On Wednesday’s evening, we were treated to a four course meal cooked for us by rising New York star Adam Schop, whose restaurant Nuela specialises in food from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
The meal was hosted by Miele and the idea was that Adam would demonstrate different Miele appliances as he went. Our first course was Ceviche prepared with the help of beautiful assistant, Will of Bright Bazaar.
Not many appliances to report on for this course, apart from a large stainless steel bowl(!) but I can tell you that the Ceviche was delicious. Ceviche is fish cooked just using citrus and salt, and in this case served with red onion, green chilli and blood orange, and not something I’d tried before.
The next course was scallops with cauliflower and the cauliflower had been cooked in a steam oven – not something I’d heard of before, but apparently you can cook almost anything in them, the steams keeps food really moist, and because fresh steam is going into the oven all the time, there’s no flavour or taste transfer, so you could cook cupcakes and salmon at the same time! Here is one of the lovely Miele ladies modelling the steam container…
The only thing they can’t do is roast or grill, so you’d still need another oven for things you want to crisp up. The scallops were cooked on an induction hob, which uses electromagnets to transfer the heat directly to the pan, so they’re more efficient and safer.
Next up was possibly the best lamb I’ve ever eaten. It was cooked in a convection oven, which is fan assisted to ensure even temperature – and air is removed, cleaned, heated and returned to the oven, to avoid taste or flavour transfer. This lamb was roasted in the oven, removed for honey and lavender to be basted over it, and returned to the oven to create a honey and lavender crust – yum! It was served with an ‘eggplant’ (we are in New York!) ratatouille.
The ‘master chef’ settings on most of Miele’s appliances can calculate and adjust temperatures and cooking times on your behalf. What I liked about Miele was their manifesto “Immer Besser” which means “forever better” or “always better” and is about three things; constant improvement of their products, durability of their products, and their ambition to make people lives better. The latter is what design is about for me, so it was interesting to see this brought to life in something like kitchen appliances – they strive to make things simpler, faster, tastier… some of their products even have chips in that will contact them if anything goes wrong, so they can fix them before you even noticed. I like that.
Our final course was coconut set with gelatin, and a sort of marmalade on top. Really tasty and not too sweet. Thank you to Adam Schop for a wonderful meal – and to Miele for hosting this evening, and for sponsoring BlogTourNYC.
I feel so lucky to be here, so I would like to say a huge thank you to Tim and Veronika from Modenus for inviting me to come along, and to the sponsors: Jenn Air, Ethan Allen, Axor, Miele, Blanco, Rotsen Furniture, Poggenpohl, Modern-Aire, Scholtes, Du Verre, Spirit of Sports, Big Ass Fans, Samuel Heath, Vitra, Victoria and Albert Baths and Wallunica, for making the trip possible.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- http://www.miele.co.uk/about/
- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/dining/reviews/15rest.html?pagewanted=all
- out and about :: tryp hotel
- out and about :: blog tour nyc
It all looks absolutely scrumptious – can’t wait to get to NYC and try out Nuela! http://www.nuelany.com/