Spicy Roasted Chickpeas
Picnic Recipes Galore
Corner-Store Party Food on the Fly
9 Chili Recipes, Bison to Vegan
How to Choose the Best Strawberries
Sausage Recipes of the Month
Ashes from burnt food, wood, or hay are being put on food (and food is being cooked directly in hot ashes) at upscale restaurants around the country, but this trend is not some last-ditch attempt to salvage burnt food. The chefs who are using it—mostly inspired by René Redzepi of Denmark's Noma (a.k.a. "the best restaurant in the world")—say it adds bitter and smoky flavors to their dishes. And the culinary use of ash isn't quite as out there as it sounds: Ash has long been used in ancient food preparations by Native Americans, and in traditional Scandinavian foods like lutefisk and preserved herring—where, Redzepi says, he got the idea in the first place.
Spotted a few weeks ago at the modern Cal-Moroccan restaurant Aziza in San Francisco as a jet black garnish sprinkled on chestnut soup. The ashes were crunchy, a little like chewing smoked coffee grounds. Also spotted at Castagna in Portland, Oregon, where Chef Matt Lightner makes hay ash, then purées it with olive oil, rubs it on black cod, and leaves it to cure for a week, before smoking the fish (using more hay) and slicing it.
At Gilt in New York City, Executive Chef Justin Bogle chars onion hearts until they are black and purées them with honey to serve with beef strip loin. The dish is garnished with onion ash, which takes about six or seven hours to fully burn. Bogle freely admits that part of the appeal is how cool ashes look on a plate aesthetically.
In Chilhowie, Virginia, at the Town House, Executive Chef John B. Shields burns eggplants into ash, which is served with lamb in a presentation that looks like an installation art piece (see photo). His dish also includes sifted wood ashes from the restaurant's wood-fired grill, and the lamb itself gets about a 30-second stint directly in the hot ashes and embers after being cooked sous vide. Shields sees the ash trend as part of the fine-dining pendulum swinging back from the chemical manipulations of food that hit big around 2000. "Now it's settling into a groove of taking natural elements [like ash] and then using some modern technique to push the envelope."
Over this summer in San Francisco, Chef Joshua Skenes went so far as to install an eight-foot wood-burning hearth at Saison. He recently served a dish with leeks, Vidalia onions, and wild onions that had been buried directly in the hot ashes to cook. "Fire is the purest form of flavor," he says. "I'm at a point now where I want to strip down the whole restaurant and build a giant fire pit and cook everything over it."
I am thinking that we might get much needed trace minerals from wood ash. Our food products today are grown on land that is used over and over again to raise the same produce, repeatedly drawing minerals from the soil. Modern fertilizer only replaces about three of these minerals, the remainder growing more and more sparse in our food products. Wood ash is basically the mineral content of wood,...+READ
I am thinking that we might get much needed trace minerals from wood ash. Our food products today are grown on land that is used over and over again to raise the same produce, repeatedly drawing minerals from the soil. Modern fertilizer only replaces about three of these minerals, the remainder growing more and more sparse in our food products. Wood ash is basically the mineral content of wood, drawn from the soil where it was grown. I totally support the use of culinary wood ash, more as a dietary supplement than seasoning.-COLLAPSE
Burning food (as well as cooking at too high heat) creates carcinogens, since these foods are served in restaurants, I guess the FDA is not checking them out for this risk.
Baba ganoush has bits of ash.
Perhaps before you criticize this technique you should try it, so that you know what you're talking about. These guys aren't using wood or cigarette ash but a very specific powdered form that has no grittiness or bitterness.
It's fortunate for the rest of us that those of you with no imagination aren't the leading edge.
Um.....
Okay, my first experiences with Dutch ovens was on real fires. They were the types with the feet and the lids you shoveled hot coals onto to cook your cobbler. And you always wanted to be REALLY careful not to get any ash actually in the dish when removing the lid because the ash was gross and gritty. The most purified ash is like eating burnt dirt.
I like wood-fire cooking, but this, I...+READ
Um.....
Okay, my first experiences with Dutch ovens was on real fires. They were the types with the feet and the lids you shoveled hot coals onto to cook your cobbler. And you always wanted to be REALLY careful not to get any ash actually in the dish when removing the lid because the ash was gross and gritty. The most purified ash is like eating burnt dirt.
I like wood-fire cooking, but this, I don't get.-COLLAPSE
There is a reason humans have tried to keep ash out of food: It can be bitter and has a nasty gritty texture. With no nutritional value in ash, I fail to see the point of extra work, and the destruction of good food as a flavor accent. I am happy w/ the flavors available to me in the world. I don't need ash.
I also seem to remember the recipe for homemade lye, as ash soaked in water.
Ash in food? Too gross. It might jump start my cells killing each other. Please put it in the menu or else no thanks for me.
My first reaction...what the...??
I hope that from the culinary ashes of burn offerings of these chefs sanity will reign supreme once again when the Phoenix of culinary "exasperations" arise to the next "Big Trend!"
I think we evolved from open fire and ash cooking methods for the most part...this is a step back not forward no matter how cool it looks. I feel the same way I felt about all the...+READ
My first reaction...what the...??
I hope that from the culinary ashes of burn offerings of these chefs sanity will reign supreme once again when the Phoenix of culinary "exasperations" arise to the next "Big Trend!"
I think we evolved from open fire and ash cooking methods for the most part...this is a step back not forward no matter how cool it looks. I feel the same way I felt about all the chemical cooking as I do this. Food should be treated with respect if your lucky to have it.-COLLAPSE
Take the tobacco in food trend from a few years back to the next logical level: Serve food in used ashtrays! Cigarette butt garnishes!
as a direct reaction to this new trend, a secret group of chefs are now using raw meat and soil as garnish. However, this is being overshadowed by yet another new radical approach: they now serve food as it is under going the digestion process by another creature.
It doesn't necessarily dominate a dish any more than grill marks on a steak dominate the meat.
I can't help but think the burnt/ashy/smoky flavor would dominate an entire dish. Is that the point? Is that a good thing? I don't know about this trend... it would take a convincingly delicious dish to make me want to try it.
Interesting. I've long enjoyed morbier cheese and it has a layer of ash in it. I'd try this.
A trend, remember savory ice cream.
Hey, you know what I'd rather eat than an eggplant burned into ash? An eggplant.
The guy on Primal Grill does this all the time. I don't really understand the attraction but I supposed it goes right back to the ... different strokes. Whatever.
Molecular Tapas Bar in Tokyo has been doing this for years and it tastes great.
Perhaps this is an April Fool's article that got released early?