Talk of syringes will seem creepy to many, having nothing to do with gastronomy but linked with medicine. But do not panic, for the use of this tool in the kitchen isn’t at all aggressive or painful, but culinarily pleasurable.
The idea of using the syringe came to me some time ago when I saw a very modern slice of French toast being prepared in the kitchen and served in the restaurant.
Something that no one can deny is that the most fundamental virtue of good French toast – whether called toast, pan perdu, French Toast to the Americans, or Poor Knights of Windsor to the English – is that it must be completely soaked to make it juicy and prevent it from being hard as a brick. The most common way of preparing it is to soak the bread or brioche in flavoured milk, light custard, or wine (according to tradition). In our case, the atypical French toast, which I referred to above, was rye bread with melon sauce, to which had also been added raspberry brandy, peach liquor, cream, etc., to soak it perfectly. But using the syringe, we leapt forward with this recipe, injecting a syringe of hot melon sauce into the slice of brioche (fried and caramelised), submerging it within seconds in melon sauce. In this way the liquid penetrated inside almost instantly.
On the other hand, the syringe has been used in cookery for a long time with certain types of meat, such as chicken and other birds, adding flavour and juiciness using certain wines or spirits.
It seems to me the syringe has a perfect use in home cooking for injecting liquids into cakes or muffins. It is the ideal tool for making ‘drunken’ bizcochitos without spilling a drop. For example, if you want muffins with a chocolate filling, a sleeve works well, but if the filling is more fluid the task becomes very complicated and it is best to use a syringe.
In our new recipes, we give flavour injections to crayfish with corn and almond mash, as well as lamb penetrated with stout.