Snacks: 1220 Mixture of Smoked Seeds 2006

This is another really easy elBulli snack - just a bunch of seeds you can get in most any grocery store glued together with maltodextrin and a pinch of salt then lightly smoked over oak.

Clockwise from top left: Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Black Sesame Seeds, White Sesame Seeds

The two kinds of sesame seeds got toasted in a dry pan - just to the point they started to steam and smell toasted. The pumpkin seeds got fried in a little oil until they puffed up. The sunflower seeds were roasted at 175 C fro 12 minutes.

Left: Puffed. Right: Not Puffed

My pumpkin seeds were rather unwilling to puff up. As a result I probably used up more like 200 grams worth of seeds. Fortunately they're a) cheap and b) delicious when the non-puffers are lightly salted and served hot.

100 grams each

Maltodextrin is fluffy. Equal quantities by weight of water and maltodextrin are wildly different in volume.

The maltodextrin got whizzed up with an equal quantity of water and I divided the malto-glue among the batches of seeds, mixed 'em up and formed little "rocks".

Ready for the oven

I topped each rock with a pinch of Maldon Salt and cooked them in a 170 C oven for 10 minutes, then set them aside to set up.

Meanwhile, I made a fire with a big handful of oak chunks we normally use for barbecue. The recipe calls for Holm Oak, but all varieties of oak produce a similar scented smoke.

Once the were burning well I pushed the chunks over over to one side of my Weber, put the lid on, closed the vents and let the smoke build for a few minutes. By closing the vents I also put out the flames - we're looking for more or less a cold smoke.

Plenty of Smoke

As soon as I could see a decent amount of smoke buildup I set the seed rocks on the cool side and put the lid back on.

After a minute I lifted the lid...

Ready to eat

And they're done.

How it tastes: Good - this is basically a refined version of peanut brittle. It's another great bar snack in the same general area as the Cantonés Músico.

Equipment and Ingredients

The Books: El Bulli 2005-2011 - Yes, freakin' expensive. Check with your local library - they may well be "in the system" and available to be reserved.

Immersion blender

Maltodextrin

I've been buying all my seeds and nuts from Nuts.Com. They're very good quality, reasonably priced, and ship quickly. You can probably find everything except the black sesame seeds at any large grocery.

Pumpkin Seeds
White Sesame Seeds
Black Sesame Seeds
Sunflower Seeds

Oak Chunks - your woodlot, the local big box home store, Cabela's etc.

A scale that measures in grams