Oh dear, yes, I am very far behind. I need to post my very first daring cooks challenge, and there after I will update the meals I've had since my last post. So much to do ;) But first things first. This month's challenge was certainly that for me! It was a dish from Grant Achatz, from the Alinea cookbook; Skate, traditional flavors powdered. As most of you know, I am not much of a molecular cook, and after wanting to opt out several times, I finally talked myself into making this dish. I mostly wanted to pass on the challenge because of the many steps that included many things I either did not have or could not locate. I am pretty sure I passed my dehydrator on a while back. My chinois might have gone that way, or it just was lost in the shuffler, er, move almost six years ago. In any case, I have yet to find my chinois. So, I was left to dehydrate my many ingredients in my itty bitty, not-made-for-cooking microwave. The dehydrating times all needed to be lengthened, and I accidentally burned my lemon rind on the first go round. That nearly brought me to tears as I was on edge to start with- powders? But I had more lemon, so I continued on- a little more carefully. I did manage to singe a little bit of the next round of lemon, also. Parts of it, anyway, and parts were still not dry. Ah, I pressed on.
The capers? Ah, the capers were a mess for me. I dried and dried and dried, and I thought the capers were all dried out, but nope. My powder seemed damp and clumpy after a go-round in a coffee mill. So, here you have my pwderes, plated. I think that since my "powders" were rather clumpy, I should have not attempted the swirl pattern ;)

But there you have it. My dehydrated banana (thankfully purchased!) and cream powder, my lemon zest poached in simple syrup "powder", my super yummy capers in the middle, even if they weren't powdery, they were still very good. The red is the red onion powder, and finally the parsley and cilantro powder.

I ended up using talapia instead of skate for a couple different reasons. It cooked up beautifully in the Burre Blanc, as did the green beans. I wasn't all that concerned about the banana taste from the "banana bed" under the green beans and fish. I thought the tastes would be fine together- tropical, really, and they were great. I tried some of the banana, fish and green beans without the powders, then with the powder. It was excellent. I was really surprised on how much flavor impact the powders gave to the dish. They're just a small component, yet "POW" they really just hit you with so many different levels of flavor.


So, all in all I am glad I made this dish. It really pressed me out of my comfort zone. It was my first cooking challenge with the group and it really did push me to try some new things. I did like the taste a lot, but given that I didn't have many of the tools needed, I don't think I'd try this one again. Maybe I'd give it another go if the dehydrator and chinois turn up ;)