after microsoft, bringing a high-tech eye to professional kitchens - best food dehydrator

Kenneth chanough
Bellevue, Wash. —
In an inconspicuous warehouse on an inconspicuous street in the suburbs of Seattle, there is a research lab that looks like it came out of James Bond's film --
Master gadget is a foodie.
Here Nathan Myhrvold, a former CTO of Microsoft, and his company's "intellectual adventure" pursue a series of speculative and potential worlds --Change your mind
Invent new batteries, tame hurricanes and fight disease.
Here, there is also a laser designed to launch mosquitoes out of the Air (a high-
Speed camera speed of computer Wing
Ensure innocent insects are not evaporated), is the best-
There is a fully equipped dining room kitchen anywhere and never serves any customer. Dr.
When Myhrvold talked about the food produced by his industrial food dehydrator, it gave off the enthusiasm of Willie Wonka.
"The frozen dried raw lobster tail is great," he said . "
On another machine, rose petals rotate inside the glass ball.
"This is basically static," he said . "
"You can increase the temperature and distilled alcohol.
What we want to do is get the essence of rose petals.
According to the advertisement, the output is a few tablespoons of fragrant liquid.
At the corner, he pointed to two machines side by side.
"This is our ice cream machine, this is our ultrasonic welder," he said . ".
He used welders as cooking utensils?
"Not yet," he said earnestly, "but we have to give it a try.
"After all, the autoclave designed to disinfect laboratory equipment has culturally proven to be effective --
"It's basically a pressure cooker in hell," said Dr. Myhrvold said —as has a 100-
Tons of water Press for beef jerky.
All these high
The repair of the technical kitchen provided food for another doctor.
Project for Myhrvold: A cookbook book.
The book still has no title and is intended to be an authoritative reference for chefs who wish to hire so-
Known as molecular cuisine
Combine food industry technology with restaurant cooking. Dr.
Myhrvold, who once hosted Microsoft Windows, did not use this effort as a lonely intellectual pursuit.
He hired 15 people including 5 professional chefs, a photographer, an artistic director, and writers and editors to create.
They include Christopher Young, a biochemistry major. graduate-student-turned-
Head chef at The Fat Duck Research kitchen near London, one of the world's most innovative restaurants. Dr.
Myhrvold has long pursued a combination of Renaissance interests.
While he was still at Microsoft, he showed that dinosaurs might be able to accelerate the tip of their tail to supersonic speed like a whip.
Recently, he has been urging them to look for dinosaur vomit fossils at his home in ancient biology.
Owls and some other birds of prey upset the bones of what they ate.
Myhrvold speculated that dinosaurs, as ancestors of birds, might have done the same.
Every month or so, the cookbook book team gathers in the conference room to review their progress. Dr.
Myhrvold scans each page, points out the fault, and outlines how he wants the chart to look.
"It's basically like a software project . "Myhrvold said.
"This is very much like the comments we will make at Microsoft.
The scale and scope of the project are expanding.
Originally planned 300-
Page discussion on the increasingly popular restaurant vacuum cooking technology sous vide
The book has expanded to 1,500 pages, covering the physics of microbiology, food safety, heat transfer in stoves and ovens, and recipes for making juices and vegetable juices into gels and more.
"And they are big pages . "Myhrvold said.
Because he's himself.
Published this book, Doctor.
Myhrvold does not need to convince publishers or anyone else that such a large book that is aimed primarily at a handful of restaurant chefs makes financial sense.
He said the book will be published within a year, although he admitted it was what he said a year ago.
"None of the chefs on Earth will learn anything from it," Dr. Myhrvold said.
At least some chefs are interested in this.
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Wylie Dufresne, the chef and boss of WD-said: "I think some parts of it are definitely new to me . "
50 people in Manhattan visited the kitchen lab.
"This is a recipe that will fall into its own category.
September, doctor. Myhrvold, Mr.
Young and two other chefs gave a speech at the star chef's meeting.
The annual trade show for catering professionals in Manhattan-International chef's Congress.
They show how to top the case on a pork tenderloin that is basically a large crispy skin, how to make a stewing prunes look like coal, and how to make a "construction cream "--
Break down fat and liquid into tiny droplets and mix them into something with heavy cream fluidity.
"Why not make pistachio cream, for example, and we replace milk fat with pistachio oil? ” Mr. Young said.
"If you can make water droplets small enough, you can create a dairy product if you can wrap them in protein --
Free pistachio ice cream with 100% pistachio oil.
They also show frozen duck breasts, a technique that requires tools that are often not found in the kitchen: a small bag of loose metal, dry ice, dog hair brushes.
"We have to punch it out to get the fat out," said Mr. Young said.
"The easiest way is the stainless steel dog hair brush.
It will poke a lot of small holes that will not appear.
"For God's sake" advertisement
Myhrvold interjected, "buy a new one.
"The duck breast was placed on dry ice before being scorched and pressed down by satchel.
The cold not only freezes the skin, but also freezes a thin layer of meat next to the skin, which is a cold barrier to prevent excessive cooking.
"The Heat will not exceed it until it melts . "Young said.
The result is that the meat is still tender, juicy and crispy.
This book introduces concepts such as wet bulb temperature, which is new for chefs at all skill levels.
The usual temperature set in the oven is scientifically called the dry ball temperature.
But for cooking, the wet bulb temperature is usually more important, and the wet bulb temperature is essentially a measure of the rate of water evaporation, depending on the humidity.
"Nathan will point out that food is water that contains a lot of impurities," said Mr. Nathan . "Young said. Dr.
Myhrvold said that the temperature of wet and dry balls sometimes varies by 30 degrees, which may be the difference between the rising egg souffle and the collapsed egg souffle. (
One advantage of Sous vide is that because the food is immersed in the water, the temperature of the wet ball and the dry ball is the same. )
In another discovery of cooking heat transfer physics, Dr.
Myhrvold says the shape and black of the ball root of the Weber grill is wrong.
In order to achieve a uniform cooking temperature on the cooking grate, the interior of the grill should be vertical and shiny to reflect the heat.
It can be fixed by adding aluminum plug-in to the grill.
"So we have a direction . "Myhrvold said.
These conclusions are often supported by careful scientific exploration.
For example, confit, a French technique that cooks slowly with fat, should give a unique flavor and texture as fat penetrates into the meat. But Dr.
Myhrvold said: "It can't penetrate.
The molecules are too large. He said two words.
The blind taste test proves that the same delicious results can be achieved by steaming and then rubbing some fat outside.
A version of this article appeared on the D3 page of The New York version on November 17, 2009, with the title: after Microsoft,
Professional kitchen technical vision.
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