Time for a Recipe

This is a nice, easy example of spherification, Why not try it at home  ............ perfect for serving with Baked Salmon !!

I have given a list of websites where some of the ingredients and equipment can be got. A good idea when starting off is to buy the starter kit - you can get basic kits for between €30 and €60.

Most starter kits include syringes, pipettes, silicone tubing, sodium alginate, agar agar, soy lecithin and zanthan gum.

Carrot & Ginger Caviar

Recipe by Erin Wyso and photo by Joe Crocetta

Ingredients: 

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

One inch-long piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

1/2 -1 cup cold water 

1/2 tsp. sodium alginate

2 cups cold water

1/2 tsp. calcium chloride

Method:

Puree carrots and ginger in a blender. Add enough water to puree, so that the mixture equal 1 cup. Blend a second time and strain out pulp. Place mixture into refrigerator for one hour. Then slowly whisk 1/2 tsp. of sodium alginate into mixture. Pour into squeeze bottle.

Pour 2 cups of water into shallow bowl and add calcium chloride to it. Using the squeeze bottle, let droplets of mixture fall from the bottle, one at a time, into the water. The caviar spheres will form on contact with the water. After you’re done making the caviar, strain the caviar and dry them on paper towels.

The Science Behind It: 

Sodium Alginate and Calcium Chloride (Spherification). 

 When you’re making fruit or veggie caviar that is essentially a sturdy outer membrane that contains completely liquid juice, that’s a process called spherification. And in this recipe for carrot ginger caviar, spherification is achieved by using sodium alginate and calcium chloride.

Sodium alginate, is salt that has been extracted from the walls of brown algae cells. It is a structural component of the algae that allows it to be more flexible. Unlike agar-agar, the gelling that occurs with sodium alginate happens only in cold conditions. As Molecule-R points out, in tandem with calcium chloride, sodium alginate is able to acheive a unique form of gelling that involves forming a a thin membrane around a tiny sphere of liquid, so as to create a type of caviar that bursts with liquid in your mouth as it is consumed.

Calcium chloride is a byproduct of the production of sodium carbonate (washing soda).

Not your average BLT -

When we think of a BLT we think - Sandwich. Crispy leaves of lettuce, thinly sliced tomato, Grilled slices of bacon, perhaps a dollop of mayonnaise, all encased in the bread of our choice.

The picture below shows what a BLT can look like -

This BLT creation is from the menu at Searcy's Restaurant, situated on the top floor of London's Gherkin Building.

It consists of tomato jelly, topped with a bacon foam, a sliver of crispy baked tomato and served with a lettuce dressing. At wonderful example of the deconstruction of component ingredients within a very simple dish!! 

Welcome . . . . . .

If you have stumbled on this site by accident you are probably wondering what 'Molecular Gastronomy' is -

Well . .  . . . It is the application of scientific principles to the understanding and development of food preparation. Put simply it looks at the physical and chemical transformation of ingredients which occur during cooking. In other words it is experimental restaurant cooking driven by the desire of modern cooks to explore the world's wide variety of ingredients, tools and techniques. Molecular gastronomy research starts in the kitchen where chefs study how food tastes and behaves under different temperatures, pressures and other scientific conditions. It seeks to investigate and explain the chemical reasons behind the transformation of ingredients, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of cooking.

The term Molecular Gastronomy was first coined in 1988 by Oxford Physicist Nicholas Kurti and French Chemist Herve This. However there are several notable examples throughout history of investigations into the science of everyday cooking recorded as far as back to 18th century - but that's for another day!

Another term for 'Molecular Gastronomy' is 'Modernist Cuisine'.  

The picture above is a creation of Adam Melonas, an Australian Chef. 

It is called 'Octopop' on his menu and is created by cooking octopus at a very low temperature, fusing it with transglutaminase which is an enzyme, and then dipping it in an orange and saffron carraggen gel and suspending it on dill flower stalks.