I need to laugh about Modernist Cuisine, it is not a laugh, it is more of a what the heck! I have the modernist cuisine five-volume set, and I also have the Modernist Cuisine @ Home. These books are outstanding and are filled with plenty of science that intrigues me. I read them, study them and have them at my desk usually opened.

Yes cooking is about science, knowing the right process, and getting the job done. The problem with Modernist cuisine is you need to be a genius to follow these recipes. Go out and buy the powders, the additives needed to make the recipes work. Even if you have the additives, you need to spend time in perfecting the recipes. They are not the type you try once and “voila”. Au contraire mon ami, some of these recipes can be brutal, many make little sense to try, or even if they do, why go through so much trouble.

Back to the table, I had to cook yesterday for a Michelin chef, a good chef, he has immaculate sense, he jumps up when I oven my oven door. He is gentle, he says smiling, “42°C”, and I consider it. We are all of a sudden cooking deer loin, it is amazing meat from Nagano. The meat is red and has no animal odors at all.

The cooking time goes quickly as I turn up the heat to from 140°C to 160°C, the chef winces when I turn it up. He was right, we turned away and within a minute or so, the temperature of the thermometer read in the mid fifties. Ouch, it was my fault, we had been distracted by conversation and as he says “in the kitchen a days work can be destroyed in a minute”, he is so right.

What I discovered is; when cooking sensitive and delicate meats, you are best off to sous vides the meat and cook it in a water bath. This deer was very tender and it needed to be managed with kid gloves. It all boils down to process 🙂 I am embarrassed about this cooking, here is how not to do it.