This was an experiment which was not successful, for a variety of reasons. It tasted fine enough, but the textures and shapes were all wrong. It's a learning experience and provides clues to things we can improve.
The idea was to take a leek (ha!), pull out the individual cylinders, stuff them with a chicken mousse, and cook both to soften the leek and set the mouse. I wanted a hot foam of whip cream with a garlic flavor on top. It was based on two dishes we'd done before: Cannelloni of Chicken Mousse (2007) and Bacalao Espuma.
The Espuma is pretty nerdy and requires some unusual gear. I'll give the ingredients and procedure, then discuss what went wrong, and some ideas for future experiments.
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| Leeks, Espuma, red peppers, zuchinni |
Garlic Cream Espuma
100 ml Cream (35% fat)
4 clove Garlic
1 g Agar Agar (powder from Tienda Parami)
30 ml Water
Leek and Chicken Mousse
1 large Leek
230 g Chicken Breast
35 ml Cream (35% fat)
70 g Egg White
0.75 g Salt
Use a garlic press or mince the Garlic and add to the Cream.
Simmer very low for 30 minutes; we want to extract the flavor.
Hydrate the Agar Agar in Water and whiz to disburse.
Add to the Garlic Cream and bring to bubbling simmer for 5 minutes to fully dissolve the Agar Agar.
Whiz to disburse the Agar gel in the cream.
Chill until it gels.
Whiz the gel to create a "fluid gel" and return to heat at 65C / 150F; don't go too high because it will denature the fluid gel.
Load into an iSi Whipper and charge with two N2O cylinders.
Hold in water bath at 65C / 150F serving temperature
Cut the root and dark green end from the Leek. Separate the cylindrical layers -- this turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. Keep the good cylinders for stuffing, reserve the rest for something else.
Whiz the Chicken Breast in a food processor or blender until pretty smooth, without heating so you don't cook it. Add the Cream, Egg White, and Salt, and process a bit more until as smooth as you can get.
Fill a pastry bag with the Chicken Mousse and then stuff the Leek cylinders: you'll probably have to fill from both ends if you have a long leek.
Steam for 45 minutes.
Remove the cooked Leeks and Chicken, and plate.
Invert the iSi and dispense the Garlic Espuma on top.
Serve.
What went wrong
The Egg Whites in the Chicken Mouse caused them to expand and blow out the Leeks.
The Leeks split along their fiber lines. In retrospect: totally obvious. They're tough fibers across the grain but with the grain they tear easily.
The texture of the Chicken was not mousse-y enough, it was rubbery: too much Egg White and perhaps overcooked.
The Chicken Breast was mono-dimensional in flavor.
The fluid gel set up well but never returned to a ketchup-like viscous liquid after whizzing. This thickness prevented the iSi from being able to express a foam. The meager amount may not have been enough for the iSi vessel size anyway; the previous Bacalao Espuma used a larger volume. The two person serving size was probably too small to be workable in the iSi.
Future guidance
Leeks are a pain in the butt to separate: the inter-layer film grips strongly. I'm not sure what I could do to reduce the friction. Maybe I shouldn't use Leeks. What then? Restaurant Alinea (Chicago) fills Palm Hearts, but that's not as large as I was looking for.
Leeks will always split along their fibers: we can't have any filling which expands. Perhaps skip the Egg White and increase the Cream to ensure it's soft enough to pipe into the Leeks.
The Cannelloni Mousse we based this on used a mixture of light and dark meat as well as chicken liver to provide a rich flavor. Do that again, or just use dark meat chicken and liver.
The fluid gel needed to be fluid before going in the iSi. There are different strengths of Agar, even at the store I got this from, Parami. Perhaps this one was too strong, that others would be softer. Try halving the Agar. If you have different Agar, try gelling and whizzing and see if it creates a saucy texture. I think there are a lot of opportunities for warm/hot foams -- "espumas" -- with Cream so it might be worth spending a few bucks on Cream and N2O to find out what proportions work, before worrying about flavors.
Perhaps increase the amount of the Garlic Cream, even if we don't use it all, so the iSi Whipper has enough to work with.
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