, triple clarification and a staged reduction. A preparation other recipes pull in rather than a dish.
one mechanismFour chicken Marylands braise on 1000 g of onions cooked to deep gold. A pounded paste of lemongrass, ginger, coriander root and chilli is fried until the fat separates. One third of the paste goes under the skin. The rest goes into the onion bed. The heat is not put in as whole chillies. The placentas of six Carolina reapers and one habanero are infused into 80 ml of oil at 65 degrees C. This tincture is then dosed by the millilitre. The recommended dose is 12 ml for four people. The dish started as a central Thai plan. The cook had no galangal, no makrut lime leaf, no tamarind, no shrimp paste, no dried mushroom and no Thai basil. Each substitution moved the dish north. The result follows the grammar of gaeng hung lay, a Shan-influenced Northern Thai braise: onion, potato, ginger, a sour and sweet axis, and no coconut milk. The braise is covered for 90 minutes at 145 degrees C convection. It is then uncovered for 20 minutes at 220 degrees C. The first stage converts collagen. The second stage dries the skin.
six mechanismsA 1.2 kg chicken, spatchcocked and slashed. It marinates overnight in a pounded paste of coriander root, garlic, lemongrass and bird's eye chilli. Fish sauce, oyster sauce and palm sugar bind the paste. A little coconut cream helps it hold to the skin. The chicken cooks upright in a hinged grid beside wood coals. The bone side faces the fire first. The skin side finishes. Baste the skin with coconut cream when it starts to look like it will burn, not on a timer. Judge the chicken by the char first and the probe second. Take the thigh to 76 degrees C. 78 degrees C is also correct. Serve with nam jim jaew and sticky rice.
three mechanismsThe same bird and the same paste as the fire method. The heat is different. A 1.2 kg spatchcocked chicken roasts on a rack at 220 degrees C fan. A tray of boiling water sits on the lowest shelf. The steam keeps the sugary paste from burning while the meat cooks. Take the water out when the skin takes colour. Baste with coconut cream. Then move the chicken under the top grill on maximum for 5 to 7 minutes. That gives the char the fire would give. In an oven the heat is even, so the probe leads. Take the thigh to 76 degrees C. The whole cook takes 40 to 45 minutes.
one mechanismGreen beans are dry-fried in oil until the skins wrinkle and blister. Pork mince, fresh shiitake and suimiyacai are fried together until the crumbs are crisp. Dried chilli and whole Sichuan pepper are fried to hu la, the scorched chilli aroma. A small dose of Chinkiang vinegar goes onto the hot pan wall at the end, and ground Sichuan pepper goes on off the heat. This version is adapted from Maggie Zhu's recipe at Omnivore's Cookbook. It uses more pork, less suimiyacai and less soy sauce, and MSG holds the savoury level. It serves 2 as a main with rice.
five mechanismsA vanilla custard baked as one thin sheet in a tray. This version uses 2000 ml of cream at 34 percent fat and 355 g of egg yolk. The custard is 1 cm deep. It cooks in a steam oven at 85 degrees C to a core of 82 degrees C. Two methods in this version are not standard. First, the vanilla seeds are rubbed into the sugar and go in with the yolks. The empty pods go into the cream on their own. This stops the seeds from sinking to the bottom of the tray. Second, the custard is warmed to 55 degrees C before it goes into the oven. This shortens the cook and makes the set even. The yolk ratio here is 177 g per litre of cream. That is lower than the 230 g per litre of the earlier version. The set is softer. The core temperature goes to 82 degrees C to compensate.
three mechanismsA table sauce that takes its heat from a fat tincture and its aroma from raw chilli flesh. The placentas of six Carolina reapers infuse into 80 ml of oil at 65 degrees C. 30 ml of that tincture goes into this sauce. The other 50 ml is stored. The flesh of one pod, with the placenta removed, is minced raw into the sauce. The tincture on its own has almost no smell. The capsaicin is made in the placenta and the aroma is made in the flesh, so an extraction of one gives none of the other. The raw flesh restores the fruit note. Lime juice and fish sauce give the heat something to hold onto. A neat oil drizzle coats the mouth in one continuous film. A suspension in an acid base arrives in pulses instead. Serve it in a bowl with a teaspoon. One quarter of a teaspoon is one serving.
two mechanismsDuck leg mince rendered dry in its own fat, dressed off the heat with fish sauce and lime. No sugar anywhere — this is the Isaan/Lao register, not the central Thai one. Toasted glutinous rice is a functional ingredient rather than a garnish: ground coarse, it adsorbs the free dressing and holds it against the meat.
six mechanismsA brown stock made for the braise of the South African pepper steak pie. Beef bones and marrow bones roast first. A freezer mix of chicken carcass and lamb saddle bones goes in for the last 20 min. Tomato paste, onion and celery brown on the trays for the last 10 min. The bones then go into cold water. The stock comes up slowly so the foam can be removed. It holds at a light simmer of 88 to 90 degrees C overnight, with the lid off. The stock has no salt. The braise reduces it, so the salt goes in there. It makes about 3 litres.
two mechanismsA dipping sauce for grilled meat. It is a wet relish, not a pourable sauce. You drag the meat through it. Two chillies do two jobs. Toasted dried chilli gives roasted depth. Sliced fresh bird's eye chilli gives a sharp, immediate heat on top. Toasted glutinous rice, pounded coarse, takes up the free liquid and holds it against the meat. Fish sauce gives the salt. Lime gives the acid. A small amount of palm sugar rounds the edges. This is the doubled batch. The first batch was half this size and ran out on one bird.
two mechanismsThe Botanically Brewed Mint Lemonade made with supermarket ingredients only. Dry baker's yeast from a sachet replaces the wild ginger bug. Fresh ginger goes into the oleo to give the ginger that the bug gave. The oleo with juniper, the blanched mint syrup and the pear juice stay the same. The bottles are ready in about 4 days, not 10. It ends near 7.2% sugar.
four mechanismsBone-in Duroc chops, 2.5 cm thick. Dry-brine with salt and MSG for 45 min. Render the fat cap on its edge. Sear in the pan and turn every 30 s to 55 °C. Baste with butter, garlic and thyme to 60 °C. Rest to 62–63 °C. Make a demi-glace and wholegrain mustard sauce in the same pan while the meat rests.
eight mechanismsA refrigerator pickle of jalapeño rounds in a warm spirit and cider vinegar brine. Ready in 24 hours. Best crunch in the first 3 to 4 weeks.
two mechanismsTomato soup for 2 from one can of San Marzano tomatoes. Brown the tomato solids and keep the juice raw. Fried tomato paste, confit garlic, chipotle, fish sauce and MSG give depth. Shokupan crusts and an emulsion of olive oil and butter give body. The soup uses no cream.
five mechanismsSauce Périgueux is the classical French truffle sauce. It is built on demi-glace, not on butter. Here it dresses spaghettini, and a seared duck breast goes beside it. The truffles are jarred pieces in oil. They go into the sauce off the heat, because their aroma compounds are volatile. Pecorino goes on top for acidity. A rocket salad with lemon cuts the richness.
four mechanismsThe South African garage pie, made as individual pies in 120 mm foil tins. Shin cubes and oxtail are dry-brined overnight, browned in the oven and braised for 3 h in a reduced mixed-bone stock, reduced merlot and demi-glace. Shin tendons cook whole in the stock overnight, then go into the filling. The braising liquid chills overnight, loses its fat cap and is reduced until it sets firm. No starch goes in. The filling is portioned into 200 g pucks and frozen. Each pie gets a frozen puck in a puff pastry case, baked on a hot baking steel. The thin foil and the frozen filling keep the base dry with no blind bake. Bake 6 at a time and keep the rest of the pucks frozen. Black pepper goes in twice: on the meat before browning and into the finished filling.
six mechanismsA grilled cheese on shokupan for 2. Cheddar gives the flavour. Emmentaler and mozzarella give the melt and the stretch, and they hold the cheddar fat in. Toast the inside faces first so the soft crumb does not go gummy. Cook at medium-low heat, because shokupan browns fast.
two mechanismsÇılbır is a Turkish breakfast dish. Poached eggs sit on thick garlic yoghurt. Hot chilli butter goes over the top. This version uses German Speisequark in place of strained yoghurt. Quark holds more protein than yoghurt for the same weight, because the whey is drained out. This version also adds a large quantity of fresh dill, mint and coriander to the quark base. The dish is built to a low salt target: the quark is the only salted component, and the bread is served at the side and not under the dish.
four mechanisms