In psychology there’s the ego, the superego, and the id. The superego advocates for what you should do, the id advocates for what you shouldn’t do, and the ego arbitrates between them.
When chefs Nils Noren and Dave Arnold get together, similar antics ensue. Noren is a classically trained, Swedish-born chef who, for several years, was chef de cuisine at New York’s Aquavit and who minces chives into such tiny specks they look like subatomic particles. Arnold is an obsessive, gadget-loving sort who entered the food world not by staging at The French Laundry, but by dreaming up a food museum.
At the International Culinary Center (where Noren was the vice president of culinary and pastry arts and Arnold is currently the director of culinary technology), ideas bounce back and forth between them at such rapid speed, it’s difficult to keep up.
Consider the dish that they call Eggs on Eggs. Essentially, they work six different egg preparations into one dish: steamed egg-yolk cakes are dipped in an eggy custard and fried like French toast, then topped with poached eggs, hollandaise, egg whites cooked in a pressure cooker, and trout roe.
“How did you come up with this?” I ask them as I dig into the version that they make for me, a dish as satisfying as the best eggs Benedict.
“We got lucky,” says Arnold.
Lucky, yes, but also this dish is the result of their unique process. Noren and Arnold aren’t afraid to follow their indulgent impulses (id), but in doing so they apply sound culinary knowledge and technique (superego). That’s a good strategy for anyone who likes to take chances in the kitchen at home: be as outlandish as you want to be, but do it within a logical framework.
For Arnold, that framework is built with science. When he explains the immersion circulator (a water bath with a controlled temperature for cooking food that’s been vacuum-sealed), he speaks like a scientist: “Advantages of technique: when guests come, dinner’s always a minute away from being finished.”
For Noren, that framework is built with traditional cooking methods. His knife skills are flawless, and he makes hollandaise with as much ease as most of us feel when we open a jar of mayonnaise. “You have to know the rules before you can break the rules,” he tells me.
And break the rules, Noren and Arnold do. At an event at the famous architect Philip Johnson’s house, Noren served French onion soup for dessert. “When you cook onion in a pressure cooker with milk,” he tells me, “it gets sweet. So I made French onion soup ice cream.”
The wicked grin on both their faces as Noren tells me about his dessert suggests the real delight they both take in pushing the culinary envelope. Too many chefs and home cooks break the rules before they know them; but when you know them as well as Noren and Arnold do, you can break them that much bigger.
“People who have their kitchen appliances put away never use them.”
—Dave Arnold
Serves 6
How many eggs can you get into one dish? This is the culinary challenge Noren and Arnold set out for themselves as they created this dish*, which would work well for breakfast or as an appetizer for a dinner party. Their technique for making hollandaise—which they learned from food-science legend Harold McGee—is worth memorizing. It’s faster, and the results are just as good as, if not better than, hollandaise made using the more traditional method.
FOR THE HOLLANDAISE
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 egg yolks, cold
Kosher salt
Juice of ½ lemon, plus more to taste
Cayenne pepper
FOR THE REST OF DISH
8 eggs
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons sugar
A pinch of kosher salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 thick slices of brioche or challah bread, 2-inch rounds cut out of each slice
A splash of white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon minced chives
Trout roe (optional)
To make the hollandaise, place the butter cubes, egg yolks, and a pinch of salt in a large pot. Turn the heat to low and begin whisking; as the butter melts, the whole thing will emulsify. Don’t stop whisking! When it’s all melty and starting to come together, keep cooking it until it thickens, another 2 to 3 minutes. When it’s creamy and smooth, remove it from the heat and add the lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne, and salt to taste. Set aside but keep an eye on it, whisking every so often if it starts to separate.
Make a batter by combining 2 of the eggs, the milk, sugar, and salt in a shallow pan.
Melt the butter in a skillet or frying pan over medium heat. Dip each bread round into the batter and then fry in the skillet until it’s brown on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Place the rounds on a serving plate.
Finally, poach the remaining 6 eggs. In a wide pan, bring 2 inches of water to a simmer over medium-low heat. Add a splash of vinegar to the water and then crack the eggs in, using a spoon to help wrap the whites around the yolks. Cook just until the whites are set and the yolks still look runny, approximately 4 minutes.
Place a poached egg on top of each bread round. Spoon the hollandaise over the top and garnish with the chives and, if you’re using it, the trout roe. Serve hot.
Serves 2
Count me among the many who are wary of sous-vide cooking at home. Sure, it’s fine at fancy restaurants, but at home? It always seems too ambitious and too impractical. Well, Noren and Arnold changed all that by showing me how to cook sous-vide with a resealable plastic bag, a pot of water, and a thermometer. The result is flawless meat that’s bright pink on the inside and, because of a quick flash fry, crusty and caramelized on the outside. Be sure to make this along with their French fries (recipe follows); you can use the oil from the fries to finish the steak.
2 (20-ounce) rib-eye steaks*
Coarsely ground black pepper
Kosher salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for frying
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
3 tablespoons natural, unsweetened peanut butter, pecan butter, or almond butter
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ cup chopped parsley
Fleur de sel (optional)
Aggressively season the steaks first with pepper and then with kosher salt.
Heat a cast-iron skillet or a frying pan on high heat until extremely hot, add the oil, and sear the steaks, one at a time, for about 1 minute per side so they have a caramelized exterior. This is both to create flavor and to kill any bacteria before cooking sous-vide.
Let the steak cool slightly and then place each steak into its own resealable plastic freezer bag* with 2 tablespoons of the melted butter in each bag.
Fill the biggest pot you have with water (that’ll help keep the temperature consistent). Now you’re going to create a vacuum seal with a cool technique. Zip the first bag almost all the way up, except leave a space for your finger at the end. Lower the bag carefully into the water, leaving the part with your finger in it outside the water. The pressure from the water should help you push all the air out (use your other hand). When that happens, pull your finger out, zip up the bag, and look at your work. The bag should be clinging to the meat and there should be very little to zero air (and zero water) in the bag. Repeat with the second bag.
Set the bags aside on the counter and raise the temperature of the water to 134°F on medium heat, adjusting the heat as necessary. You want to be exact here; the temperature is the most important part.
Lower the steak bags into the water, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and cook the steaks for a minimum of 45 minutes (although if it stays in a little longer, it won’t hurt the result).
Meanwhile, make a compound butter. In a small bowl, using a rubber spatula, combine the peanut butter, the 3 tablespoons of regular butter, the lemon juice, the parsley, and kosher salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
When the steaks are cooked, remove from the bags and set aside.
Bring a large pot of vegetable or canola oil to 340°F.
Using a spider or another heat-proof device, lower the steaks one at a time into the oil. Cook them just until they develop a crusty brown exterior, 1 to 2 minutes.
Slice the steak against the grain, sprinkle with fleur de sel, if using, and serve with the compound butter on top.
Serves 4
Normally, French fries are fried twice, once at a lower temperature (to poach the fries and cook them through) and then at a higher temperature to crisp the outsides. This method adds a cooking step: the fries are boiled in salty water first. Though that may sounds strange, what happens is the fries becomes infused with the salty water (you don’t have to salt them afterward) and the results speak for themselves. Just be sure not to cool the boiled fries too much before frying them; you’ll get what Arnold calls “the dreaded hollow fry,” which is a fry that lacks a mashed potato–like interior.
Salt
6 Russet or Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into French fries* (keep potatoes submerged in cold water when not using them or they will brown)
Pectinex Ultra SP-L* (optional; see Resources)
Fry oil or vegetable oil or, if you have it, duck fat
Fill a large pot with water and bring to a very rapid boil over high heat. Add a lot of salt; you want the water to taste salty like seawater.
Drop in the potatoes and boil—again, a rapid boil—on high heat for 8 to 10 minutes, just until the potatoes are cooked through but not falling apart*.
Drain and allow the potatoes to air-dry in single layers on cookie sheets for 20 minutes. Don’t dry too much, though, or you’ll get the dreaded “hollow fry.”
Fill a large pot halfway with frying oil. Set up a thermometer so you can monitor the temperature. Bring it to 320 to 340°F and drop in the fries (if your pot is large enough, you can do them all at once; otherwise, work in batches). You don’t want the fries to turn brown, just to blond up a little, so only fry for 3 to 4 minutes. Shake the oil off as you remove them to a cookie sheet (they absorb oil as they are drying). At this point, you can freeze them for later use or continue cooking.
Raise the temperature of the same oil to somewhere between 365 to 380°F. Drop the fries in for a second fry and cook for 45 seconds or so until they’re crispy and brown.
Remove the fries to a plate and, remember, there should be no need to salt them; they’re good to go! Serve with sumac mayo* or ketchup.
