Rose water and chicken experiments

Still two days to the deadline of TGRWT #16, chicken and rose water, hosted by Supernova Condensate, but a simple experiment I tried gave me a taste of what the flavor combination could be. I wanted to play with roasted chicken and rose water, so I took some warm chicken broth, added a bit of natural smoke to simulate the flavors of browning, and then slowly added rose water to the mixture.

Five drops at a time, a small sip, a rinse with sparkling water. And then repeat. At the concentration of 15 drops that new flavor just appeared: not quite roasted chicken, not quite flower. It is good and I want that in a dish.

My first attempt to reproduce that great flavor was tonight’s dinner. Good, but not the flavor from the taste experiment.

The dish was inspired by the Moroccan Djaj bel Loz, a chicken with almonds and honey. The dish is sometimes made with rose water, but I felt like tinkering with the traditional recipe. I blanched some almonds, and coarsely chopped them with honey and rose water and placed the result over a chicken breast that had been rubbed with a honey, butter, and rose water marinade. The sauce is caramelized onions, ginger, cinnamon, lemon, almonds, honey, and salt, all puréed together. It came out good, but the chicken did not brown before it was cooked and the rose taste was overpowered by the ginger and lemon. Back to drawing board.

Bathing almonds in plasma

Do you know where your almonds have been? Last week, a federal judge in the US ruled that almonds grown in the United States and sold raw will have to be pasteurized. The pasteurization is achieved by steaming the almonds, which robs them of some flavor, or by bathing the almonds in propylene oxide (a toxic gas). Imported almonds are exempt.

Together with many food enthusiasts and organic farmers, I’m disappointed with the ruling, but there may be a way to satisfy the need for salmonella-free almonds and a great natural taste. Work done at the University of Minnesota shows how a non-thermal plasma (NTP) can make bug-free almonds. NTP is the new fancy (and maybe more accurate) name for ozone machines. In a NTP, really fast electrons are rushed through the air tearing apart the nitrogen, oxygen, and other molecules in the air. This creates all sorts of particles that will oxidize the organic compounds they bump into. NTP kills microorganisms and decomposes organic molecules.

The plasma is called non-thermal because it is really at two different temperatures. The electrons are moving faster — and therefore are hotter — than the atoms they have been stripped from.

What gives Gouda cheese its flavor

Cheeses are satisfying: they have a richness of flavor and feel good when eaten. Thomas Hofmann and collaborators have recently published some of the compounds that give Gouda cheese that feel-good sensation. They called those molecules kokumi peptides after a term used by a Japanese company to promote umami flavors with good mouthfeel.

If Gouda cheese is aged for only 4 weeks it lacks the complexity and body of a Gouda that has matured for 44 weeks. Hofmann and friends took a 4 week old Gouda, ground it in a mortar with what they felt where the wanting kokumi compounds, and pressed the paste back into shape. The new and improved young Gouda was very similar to the 44 week old cheese.