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Anyone using liquid nitrogen?

post #1 of 7
2/23/08 at 5:22am
Thread Starter 
I recently viewed a program on the food network about high tech cooking techniques some of which were really quite amazing. Restaurant MOTO in Chicago the pastry chef uses liquid nitrogen extensively in his dessert prep. One of the coolest (no pun intended) was filling a ballon with strawberry puree and then blowing it up slightly. After that he bathed it in liquid nitrogen and then after it froze he peeled off the ballon to reveal a perfectly round sphere of strawberry coulis. It was really quite amazing.

Really curious if any chefs are using liquid nitrogen and if so what type of applications in your kitchen? Where would one purchase liquid nitrogen?
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post #2 of 7
2/23/08 at 7:59am
Lots of people are using it. I've done Heston Blumenthal's nitro green tea mousse and nitro smoked bacon and egg ice cream, they were fun. The problem for me is I don't have a source that doesn't require driving several hours and it has a pretty limited storage time unless you have some very specialized storage containers so I can't keep it on hand as much as I'd like. There are handling safety issues that go with it, be sure to familiarize yourself with them before playing. I saw the episode you refered to and many people (such as Chef Cantu) who work/play with it regularly make it look like it's no big deal but they already know that you can do some serious damage to yourself with it and know what they can or can't get away with.
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post #3 of 7
2/23/08 at 8:14am
Thread Starter 
I agree with you about the dangers in the video the pastry chef was rolling the ballon in liquid nitrogen with his bare hands.

Would you mind ellaborating on the technique for Nitro smoked bacon?
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post #4 of 7
2/23/08 at 9:23am
Actually it's not nitro smoked bacon, it's smoked bacon and egg ice cream that's frozen with liquid nitrogen. Ends up looking like scambled eggs.
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post #5 of 7
2/23/08 at 12:58pm
I played with 'instant ice cream' by gently dipping a spoonful or two crem anglaise into the nitro. It works well for doing demonstrations, etc.
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post #6 of 7
4/10/08 at 12:24pm
Are there any good resources for learning about/playing with nitro? I'm curious! How about places to get it near Spokane, WA?
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post #7 of 7
4/10/08 at 11:22pm
If anyone remembers from around fall last year, I did a stage at Moto in hopes of making it into Chef Cantu's kitchen. The job was offered, but my school schedule was unable to match his.

I met Ben Roche, the pastry chef in question here. If you do a youtube search for either Homaro Cantu or Ben Roche, you are going to come up with a few good videos demonstrating their use of liquid nitrogen or other interesting cooking methods. Talking about liquid nitro, I noticed aa dish named "snow", where specially prepared goat cheese is plunged into liquid nitrogen and served to the customer smoking. Hard to describe, but definitely something very pleasant.

A very good episode to watch is the episode of Iron Chef America where Homaro Cantu (Moto) takes on Iron Chef Morimoto in a Beet battle.
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