Marcel's Quantum Kitchen (2011) s01e05 Episode Script
The Heat Is On
I'm Chef Marcel Vigneron.
I've had over 15 years of experience, and I use a new style of cooking referred to as /C molecular gastronomy, which is used by less than 5% of chefs worldwide.
Look at that.
After "Top Chef", I needed my next challenge.
So I decided to give catering a shot.
I've set up a state-of-the-art kitchen.
With my team in place, my new adventure begins.
To Marcel! Real people, spectacular parties, and the most outrageous food you've probably ever imagined.
All right, we have to go.
We have to send these dishes, I'm done around.
Tonight, it's baptism by fire when a big L.
A.
Fire Department event puts Marcel in the hot seat.
This is my version of chili.
I hope you guys like it hot.
But they also hired event planner, Sasha.
I don't know if I'm comfortable.
And she and Marcel are like fire and ice.
I want to see the food.
These aren't the plates that I ordered.
Uh-oh.
And will a missing plate prove too hot to handle for Marcel? Like, I'm gonna break all these plates right now.
I'd already told her I'm gonna get the plate fixed.
We're done.
Welcome to the future of food.
Welcome to Marcel's Quantum Kitchen.
Marcel's Quantum Kitchen 1x05 The Heat Is On Original air date on April 19, 2011 So I'm really excited about this upcoming party.
It's gonna be really cool.
I mean, it's an opportunity to work with the firemen.
I here at Station 27 to meet with Dave Marino, who's not only a fireman, but also the president of the L.
A.
Firefighters Relief Association.
And Dave's asked me and my team to cater a party to honor his volunteers that work with him.
- Hey! - Hi.
- Dave.
- Now, is it sir? - Is it chef? - Marcel.
Marcel.
Marcel will do.
Dave Marino, it's my pleasure.
It's a pleasure to meet you, Dave.
I'm the president of the Los Angeles Firemen's Relief Association.
The entire purpose of that organization is to help firefighter families in their time of need.
- Well, thank you so much.
- Thank you.
What an opportunity, you guys.
This is phenomenal.
When they're injured, we help them to rehab, get 'em back on their feet so they can get back to work.
I've wanted to do this for a long time.
This is my last run as the president, and we got a lot of volunteers, and this is my opportunity to give back to them.
I'm honored to be a part of it, and thank you for thinking of us.
Are you guys hungry? 'Cause these guys are eating everything they got back there.
I'm actually starving.
All right, well, come on in, let's go for it.
So I am stepping down as president of the Firemen's Relief.
The purpose of the party is to tell the volunteers thank you from me.
This is Shep Purcell and his crew.
Hey, guys.
I was a little bit concerned that the firemen are, you know, pretty much strictly meat and potato guys and my food is a little bit more, kind of like outside of the box.
Hey, this is how we do it.
The bowls are over there, guys.
Go get some.
So this is what firemen eat.
This looks delicious.
Sustenance.
I see they've got a massive pot of chili cooking, all the garnishes.
Accoutrements.
Looks like they made some carrot cake.
It gave me some inspiration for this upcoming menu that I've got to plan.
It smells really good.
So who is the designated cook here? - It rotates.
- It rotates? So you all are just good cooks? No.
What do you guys like to cook? - Like, what do you guys like to eat? - Protein.
- A lot of protein? - Steak and potatoes.
Do you guys like ribs? Do you guys eat a lot of ribs? That's for dinner tonight.
We got beef ribs tonight.
- Beef ribs? - Yeah.
Cookin' up some ribs tonight? Usually barbecue 'em but-- - Usually barbecue? - Yep.
The more I understand the firemen, like, the better I can cook for them.
Because if I understand who you are, I can figure out what to make you.
When you're pickin' a recipe here, if it's your turn to cook, is you have to pick something that, if you get called away, you can come back half an hour later and it's still good.
It's not gonna be burned.
So things like stews or casseroles are a little better suited for that.
Watchin' Marcel and Assucio interact at fire station 27 with the guys, the way they bonded, really made me feel good that this is the right guy to do the job for us.
I'm meeting Sasha, the party planner, at the L.
A.
Firefighters Museum.
Hi, Sasha.
Pleasure to meet you.
And this is where Dave's gonna have his party.
I've got a lot of ideas.
It's just a matter of how I can hone them in and kind of make it a really cohesive event incorporating what you do - and what I do.
- What are you thinking? Dave has hired me because we do really interesting and unique event design.
We're going to actually do the event right here on the plaza - in front of the memorial.
- Out here? - Right out here.
- Robyn: That's gonna be lovely.
My ideas for this party involve a lot of fire and water, and kind of very interesting reveals.
I own a fire table.
What is a fire table? It is a black propane pipe fed from underneath that we can light and the guests will sit on a long table surrounding the fire.
The idea of having a fire table, I think is brilliant.
And I want to figure out how to actually incorporate that idea into the food.
So the fire is, like, in the middle? - Is right down the center-- - Robyn: Wow.
and I can show you photos and everything.
- That'll be really cool.
- Sounds crazy.
I know, it's great, right? Want to go inside and check out your kitchen? - I do.
Indeed.
- Let's do it.
Oh, real kitchen.
All right.
I'm actually really excited to cater this party, because this is one of the first times I'm actually gonna have a kitchen.
A real, live kitchen.
Oh.
It's a kitchen.
I am really excited to cook in here.
And plating up all of these dishes - gonna be fun.
- Yeah.
Speaking of dishes, I've kind of had some issues, I guess, in the past, and so I'm planning on ordering all of my own plates.
Well, that's not really the way that we do it.
The way I see it, food is like my art outlet, and the plates are, essentially, my porcelain canvas.
So why wouldn't I be able to display my own art the way I see fit? You need to-- You need to get to know me.
I mean, I can guarantee you that I know what I'm doing, and until I actually get to see what you're planning, I don't know if I'm comfortable.
You know, typically what I will do with a chef is I'll work with them to pick the plates.
But Marcel wanted full control over the plateware, which made me uncomfortable because I just want to make sure that it looks good on the table.
I want to see the food.
If you can show me what the food looks like, we might be able to work something out.
But I think that's gonna require food tasting.
Come on.
If I give you a tasting and I show you the food that I'm gonna be creating, you should let me pick out my plates.
We can definitely schedule a tasting with you, but it's not going to be exactly like what we're serving, per se.
So, how rad have the past couple of days been? Just hangin' out with the firemen, they cooked lunch for us.
- They did? - Devon: Yeah, they did.
We got a really good sense of what they like to actually eat.
and I was thinking about maybe even just re-creating, like, some of those dishes, and we'll just take that and just light it on fire.
Blow it up.
And we want to do some chili.
Hell, yes, we gotta do chili.
Hot chili.
Like ring the alarm chili.
One alarm, two alarm, three alarm.
- Four alarm.
- That sounds good.
I feel like we need a fish starter course.
How about shrimp cocktail? Instead of shrimp, maybe use, like, langoustines with really hot, on fire, like flambéing.
And then the cocktail sauce could almost be like a slushy or like an ice cream or-- I like that.
And then the third course-- - Ribs.
- Devon: Gotta do the ribs.
We should definitely grill 'em.
The more fire we put to any of our items, I think the better.
I feel like we need a dessert.
They love carrot cake, we gotta give it to them.
Didn't you say that they love carrot-- They did, they had like a whole pan of carrot cake.
It's a well-known fact, actually.
- Yeah.
- Maybe we can incorporate fire into the carrot cake.
If you fry carrot strips, it'll look like flames.
I feel pretty good about that.
I want everything to be my own style.
I'm not gonna make your typical shrimp cocktail.
I'm not gonna make your average chili.
I want to do my version of baby back ribs.
And then lastly, we've got the carrot cake.
I want the firemen to be, like, wow.
Like, that's definitely not the carrot cake I ate yesterday.
These are three very major components for the carrot cake.
My vision for the carrot cake is that I want to re-create a campfire.
The centerpiece is gonna be a flaming crouquant, a crispy pastry treat that I'm gonna make by cooking glucose, isomalt and fondant to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then, we'll combine that with some freeze-dried carrots, grind it into a fine powder, and sift it into a fire stencil, and then finally bake it.
This is gonna be our rocks.
Right? - Our rocks? - So what we want to do is take our white chocolate, which is these three right here.
- And our cocoa butter.
- Okay.
And we need to melt these together, and then after that, we're gonna mix it with our yogurt powder and our blackberry powder.
After that, we're gonna strain it right into these.
And then we're actually going to inject these into a hotel pan over an ice bath inside of the cryovac machine.
Marcel is getting more and more ambitious with each party, and this time we have a nine component carrot cake.
So I'm gonna go one step at a time.
One of these times, we're not gonna be able to pull it off.
So you're almost ready for the blackberry powder and yogurt powder.
Right? - I'm actually ready right now.
- White chocolate is melted? - Yep.
- Okay.
Let's get our siphons ready, and let's get our cartridges ready as well.
- All right.
- , we gotta push.
- Yeah.
- All right, pushin', pushin' pushin'.
What I want to do is temper white chocolate with a little bit of cocoa butter, and some freeze-dried blackberries.
Charge it, twice.
Shake it in between.
While the chocolate is still warm, I'm gonna stick it inside the cryovac machine where I'm actually pumping air inside of the white chocolate so it bubbles up.
When I tell you to, unplug this cord right here.
- Okay.
- Okay.
The reason why I'm actually turning the cryovac machine off is because, normally, it pushes a bunch of air inside of the chamber and then sucks it all out.
Whereas, if I unplug the machine, it's not going to deflate or compress all of those air bubbles that I want inside.
Come on, .
I know you want to do it.
Come on.
This technique is all about timing.
What you want to do is turn off the cryovac machine when you have the maximum pressure, which is very tricky because you have, like, maybe a millisecond difference between having perfection of inflation, and having total deflated chocolate.
So let's see what happens, huh? Jarrid, are you ready? I'll tell you when.
I'm ready.
All right, stop it.
- Oh, .
- Did it pop? - I'm pluggin' it back in.
- No, no, no, no.
We're gonna only get one shot with this.
I've measured out all the ingredients.
Did you weigh this out? There's no way this is right.
I take full responsibility.
- What's off? - Everything.
These are supposed to be round plates.
I seem to have this massive issue when it comes to plates.
I'm not gonna take the bullet on this.
Kind of pisses me off.
This is my version of chili.
I was kind of concerned the guys were really not gonna understand whether it was something to look at or eat.
I'm using the cryovac machine to trap air bubbles inside of the white chocolate to make it look like rocks.
Jarrid, are you ready? I'll tell you when.
Wait, wait.
All right, stop it.
Ahh, .
So far, it's not really working.
I'm pluggin' it back in.
No, no, no, no.
Kidding.
Get ready to do it again.
This technique is all about timing.
What you want to do is turn off the cryovac machine when you have the maximum pressure, which is very tricky because you have, like, maybe, like a millisecond difference between having perfection of inflation and having total deflated white chocolate.
Jarrid, are you ready? Hold on.
Wait, wait.
Okay, unplug.
Nice.
We finally have it.
This is how we need to actually figure something out.
And as soon as we figure it out for the first time, - then we can do production.
- Robyn: Okay.
And now we produce.
Ready to get your cocktail on? - Yeah, yeah.
- Sweet.
I've got my components over here, I've got my tomatoes, I've got my celery, got my horseradish.
The shrimp cocktail I'm making is gonna be a little bit different.
First, instead of shrimp, we're gonna use langoustines, which are, basically, small lobsters.
Second, we're gonna flambe the dish tableside.
And then lastly, I'm gonna have four different textures of cocktail sauce.
Instead of using canned tomato juice, I feel like we should just make our own, like, fresh tomato water and it'll have nice acidity.
Then we'll add some spiciness from the horseradish, very concentrated, delicious flavor.
For the frozen texture, we have to strain the spicy cocktail sauce that Jarrid made through cheesecloth to get rid of all the pulp from the horseradish and the tomatoes.
- Clarity is really nice.
- Nice and broth-y.
Very clear, and it should have all of those flavors still, so it should be nice and Oh, yeah.
Is it as spicy on the bottom as it is on top? It's-- I love it.
I want to try this new technique called super cooling.
The idea is that when I pour it in front of the guests, it'll actually freeze right before their very own eyes.
After this is done gettin' all the juices out, - I'll put it in the freezer? - Yeah.
But before I can see if super cooling works, I need to put the cocktail sauce in the freezer, and bring it down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
There are a lot of different variables to this, and the temperature has to be precise.
So this is gonna be interesting.
So, Devon, I want to have you work on the baby back ribs.
The smoked-- smoked baby back ribs, - with the apples and the cornucopia - Hell, yeah.
What I want to do with the ribs is actually cook them, de-bone them, and then inject them with an apple fluid gel, so that way it actually mimics the form of bones.
So we're gonna take our baby back ribs that have been grilled and rubbed.
And then I want to steam the ribs in a moist controlled environment.
We're gonna do that by utilizing a cooking technique called en papillote.
En papillote is a method of cooking where food is put into a folded pouch and steamed.
Instead of just cryovacking things, I want them to steam.
We got our spare ribs with our dry rub and now we're adding our little wet marinade.
And the parchment paper is just gonna actually contain all of those juices inside of there.
And I want to take that little package, and wrap it inside of plastic wrap.
It's gonna insulate all of those aromas and flavors, and all that moisture inside of here.
And I'm gonna take that package and wrap it in tin foil, which is actually gonna prevent the plastic wrap from melting at these high temperatures.
Kind of like a-- like a fire blanket.
Once you start cooking en papillote, you cannot open the wrapper to check on the cooking process.
You really just need to know how much meat you have and the cooking time, so that you're fully cooked and that meat is tender.
Sick, bro.
Can you go grab the-- the super cooling action.
Super cooling is, essentially, when you take a liquid, even though it's at 30 degrees Fahrenheit, it's still in the form of a liquid because it hasn't been agitated.
As soon as you agitate the liquid, you can actually see the crystallization process take place right before your eyes.
It's kind of a cool process.
Have you ever see it before? - No, I don't think so.
- You've never left a beer in the freezer, and pulled it out when it's still liquid, popped it open and have it freeze on you? Beers in my house don't have a chance to even get cold.
Should I get a whisk? - No.
- No? Uh-uh.
It's actually supposed to slush-ify right before your eyes.
But no worky-worky.
I'm starting to think that maybe Marcel should have done some research into super coolant, because so far, it's not very super.
I think we've gotta go back to the drawing board with this one and come up with a new technique.
We're gonna make cocktail sauce caviar.
Super cooling is not really working so I want to try out another texture with the cocktail sauce.
And I was actually looking at the langoustines, and I came up with the idea of using cocktail sauce pearls that resemble langoustine eggs This grape seed oil right here, we stuck it in the freezer, so as soon as the agar agar cocktail sauce comes into contact with the oil, it's gonna jellify.
During the cold oil spherification, there's basically two reactions that are happening simultaneously.
There's the jellification of the cocktail sauce with the help of agar agar coming into contact with the cold oil, and then there's also the forming of the pearls, which is the reaction that takes place when the water, or the cocktail sauce, comes into contact with the oil.
So basically, you have a jellification and a spherification that are happening simultaneously.
- That's wicked.
- Pretty cool.
Hold out your hand.
Oh, yum, these look really cool.
Mm, balls of flavor.
See how the plastic wrap didn't get burned from the tin foil.
And then our little papillote package kept all our juices inside.
The ribs look so delicious, and by steam cooking them en papillote, they're so tender, you can literally slide the bones right out of the meat.
- Marcel: Nice.
- Devon: There you go.
- Look at that.
- Oh, look at that bone.
And now I want to take the ribs and then inject them with the apple fluid gel, so that way it mimics the form of bones.
So it'll look like a regular rib, but it'll actually be completely 100% edible.
You see where we have those holes? - Jarrid: Yeah.
- Is where we want to put our apple gel.
- That should work, right? - Devon: Yeah, yeah.
So we're gonna have to work super quick.
We're gonna basically only get one shot with this.
We're gonna get one shot and we gotta do it.
and we gotta do 'em all.
Because once it solidifies, there's, like, there's no turning back.
So at the end of day one, I am, by no means, where I want to be with my prep list.
Yeah, there's only four dishes, but these dishes are so complex, and there's so many components to every single one, trying to utilize modern gastronomy in all of these techniques might be too complicated for catering.
Tomorrow is a serious day.
We have to push.
Remember, we have to do a tasting for the party planner, Sasha.
It's gonna be a big day.
Sorry, we'll only be here 'til, like tomorrow.
All right, you guys ready to get this day started? Yeah, let's do it.
I'm hoping today we can be a little bit more productive than yesterday.
Having kind of, like, slept on this prep list, and having this gigantic gray cloud looming over my head, I've come to the realization that for the carrot cake, I'm gonna need some help.
- Robyn: Sally saves the day.
- Sally: What's going on? I'm Sally Camacho.
I specialize in pastry, chocolate work, wedding cakes.
plate of desserts, bonbons, sugar work, things like that.
The carrot cake will be the actual, like, centerpiece.
Like a cream cheese snow carrot croquet that actually resembles flames.
Golden raisins, ambers, anything like a fire.
I wanna figure out a way to make logs.
It's definitely a Marcel carrot cake.
I didn't say it was gonna be easy.
I mean, this is precisely why I called you in in the first place.
Buy, you know, the picture that he wanted to paint sounded kind of cool, so I wanted to see how it would actually play out, and what I could do to make it even look better.
- Thanks for coming.
- You're welcome.
That's gonna make it look kind of cool.
Should we try one? For the carrot cake, I did the crouquant camp fire.
The technique is cooking syrup glucose and isamolt and fondant together, cooking it to a temperature, and then throwing it on a silphat, and then grinding it up so it's a fine powder.
I'm just gonna put this guy in the blender and grind it? - Marcel: Yup.
- Okay.
Whoa! We combined it with some freeze-dried carrot powder, as well as freeze dried purple carrot powder.
That would make it seem like a camp fire flame.
Takes, like, 30 seconds in a really hot oven, and then becomes a cool, little delicate sugar garnish.
- Is that my stencil? - Yes.
I'm smiling for, like, the first time today.
- We need mas.
- Mas.
For my chili, rather than serve it as a stew, I want to make a deconstructed version.
The beans and veggies are gonna be in a square bed at the bottom of the bowl, and the meat is gonna be a croquette, which is basically a breaded meatball.
To make the croquettes, we're gonna cook the ox tail and the ham hocks in a pressure cooker, shred the meats, and press them into molds.
We're gonna bind these two molds together, roll the meatball in egg and flower and deep fry the croquette to seal everything together.
And there will be four different heat levels of chili gels on the side of the plate, and we'll finish it off with consommé.
It's basically like chili inside out.
They take-a the peppers, and they put them on the grill and fry 'em up! So, for the chili jellos, what I've decided to do was make four different types of jello, all composed of a different type of chili, and each chili is a little bit hotter than the next.
So, alarm one is gonna be made out of bell peppers.
Alarm two, Serrano chilis.
Alarm three, thai burns.
And lastly, alarm four, the jabanero's, which is-- Muy Caliente.
First, Jarrid roasted all of the chilis, and then I simply blended them with water.
And then strained out the extra chilies.
So I just basically made, like, a chili water.
This is actually really, really simple.
We only have four ingredients in here.
- We've got Serrano chilies.
- Yeah.
- Water.
- Yeah.
- Salt.
- I can smell it.
And then, we're gonna add some gelatin.
Dude, what is up with the scale? Now we're going to make the apple gelatin that we're going to inject into the ribs to mimic the bones.
I'm kind of worrying about my dish.
I'm feeling the heat.
- Let's chat.
- Yes.
This right here is our apple juice, which we're gonna add both of our different types of gelling gums, LT100 and the F.
But whenever you're hydrating gellan, it's much easier to hydrate it inside of-- Did you weigh this out? All correctly? Everything is weighed out as to that.
How much apple juice is in this? That's a quart.
A thousand grams.
All right.
What scale did you weigh that out with? There's no way any of this is weighed out properly.
There's no way.
There's no way this is right.
The recipe for the apple jello consists of one quart of apple puree, and 1% of it's weight in gellan gum.
There's no way that that apple puree would even come close to absorbing that much gellan gum without turning into, like, chalk.
- What's off? - Everything.
Did you weigh this out? All correctly? Everything is weighed out as to that.
There's no way.
There's now way any of this weighed out properly.
There's no way.
- What's off? - Everything.
You do see the point in there, right? Point eight? So, it's not, like, eight grams.
Oh, so it's too much.
Yeah.
Re-weigh all the ingredients and we'll start over.
All right.
I was looking at Marcel's recipes, and he has chicken scratch writing, and apparently, I missed a decimal here and there.
But I knew I got it right the second time.
Here we go.
Are you ready? I've had this measured out perfectly.
Just waiting on you, chef.
Oh, I can't-- If you weren't ten times my size.
Let's go over our procedures so that we're on the same page.
We're gonna take our apple juice, we're gonna bring it up to about 90 degrees Celsius, and then we're gonna blend in all three of our hydrocolloids, so we got the high acyl gellan gum, the low acyl gellan gum, and the tapioca melted extract.
It's funny, it doesn't look at all like the one before.
And then, we're gonna add our apple puree.
Little bit at a time, little bit at a time.
And once we get that done, we are going to start Injection.
Suck it up.
Get down low so you don't get air bubbles.
- All right, start injecting.
- It's hot.
If we don't inject the fluid gel into the ribs while everything is still warm, it's gonna be clumpy in the rib, and it's not gonna look like bones.
A little bit coming out of the side.
And, like, as you're injecting, kind of lift the syringe up out of it.
All right, cool, so you got this going on? - Got you.
- Thanks, bro.
This is alarm two.
Dude, that-- The fumes from it right now, even That's seriously choking-- Ah.
Am I breathing fire right now? Once I knew that the taste and the heat were at the right levels we wanted, I took that chili water, and then just jellified it with some regular gelatin.
- It's pretty caliente.
- Yeah? I mean, I feel like we're making really good progress on these dishes, but I'm still really worried.
Uh, what time is Sasha coming through? - Sasha Sasha.
- Sasha Sasha, what? Because Sasha the party planner is coming in for a tasting.
We have an unbelievable amount of work left to do.
Um, Robyn, we have to dice the jello.
We gotta cut the doilies.
We gotta make the dipping dots for the tasting.
Devon, left on your prep list is cleaning the apple ribs.
Uh-huh.
- And frying the black trumpet mushrooms.
- Okay.
Sally, we just have to make the apple chips, cornucopia crouquants.
We have to make a big siphon of cream cheese foam for the people who really can't handle the heat.
Celery salad, slice of Serranos Did I say cream cheese foam? - You did.
- I meant creme fresh.
Carrot chips, sugar boxes, chocolate twigs.
Langoustine fluid gel.
Maple foam and cream cheese snow.
And then a cocktail sauce air.
- And then, set up a breading station.
- Okay.
- That's it? - Yeah, that's it.
Oh, no! Gotta make love to the meat.
I invited Sasha in for a tasting so that way I could pick out my plates.
But no, I'm kind of regretting that decision because the only thing I have ready is the langoustine cocktail.
And I'm afraid that she might actually report back to Dave, my client, which would not be good.
They need to be opened up, though.
All these need to be opened up so you get all the flavor.
Why do you think zombies eat the brains? Because brains are good.
We want to break up the shells to get out the head goo.
Hey, Marcel, how are you? Hi.
Hey, good to see you.
- Good, very excited.
- Where does the time go? - Do you want to have a seat here? - Sure.
They're all running around like crazy, getting ready for this tasting.
I'm a little bit tense because nothing really looks like it's finished.
So we're in the process of making you some of the.
versions of the dishes.
The only thing that I have for this tasting, basically, we're doing a little play on shrimp cocktails.
You have cocktail sauce in four different textures.
You've got an air made out of cocktail sauce, a rim, which is celery salt, tomato powder, and horseradish, and then you have these jello pearls, and then these frozen pearls made out of cocktail sauce.
and let me get you some silver.
No need.
I actually don't eat shrimp.
So I just spent the last hour scrambling to get something ready for Sasha, and then I find out she doesn't eat shrimp? And that's basically the only thing that I have ready for her.
This is a disaster.
It's not really a shrimp.
it's about this big.
It's much bigger than a shrimp.
- It's a langoustine.
- Right.
So it's like a smaller clawed lobster.
What is the taste, though? It's totally different than shrimp.
I, um I will give it a shot.
Go for gold.
It's really good.
- Really? Thanks.
- Uh-huh.
- Whew! - I know, you win.
You just made her a seafood lover.
I'm gonna eat this anyway.
I know this wasn't really the tasting that Sasha expected, but at the same time, I basically held up my end of the bargain, so I'm still gonna have Robyn send her the plate order.
The day of the party is finally here, and I think we're all pretty excited about it.
the only problem is, we were up all night trying to perfect these dishes, we didn't get a lot done, we still have a lot to do.
- Here is the kitchen, guys.
- Hey.
It is pretty fabulous.
When I arrive here at the museum, the first thing I want to do is check on my plates, because every single time I do a party, I seem to have, like, this massive issue when it comes to plates.
These are, like, not even.
These totally aren't-- These aren't, like, the plates that I ordered.
Uh-oh.
And when I get here, sure enough, the debacle of plates continues.
Like, I'm gonna break all these plates right now.
I'm not just being this crazy chef with, like, these asinine demands.
Believe it or not, there's actually, like, a method to my madness.
my plates.
So the idea is to smoke the ribs underneath the cloches, so that way, when we remove the cloche, it'll create, like, a really cool smoky effect.
But, the only problem is, the plates need to match the cloche, otherwise the smoke is going to escape, and totally ruin the effect.
These are supposed to be 12-inch round plates.
Frosted and round.
Yeah, so this is supposed to be for the ribs, and that's supposed to go right there.
That's gonna pose a problem for us.
Your plates were ordered.
I'm gonna talk to Sasha right now.
Marcel made up the plate order, and he even included pictures this time so there would be no mistakes, Hey, Sasha.
I'm looking at the plates, and we've got some wrong sizes from what we've ordered.
and it poses a big problem.
That plate, not here.
Whatever.
These were supposed to be round, so that this guy could fit here so the smoke would billow.
But, unfortunately, since you put this on here, coming out the sides.
I get the order from Robyn, I place the order with the rental company, a different plate gets delivered than what she thinks she ordered.
I'm a little upset.
Well, I'll see if they can do-- This is the photograph that was on the order.
Oh, I-- This is not the photograph that I saw on the order.
I am not gonna take the wrap for these dang plates.
They had nothing to do with me.
Why do I spend an entire day picking out plates if they're not even gonna be here? Somebody else cook this dinner.
This is the photograph that was on the order.
Oh, I-- This is not the photograph that I saw on the order.
Marcel made up the plate order, and he even included pictures this time so there would be no mistakes.
Somebody else cook this dinner.
Um, Sasha, I can't serve the ribs on a square plate.
I already told her, I'm gonna get the plate fixed.
I was really irritated and really mad.
I'm not gonna take the bullet on this.
That's .
We're done.
If they wanted to order all the plates, then they should have given me the proper order.
Just so you know, the ribs aren't really gonna be smoking because the plates are the wrong size.
So, just to let you know.
Doesn't really matter.
There is the possibility that we're gonna have to make it work with the square plates.
I figured as much.
But we're definitely gonna try and get the round plates.
I can't spend any more time on that.
We actually have work to do, so we should probably get to it.
We should make those dip and dots, dude.
That's what I'm-- All over it.
Do we have nitrogen here? The supercooling technique Marcel tried yesterday, the frozen texture didn't work.
It's actually supposed to, like, slushify, like, right before your eyes.
But, um no worky worky.
So we're gonna go to the frozen pearl route, were we're going to use the nitrogen, and create some little frozen pearls of cocktail sauce, so you have some soft, and then you have, like, a creamy cold texture.
I think this is actually going to be a better solution anyway.
Don't use that stuff, just use that stuff.
Jarrid, have you checked on the fryer? Uh, I have not.
Hey, look, I need a favor.
Devon, have you set up your smoking guns yet? Nope, I'm gonna fill these cones, then I can get to that afterwards.
I need 25 of the black matte 11 and a half inch rounds.
This is with the cinnamon stick.
I also need some of the frosted rounds.
- Robyn? - Yes? Do we have those plates? So, the guests are coming in a little bit over an hour, and we still don't have the plate for the rib dish.
They'll be here by about 4:00.
So it'll be a little bit later because they have to come all the way over from the airport.
But they're gonna take care of it for us, so sorry about that.
You're the best.
- Sorry.
- Thank you.
It's huge that we finally got the right plate for the ribs.
Now, all I have to worry about is if the firemen are actually gonna like my cooking.
Wow, look how pretty you guys look.
Come on in on the red carpet.
Enjoy it all.
This dinner, to me, is an opportunity to give back to six individuals who represent hundreds of other volunteers.
Just a small token of thanks to some very special people.
I did this just for you guys, I worked all night on this thing for you.
Hey, so we have guests.
- Guests are here.
- Okay.
So, how much longer before you think you're ready.
Give me 10 minutes.
Oh, no, no.
Not 10 minutes.
- Sally, can you help Devon? - Yeah.
And I'll see you in, like, five? - Yup.
- We should fill the shot glasses.
Let's take all that stuff to scullery.
You dip it, like you would do a regular shot glass? Yeah.
When I was originally conceiving the menu, I was, like, firemen.
I want to theme every dish around fire.
I wonder if that's not a good idea? What if I light a bunch of stuff on fire, and then the firemen are, just, like, "Wait a second, I feel like I'm at work.
This sucks.
" Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Thank you for allowing me to cater such a momentous occasion.
I'm actually really excited about the menu that we've created for you.
We have our version of a shrimp cocktail.
We're gonna cook the langoustine's in a flambe, so it's gonna be like a flaming shrimp.
And then, on the other side, there's a cocktail sauce caviar, there's cocktail sauce pearls, there's a cocktail sauce air, there's a cocktail sauce rim.
It's an extravaganza of cocktail sauce.
So, um, I hope you guys kind of like it hot.
Bon appetite.
- So spicy.
- Spicy.
The langoustine dish was very enjoyable, had good flavors.
The little shot glass of cocktail sauce was cool.
All his little bubble flavors that were bursting were such an added treat to the meal.
It was very good.
No, that was excellent.
Boy, that was really good.
Can you not worry about this and worry about this? - Yeah.
- How long-- How long for chili? So, this chili is not like any chili I've ever eaten.
The bottom of the plate, we're gonna have, like, a bean mixture with a little bit of carrots and onions and celery.
Um, let's get the croquettes on here.
and then we're going to add our little chili sphere on the top, made with ox tail and ham hock, so it's a ball of chili meat.
Some people get big balls.
Let's use all the little balls.
And then, on the sides, we're gonna have our chili gels so that they can choose the heat.
You guys are gonna be dropping the plate along with an extinguisher, so you'll have the plate in one hand, and the extinguisher in the other.
I mean, firemen are known for chili, right? My chili looks nothing like the chili these firemen are used to eating.
I have no idea how they're going to react to this dish.
Go, go, go, go.
This is my version of chili.
It's almost like a meatball on top.
It's a chili croquette.
And then, around the rim, there's several different types of chilies.
I'm actually inviting you to test the heat, and go as hot as you want to go.
If the dish gets a little bit too hot, you can cool yourself off with some milk and honey.
There's milk and honey inside the extinguishers, so if it gets too hot, you can always cool it down.
My version of chili's got beans and stuff, and comes in a big bowl.
Yeah, we get this very, kind of inside out chili.
I was kind of concerned the guys were not gonna understand what it was, whether it was something to look at or eat.
- Very good.
- Very good.
This is very tasty.
Normally at the fire station, the chili's just a mass of beans with a hunk of cheese on it.
This was very creative.
It was more of a puree with the jelly chilies.
It was very good.
Yeah, I ain't gonna burn my lips up.
No, thank you.
I wouldn't be able to enjoy the rest of the meal.
There you go! So, I hope you guys are enjoying yourself this evening.
'Cause I'm gonna have an opportunity now to honor a few of you guys for all the stuff you do on all your spare time.
How long is the ceremony gonna take? 15 minutes? Okay, 15 minutes.
So, we have plenty of time to plate the ribs.
The only trick is that we send the dish out right as Dave finishes his speech.
I don't want to interrupt this moment, so the timing is crucial.
If we smoke the ribs too soon, it's gonna ruin the taste.
Let's get the runners! All right, so, Devon, you got your smoking guns ready? I'm ready to get my ribs out.
My dishes are plated up, and all I gotta do is smoke 'em at the moment, so that it could be a really cool effect when they take the cloches off, and the smoke just billows everywhere.
Thank you so much for all your efforts and support.
Thank you.
So, as I'm waiting for Dave to finish up his speech, all the smoke starts to dissipate out of the cloches.
So I have to get the smoking gun, bring it back out, re-smoke all the dishes.
From me to you-- I'm, like, man, it waited so long.
I hope the food's not cold, I hope it's not over-smoked.
- Can we go? - Thanks, Ray, for everything.
I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves this evening.
I'm gonna have an opportunity now to honor a few of you guys.
So, as I'm waiting for Dave to finish up his speech, all the smoke starts to dissipate out of the cloches.
Start smoking.
Start smoking.
So I'm standing there, and I actually have to end up re-smoking all the dishes.
For all the stuff you do on all your spare time, thank you, all of you.
You all deserve it.
Okay, let's go.
I'm seriously a nervous wreck right now because I feel like we might have dropped the ball on this one.
So, um, here we have apple-smoked baby back ribs, with a cornucopia.
The baby back ribs have actually been de-boned and then injected with some apple butter, so, like, apple sauce.
What I actually invite you to do is get a whole sensory experience.
So, before all the smoke goes away, just go ahead and lift up all your cloches.
Enjoy your baby back ribs.
The effect worked, but we did have to smoke the ribs several times, and I'm afraid that they might be too smoked, so much so, it might overpower the rest of the dish.
Mmm, very good, huh? Mmm.
They all seemed to love it.
I'm really happy they love it because I didn't know how it was gonna be any more.
Dave took up so much time, I was really worried about my plates, but everyone loved it.
The apple-infused ribs were just divine.
As close to heaven as I've been a long time with an apple.
I never would've thought putting apple's on spareribs would work, but they were really good.
I mean, at the fire station, you throw a slab down, you throw a bunch of barbecue sauce, and you burn 'em.
I feel like, you know, preparation's everything, and tonight, this dinner has pretty much just been about execution, and so far, the team has pulled together as a whole, and everything's going solid.
Dessert.
Is it awesome? I'm so stoked.
This dish is ambitious even for me.
I mean, I'm not even a pastry chef, and, like, I'm doing a nine-component carrot cake? All right, we have to go.
We have to send these dishes.
I'm done around.
Let's go.
All right, runners! Your next course is a carrot cake fire.
It's actually not super complex.
At the base, it's the carrot cake, then we have a little bit of a cream cheese snow, and then the flames out of the top are actually a carrot croquet made out of carrot puree, a little is malt glucose, and then, those purple rocks around the outside, it's actually blackberries and white chocolate.
they also have some rehydrated golden raisins which are there to form and make ambers, and then lastly, the twigs are made out of tempered chocolate drenched in a little bit of cocoa powder.
So, without further ado, your carrot cake.
Enjoy.
Thank you.
That's neat.
Like a campfire.
That is so cool.
Okay, which fork? The carrot cake is so yummy, and I've never seen carrot cake presented like that.
Boy, that is good.
A little different.
The party was so special.
It was fantastic.
Firemen are mostly casual people, and it was a little overwhelming, the formalness of it, but it was exciting.
This was definitely a night to remember.
Marcel's food was so different and unique, yet he was able to capture what firefighters really enjoy about eating.
It was a very special occasion for me.
His food made it that much more special.
It was a pleasure to cook for all of you.
Hold on, I couldn't do it all myself, though.
Let me get my crew out here.
Hey, you guys.
Now the party's over, I can rest assured the firemen actually enjoyed the food, had a really good time, so, all in all, I would say this party was, like, pretty kick ass.
If we can pull off a nine-component carrot cake, we might be able to do just about anything.
This is awesome.
I've had over 15 years of experience, and I use a new style of cooking referred to as /C molecular gastronomy, which is used by less than 5% of chefs worldwide.
Look at that.
After "Top Chef", I needed my next challenge.
So I decided to give catering a shot.
I've set up a state-of-the-art kitchen.
With my team in place, my new adventure begins.
To Marcel! Real people, spectacular parties, and the most outrageous food you've probably ever imagined.
All right, we have to go.
We have to send these dishes, I'm done around.
Tonight, it's baptism by fire when a big L.
A.
Fire Department event puts Marcel in the hot seat.
This is my version of chili.
I hope you guys like it hot.
But they also hired event planner, Sasha.
I don't know if I'm comfortable.
And she and Marcel are like fire and ice.
I want to see the food.
These aren't the plates that I ordered.
Uh-oh.
And will a missing plate prove too hot to handle for Marcel? Like, I'm gonna break all these plates right now.
I'd already told her I'm gonna get the plate fixed.
We're done.
Welcome to the future of food.
Welcome to Marcel's Quantum Kitchen.
Marcel's Quantum Kitchen 1x05 The Heat Is On Original air date on April 19, 2011 So I'm really excited about this upcoming party.
It's gonna be really cool.
I mean, it's an opportunity to work with the firemen.
I here at Station 27 to meet with Dave Marino, who's not only a fireman, but also the president of the L.
A.
Firefighters Relief Association.
And Dave's asked me and my team to cater a party to honor his volunteers that work with him.
- Hey! - Hi.
- Dave.
- Now, is it sir? - Is it chef? - Marcel.
Marcel.
Marcel will do.
Dave Marino, it's my pleasure.
It's a pleasure to meet you, Dave.
I'm the president of the Los Angeles Firemen's Relief Association.
The entire purpose of that organization is to help firefighter families in their time of need.
- Well, thank you so much.
- Thank you.
What an opportunity, you guys.
This is phenomenal.
When they're injured, we help them to rehab, get 'em back on their feet so they can get back to work.
I've wanted to do this for a long time.
This is my last run as the president, and we got a lot of volunteers, and this is my opportunity to give back to them.
I'm honored to be a part of it, and thank you for thinking of us.
Are you guys hungry? 'Cause these guys are eating everything they got back there.
I'm actually starving.
All right, well, come on in, let's go for it.
So I am stepping down as president of the Firemen's Relief.
The purpose of the party is to tell the volunteers thank you from me.
This is Shep Purcell and his crew.
Hey, guys.
I was a little bit concerned that the firemen are, you know, pretty much strictly meat and potato guys and my food is a little bit more, kind of like outside of the box.
Hey, this is how we do it.
The bowls are over there, guys.
Go get some.
So this is what firemen eat.
This looks delicious.
Sustenance.
I see they've got a massive pot of chili cooking, all the garnishes.
Accoutrements.
Looks like they made some carrot cake.
It gave me some inspiration for this upcoming menu that I've got to plan.
It smells really good.
So who is the designated cook here? - It rotates.
- It rotates? So you all are just good cooks? No.
What do you guys like to cook? - Like, what do you guys like to eat? - Protein.
- A lot of protein? - Steak and potatoes.
Do you guys like ribs? Do you guys eat a lot of ribs? That's for dinner tonight.
We got beef ribs tonight.
- Beef ribs? - Yeah.
Cookin' up some ribs tonight? Usually barbecue 'em but-- - Usually barbecue? - Yep.
The more I understand the firemen, like, the better I can cook for them.
Because if I understand who you are, I can figure out what to make you.
When you're pickin' a recipe here, if it's your turn to cook, is you have to pick something that, if you get called away, you can come back half an hour later and it's still good.
It's not gonna be burned.
So things like stews or casseroles are a little better suited for that.
Watchin' Marcel and Assucio interact at fire station 27 with the guys, the way they bonded, really made me feel good that this is the right guy to do the job for us.
I'm meeting Sasha, the party planner, at the L.
A.
Firefighters Museum.
Hi, Sasha.
Pleasure to meet you.
And this is where Dave's gonna have his party.
I've got a lot of ideas.
It's just a matter of how I can hone them in and kind of make it a really cohesive event incorporating what you do - and what I do.
- What are you thinking? Dave has hired me because we do really interesting and unique event design.
We're going to actually do the event right here on the plaza - in front of the memorial.
- Out here? - Right out here.
- Robyn: That's gonna be lovely.
My ideas for this party involve a lot of fire and water, and kind of very interesting reveals.
I own a fire table.
What is a fire table? It is a black propane pipe fed from underneath that we can light and the guests will sit on a long table surrounding the fire.
The idea of having a fire table, I think is brilliant.
And I want to figure out how to actually incorporate that idea into the food.
So the fire is, like, in the middle? - Is right down the center-- - Robyn: Wow.
and I can show you photos and everything.
- That'll be really cool.
- Sounds crazy.
I know, it's great, right? Want to go inside and check out your kitchen? - I do.
Indeed.
- Let's do it.
Oh, real kitchen.
All right.
I'm actually really excited to cater this party, because this is one of the first times I'm actually gonna have a kitchen.
A real, live kitchen.
Oh.
It's a kitchen.
I am really excited to cook in here.
And plating up all of these dishes - gonna be fun.
- Yeah.
Speaking of dishes, I've kind of had some issues, I guess, in the past, and so I'm planning on ordering all of my own plates.
Well, that's not really the way that we do it.
The way I see it, food is like my art outlet, and the plates are, essentially, my porcelain canvas.
So why wouldn't I be able to display my own art the way I see fit? You need to-- You need to get to know me.
I mean, I can guarantee you that I know what I'm doing, and until I actually get to see what you're planning, I don't know if I'm comfortable.
You know, typically what I will do with a chef is I'll work with them to pick the plates.
But Marcel wanted full control over the plateware, which made me uncomfortable because I just want to make sure that it looks good on the table.
I want to see the food.
If you can show me what the food looks like, we might be able to work something out.
But I think that's gonna require food tasting.
Come on.
If I give you a tasting and I show you the food that I'm gonna be creating, you should let me pick out my plates.
We can definitely schedule a tasting with you, but it's not going to be exactly like what we're serving, per se.
So, how rad have the past couple of days been? Just hangin' out with the firemen, they cooked lunch for us.
- They did? - Devon: Yeah, they did.
We got a really good sense of what they like to actually eat.
and I was thinking about maybe even just re-creating, like, some of those dishes, and we'll just take that and just light it on fire.
Blow it up.
And we want to do some chili.
Hell, yes, we gotta do chili.
Hot chili.
Like ring the alarm chili.
One alarm, two alarm, three alarm.
- Four alarm.
- That sounds good.
I feel like we need a fish starter course.
How about shrimp cocktail? Instead of shrimp, maybe use, like, langoustines with really hot, on fire, like flambéing.
And then the cocktail sauce could almost be like a slushy or like an ice cream or-- I like that.
And then the third course-- - Ribs.
- Devon: Gotta do the ribs.
We should definitely grill 'em.
The more fire we put to any of our items, I think the better.
I feel like we need a dessert.
They love carrot cake, we gotta give it to them.
Didn't you say that they love carrot-- They did, they had like a whole pan of carrot cake.
It's a well-known fact, actually.
- Yeah.
- Maybe we can incorporate fire into the carrot cake.
If you fry carrot strips, it'll look like flames.
I feel pretty good about that.
I want everything to be my own style.
I'm not gonna make your typical shrimp cocktail.
I'm not gonna make your average chili.
I want to do my version of baby back ribs.
And then lastly, we've got the carrot cake.
I want the firemen to be, like, wow.
Like, that's definitely not the carrot cake I ate yesterday.
These are three very major components for the carrot cake.
My vision for the carrot cake is that I want to re-create a campfire.
The centerpiece is gonna be a flaming crouquant, a crispy pastry treat that I'm gonna make by cooking glucose, isomalt and fondant to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then, we'll combine that with some freeze-dried carrots, grind it into a fine powder, and sift it into a fire stencil, and then finally bake it.
This is gonna be our rocks.
Right? - Our rocks? - So what we want to do is take our white chocolate, which is these three right here.
- And our cocoa butter.
- Okay.
And we need to melt these together, and then after that, we're gonna mix it with our yogurt powder and our blackberry powder.
After that, we're gonna strain it right into these.
And then we're actually going to inject these into a hotel pan over an ice bath inside of the cryovac machine.
Marcel is getting more and more ambitious with each party, and this time we have a nine component carrot cake.
So I'm gonna go one step at a time.
One of these times, we're not gonna be able to pull it off.
So you're almost ready for the blackberry powder and yogurt powder.
Right? - I'm actually ready right now.
- White chocolate is melted? - Yep.
- Okay.
Let's get our siphons ready, and let's get our cartridges ready as well.
- All right.
- , we gotta push.
- Yeah.
- All right, pushin', pushin' pushin'.
What I want to do is temper white chocolate with a little bit of cocoa butter, and some freeze-dried blackberries.
Charge it, twice.
Shake it in between.
While the chocolate is still warm, I'm gonna stick it inside the cryovac machine where I'm actually pumping air inside of the white chocolate so it bubbles up.
When I tell you to, unplug this cord right here.
- Okay.
- Okay.
The reason why I'm actually turning the cryovac machine off is because, normally, it pushes a bunch of air inside of the chamber and then sucks it all out.
Whereas, if I unplug the machine, it's not going to deflate or compress all of those air bubbles that I want inside.
Come on, .
I know you want to do it.
Come on.
This technique is all about timing.
What you want to do is turn off the cryovac machine when you have the maximum pressure, which is very tricky because you have, like, maybe a millisecond difference between having perfection of inflation, and having total deflated chocolate.
So let's see what happens, huh? Jarrid, are you ready? I'll tell you when.
I'm ready.
All right, stop it.
- Oh, .
- Did it pop? - I'm pluggin' it back in.
- No, no, no, no.
We're gonna only get one shot with this.
I've measured out all the ingredients.
Did you weigh this out? There's no way this is right.
I take full responsibility.
- What's off? - Everything.
These are supposed to be round plates.
I seem to have this massive issue when it comes to plates.
I'm not gonna take the bullet on this.
Kind of pisses me off.
This is my version of chili.
I was kind of concerned the guys were really not gonna understand whether it was something to look at or eat.
I'm using the cryovac machine to trap air bubbles inside of the white chocolate to make it look like rocks.
Jarrid, are you ready? I'll tell you when.
Wait, wait.
All right, stop it.
Ahh, .
So far, it's not really working.
I'm pluggin' it back in.
No, no, no, no.
Kidding.
Get ready to do it again.
This technique is all about timing.
What you want to do is turn off the cryovac machine when you have the maximum pressure, which is very tricky because you have, like, maybe, like a millisecond difference between having perfection of inflation and having total deflated white chocolate.
Jarrid, are you ready? Hold on.
Wait, wait.
Okay, unplug.
Nice.
We finally have it.
This is how we need to actually figure something out.
And as soon as we figure it out for the first time, - then we can do production.
- Robyn: Okay.
And now we produce.
Ready to get your cocktail on? - Yeah, yeah.
- Sweet.
I've got my components over here, I've got my tomatoes, I've got my celery, got my horseradish.
The shrimp cocktail I'm making is gonna be a little bit different.
First, instead of shrimp, we're gonna use langoustines, which are, basically, small lobsters.
Second, we're gonna flambe the dish tableside.
And then lastly, I'm gonna have four different textures of cocktail sauce.
Instead of using canned tomato juice, I feel like we should just make our own, like, fresh tomato water and it'll have nice acidity.
Then we'll add some spiciness from the horseradish, very concentrated, delicious flavor.
For the frozen texture, we have to strain the spicy cocktail sauce that Jarrid made through cheesecloth to get rid of all the pulp from the horseradish and the tomatoes.
- Clarity is really nice.
- Nice and broth-y.
Very clear, and it should have all of those flavors still, so it should be nice and Oh, yeah.
Is it as spicy on the bottom as it is on top? It's-- I love it.
I want to try this new technique called super cooling.
The idea is that when I pour it in front of the guests, it'll actually freeze right before their very own eyes.
After this is done gettin' all the juices out, - I'll put it in the freezer? - Yeah.
But before I can see if super cooling works, I need to put the cocktail sauce in the freezer, and bring it down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
There are a lot of different variables to this, and the temperature has to be precise.
So this is gonna be interesting.
So, Devon, I want to have you work on the baby back ribs.
The smoked-- smoked baby back ribs, - with the apples and the cornucopia - Hell, yeah.
What I want to do with the ribs is actually cook them, de-bone them, and then inject them with an apple fluid gel, so that way it actually mimics the form of bones.
So we're gonna take our baby back ribs that have been grilled and rubbed.
And then I want to steam the ribs in a moist controlled environment.
We're gonna do that by utilizing a cooking technique called en papillote.
En papillote is a method of cooking where food is put into a folded pouch and steamed.
Instead of just cryovacking things, I want them to steam.
We got our spare ribs with our dry rub and now we're adding our little wet marinade.
And the parchment paper is just gonna actually contain all of those juices inside of there.
And I want to take that little package, and wrap it inside of plastic wrap.
It's gonna insulate all of those aromas and flavors, and all that moisture inside of here.
And I'm gonna take that package and wrap it in tin foil, which is actually gonna prevent the plastic wrap from melting at these high temperatures.
Kind of like a-- like a fire blanket.
Once you start cooking en papillote, you cannot open the wrapper to check on the cooking process.
You really just need to know how much meat you have and the cooking time, so that you're fully cooked and that meat is tender.
Sick, bro.
Can you go grab the-- the super cooling action.
Super cooling is, essentially, when you take a liquid, even though it's at 30 degrees Fahrenheit, it's still in the form of a liquid because it hasn't been agitated.
As soon as you agitate the liquid, you can actually see the crystallization process take place right before your eyes.
It's kind of a cool process.
Have you ever see it before? - No, I don't think so.
- You've never left a beer in the freezer, and pulled it out when it's still liquid, popped it open and have it freeze on you? Beers in my house don't have a chance to even get cold.
Should I get a whisk? - No.
- No? Uh-uh.
It's actually supposed to slush-ify right before your eyes.
But no worky-worky.
I'm starting to think that maybe Marcel should have done some research into super coolant, because so far, it's not very super.
I think we've gotta go back to the drawing board with this one and come up with a new technique.
We're gonna make cocktail sauce caviar.
Super cooling is not really working so I want to try out another texture with the cocktail sauce.
And I was actually looking at the langoustines, and I came up with the idea of using cocktail sauce pearls that resemble langoustine eggs This grape seed oil right here, we stuck it in the freezer, so as soon as the agar agar cocktail sauce comes into contact with the oil, it's gonna jellify.
During the cold oil spherification, there's basically two reactions that are happening simultaneously.
There's the jellification of the cocktail sauce with the help of agar agar coming into contact with the cold oil, and then there's also the forming of the pearls, which is the reaction that takes place when the water, or the cocktail sauce, comes into contact with the oil.
So basically, you have a jellification and a spherification that are happening simultaneously.
- That's wicked.
- Pretty cool.
Hold out your hand.
Oh, yum, these look really cool.
Mm, balls of flavor.
See how the plastic wrap didn't get burned from the tin foil.
And then our little papillote package kept all our juices inside.
The ribs look so delicious, and by steam cooking them en papillote, they're so tender, you can literally slide the bones right out of the meat.
- Marcel: Nice.
- Devon: There you go.
- Look at that.
- Oh, look at that bone.
And now I want to take the ribs and then inject them with the apple fluid gel, so that way it mimics the form of bones.
So it'll look like a regular rib, but it'll actually be completely 100% edible.
You see where we have those holes? - Jarrid: Yeah.
- Is where we want to put our apple gel.
- That should work, right? - Devon: Yeah, yeah.
So we're gonna have to work super quick.
We're gonna basically only get one shot with this.
We're gonna get one shot and we gotta do it.
and we gotta do 'em all.
Because once it solidifies, there's, like, there's no turning back.
So at the end of day one, I am, by no means, where I want to be with my prep list.
Yeah, there's only four dishes, but these dishes are so complex, and there's so many components to every single one, trying to utilize modern gastronomy in all of these techniques might be too complicated for catering.
Tomorrow is a serious day.
We have to push.
Remember, we have to do a tasting for the party planner, Sasha.
It's gonna be a big day.
Sorry, we'll only be here 'til, like tomorrow.
All right, you guys ready to get this day started? Yeah, let's do it.
I'm hoping today we can be a little bit more productive than yesterday.
Having kind of, like, slept on this prep list, and having this gigantic gray cloud looming over my head, I've come to the realization that for the carrot cake, I'm gonna need some help.
- Robyn: Sally saves the day.
- Sally: What's going on? I'm Sally Camacho.
I specialize in pastry, chocolate work, wedding cakes.
plate of desserts, bonbons, sugar work, things like that.
The carrot cake will be the actual, like, centerpiece.
Like a cream cheese snow carrot croquet that actually resembles flames.
Golden raisins, ambers, anything like a fire.
I wanna figure out a way to make logs.
It's definitely a Marcel carrot cake.
I didn't say it was gonna be easy.
I mean, this is precisely why I called you in in the first place.
Buy, you know, the picture that he wanted to paint sounded kind of cool, so I wanted to see how it would actually play out, and what I could do to make it even look better.
- Thanks for coming.
- You're welcome.
That's gonna make it look kind of cool.
Should we try one? For the carrot cake, I did the crouquant camp fire.
The technique is cooking syrup glucose and isamolt and fondant together, cooking it to a temperature, and then throwing it on a silphat, and then grinding it up so it's a fine powder.
I'm just gonna put this guy in the blender and grind it? - Marcel: Yup.
- Okay.
Whoa! We combined it with some freeze-dried carrot powder, as well as freeze dried purple carrot powder.
That would make it seem like a camp fire flame.
Takes, like, 30 seconds in a really hot oven, and then becomes a cool, little delicate sugar garnish.
- Is that my stencil? - Yes.
I'm smiling for, like, the first time today.
- We need mas.
- Mas.
For my chili, rather than serve it as a stew, I want to make a deconstructed version.
The beans and veggies are gonna be in a square bed at the bottom of the bowl, and the meat is gonna be a croquette, which is basically a breaded meatball.
To make the croquettes, we're gonna cook the ox tail and the ham hocks in a pressure cooker, shred the meats, and press them into molds.
We're gonna bind these two molds together, roll the meatball in egg and flower and deep fry the croquette to seal everything together.
And there will be four different heat levels of chili gels on the side of the plate, and we'll finish it off with consommé.
It's basically like chili inside out.
They take-a the peppers, and they put them on the grill and fry 'em up! So, for the chili jellos, what I've decided to do was make four different types of jello, all composed of a different type of chili, and each chili is a little bit hotter than the next.
So, alarm one is gonna be made out of bell peppers.
Alarm two, Serrano chilis.
Alarm three, thai burns.
And lastly, alarm four, the jabanero's, which is-- Muy Caliente.
First, Jarrid roasted all of the chilis, and then I simply blended them with water.
And then strained out the extra chilies.
So I just basically made, like, a chili water.
This is actually really, really simple.
We only have four ingredients in here.
- We've got Serrano chilies.
- Yeah.
- Water.
- Yeah.
- Salt.
- I can smell it.
And then, we're gonna add some gelatin.
Dude, what is up with the scale? Now we're going to make the apple gelatin that we're going to inject into the ribs to mimic the bones.
I'm kind of worrying about my dish.
I'm feeling the heat.
- Let's chat.
- Yes.
This right here is our apple juice, which we're gonna add both of our different types of gelling gums, LT100 and the F.
But whenever you're hydrating gellan, it's much easier to hydrate it inside of-- Did you weigh this out? All correctly? Everything is weighed out as to that.
How much apple juice is in this? That's a quart.
A thousand grams.
All right.
What scale did you weigh that out with? There's no way any of this is weighed out properly.
There's no way.
There's no way this is right.
The recipe for the apple jello consists of one quart of apple puree, and 1% of it's weight in gellan gum.
There's no way that that apple puree would even come close to absorbing that much gellan gum without turning into, like, chalk.
- What's off? - Everything.
Did you weigh this out? All correctly? Everything is weighed out as to that.
There's no way.
There's now way any of this weighed out properly.
There's no way.
- What's off? - Everything.
You do see the point in there, right? Point eight? So, it's not, like, eight grams.
Oh, so it's too much.
Yeah.
Re-weigh all the ingredients and we'll start over.
All right.
I was looking at Marcel's recipes, and he has chicken scratch writing, and apparently, I missed a decimal here and there.
But I knew I got it right the second time.
Here we go.
Are you ready? I've had this measured out perfectly.
Just waiting on you, chef.
Oh, I can't-- If you weren't ten times my size.
Let's go over our procedures so that we're on the same page.
We're gonna take our apple juice, we're gonna bring it up to about 90 degrees Celsius, and then we're gonna blend in all three of our hydrocolloids, so we got the high acyl gellan gum, the low acyl gellan gum, and the tapioca melted extract.
It's funny, it doesn't look at all like the one before.
And then, we're gonna add our apple puree.
Little bit at a time, little bit at a time.
And once we get that done, we are going to start Injection.
Suck it up.
Get down low so you don't get air bubbles.
- All right, start injecting.
- It's hot.
If we don't inject the fluid gel into the ribs while everything is still warm, it's gonna be clumpy in the rib, and it's not gonna look like bones.
A little bit coming out of the side.
And, like, as you're injecting, kind of lift the syringe up out of it.
All right, cool, so you got this going on? - Got you.
- Thanks, bro.
This is alarm two.
Dude, that-- The fumes from it right now, even That's seriously choking-- Ah.
Am I breathing fire right now? Once I knew that the taste and the heat were at the right levels we wanted, I took that chili water, and then just jellified it with some regular gelatin.
- It's pretty caliente.
- Yeah? I mean, I feel like we're making really good progress on these dishes, but I'm still really worried.
Uh, what time is Sasha coming through? - Sasha Sasha.
- Sasha Sasha, what? Because Sasha the party planner is coming in for a tasting.
We have an unbelievable amount of work left to do.
Um, Robyn, we have to dice the jello.
We gotta cut the doilies.
We gotta make the dipping dots for the tasting.
Devon, left on your prep list is cleaning the apple ribs.
Uh-huh.
- And frying the black trumpet mushrooms.
- Okay.
Sally, we just have to make the apple chips, cornucopia crouquants.
We have to make a big siphon of cream cheese foam for the people who really can't handle the heat.
Celery salad, slice of Serranos Did I say cream cheese foam? - You did.
- I meant creme fresh.
Carrot chips, sugar boxes, chocolate twigs.
Langoustine fluid gel.
Maple foam and cream cheese snow.
And then a cocktail sauce air.
- And then, set up a breading station.
- Okay.
- That's it? - Yeah, that's it.
Oh, no! Gotta make love to the meat.
I invited Sasha in for a tasting so that way I could pick out my plates.
But no, I'm kind of regretting that decision because the only thing I have ready is the langoustine cocktail.
And I'm afraid that she might actually report back to Dave, my client, which would not be good.
They need to be opened up, though.
All these need to be opened up so you get all the flavor.
Why do you think zombies eat the brains? Because brains are good.
We want to break up the shells to get out the head goo.
Hey, Marcel, how are you? Hi.
Hey, good to see you.
- Good, very excited.
- Where does the time go? - Do you want to have a seat here? - Sure.
They're all running around like crazy, getting ready for this tasting.
I'm a little bit tense because nothing really looks like it's finished.
So we're in the process of making you some of the.
versions of the dishes.
The only thing that I have for this tasting, basically, we're doing a little play on shrimp cocktails.
You have cocktail sauce in four different textures.
You've got an air made out of cocktail sauce, a rim, which is celery salt, tomato powder, and horseradish, and then you have these jello pearls, and then these frozen pearls made out of cocktail sauce.
and let me get you some silver.
No need.
I actually don't eat shrimp.
So I just spent the last hour scrambling to get something ready for Sasha, and then I find out she doesn't eat shrimp? And that's basically the only thing that I have ready for her.
This is a disaster.
It's not really a shrimp.
it's about this big.
It's much bigger than a shrimp.
- It's a langoustine.
- Right.
So it's like a smaller clawed lobster.
What is the taste, though? It's totally different than shrimp.
I, um I will give it a shot.
Go for gold.
It's really good.
- Really? Thanks.
- Uh-huh.
- Whew! - I know, you win.
You just made her a seafood lover.
I'm gonna eat this anyway.
I know this wasn't really the tasting that Sasha expected, but at the same time, I basically held up my end of the bargain, so I'm still gonna have Robyn send her the plate order.
The day of the party is finally here, and I think we're all pretty excited about it.
the only problem is, we were up all night trying to perfect these dishes, we didn't get a lot done, we still have a lot to do.
- Here is the kitchen, guys.
- Hey.
It is pretty fabulous.
When I arrive here at the museum, the first thing I want to do is check on my plates, because every single time I do a party, I seem to have, like, this massive issue when it comes to plates.
These are, like, not even.
These totally aren't-- These aren't, like, the plates that I ordered.
Uh-oh.
And when I get here, sure enough, the debacle of plates continues.
Like, I'm gonna break all these plates right now.
I'm not just being this crazy chef with, like, these asinine demands.
Believe it or not, there's actually, like, a method to my madness.
my plates.
So the idea is to smoke the ribs underneath the cloches, so that way, when we remove the cloche, it'll create, like, a really cool smoky effect.
But, the only problem is, the plates need to match the cloche, otherwise the smoke is going to escape, and totally ruin the effect.
These are supposed to be 12-inch round plates.
Frosted and round.
Yeah, so this is supposed to be for the ribs, and that's supposed to go right there.
That's gonna pose a problem for us.
Your plates were ordered.
I'm gonna talk to Sasha right now.
Marcel made up the plate order, and he even included pictures this time so there would be no mistakes, Hey, Sasha.
I'm looking at the plates, and we've got some wrong sizes from what we've ordered.
and it poses a big problem.
That plate, not here.
Whatever.
These were supposed to be round, so that this guy could fit here so the smoke would billow.
But, unfortunately, since you put this on here, coming out the sides.
I get the order from Robyn, I place the order with the rental company, a different plate gets delivered than what she thinks she ordered.
I'm a little upset.
Well, I'll see if they can do-- This is the photograph that was on the order.
Oh, I-- This is not the photograph that I saw on the order.
I am not gonna take the wrap for these dang plates.
They had nothing to do with me.
Why do I spend an entire day picking out plates if they're not even gonna be here? Somebody else cook this dinner.
This is the photograph that was on the order.
Oh, I-- This is not the photograph that I saw on the order.
Marcel made up the plate order, and he even included pictures this time so there would be no mistakes.
Somebody else cook this dinner.
Um, Sasha, I can't serve the ribs on a square plate.
I already told her, I'm gonna get the plate fixed.
I was really irritated and really mad.
I'm not gonna take the bullet on this.
That's .
We're done.
If they wanted to order all the plates, then they should have given me the proper order.
Just so you know, the ribs aren't really gonna be smoking because the plates are the wrong size.
So, just to let you know.
Doesn't really matter.
There is the possibility that we're gonna have to make it work with the square plates.
I figured as much.
But we're definitely gonna try and get the round plates.
I can't spend any more time on that.
We actually have work to do, so we should probably get to it.
We should make those dip and dots, dude.
That's what I'm-- All over it.
Do we have nitrogen here? The supercooling technique Marcel tried yesterday, the frozen texture didn't work.
It's actually supposed to, like, slushify, like, right before your eyes.
But, um no worky worky.
So we're gonna go to the frozen pearl route, were we're going to use the nitrogen, and create some little frozen pearls of cocktail sauce, so you have some soft, and then you have, like, a creamy cold texture.
I think this is actually going to be a better solution anyway.
Don't use that stuff, just use that stuff.
Jarrid, have you checked on the fryer? Uh, I have not.
Hey, look, I need a favor.
Devon, have you set up your smoking guns yet? Nope, I'm gonna fill these cones, then I can get to that afterwards.
I need 25 of the black matte 11 and a half inch rounds.
This is with the cinnamon stick.
I also need some of the frosted rounds.
- Robyn? - Yes? Do we have those plates? So, the guests are coming in a little bit over an hour, and we still don't have the plate for the rib dish.
They'll be here by about 4:00.
So it'll be a little bit later because they have to come all the way over from the airport.
But they're gonna take care of it for us, so sorry about that.
You're the best.
- Sorry.
- Thank you.
It's huge that we finally got the right plate for the ribs.
Now, all I have to worry about is if the firemen are actually gonna like my cooking.
Wow, look how pretty you guys look.
Come on in on the red carpet.
Enjoy it all.
This dinner, to me, is an opportunity to give back to six individuals who represent hundreds of other volunteers.
Just a small token of thanks to some very special people.
I did this just for you guys, I worked all night on this thing for you.
Hey, so we have guests.
- Guests are here.
- Okay.
So, how much longer before you think you're ready.
Give me 10 minutes.
Oh, no, no.
Not 10 minutes.
- Sally, can you help Devon? - Yeah.
And I'll see you in, like, five? - Yup.
- We should fill the shot glasses.
Let's take all that stuff to scullery.
You dip it, like you would do a regular shot glass? Yeah.
When I was originally conceiving the menu, I was, like, firemen.
I want to theme every dish around fire.
I wonder if that's not a good idea? What if I light a bunch of stuff on fire, and then the firemen are, just, like, "Wait a second, I feel like I'm at work.
This sucks.
" Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Thank you for allowing me to cater such a momentous occasion.
I'm actually really excited about the menu that we've created for you.
We have our version of a shrimp cocktail.
We're gonna cook the langoustine's in a flambe, so it's gonna be like a flaming shrimp.
And then, on the other side, there's a cocktail sauce caviar, there's cocktail sauce pearls, there's a cocktail sauce air, there's a cocktail sauce rim.
It's an extravaganza of cocktail sauce.
So, um, I hope you guys kind of like it hot.
Bon appetite.
- So spicy.
- Spicy.
The langoustine dish was very enjoyable, had good flavors.
The little shot glass of cocktail sauce was cool.
All his little bubble flavors that were bursting were such an added treat to the meal.
It was very good.
No, that was excellent.
Boy, that was really good.
Can you not worry about this and worry about this? - Yeah.
- How long-- How long for chili? So, this chili is not like any chili I've ever eaten.
The bottom of the plate, we're gonna have, like, a bean mixture with a little bit of carrots and onions and celery.
Um, let's get the croquettes on here.
and then we're going to add our little chili sphere on the top, made with ox tail and ham hock, so it's a ball of chili meat.
Some people get big balls.
Let's use all the little balls.
And then, on the sides, we're gonna have our chili gels so that they can choose the heat.
You guys are gonna be dropping the plate along with an extinguisher, so you'll have the plate in one hand, and the extinguisher in the other.
I mean, firemen are known for chili, right? My chili looks nothing like the chili these firemen are used to eating.
I have no idea how they're going to react to this dish.
Go, go, go, go.
This is my version of chili.
It's almost like a meatball on top.
It's a chili croquette.
And then, around the rim, there's several different types of chilies.
I'm actually inviting you to test the heat, and go as hot as you want to go.
If the dish gets a little bit too hot, you can cool yourself off with some milk and honey.
There's milk and honey inside the extinguishers, so if it gets too hot, you can always cool it down.
My version of chili's got beans and stuff, and comes in a big bowl.
Yeah, we get this very, kind of inside out chili.
I was kind of concerned the guys were not gonna understand what it was, whether it was something to look at or eat.
- Very good.
- Very good.
This is very tasty.
Normally at the fire station, the chili's just a mass of beans with a hunk of cheese on it.
This was very creative.
It was more of a puree with the jelly chilies.
It was very good.
Yeah, I ain't gonna burn my lips up.
No, thank you.
I wouldn't be able to enjoy the rest of the meal.
There you go! So, I hope you guys are enjoying yourself this evening.
'Cause I'm gonna have an opportunity now to honor a few of you guys for all the stuff you do on all your spare time.
How long is the ceremony gonna take? 15 minutes? Okay, 15 minutes.
So, we have plenty of time to plate the ribs.
The only trick is that we send the dish out right as Dave finishes his speech.
I don't want to interrupt this moment, so the timing is crucial.
If we smoke the ribs too soon, it's gonna ruin the taste.
Let's get the runners! All right, so, Devon, you got your smoking guns ready? I'm ready to get my ribs out.
My dishes are plated up, and all I gotta do is smoke 'em at the moment, so that it could be a really cool effect when they take the cloches off, and the smoke just billows everywhere.
Thank you so much for all your efforts and support.
Thank you.
So, as I'm waiting for Dave to finish up his speech, all the smoke starts to dissipate out of the cloches.
So I have to get the smoking gun, bring it back out, re-smoke all the dishes.
From me to you-- I'm, like, man, it waited so long.
I hope the food's not cold, I hope it's not over-smoked.
- Can we go? - Thanks, Ray, for everything.
I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves this evening.
I'm gonna have an opportunity now to honor a few of you guys.
So, as I'm waiting for Dave to finish up his speech, all the smoke starts to dissipate out of the cloches.
Start smoking.
Start smoking.
So I'm standing there, and I actually have to end up re-smoking all the dishes.
For all the stuff you do on all your spare time, thank you, all of you.
You all deserve it.
Okay, let's go.
I'm seriously a nervous wreck right now because I feel like we might have dropped the ball on this one.
So, um, here we have apple-smoked baby back ribs, with a cornucopia.
The baby back ribs have actually been de-boned and then injected with some apple butter, so, like, apple sauce.
What I actually invite you to do is get a whole sensory experience.
So, before all the smoke goes away, just go ahead and lift up all your cloches.
Enjoy your baby back ribs.
The effect worked, but we did have to smoke the ribs several times, and I'm afraid that they might be too smoked, so much so, it might overpower the rest of the dish.
Mmm, very good, huh? Mmm.
They all seemed to love it.
I'm really happy they love it because I didn't know how it was gonna be any more.
Dave took up so much time, I was really worried about my plates, but everyone loved it.
The apple-infused ribs were just divine.
As close to heaven as I've been a long time with an apple.
I never would've thought putting apple's on spareribs would work, but they were really good.
I mean, at the fire station, you throw a slab down, you throw a bunch of barbecue sauce, and you burn 'em.
I feel like, you know, preparation's everything, and tonight, this dinner has pretty much just been about execution, and so far, the team has pulled together as a whole, and everything's going solid.
Dessert.
Is it awesome? I'm so stoked.
This dish is ambitious even for me.
I mean, I'm not even a pastry chef, and, like, I'm doing a nine-component carrot cake? All right, we have to go.
We have to send these dishes.
I'm done around.
Let's go.
All right, runners! Your next course is a carrot cake fire.
It's actually not super complex.
At the base, it's the carrot cake, then we have a little bit of a cream cheese snow, and then the flames out of the top are actually a carrot croquet made out of carrot puree, a little is malt glucose, and then, those purple rocks around the outside, it's actually blackberries and white chocolate.
they also have some rehydrated golden raisins which are there to form and make ambers, and then lastly, the twigs are made out of tempered chocolate drenched in a little bit of cocoa powder.
So, without further ado, your carrot cake.
Enjoy.
Thank you.
That's neat.
Like a campfire.
That is so cool.
Okay, which fork? The carrot cake is so yummy, and I've never seen carrot cake presented like that.
Boy, that is good.
A little different.
The party was so special.
It was fantastic.
Firemen are mostly casual people, and it was a little overwhelming, the formalness of it, but it was exciting.
This was definitely a night to remember.
Marcel's food was so different and unique, yet he was able to capture what firefighters really enjoy about eating.
It was a very special occasion for me.
His food made it that much more special.
It was a pleasure to cook for all of you.
Hold on, I couldn't do it all myself, though.
Let me get my crew out here.
Hey, you guys.
Now the party's over, I can rest assured the firemen actually enjoyed the food, had a really good time, so, all in all, I would say this party was, like, pretty kick ass.
If we can pull off a nine-component carrot cake, we might be able to do just about anything.
This is awesome.