I'm intrigued by the first idea but fascinated by the second - and it's probably better eating anyhow.
Well at least that's what last night's winner on the ABC's New Inventors thought when he came up with the idea for an on table oyster sauna. It combines a great table presence with delicious aromas of sake, mirin, ginger, lemongrass, chilli, coriander, soy, ponzu and something a little out of the box - a bit of low tech molecular gastronomy. The judges loved it!
Mike Chamber's invention is powered by some safe, simple, mechanical and scientific attributes - think dry ice and basically hot steams oysters in a sauce at the table in front of customers
The operation is quite simple - dry ice is placed on the base and a stand is placed on the dry ice. A heating element is placed on the stand and oysters are placed on the heating element. The cover and lid is placed on the base and the oyster sauna is taken to the table for the guests. A hot sauce is poured from a jug from the wait staff through the hole in the top onto the oysters. The excess sauce then overflows on to the heating element and then onto dry ice.
Then three things happen:
- Oysters cook and steam in the sauce
- A water vapour from the dry ice is simulated, helping to steam the oysters
- The sauce aromatics are injected into the room for everyone (including people up to 30 feet away) to smell and enjoy.