Archive for April, 2009
PacoJet Class
Yesterday Kirss Harvy from Advanced Gourmet the US distributor of PacoJet held a demo class on this amazing machine here in LA at the E. Guittard Chocolate Studio. It was info packed three plus hours with endless ideas and applications. As I am still sorting my notes and thoughts for me the biggest two take aways are. First I always felt we needed to buy one and now I know why. Secondly Kriss said something that stuck in my mind. It was something along the line that Kriss as a pastry chef approaches his desserts like as savory chef, he wants to build it and plate it as if it was a savory dish. It does make sence and for me as a chef who finds himself since years without a pastry chef or even pastry department made me think if these words would bring any of my cooks who end up plating desserts closer to the patisserie. That the if we saw and approached the dessert cuisine the same way as we approch the savory side, how could that impact our final product.
As for the Pacojet Kriss showed us much more that ice cream that can be produced. From frozen dusts/snows, a freshly made pistachio puree that as simply amazing in taste, texture and color, nougats and of course ice cream the applications seem to be endless. But what makes the PacoJet so different than other ice cream machines? Well firt of all it is not an ice cream machine or batch freezer. As a matter of fact the PacoJet is nothing else than a blade mounted on a drill. The matter must be frozen beforehand in the designated beakers before the PacoJet can do its magic. What it basically does it to “drill” down the blade at 2000rpm downwards into the frozen matter, thus creating the smoothest ice cream. Even lobster bodies frozen together with a lobster bisque could me churned into a smooth homogeneous mass.
As I said applications are endless the only thing I need to be aware of is the amount of beakers we will need. I can see us spending more money on beakers than the actual PacoJet, which means being even more creative than we were in getting a new vacuum chamber machine, which I have yet to report about.
I forgot my camera in the car and the class was too interesting to leave even for a minute or two. I will try to get a few from those attendees which did not forget.
