FALL RIVER, Mass. — When you think of the tools used to cook in a high school culinary arts kitchen, blow torches and canisters of liquid nitrogen probably don’t immediately come to mind.

But in an after-school Science of Cooking class at Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School, taught in Room 251, Diman’s student-run restaurant, those are just a few of the tools these young foodies are working with.

They showed off their creations after school earlier this month. Though it was experimental, the results were delicious.

Behind a stand mixer and clouds of evaporating liquid nitrogen, students Celeste Chaves and Glorimar Rivera showed off their colorful ice cream concoctions.

The nitrogen instantly froze what were originally bowls of milk, sugar and flavorings. They also played another trick on would-be consumers of their ice cream – their colors and flavors didn’t match up. For example, blue banana flavored ice cream, green strawberry and yellow vanilla chocolate chip.

Nearby, Danielle Casey and her culinary lab partner were making what she described as “a new kind of salad.”

It was made with cold “lettuce noodles,” liquefied lettuce that was loaded into syringes and squirted into bowls of water to form green noodle strands.

The plate of noodles was then topped with chicken that was cooked sous vide – in a vacuum sealed pouch in simmering water. The chicken was covered in a light sprinkle of bacon powder and the whole plate garnished with a tomato sphere that was actually tomato juice re-solidified.

There were 10 dishes in all, each the unique creation of the pair of students that concocted them. The class is taught after-school, jointly by culinary arts instructor Christopher McGovern and chemistry teacher Philip Pietrangelo.

Pietrangelo explained that it was a 15-week program, in which students learned how to incorporate science into traditional cooking techniques.

“All the things they learned are included in one dish,” Pietrangelo said. “They went out and did all of the research. I think they did a great job.”

“We’re all using the same techniques, but everything is so different,” said Melinda Pereira, who along with Shelby Botelho created a “deconstructed clam chowder.” That meant, instead of being blended into a chowder, all of the ingredients were kept separate.

Pereira and Botelho served up a spoonful of cream and potato foam, topped with bacon powder and a small dollop of solidified clam stock. Pereira gave instructions on how to eat it: slurp the contents of the spoon first. Chase it with the clam.

Explaining the reasoning behind deconstructing the chowder, Pereira said, “We both love clam chowder, but sometimes the clam gets missed.”

Not so in their version, as the clam is the finishing note.

Those who tasted the food appeared impressed.

“It is delicious,” said Philomena Pereira, upon sampling a surf-and-turf that consisted of flank steak wrapped around asparagus and cooked sous vide style, along with a sweet potato puree.

“If you were in a high class restaurant you would have paid $40 for this,” said David Viveiros, a former culinary instructor at Diman, who came back to taste the food.

Other students’ concoctions included sous vide burger sliders served with a side of buffalo foam and coconut shrimp.

For a combination of sweet and savory, Krisey Moniz and Julia Leamy created peach-infused balsamic vinegar ice cream, served with olive cookies.

“The whole idea of blending chemistry and food, we’re very excited about it,” said Tom Aubin, Diman’s vocational coordinator. “We want to expand it beyond this year. We’re not looking at this as a one-and-done. It’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum in action.”

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