The madness of Carnaval marked the beginning of this week for the stages.  They decided to lay low, ducking out (of the center) of town to enjoy some fine dining and beautiful scenery.

In the kitchen at Martin Berasategui, Athena continues on the meat station, focusing this week on plating and sauteeing.  Read more (and check out the photos) on Athena’s blog. Tracy moved from the fish station, where she has spent the first part of her stage, to pastry, and as she recounts on her blog: “I must admit it is quite nice to start the day ‘tranquilo’, tempering chocolate in the serene, downstairs kitchen versus breaking down dozens of monkfish with a cleaver.”

The excitement in the kitchen only increased as the week went on.  There were some very special visitors from the East, including the chefs de cuisine from the Shanghai Berasategui outpost.  Then, the stages spent Friday morning prepping for another filming session. This time, the Sammic video featured this  machine:

The immersion circulator (and, by extension, the vacuum sealer). These two machines together are often used by chefs in recent years to do sous vide cooking, which involves applying indirect heat at low temperatures over extended periods of time to perform the majority of the cooking process.  First, Tracy and Athena prepared the classic Basque dish kokotxas al pil pil in the way Martin instructed them.

This involved listening to the oil pil pil (the sound it makes when cooking the kokotxas), watching the garlic dance, and checking for the appropriate “boing” in the kokotxa cheeks. Then, they used the circulator and vacuum sealer to invent their own riff: kokotxas sous vide. In the modern BasqueStage version, creamy cod jowls sit atop a chive gelee, with lightly steamed cockles and a pearl of txacoli gelee.  Finished with a swipe of cayenne oil, it was quite a way to wind up another week at Martin Berasategui.