Blender

Why roast the carrots? Well let me tell you, a roasted carrot will kick a boiled carrot’s you know what, any day. That’s why.

Exotic, easy, and healthy, too, this simple dish is just delish.

Here’s a killer dinner that even a charging Pamplona bull would brake for. Olé!

Sweet and salty food . . . I can eat it at the same time? I’m there. How about you?

This is the at-home version of another perfect meal from France. To make this more of a meal, serve with sliced French sausages and ham.

This recipe was inspired by the idea of Aero bars. We wanted to replicate that honeycomb texture while creating something intensely delicious. This dessert achieves that. You can serve it with cookies or blood orange compote. The light texture melts in your mouth and leaves you wanting more.

These onion rings are extra light and crispy because we carbonate the batter. If you don’t have a home carbonation system, you can substitute seltzer water and a tablespoon of freeze-dried coffee. Simple home carbonation systems run the gamut from about $60 for an iSi carbonator to several hundred dollars for a carbonation rig and CO2 tank. Once you start playing with one, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it. The tiny bit of xanthan gum in the recipe helps the batter stick to the onion slices and keeps it from separating. You can season the onion rings with salt and serve with ketchup, but we think you’ll find that the Beef Seasoning and smoked ketchup really take the flavor to the next level.

Small Styrofoam coolers are a wonderful tool when working with liquid nitrogen because they are insulated and relatively deep. This minimizes splashing and keeps the nitrogen from evaporating too quickly. Plastic coolers tend to crack upon exposure to the extreme cold, and glass bowls will shatter, so look for sturdy Styrofoam coolers with smooth inside walls. This recipe takes an earthy, full-flavored fat and transforms it into something light and delicate. Powdered lardo is wonderful spooned on grilled crusty bread or folded into raw-fish tartares. It can be used as a finishing touch on roasted vegetables or salads, or anywhere you might use a full-flavored olive oil. This same technique may be applied to butter and other high-fat ingredients.

This recipe demonstrates the versatility of Activa YG in a dairy system, allowing us to make a delicate dumpling without conventional binders. We use the Activa at a ratio of 1 percent of the total weight of the ingredients. In the past we’ve paired these goat cheese dumplings with lobster. They would also be nice with a stew of mushrooms or spring vegetables, or as a warm accompaniment to a crisp salad with a simple vinaigrette.

Classic hollandaise sauce cannot be chilled or reheated without losing the wonderful silky texture that it is known for. Here we’ve used Methocel at a ratio of 1 percent of the total weight of the other ingredients to make a hollandaise that can be made ahead of time while retaining its semifluid consistency. Even better, it has a spreadable texture when cold that makes it wonderful for sandwiches.

These small orbs have big celery flavor from both the celery root centers and the celery stock that encapsulates them. The cream cheese gives the celery root a little extra body and tang. The gellan in the water bath reacts with the calcium in the celery root, forming a delicate gel around each orb. They may be heated in the celery stock and served warm like miniature raviolis, topped with brown butter, or hidden in a soup or stew as pockets of exploding flavor. You can also serve the orbs as single bites topped with shaved country ham and chopped celery leaves.

We call this Cheddar tofu because of the texture. Imagine soft tofu, silky against your tongue, infused with a rich Cheddar flavor. It’s pretty awesome stuff. You can use it in exactly the same way that you would real tofu. It happily sits center stage as the main component in a salad or soup, or it can be diced and incorporated into a dish much like gnocchi or small dumplings. We use both the high- and low-acyl gellans at a ratio of 0.2 percent of the weight of the other ingredients. The gellan makes it relatively heat stable, and it holds its shape beautifully when cut or molded.

This makes a gorgeous whipped topping that is fabulous on margaritas or strawberry lemonade. We’ve also been known to use it for garnishing fresh berries and various dessert preparations. It’s a nice introduction to using Methocel and xanthan gum together to create foaming action. Unlike whipped toppings made with other products, such as Versawhip, these preparations can tolerate heat and moderate amounts of fat in the mixture simply because Methocel is such a good emulsifier. In this recipe we are able to shear the Methocel directly into the base because we are working with an entirely liquid medium. For this recipe we use 1 percent Methocel F50 and 0.15 percent xantham gum.

This recipe demonstrates Methocel’s ability to form a warm gel. This custard mimics the texture of the classic chawan mushi, hence the recipe’s name. We add Methocel at a ratio of 1 percent of the total weight of the other ingredients. The flavor of the cheese gives it an unusual twist. We’ve served this with marinated baby tomatoes, fresh cherries with tarragon, or a little crab salad garnished with fresh lovage. Any garnishes should be room temperature or slightly warm because as the custard cools the texture will soften, although the individual ramekins help preserve their heat.

This custard shows off the way that you can combine different types of carrageenans to create a custardlike dessert with a soft, tender texture that holds its shape beautifully. It gives you the gentle, set texture of a baked egg custard but it can be cooked on top of the stove. Beyond that, if you love peanut butter, you are going to be in hog heaven. It’s that good.

These white chocolate sheets are a wonderful example of the synergy between agar and locust bean gum. They are delicate and flexible, with a rich flavor. They can be draped across fruits, cheeses, or desserts. If you prefer, you can also let the chocolate set in one piece and slice it for serving as custard, or puree it for something softer and more pudding like. The sheets are best served cold, although they will hold their shape at room temperature.

We pursued the idea of using low-methoxyl pectin to create a fruit and vegetable adhesive that would allow us to create entirely edible terrines that were held together with an almost invisible but flavorful glue. This technique was the result of that exploration. First, we make fruit-flavored solutions with 0.5 percent calcium lactate or calcium gluconate. The choice of one over the other is based on taste. Calcium lactate is derived from lactose and has a slightly acidic taste. Calcium gluconate is derived from glucose and tastes slightly sweet. Calcium lactate has slightly more available calcium than calcium gluconate, although not enough to make a difference in most applications. You will sometimes find blended calcium under the label calcium lactate-gluconate. Then we impregnate the fruit with the calcium by vacuum sealing them together. It takes about five minutes for the calcium to be absorbed by the fruit, after which time we open the vacuum bag and pat the fruit dry. Next we dissolve 3 percent pectin in water at 203°F (95°C) to hydrate it, then let it cool. Once the pectin is cool, we brush it on one piece of the calcium-infused fruit and lay another piece on top. Then we vacuum seal the fruit to compress it together and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight. The following morning when we cut open the bag, we will find that the fruit has been sealed together with a pectin gel. The pectin gel is soft and seamless in the preparation. The resulting presentation is as beautiful as it is delicious. We enjoy the terrine sliced and served with seared scallops and crumbled blue cheese on hot days, and served warm with crispy soft-shell crabs on cool evenings. Even slicing and topping it with thinly shaved prosciutto is an elegant preparation.

Applesauce is a classic example of a delicious and down-home recipe that sometimes suffers from syneresis, or separation of liquid from the gel. In this recipe, we use crabapples for a slight twist on the original. We like them for their tartness and color; they make a beautiful pink sauce. You’ll find that crabapple sauce will make a striking counterpoint for a variety of dishes, both sweet and savory. The little bit of xanthan gum added at a ratio of 0.1 percent of the total weight of the other ingredients makes it almost perfect.

This recipe demonstrates the way that xanthan gum and Versawhip combine to form elegant and flavorful foams. Versawhip is an enzymatically treated soy protein that creates stable foam structures that can tolerate small amounts of acid but no fat. The whipped cherry juice is great over lime seltzer for a play on a lime rickey. It also works well sprinkled with chopped marcona almonds on top of marinated fish. The light, ethereal texture adds volume to dishes and the intense cherry melts on the palate, lingering so as to present more cherry than is actually there. The ratio of 0.15 percent xanthan gum and 1.5 percent Versawhip may be applied to many other liquid mediums.