A Modernist Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving holds a special place in most U.S. kitchens because, of all the holidays, it is certainly the most food-focused. Indeed, while we have much for which to give thanks from the passing year, on a more visceral level, we celebrate the abundance of deliciousness that graces our tables on this particular day.

Now, much has been written about that centerpiece of Thanksgiving deliciousness: the turkey. Whether one is bemoaning the painful experience of eating a dry chewy bird, or analyzing the best way to remedy that failing, cookbooks both old and new are bursting with opinions on how to master a succulent and tender roast turkey. Rather than mastering the classic interpretation, the recipe in Modernist Cuisine flips it on its head by focusing on refining the flavors of a roasted bird and applying Modernist techniques.

In this case, we have chosen the turkey wing to be the primary vessel of Thanksgiving flavor. Specifically, we take the radius and ulna of the turkey wing (the middle portion with two bones running through it), cure it, and then cook it sous vide for the most tender result.

First, after chopping off the joints to expose the two bones inside the wing, we cure the turkey wing segments in a dry rub of salt and sugar for 24 hours.

The turkey wing as it cures in the sous vide bag.

After a day of curing, we rinse the cure off of the wing and vacuum seal it with a bit of clarified butter. Then we cook it sous vide at 58 °C / 136 °F for 12 hours. Immediately after pulling the wing out of the bath, we pull the bones out of the wing while its flesh is still warm. If the wing has been properly cooked, the bones should just slide right out. Once the segments have cooled, they are ready to be dusted in potato starch and panfried.

The cured and dusted wing prior to being panfried.

The finished pan fried wing.

Once we have a deliciously crispy and tender piece of turkey, it’s time for the gravy. There is only one primary Modernist twist to our turkey gravy, but it is crucial to the overall flavor concentration of the sauce.

A traditional gravy requires quite a bit of roux to thicken a flavorful poultry broth to the right consistency. Instead of roux, our gravy has a small percentage of Ultra-Sperse, a pre-hydrated starch from National Starch. The Ultra-Sperse is whisked in to thicken our broth. The advantage here is in flavor concentration: Because Ultra-Sperse is more efficient than fat and flour in thickening liquid, we use significantly less of it, so the concentration of turkey flavor in our gravy is not diluted, as is what happens when roux is used.

Finished with a bit of diced cranberry and picked sage, our small bite of Thanksgiving turkey bursts with flavor.

The sauced and garnished wing.

How would you refine Thanksgiving turkey? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Modernist Eye Candy: From High-Speed to Eye-Speed

Modernist Cuisine is packed with hard-earned food science facts and beautiful photographs that illustrate the data. This unique combination of art and science sets Modernist Cuisine apart from other culinary books.

But, as striking as the pages of Modernist Cuisine are, print sometimes doesn’t do the subject or the science justice. Written explanations and static illustrations of why a popcorn kernel pops, why oil flare-ups are instrumental to the flavor of barbecue, or how surface tension affects fluid dynamics, can be interesting and informative. Sometimes, though, nothing tells the story better than a few seconds of high-speed, high-definition video of the science in action. Here is an example:


Oil ignites on hot charcoal.

In a previous post, photographer Ryan Matthew Smith described the equipment and processes that he and the kitchen team used to capture this amazing footage. The resulting video is truly gripping and should capture the attention of foodies, artists, and geeks alike. But Ryan and the kitchen team aren’t ready to put the camera away just yet. They will continue to shoot high-speed, high-definition videos to be posted here in the coming months, but they need your help.

What fast-paced, food-related action or activity would you like to see slowed down to naked-eye speed? Leave a comment and let the team know!

A Chip Off The Old…Watermelon?

The joy of breaking into a fresh bag of potato chips is universal. It’s hard to resist losing yourself to bite after bite of salty, crunchy fried starch. In most grocery stores, novel alternatives such as beet, yam, and cassava chips have become commonplace. But until now, the common denominator in all of these variations has been a high starch content.

As the starchy main ingredient is deep-fried, the gelatinization of the starch gives structure and crunch to the resulting chips. However, that same inherently high starch content produces a much less exciting side effect — namely, all of these chips tend to taste bland before seasoning. Sweet, tart, and naturally moist vegetation tends to burn, shrink, or fall apart when deep-fried naked. But what if you were able to impart the structural advantages of high starch content to plant foods that possess zippier flavor profiles? Can chips made from less starchy plants be stabilized enough to withstand the deep-frying process? If so, which plants yield the best results?

To see how far we could take this premise, we tested a variety of fruits and vegetables with typically high water contents. Ultimately, we found that watermelon produced the most striking results. The method we chose to impregnate the starch into the watermelon is the same technique used in many Modernist kitchens to impregnate or concentrate intense flavors: vacuum compression.

Johnny slices and vacuum seals a sliver of watermelon dipped in the slurry.

We started by slicing watermelon to a thickness of about one millimeter using a meat slicer. Then we brushed on a slurry made of starch and water, vacuum sealed the slices, and let them rest for about 30 minutes.

Max demonstrates the vacuum compression process.

After the watermelon slices were given sufficient time to be impregnated with the starch, they were patted dry and deep-fried.

Johnny and Max deep-fry and enjoy an entirely new type of chip.

The result was amazing: A light, crispy chip loaded with the concentrated flavor of watermelon. Apple, jalapeño, and dill pickle were some of the other successful results we achieved with this method.

What would you like to see made into a chip? Leave a comment and let us know!

High-Speed Video: Phantom V.12.1

Meet the Phantom V12.1.

One of the coolest cameras on the planet, the Phantom V12.1 is capable of shooting ~6,200 FPS at full 720p HD resolution, can shoot up to 1,000,000 FPS at low resolution, and has adjustable exposure time that is independent of the FPS (down to an exposure time of ~300 nanoseconds!). The camera sensor also has unsurpassed light sensitivity, which is achieved with a 20 micron active pixel size and improved quantum efficiency over traditional CMOS sensors.

Modernist Cuisine has some photos that would not have been possible without this amazing piece of equipment. Our team plans on sharing many amazing videos while we look forward to the release of Modernist Cuisine in March 2011!

Here’s a high-speed video of a water balloon being popped. The video was taken at 6,200 FPS and is played back at 25 FPS. (You can expand the video to 720p HD on YouTube.)