Hi everyone, welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. I'm here with Phil and today we're going to talk about bitterness, the last favorite flavor of any chef. Do you have a take on bitterness? Do you ever add bitterness to something you're cooking deliberately or is it just something that you'd find randomly in ingredients or in some cases it's pleasant and some others it's something you want to avoid? Have you ever thought about it? That's a really good question actually.
I don't think, yeah, no, seriously. I think I've almost never added bitterness deliberately to a dish or a recipe. What about cocktails? I was, uh, cocktails? Oh yeah, true. Yeah, that's very, very true. Yeah, but in cooking you never really say, you never really taste something so it just needs more bitterness. Yeah, exactly. It's something that comes by default in some ingredients. Let's say coffee or chocolate. If you could, you would take it away, but in chocolate or in coffee you can't.
So you have to. I mean, yes and no. I mean, if I'm thinking sort of like, so is this really funny that you, um, that you mentioned this because I was talking to somebody the other day, kind of like, yeah, bitterness is like the least favorite flavor of like all the flavors. Because right now, I mean, now it's getting to the end of the season, but all through winter I think getting these really amazing salads.
But like I was really sad when summer ended because all season long we were getting super beautiful salads from garden just outside of Berlin and I was like, oh man, what a shame. And then I like looked around a little bit and from a supplier of mine, I'm getting a couple of different types of radicchio. So bitter winter salads. Yeah, but that's another one. Exactly. Some, some bitter salads. Yeah. Radicchio Rosso, which is like cotton candy pink. Super, super beautiful.
I'm getting radicchio Castelfranco, which is yellow with like red dots. And I'm getting Tardivo, which I have these like beautiful curried leaves and they're really pleasantly bitter and like super, super delicious and super beautiful. And I was kind of like, yeah, you know, we should eat more bitter stuff. That's a pretty good example. Like bitter leaves in a salad. And I think it's very pleasant to have those kinds of salads and in your mescaline and your salad mixer.
100% mescaline is also a nice word. Nobody uses that really. No. No. But you know what I also really like where I also kind of appreciate a little bit of bitterness is in things, in preparations with citrus fruit that involve not just the peel, but the pith, the white part. For example, in a orange marmalade, like a British orange marmalade, I do want it to be a little bit of bitterness. Yeah, that's part of its charm. Also in a French gastrique, you want it to be lightly bitter.
But in drinks, for example, in drinks, if a bartender asked me what I want, like a cafe blanche, I will say something dry and bitter. That's my drink. That's your drink. Yeah. You're like a Negroni sort of person. Yeah. But for me, that's even sweet, pretty sweet. It's sweet and bitter. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. It's not very dry. Even the word bitter, it's related to something negative. You know, like if you're feeling bitter, it's never good. You know?
Yeah. Although if you're feeling sour, it's also not so good. If you're feeling salty, it's also not very good. And if you're feeling spicy, then... But you can feel sweet. You know, that would be good. Yes. That's the only good thing, really. It's the only good thing. I've learned recently that once we start eating sweet things and sugar especially, that our stomach automatically gives us... Dopamine. But it gives us the impulse to automatically eat more. Yeah, the dopamine.
That's what happened when you take cocaine or... Yeah. Actually, dopamine is a little bit misunderstood, as far as I've understood now, because everybody thinks that dopamine is the pleasure. But if you really narrow it down, dopamine is the satisfaction of pursuit and effort. Like a reward. Exactly. So, like, for example, dopamine is set free if you go because I do a lot of weightlifting.
And when you willingly go through a process that is very tedious and very hard, but you come out the other end and you've achieved something, then it feels really, really good.
That's also, I think, kind of why doing a really hard service, even though you've been chewed out and sort of like led through the meat grinder and the front of house manager forgot to punch the table of six and they've been waiting for their main courses for an hour and they're already angry, but you somehow made it work anyway. And then you feel... You go home, you feel really good.
I think that's the dopamine reward of you knowing that you've made a big effort and that you've put a lot of yourself into it. Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. I thought it was just like some news that your brain releases when you do some stuff like taking cocaine or eating sugar. Well, it is kind of. I mean, I'm not an expert, but I do listen to a couple of podcasts that talk about this sort of stuff.
I mean, that's why dopamine detox is like usually to get dopamine, you have to use efforts to get there. But now with social media and instant gratification or sex, reproducing, people can just go on the internet and watch porn. You used to have to go out and talk to real people and make a human connection and that's who sort of pursued that. And the pursuit of that is a process behind it. Now it's just like you don't need the effort.
You just get the dopamine and that's why it's so important to dopamine detox these days. Going back to bitterness. Tea for me is another example. I like bitterness in my tea. There has to be some degree of bitterness that I enjoy and it feels pretty herbal to me. I guess that the same herbal bitterness that you find in bitters of cocktail bitters, you know, is the thing that tastes like, I don't know, like witch potion. I'm drinking this really nice tea right now.
It's a company here and it's a white tea and they put pieces of dried apple and peach in it. But only like a little bit. It's not like artificial aroma. It's just like desiccated pieces of apple and peach. And it gives the white tea this really, really beautiful aroma. Super nice. It's really floral and really light, but also a little bit astringent and bitter. I really like that. I also really like it in the Japanese teas.
I really like the Japanese teas that taste like fucking seaweed and grass, you know? Oh yeah. For me the seaweed note is key in a good sencha, for example. That's so nice. I feel like often things that you buy in sencha, they're like way too light. It's like barely a green tea, you know? But you have these ones that are mega deep and it's almost like biting into a sheet of nori. It's amazing. I love that. I could drink that every day. What about liquorice?
What's the name of liquorice in English? Liquorice. Liquorice. What's the deal with liquorice? I never liked it. No. What is the deal with liquorice? This is like if when people ask me, oh, is there anything that you don't like? I pretty much eat everything, you know? The only thing that I'll always say is that I don't like liquorice. Oh really? I didn't know this. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I've never liked it not as a kid.
I have had one that I kind of like agreed to, which a friend of mine gave me here and he was like, oh, do you want to try this Läckritz? And I was like, no, I don't like Läckritz at all. And he was like, oh, try this one. It's like a very good one from there and there, blah, blah, blah. I tried it and it was all right. But like other Läckritz, I think it's horrible. Because you also have like this woody spice and also this horrible black gummy bear.
Yeah, gummy bear that looks like you peeled it out straight of a fucking road, you know? And that kind of tastes like that also. But it's a pretty German thing, isn't it? It's something like German. Yeah, it's really like Scandinavian and therefore also a little bit German. Like it's especially in the north of Germany, which obviously makes sense. It's like closer to Scandinavia. It is a big thing. It's like a very traditional, it's like traditional licorice places and stuff.
But you know, the actual spice, the root, I really like. Yeah, me too. Me too. Like using it for desserts or for anything, sauces, whatever you want, game, I think it's interesting. With game, it's beautiful. Like even if like if you just like finish a dish with a little bit of it grated finely on top, gives it this like, I don't know, it's almost like Tonka bean-ish. Tonka bean also really, really bitter. Is it bitter? I don't know. I only ever infuse it and stuff. So like, I don't know.
Was it? Yeah. Also, what's the deal with Tonka bean? Because something I didn't know for me, it was always Tonka bean and it sounded so European and exotic. And I think that the places I've seen it most used is in Germany and Austria, even though it's illegal, if I'm not wrong, in Germany. What? No, no way. Is it? Because it's poisonous at large amounts. Same as nutmeg, for example.
The thing is, many years later after living in Europe, I went back to Venezuela and I find this seed that is called sarrapia in Venezuelan Spanish. I'm like, oh, this is so nice, so interesting. And then I realized this is fucking Tonka bean. And then I found out that Venezuela is one of the greatest producers and exporters of Tonka bean in the world. And I didn't know this because I was always using the European word and not the indigenous one.
And it's something that is super underused in Venezuelan and Latin American cuisine. And for some reason in Central Europe, pretty common in high-end restaurants, I would say. It's kicked off. Yeah, I mean, I've known Tonka bean since I started cooking. But yeah, you're right. It's very underused in general, even though it's a really, really nice product.
I mean, it's kind of, for me, like, it doesn't surprise me that it comes from Latin America because for me, it kind of looks like a little, it doesn't look like, but I don't know, the way it is and the properties and the flavor always reminded me a little bit of vanilla in a way. So it doesn't surprise me that it comes from Latin America, you know? So I just Google it. And so the Tonka bean is not completely illegal, but it has a compound called coumarin that is regulated in the EU.
And they use it many, yeah, that's probably the reason you won't find it, like, in drinks in a supermarket or this kind of thing. But it is used for cosmetics and perfumes. So it's like a gray area. I am pretty sure if there is a control in a restaurant and there are large amounts of Tonka bean, that could be a problem. But it's always very subtly used, I guess, a little bit and a dessert or this kind of thing. Also for game, I love that shit for game sauces.
I mean, I've only ever had it infused in ice creams and stuff like that. I'm doing something right now. I mean, I'm going back to citrus fruit, which I really, really like. And that's something where I do want a little bit of bitterness, you know? So I have this new dessert on the menu. It's like a Baba O'Rum, but it's not a Baba O'Rum.
It's a Baba. Well, to explain, a Baba is, how could I describe it, like a very milky, sweet bread, kind of like a brioche, similar, and a little bun that is then soaked in a rum syrup, more or less, something like that, with cream, raisins. Yeah, yeah, rum for sure. I mean, that's why it's called Baba O'Rum. Yeah, exactly what you said. It's like a brioche, but a little bit more dry when it's baked, and you bake it out completely. So it's almost like a sponge.
And then straight away when it's hot, you put it into syrup and you douse it with rum, and it's completely soaked. It's like a little very moist, succulent sponge cake. So I make it quite a lot every now and again, but I don't use rum. It's like, it's very heavy. I always kind of try to use something lighter, but it's cool because you can use seasonal things, right?
You can soak it with cherry syrup and cherry pitts liqueur, or you can do quince syrup and add some hazelnut schnapps and stuff like that. So you can play around with it. At the moment, we're soaking it with like a very nice lemon and vanilla syrup, and we're dousing it with some apricot schnapps, like very dry apricot schnapps. Also with that, we have an ice cream made from fiordilate, like mozzarella, you know, it's like very milky, clean ice cream.
And we have a little salad of very thinly sliced lemon. And it's the peel, the white part, and the flesh. And you have to slice it really nicely with a knife, so you have very fine slivers, but whole. And you poach that in a very simple little syrup, and you let it cool down. And then you make a salad with these half candied, half raw slices with like really good quality olive oil and basil. They're like sour, sweet, but also really bitter in a really, really pleasant way.
And it just like gives this, and they have to be, because otherwise it would be, like it wouldn't, it would still be nice, but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting because it gives it a lot of character. It's like a like a blood orange ice cream sorbet or something. It has to have this like bitterness, like a Campari. Yeah. Yeah. And you just mentioned olive oil, since we're on bitter mode. I thought that there are some very rustic olive oils that have a bitter note that I also like very much.
A hundred percent. Olive oil has such a huge variety of flavor, you know. I mean, I have had olive oils that were so spicy that I could barely eat them by themselves, you know. Yeah. I think you need that also. I do love like really floral olive oils, but like the good olive oils, they also, they have a lot of character, you know. I feel like the more we talk about this, like bitterness makes up a lot of character and a lot of food. It's like very robust and present.
Yeah. But at the same time, it's hard for me to imagine a dish where the main element is bitterness, like a tribute to bitterness. If I had to think about something about that, I would think about a salad, probably with wild herbs that are pretty bitter. Probably some endives. You mentioned frisee salad, this Lolo Rosso. Chickory. That kind of stuff. That could be like, yeah, like a statement of bitterness in a plate. Dandelion, very bitter.
Thinking about adding deliberately bitterness to a dish. I don't know if the goal is to add bitterness, but I remember once a friend came to me and we were talking about goulash and he told me, oh yeah, that's this stew where you add chocolate to this stew. And I was like, no, no, you don't. And he was, yes, you do. Yeah. That's what you do. I go it and I found out that some people do that. It's not, but it's not like an extended practice.
But it's relatively common to find adding chocolate to sauces in Catalonia. In Catalonia, to finish a stew, you add like an ounce of chocolate, which helps emulsify it. It adds this bitterness and character, especially for a game sauce or let's say a black pudding or this kind of stuff. And I think that's a good example of, yeah, adding bitterness. Also I could say the same thing about coffee. Adding coffee to a sauce or I mentioned this ham I had with coffee oil in Japan that was incredible.
Yeah, it's interesting. The applications you can find, how to say, the pearl you put it on, it's usually strong meat, the examples that I just mentioned. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I could totally see like a salmese or like a game sauce with like some liver in it, you know, or like some heart. And then a little bit of chocolate, like that's delicious, you know, super, super nice. I've once eat a really, really lovely dish, which was lamb braised in coffee also.
Super tasty because the bitterness and the stringency and this roughness with the flavor of the lamb and the vegetables braised down for a really long time worked super, super well. It was really sophisticated and really unusual and delicious, which brings me to one thing. I saw the other day the craziest thing, Claude Bosse, chef in London who cooks at Bibendum. I think he's got two or three Michelin stars.
He has this like dish where he takes a fillet of beef, he puts it in a dutch oven, like a big Le Crozet or whatever, you know, and covers it bottom and top with Arabica coffee beans. He just buries it and roasts, puts this whole thing in the oven and roasts this whole fillet in the Arabica coffee beans. Whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The coffee beans are inside or outside? Oh, inside. Okay. Inside. So it's basically like burying this fillet of beef in coffee beans.
And then you put a lid on and you put it in the oven and you roast it. You take it out, you let it rest. And then to serve, you take it out of these like coffee beans. The coffee beans have roasted, the fillet is roasted and is rested. And you brush off the coffee beans and you slice the beef and serve it. That's always like a great effect. Like this dutch oven, cast iron pot, the moment of opening it and releasing the aromas.
I think that's something that should always be done in front of the guests because it adds so much to the experience and you can play around so many things. I remember ago we had once like this little mini Le Crozet where we would just burn spices and open it in front of the guests and everything would come out. Do you remember that? I don't remember that actually. I have to be honest.
And also in Mugaritz they would walk around the dining room with salmientos, with this wood and burn it just to add some grill, smoke, aroma. That being in the countryside and smelling burnt wood is always like a good combination of things. Oh, a hundred percent. Like, I mean, one of my strongest memories from working at Mugaritz is like getting out of the car on the car park when you arrived at a restaurant and smelling the mixture of cold mountain air and wood smoke.
And for me it was like so impressive, like the smell that like to this day when I like walk past the house, but I have like a wood fire burning or whatever and I smell it, I get reminded of it straight away. Yeah, I had the same like, you know, like after I finished Mugaritz, I never came back to the Basque country until at least 10 or 11 years later. And I remember when I came back, one of the first like mental clicks that I had like, whoa, what's the smell of the forest?
It was like, oh, I know this smell. I've been here before, but I didn't, you know, I didn't remember it until I had, I could smell it again. That was pretty interesting. One thing that I think is like a dirty trick to make like a stupidly easy sauce is just you have a dog breast, a dog magre, you cook it on the skin side.
So it releases all of these fats and then you, you leave just enough of the fat, the amount you would like to use and you add chocolate to that and you just shake the pan and that's a sauce and it's a pretty good sauce actually. And you can, you can add whatever you want to it, you know, spices or, or citrus peels or these kinds of things, but already that as it is just with some salt, it's already a sauce that you can serve on top of the duck and it works amazingly good.
And I've seen, I wouldn't do it exactly the same way, but I've seen people doing coffee sauces for a duck, like an espresso sauce, but that one I haven't done and I wouldn't mix just an espresso to the fat of the duck, but it wouldn't be something so complicated to develop, I guess. How would you do a coffee sauce for a duck? I've actually, when, when we opened LOREA in Mexico, the first dish that I put on the menu and also for the opening was a duck main course and it was duck with chocolate.
Yeah, funnily enough. And it was basically, we had this like very nice chocolates there in Mexico, you know, you have amazing chocolates and it was that shaved very, very thin. Also you have these like, you know, these like curled up slivers and a little salad of like semi-dried raspberries. And what else? There was like other stuff there, but basically it was like these, this mix of like raspberries and chocolate with the duck on the side.
And then we had a duck sauce that we would mix into the roasted duck fat. And on the table we would pour that over the chocolate so it would kind of melt slowly into the, into the dish. And so as you were eating it, you had like first the du jus and stuff and then you would get more and more chocolate. And it was very simple, but it was very, very nice. Really good, really good combination. Yeah. Yeah. I had to think also on this dessert from Hungary, how Pulsos de Café.
Did you ever did that one? I'm not sure. For me, the interesting thing about the Pulsos de Café is that they were actually like cookies, almond based cookies, but you would add grind coffee, coffee powder to the cookie. So you were, you were actually eating coffee grains, like unfiltered. So there was like a good kick of coffee in on that dessert. Yeah. It's not that common to add actually the powder, as far as I know, to a cookie or something you end up actually eating. Yeah, a hundred percent.
I mean, like in Amas, which is wonderful restaurant that now unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. They were making cookies out of all the used coffee grinds, you know, because they were so focused on sustainability and they were delicious. You know, it was like these like rectangular cookies and somehow they made them out of the coffee grinds. They did some sort of magic to them and they were absolutely delicious. When I was in Mugarets, we also had a coffee dessert.
It was a little bit different though, but it was also pretty full on. Just reminded me because when you were saying like, oh, it's just like raw coffee in there. So you get like a kick. We made this like Russo sandwich. We call it Russo, like Russian, because it was meant to be like this like Russian meringue cake, coffee meringue made with kuzu. So it was really delicate.
And then it was like a buttercream, but it looked like it was like completely filled with cream, but actually it was an illusion because we just piped the cream on the outside. So inside it was a mixture of lactose powder and instant coffee powder. The idea was that it looks really rich, but you bite into it. It's actually really light. It disappears and you just have the flavor of like the milk and the coffee on your tongue.
But nowadays thinking back to it, I'm like, that was a mouthful of lactose powder and instant coffee. I mean, if you go to your friend's house and you see him just eating instant coffee out of the jar, you would take him by the hand and say, hey buddy, are you okay? What is happening with you? What happened with you? That's another thing. People won't believe how much instant coffee you will find in sauces and restaurants and desserts and cheap tiramisu and you name it. It's all over the place.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned Amaz giving a longer life to coffee, like reusing coffee grinds that were already used. I saw once like a process flow of doing that, but like, I don't know, it was at the end like too much, like nine steps. Like you would use coffee, then you have the used coffee grounds. With those coffee grounds, you would add it to hay to grow mushrooms. So the mushrooms would work with some hints of coffee.
But then at the end you would have again, this miscellium mixed with coffee. So you would make a stock with that. But after you did the stock, you will still have the used miscellium with hay that was already cooked into a stock or a drink or whatever. So that one you would dry and you would use it to smoke something. But after you smoke this, then you would have the ashes of this. So you could use the ashes to make a bread with this and so on.
So which was like a really interesting exercise of how long can you reuse a product in a kitchen. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as Potluck Food Talks. The show airs every Monday.