Serves 6
Who doesn’t love flakes in the morning? Pour a little milk on there, get your freeze-dried fruit, add a little liquid nitrogen to that, and it becomes a ton of fun. Could you imagine if every morning you woke up and your flakes were soaked in just a little bit of freshly condensed liquid nitrogen? Well, Ben Roche created this dish as a take on breakfast cereal, and it also happens to be vegan. Homemade soy milk is flavored with vanilla beans and sugar. Fresh strawberries are sliced thin and freeze-dried, though if you don’t have a freeze-dryer at home you can buy your freeze-dried fruit at a gourmet market or online. Small flakes of rice paper are dehydrated and fried to a crisp. The strawberries and rice flakes are frozen in liquid nitrogen just before serving, then scooped into a bowl of soy milk, creating a dramatically smoky visual effect. This dish is refreshing and slightly sweet, making it a great transition into dessert. It reminds me a little of licking a strawberry popsicle in the summer as a kid.
250 grams soybeans
500 grams water
5 grams salt
15 grams sugar
Seeds scraped from 1 split vanilla bean
Canola oil for frying
16 sheets rice paper
24 strawberries, sliced, or 15 grams freeze-dried strawberries (see Sources, here)
Liquid nitrogen (see Sources, here)
Put the soybeans in a pot, cover with 2 inches of water, put the lid on the pot, and let the beans soak overnight, at least 8 hours, and up to 24 hours, adding more water as needed to keep the soybeans submerged.
After soaking, the beans should be doubled in size, tender, and easily cut with a paring knife.Drain the soybeans and put them in a blender with 500 grams of water and the salt. Puree for 1 to 2 minutes, until it forms a thick puree. Transfer the pureed soybeans to a saucepot set over medium heat and bring the liquid to 160°F, stirring frequently to prevent the puree from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. When a thick foam appears at the top, remove from the heat and stir until the foam dissipates. Line a fine-mesh sieve with damp cheesecloth and strain the soy milk into a pitcher. Once most of the liquid has drained through and the beans are cool enough to handle, carefully twist and squeeze the cheesecloth to get the remaining liquid into the container.
Put the soy milk, sugar, and vanilla seeds in a blender and puree for 1 minute, until well blended. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve and then reserve the Vanilla Soy Milk in a covered container in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Preheat a deep fat fryer or pot of oil on the stove to 400°F.
Line a sheet pan with paper towels. Break up the rice paper into 2-inch pieces. Fry the paper a few pieces at a time for 30 seconds, until the pieces double in size. Remove from the oil and transfer to the prepared sheet pan to drain and cool. Once all the Flakes are fried and cooled, store them in an airtight container until ready to serve.
Line a sheet pan with a silicone mat. Put the sliced fresh strawberries in a single layer, evenly spaced apart from each other on the silicone mat. Put the tray in a freeze-dryer and run 1 cycle. Once the cycle is complete, remove the strawberries from the tray and keep in an airtight container until ready to plate.
Put 50 grams of Vanilla Soy Milk in the bottom of each of 6 cereal bowls and set one in front of each diner. Put 300 grams of liquid nitrogen, 20 grams of Flakes, and 15 grams of Freeze-Dried Strawberries into a saucepot. Scoop out the frozen flakes and berries from the pot and put 1 spoonful in each cereal bowl.