Weird Science
Sunday, October 25, 2009 at 2:52PM
If the names: Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, Wylie Dufresne roll off your tongue you already know what a syringe, and three white powders are going to produce.
If not, welcome to world of culinary Molecular gastronomy. Since the 1990's some of worlds greatest chefs have passionately embraced the use of science, technology and cutting edge equipment to produce food in new surprising flavours and structure.
Hot coffee and iced coffee in the same cup yet both elements stay separate, inside out boiled egg, a sculpture of fruit foam tasting more like fruit than fruit itself but disappearing on your tongue, it's all possible with molecular gastronomy.
Curious? Then why not start out with "fruit caviar or pearls", gel on the outside, liquid on the inside.
Liquid, usually fruit, but it can be alcohol to tomato juice go through a spherification process to produce small balls or "caviar" to be used desserts, savoury dishes and cocktails.
For my first attempt I made red plum fruit caviar.
Fruit Caviar technique
500ml of chilled Red Plum juice (or 500ml of any liquid)
1.5g Sodium Alginate
1g Sodium Citrate
500ml chilled water
3g Calcium chloride
Combine the first three ingredients in a jug, whisk together. In a separate bowl stir the calcium chloride into the water until dissolved.
Using a syringe or an eyedropper, drip drops of the fruit mixture into the calcium chloride bath. Allow to set for up to 5 minutes before rinsing in cold water. They are now ready to use. I paired the plum caviar with mini matcha & black sesame pavlovas but they could just as easily topped tarts or cupcakes.
Starter spherification kit from The Red Spoon Company
Reader Comments (3)
WOW! I'm so impressed that you managed to get all these chemicals! I can't get them here..so sad.. Must have been so much fun making these! :D
Hi Faithy, I was in two minds making them... the "omg I'm using chemicals" to produce food and the "oh, wow this is like magic".... the "magic" won out because they were so much fun to make :)
Once you've made these, how long do they keep for? Could I make them say, 24 hours ahead.? If so, how is the best way to store them?