This month's Daring Cooks Challenge is being hosted by Sketchy's Kitchen, and features a recipe from the Alinea cookbook — Skate, Traditional Flavors Powdered. This project marks my first foray into molecular gastronomy, and it was an excellent entry point, since it is relatively simple and requires no special equipment. The skate is poached in a butter and water emulsion, served on top of butter-poached green beans and fresh banana, and dusted with a banana and browned-milk powder. Alongside are three flavor powder accompaniments: cilantro-parsley, lemon-sugar, and caper-onion.

Of course, just because it requires no special equipment doesn't mean that I had any of it on hand. Such exotic things as microwaves and coffee grinders still exist in a special limbo for me, a limbo called a storage shed in another state. So, I had to dehydrate the ingredients for the four flavor powders in this recipe in the oven, and then grind them by hand with a mortar and pestle.

The only problem with this approach is that the flavor of the powders depend on the particle size. Try putting a piece of dehydrated cilantro in your mouth &mdash it tastes like a dry leaf. But grind it to dust, and it becomes a flavor explosion. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get truly dust-like powder in a mortar and pestle. The cilantro and parsley powder was worst in this regard: if I had any food science books on hand (storage again), I would explain why, but my guess is that it has to do with the large ratio of cellulose to flavor compounds. The other powders all tasted great at a slightly larger particulate size.

So, how did it taste? Amazing. Seriously, this dish got the best reviews I think I've ever received for something that wasn't 90% sugar. The browned milk and banana powder complemented the tender and buttery skate perfectly, and the fresh banana and green bean combo was also surprisingly perfect. The powder assortment let you choose the tastes of each bite: rich, sweet, tart, or fresh. The caper-onion powder was the crowd favorite, its pungent flavor setting off the rich, lobster-like fish. We ended the evening by dipping fingers directly into the bowls of extra flavor powder, like grown-up Lik-M-Aid.