I’m just a cook, I aint no rocket surgeon

Today I wanted to try to make the infamous “olive oil tear drops”. I did some research on how it is done so I played with it a bit. I took a combination of Sugar,Corn Syrup,and water.I brought the temperature to 265′F. I dipped a ring mold into the pot and then put it over a silpat.I dropped some olive oil into the filmy membrane in the ring mold and adding enough oil makes it drop. Water based liquids did not seem to work. Also, it wasnt very hard. It was still very chewy. It is great to suck on, but dont try to chew it. This sparks some ideas on other liquids to fill with and i would also like to try this with Isomalt and see what kind of response I get.

The S+D coffee contest was this morning. My dish was Espresso Crusted Scallop with sweet coffee gnocchi, braised morels,toasted hazelnut powder, and savory vanilla butter sauce…Sounds like alot. Everything came together very well for me. We had 10 minutes to set up our station, and 2 hours to present 6 plates.I brought all of my own stuff, like pans,plates,squeeze bottles…and a few more odds and ends. I didn’t want to spend 10 minutes looking around the kitchen for equipment. I worked until the last 30 seconds of plating. I am happy with what i did. If i could change anything….hmm I don’t know, leave some comments and tell me what you think

(this picture was the presentation plate, this is after sitting out for over an hour)

I found out I am one of the finalists for a contest sponsored by S+D coffee. The ingredient to feature is Espresso Concentrate. My dish is “Espresso crusted scallops with vanilla butter sauce and braised morels with sweet coffee gnocchi”. The cooking finale will be next friday morning. I made a trial run today to see how exactly I planned on doing things in the amount of time I am given. The dish I did today, there are lots of things i did not have, such as espresso concentrate, a good stock for mushrooms….the scallops were too big for the plate…So i have some modifying to do. I will post pics soon.