File Name : Culinary Techniques Charring Length : 4:37
Male Speakers : James Briscione FemaleSpeakers : Dana Cowin
Date : January 4, 2016
[0:00:00:0] JAMES: One of the biggest new trends in the
culinary world, it's charring food.
It's burning stuff on purpose.
DANA: I have serious char challenges, mostly because I have not gone far enough.
JAMES: That's where it gets tricky.
Really crank that burner up and let things cook.
I'm going to take some eggplant for an eggplant spread that we're going to make.
DANA: You didn't put anything on it.
It just goes naked on the flame.
JAMES: That's going to give you a better burn.
We're going to burn the outside of the garlic first to impart that smoky flavor into the
garlic.
But you see I've got this flame all the way up.
Stuff's flying off.
DANA: Sparks are going.
JAMES: You're not typically going to cook something through just by charring.
What we tend to do is use two sources of heat.
I've got my oven already on preheated, about 375.
Oh, and our garlic.
So what you want to do is just wrap this up in a little aluminum foil, again, kind of
helping it steam and cook so it doesn't completely dry out.
We're ready to take the eggplant out of the oven and our roasted garlic.
This burnt skin did its job of giving an incredible smoky flavor to that eggplant.
We're just going to kind of use a spoon and pull that back.
You see how easily and beautifully this comes out.
I mean, this is already a puree.
DANA: This is beautiful.
JAMES: Really.
DANA: Now, how do you feel if some of the charred skin gets in it?
Is that very feared?
JAMES: I'm thrilled that some of the DANA: You don't mind, OK.
JAMES: Because that's going to help me build that smoky flavor.
With burnt and bitter flavors like this you want to be careful with how you use them,
because it's really easy to overdo.
Why don't you smell this?
DANA: Oh my gosh.
That was the higher power.
JAMES: Just squeeze it all out there.
DANA: My instinct is to smoosh, turn and smoosh.
JAMES: Smoosh.
Smoosh, smoosh, smoosh.
So we've got scallions and onions here.
They are truly DANA: Wow.
This is a definition of burnt to a crisp.
JAMES: Yes.
And it has incredible smokiness.
OK.
So we're going to get those ground up and then turn that into our lamb seasoning.
DANA: Fantastic.
JAMES: We've got a beautiful lamb rib rack, fantastic.
Nice and high, even distribution.
Beautiful.
DANA: Working on it.
OK.
JAMES: OK?
And so now we're going to take just a bit of this ash and kind of sprinkle it over the
lamb.
DANA: It's so dramatic looking.
JAMES: So in a pan or on the grill, first we sear, then we finish in the oven.
Just so that ash holds on, right?
That's all we need to do.
Flip it over.
DANA: And you don't sear the ends?
JAMES: Not these sides.
You're going to overcook the ends that way.
It's got a nice smell, I love it.
DANA: Wow, that smells good.
JAMES: All right?
So this is going to go down into the oven.
Just throw that in right here.
OK?
And then for a lamb rack about that size, 12 to 15 minutes.
You're looking for an internal temperature, 125 when it comes out of the oven.
That way it goes up to 130 when we serve it.
And we've got some more of that vegetable ash, and we're just going to stir in some
olive oil.
Actually, I'm going to give that to you.
DANA: Great.
JAMES: You want to find like a nice sort of pesto like consistency for this.
It's going to be a sauce now.
DANA: That looks really good to me.
JAMES: Grab that lamb.
Here we go.
So DANA: Beautiful!
JAMES: Our beautiful char.
We've got all of our elements here.
We're going to take just some of that eggplant dip.
The eggplant is a beautiful complement to the lamb, so we want to spread it out a little
bit so when we put the lamb down, each piece of the lamb gets a little bit of eggplant
spread.
So let's take now a little bit of our ash to finish off.
And then, you know, some nice fresh things to brighten it up.
So we got some pea tendrils and a little purple basil here.
All right.
So we can talk about these charred flavors all we want, our let's just jump in there
and take a bite.
DANA: Can I start?
JAMES: Let's do it.
DANA: Great.
It's particularly interesting with the eggplant because of the creaminess of the eggplant
along with the smoke, and then the fattiness of the lamb along with the gaminess.
JAMES: They just all balance each other.
DANA: I'm keeping going.
JAMES: You keep eating.
Dana, thank you so much.
I'm going to get back in here.
[Audio Ends]
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