Parmesan Curds & Whey

So after a little thought I decided it might be nice to use the curd from the parmesan serum to stuff a possin. I got some beautiful free range, cornfed birds and proceeded to put the curd between the skin and the flesh of the birds. The first time I only used a thin layer as the flavour was so intense, however a lot of the power is lost in cooking so a good amount was used in the end.
Next we cooked the birds Sous-vide for around 30 mins at 65 degrees. Before icing it ready to colour in a pan. Id tasted the cooked bird last week so knew the flavour was that of lightly toasted parmesan. It struck me as a very light spring preparation and even though we're still officialy in winter here, I'm already getting the first broad beans form one of my suppliers. The marriage was made, then I had some beautiful glazed spring onions which just seemed the natural partner for the beans.
So once the bird was coloured in the pan I played about with a few presentations as you can see (this isn't all of them) and came upmwith some promising dishes for the new spring menu in a couple of weeks. Its so simple and the flavours all go really well. I warmed up the beans in a little of the whey and finished it with some really fruity EVO. All that was left was to dot a few drops of pousin jus around and enjoy the flavours.

'Spaghetti Bolognese' #2

So after the weekend neither of the preparations I had left in the kitchen really worked out. The Parmesan mix was just the same and didn't turn into noodles and the consomme was too dense and didn't clarify when defrosted. Well actually the sauce was too reduced and so at fridge temperature was still a solid gel. I ended up clarifying it the normal way and it was fine. For the noodles I decided, after talking with a friend (cheers Reuven) to use only the whey from the Parmesan and 1.5% Methyl-cellulose.
Success. Well Kind of. The noodles set and we're really intense Parmesan flavour. However the flavours were all wrong.The consomme was far to strong and masked the flavour of the noodles. As you can see the first Syringe I used was to thick and the noodles were more like tagliatelle, but a thinner hole sorted that out. So to the next task. I have a lighter tomato flavoured broth to clarify tomorrow and maybe 2% methyl for a firmer noodle. I'll let you know.

'Spaghetti Bolognaise' or not?

I've been thinking of ways to use metil-cellulose since I received it and thought it would be fun to re-do an old classic, Spaghetti Bolognese. I decided to make a bolognese consomme with Parmesan 'metil' noodles. After e few failed attempts at clarifying with gelatin due to incorrect % I decided to use this method for the consomme. After a night in the freezer the broth is slowly de-frosting as we speak in the fridge over the week end.

Next came the noodles. I wanted a really intense Parmesan flavour and so decide to make some Parmesan serum. I let the serum sit in the fridge overnight and when I came back the next day I was confronted by two very different products from the day before. The serum had split and I was left with a kind of 'curd' and 'whey'. Both had a very strong Parmesan flavour.

I separated them both and decided to use the whey for the noodles. I'm now left with a new product to play with after this. Parmesan Curd/Butter. Its super smooth and really intense. More fun next week, maybe replace butter content in pastries with it, or slip it under the skin of poultry who knows at this point.

So that's we're I'm at at the moment. I'll post the finished product when I get to work on Tuesday