Snacks: 982 Electric Milk 2004

This snack's raison d'être is the Szechuan Button, the flower of the acmella oleracea plant. It turns out these little guys are hard to source, but very easy to grow. 

So back in March I started seeds of it with the idea of growing my own. That worked out nicely and now I have far more than I can ever use. So without further ado...

Hot Evaporated Milk

The base of this recipe is a crispy biscuit made from reduced milk. The recipe calls for reducing the milk by two thirds. At best that's a rather tedious process, especially given the evaporated milk comes reduced by 60%. It takes just a few minutes to further reduce the evaporated milk and dissolve half a sheet of gelatine.

Milk Jelly

 The milk mixture goes into the refrigerator overnight to set up.

I chilled the mixing bowl in the freezer for a few minutes. It's important to keep the mixture as cold as possible so that it will stay whipped.

These are too close together

I then piped little tubes of the milk onto a silpat and popped 'em into the oven for about 15 minutes.

El Bulli's milk biscuits were perfect little rectangles and most of mine came out sort of sandal shaped. I suspect I should have whipped the milk jelly longer. In any case I then broke up a Szechuan Button and sprinkled some of the fragments on a couple biscuits.

How it tastes: Weird of course. The biscuits are slightly sweet which offsets the mild bitterness of the flower bud. Definitely fun for very little effort.

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.

Szechuan Buttons: Grow your own - it doesn't make sense to try to locate them in the quantity (i.e. 2 or 3) you'll need for this recipe.

A scale that measures in grams