http://thecuriousgastronomer.co.za/blog/

COCONUT CREAM RAVIOLI

This is probably the third of fourth attempt at this. Luckily this time it didn’t end in dismal failure again or I would have

ran out into the street screaming that your favourite sports team is crap and then waited to see the Pearly Gates before

me.

Coconut cream and honey raviolis

The method for fake ravioli is simple:

1. MIx 1g Sodium Alginate into your liquid (roughly

1 cup) you want to raviolify.

2. Mix 3g Calcium Lactate  into water (Roughly 2

cups) to make a chemical bath.

3. Spoon your Sodium Alginate liquid into the

chemical bath and watch as it forms a skin.

4. Spoon out your perfectly formed sphere and rinse

carefully in water.

5. Dry

6. Plate

7. Eat

It is NOT that simple. Try as I might I could not do step number 3. It is very finicky to spoon your liquid into the chemical

bath into the shape of a perfect sphere without a lot of practice. Try it. I dare you. If you can do well then well done to

you (please let me know your secrets oh wise one!).

Perfectly formed frozen coconut cream and honey fake raviolis

So the little trick I have for you is put your liquid in an ice block tray and freeze. I used coconut milk and honey, it tastes

great and the Sodium Alginate thickens the cream slightly for a fantastic consistency. Second trick I will share with you

is once you have your little ice blocks done, place the back end under some warm water and they’ll pop out easier. I

think the neighbours thought I was attempting to slaughter someone because of the banging, until I added some warm

water to the equation.

freshly out of the freezer where they lived for a short while in the “council houses” of the freezer world – in the ice cube

tray

place your ice blocks of bliss into the chemical bath and leave for about 5-10 minutes, this will also give the fluid inside

time to thaw.

Yes, this is the food colouring I used, if I had used “blood of the innocent” colouring maybe my “red” ones wouldn’t have

been pink…

You don’t need to do the next step (or any of this mind you), but I rinsed them in water with food colouring. You can

leave them there for as long as you like, just remember that the reaction started in the chemical bath will continue so

this is better eaten sooner than later.

The “pink” ones were intended to be deep red but I guess it makes sense – white cream and red colouring makes

pink… sigh

Take them out and dry. There you have fantastic little coconut and honey cream squishy spheres that you can add to

your deserts or put something else inside, like chocolate or coffee.

Soft and squishy, smooth and yum.

CHEMICALS

As said in my last post, I searched throughout all the lands in hope of finding some of these precious

substances that would turn water into something less watery. In retrospect it does sound like a strange

thing to get excited about.

But wait until I tell what these beautifully vacuum packed silver bagged chemicals can do:

Calcium Lactate:

Also great for a quick acting antacid

Typically it’s found in dairy products, broccoli and rhubarb and is fantastic at keeping your pearly-whites

pearly white. In molecular gastronomic terms it is most used to make a Calcium bath and reacts with

Sodium alginate to form a gelatinous skin. It seems this reaction can’t be stopped once it begins so if you

are hoping to spherify something then you should eat it quickly unless you would like to eat a jelly-ball

Sodium Alginate:

Extracted from brown sea weed, Laminaria sp to be exact.

This is one of those chemicals that come along and chemists and chefs start to see stars at the

possibilities. It can be used to increase viscosity and as an emulsifier, and it’s most fun use is

sherification to make fake caviar and foams.

Agar Agar:

Derived from red sea weed and could help with digestive disorders

Although Agar Agar can be used as a laxative and a clarifying agent in brewing, it is mainly used in the

food industry as a superior replacement for gelatine.

Soy Lecithin:

And you can probably have this even if you’re allergic to Soy

This Soy by-product is made up of 3 types of phospholipids and is used as an emulsifier and stabilizer

and is what helps margarine to stay solid as well as gives things a creamy consistency. Plus it’s good for

you because it’s a great source of choline which is a big part of what cell membranes are made of.

These are the 4 main chemicals I have to play with at the moment, hopefully with some time, I’ll perfect

some recipes for you to try out.

APPLE & GINGER JELLY

Straight lines are a trademark of humanity – it seems no other animal goes out of its way to create so

many straight lines in its surroundings. In a way, it could be why we sometimes want to leave the cubicle

in search for the wild side of life; perhaps straight lines make us feel safe in our humanity but also keeps

the wild, messy, world outside? We see it everywhere and I must admit that seeing perfectly cut little

cubes of delicious edible delights on my plate sends a tingle up my spine – it’s not the shape (I’m not a

“that” weird), so much as it is the accuracy of cut. Someone has spent time and concentration making

sure that even the tiniest bit of food placed in front of me is thought out and deliberate.

I suck at it.

The recipe is simple enough:

the blood of 4 apples (you can also use its

juice if you really have to)

a large knuckle of ginger, juiced as well

half a teaspoon of Agar agar

chocolate – I used 70% Lindt cooking

chocolate

candied ginger for garnish. You can make

this by placing slivers of ginger in to a

syrup of half water/sugar solution.

 

Heat the juices, add the agar, cook till all is dissolved, strain, place in a mold to set, cut into cubes, dip

into the melted chocolate, and place the candied ginger atop the treat for good luck, because when

trying to cut perfect little squares you will need all the luck the world can offer!

I call this masterpiece: “The long shadows of 4pm”. Note how all the cubes are different sizes? That is

exactly how you shouldn’t do it.

Ah, this is yet another way of how you shouldn’t add chocolate to the equation.

And finally, after dipping and candying, this is the final product. It tastes quite good, and the candied

ginger gives a nice sweet chewy texture to add to the mix. This was taken with my wife’s camera. There

is envy in my heart.

CARAMELIZED OLIVE OIL

I found this nifty little diddy from Chef Jose Andres on a Youtube vid on the EnthusioChefs channel. It’s a

great place to find some inspiration.

Incredibly thin sugar capsules filled with olive oil. So simple and yet I keep staring at them.

You can watch it here:

It seems simple enough but there isn’t much to go on in the description besides:

…caramelized olive is passed through a ring mold filled with isomalt, encapsulating the olive oil in a glass

candy coating.

To be honest, in typical manly fashion, I didn’t actually read the “About” section before doing it, so I

guess I found another way to skin the same cat.

It looks a little like a ghost tadpole. That little red spot is burnt lemon zest. Silly rookie mistake tut tut.

How I made mine is with plane castor sugar, heated up to melting point, dipped in a washer, and then

poured in cool olive into the washer.  What I found is that the sugar needs to be heated very gently or it

will burn and go bitter. Also, I made the rookie mistake of adding lemon zest to the sugar solution, which

just burn. In a later attempt I added the lemon zest to the olive oil instead and it worked great.

“A pinch of joy” of olive oil is all you need (that translates to 1/4 ts in case you didn’t know). My wife does

a lot of happy baking, they’re her heart-shaped measuring spoons… mine are in the wash.

It takes a bit of experimentation to get the right sugar temperature, too hot and the sugar won’t adhere

to the washer, too cool and the droplet won’t form completely. My rough judgement is that it worked

best at 105º C.

I had to MacGyver this one somewhat. Look familiar? It should, it’s a toothpaste nozzle.

As you would guess the better the olive oil the better. I opted for an Olyvenbosch olive oil that nabbed a

Silver at the SA Olive Awards this year.

As you can see by the broken droplet yonder, they are incredibly brittle, and pretty frig’n awesome.

So long as you melt your sugar really slowly and use good olive oil, this is a definite winner. Something I

see myself making a lot more in the future.

DULCE DE HABANERO

If you have ever dived deep into the wonderful and unpredictable world of chilli you would definitely have

stumbled upon the deceptively bell-pepper-shaped Habanero. These little orange (and they even have an

orangey taste) pack a punch of between 100 000 and 350 000 Scovilles which made it the Guinness

world record holder for hottest chilli in 2000. Things have changed since then with other chillies besting it

but it’s still damnably hot – Tabasco is only at around 3500 – 8000 Scovilles to give you some indication.

Read about it here

Awww wook at all da widdle…. AHHHHH IT HURTS IT HURTS CUT OFF MY TONGUE! AHHHHHH!

Handled wrongly this chilli will hurt you. It’s almost a full day later and although I’ve washed my hands

many times with many different types of soap I still have a fear every time I touch my face because some

parts of my hands are still burning!

But on the other hand if handled right this happy little chilli can create some remarkable things. This

recipe was inspired by two things – Grapefruit rind candy, and a sweet chilli sauce I made a while back

that is still the best one I’ve ever tasted (I’ll put the recipe up soon).

Looks so gentle and innocent right?

The method is quite simple:  

Step 1: Take out the stalks and seeds, and cut spirally.

 

Step 2: Put in cold water and bring to the boil, let it boil for 1 minute, rinse in cold water, repeat 3 times.

Step 3: Make a saturated sugar solution (1 cup water : about 2.5 cups castor sugar)

Step 4: Place chillies in sugar solution and slowly bring to the boil. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. Let cool for

about an hour.

Step 5: String up chilli strips with cotton and place in oven to dry at low heat – You don’t want to cook it,

just let it dry out so it becomes tacky.

Step 6: Once tacky, coat in castor sugar.

Leave this lying around the house and you will probably get murdered dead in your sleep.

What you end up with is a candy with a fiery hot punch, that I found works nicely with ice cream.

Who would have thought that Chilli candy would go so well with White Truffle Gelato?

After note:  After writing this I had the good fortune of making friends with the guys at San Julian Mexican

restaurant, who gave me the top tip of soaking the chillies in cold filter coffee once you’ve cut them open

– apparently this denatures the chemicals that burn the living crap out you.

REVERSE CHOCOLATE SPHERES

Spherification involves adding Sodium Alginate to the liquid you would like to spherify and then placing it

in a Calcium bath, when the chemicals react they will form a skin and presto!- you have a sphere.  

However, a big problem with normal spherification is that it doesn’t work well with dairy or alcohol.

This is where reverse spherification come into play. By simply adding Calcium your liquid to and placing

it in a Sodium Alginate bath you can get a very similar reaction and a light skin will form.

Something to keep in mind is that with normal spherification, the skin being formed is made up of the

liquid you have inside your sphere. With reverse spherification, your liquid is inside a skin made of the

Sodium Alginate solution. It is a strange concept but critical to remember.

My Nomu reverse spheres with some ice cream. These were incredibly delicate and of the 20 or so I tried

making these were the only survivors… which I promptly ate.

Originally I thought that there would be enough Calcium in the milk to react with the Sodium Alginate. I

was severely mistaken so ended up adding Calcium Lactate to the chocolate milk mix.

The measurements would be the same as for normal spherification as far as I can tell.

Awesome wedding Favours – Nomu Hot Chocolate with marshmallows :D

 

It’s worth noting that I made the spheres by freezing the liquid in an ice cube tray first or else it’s a

nightmare to try and get proper round spheres.

GRAPEFRUIT RIND CANDY

I have to admit upfront that I am a huge lover of the citrus fruit, Citrus paradisi, commonly known as the

Grapefruit.

There is something so sublime about its bitterness that I go through phases of eating up to 3 a day

(without sugar!). So when I came across a recipe at Smitten Kitchen (amazing pics by the way), I had to

try it out for myself.

This is from my first attempt, quite bitter but incredibly addictive despite only being able to have 1 every

half hour or so…

After looking around for some variations of this recipe and studying up a bit on candied fruit in general,

this is what I deem to be a damn near fool-proof method for amazing candied grapefruit rinds:

2 grapefruit yields enough candied rinds to give you a very high dose of Vitamin C and ensures that you

will have more friends than normal for about 3-7 days.

Ingredients:

2 grapefruit

3 cups castor sugar

 

Method:

Cut your grapefruit into quarters and remove the flesh so only the rinds remain. Cut into strips. The

thinner the strips the less bitter I found, but be careful not to cut too thinly because the slight bitterness

helps cut through the sweetness.

Place your cut rinds into a pot of cold water and slowly bring to the boil, once boiling, let it boil for about

1 minute.

Take rinds off heat, strain, rinse and repeat. This process removes the bitterness – the first time I tried it I

did it thrice and although it did remove most of the bitterness it was still quite bitter; the second time I

did it four times and the results were amazing.

To 1 cup of water add enough sugar to make a saturated sugar solution, with castor sugar this is around

2.5 cups of sugar (amazing how soluble it is!), and while still cool add your rinds. Slowly bring to the boil

and then let it simmer for around 10 minutes. I left the pot to cool for about an hour to make sure the

syrup had permeated the rinds and it makes it much easier to handle so you don’t melt your digits off.

This was my first attempt – looks amazing but quite a fair amount of bitterness comes through because

of the thickness of the rind and the amount of times they were boiled in the first phase.

Once cooled, place the pieces on a drying rack so that they can dry out a bit till ‘tacky’. Many references

left theirs for up to 8hrs  - which I, dictated by my sweet-tooth, found completely unacceptable. So I

turned up the heat a in the oven for 5 minutes and then allowed to cool. This is a much easier alternative

This was my second attempt. They may look paper-thin but don’t let that fool you – they will all very soon

be relocated to the past tense post haste.

Coat in castor sugar.

Eat.

Apparently they can last for a week or 2 if left out in the open, I’m not going to test out that theory…

PS. if you want the nerd in you to come out a play for a bit have a look at “the Grapefruit effect”

AGAR PANNA COTTA

I was looking for something quite specific to create a secret dish (I’ll let you know closer to the time but

don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet), when I came across this really easy Panna Cotta recipe.

Tada, Vanilla Agar Panna Cotta!

Here’s the recipe:

1 cup thick cream

1.5 cups full cream milk

4 table spoons sugar

1.5 tea spoons Agar Agar (powdered)

Milk, cream, agar, vanilla and some sugar

– quick panna cotta. Just heat and eat.

 

 

Mix all your ingredients, add your flavouring, and heat up until just below boiling. This will ensure that

your agar can melt in and dissolve.

I used a rubber cupcake tray which makes turning out way easier.

Then that is left to do is test out the density of your panna cotta by putting a drop or two on a cold plate

and see how it sets and tasting it. I did find that 2 tea spoons of agar was a bit too much for my liking so I

would suggest 1.5 tea spoons or even less. Play around with it till you’re happy. Then eat and be more

happy

 

Vanilla seeds. Mmmmmm

JUICE

The end and beginning of the year are always great for retrospection and aiming high so I created a

bucket list of 100 things I want to do by the end of 2013. One of them was to create a 6 course meal for

friends so I thought I’d go big. This post is a test of concept for an aspect of one of the courses.

I bet Armstrong’s breakfast “juice” didn’t look this good.

I found some magnetic lettering and then thought of many complicated ways of making a mold/cast of

my letters, and after what felt like an eternity I realised that using a hot glue gun would suffice. It did.

Some points to consider is making sure your letters are lubed up or the glue will do what glue does best –

stick to stuff. I thought I’d save myself some time cleaning up by doing all of this on a cling film, not the

best move because invariably the hot glue will melt the thin plastic (duh).

With the cries of a small child dwindling into the distance as I ran from the scene of the crime with some

magnetic letters I knew it was going to be a good day.

Once the glue dries, pop out your letters and look for holes.

If you do find any holes just put your letter back and glue up the holes. Let dry. Pop out.

I filled my awesome new molds with the liquid I had melted Agar Agar into. I think I’ve got a head cold or

didn’t sleep well or something so exact measurements slipped my mind but it was roughly about a tea

spoon worth of Agar with around 2 cups of water…. or there abouts. Best thing to do is once you’ve

melted your agar into the liquid, test a drop on a cold plate and see if you’re happy with the jellyness.

You can always add more water or agar until you reach your desired rubberyness.

This seems like such an obvious and simple idea but somehow I get a kick out serving juice as juice.

The results of this have been better than I had hoped and I can’t wait to have my 6 course dinner, if that

goes well I’ll test the dinner out on some other peoples so let me know if you’d be keen

This is really quite fun to play with.

VERMONT MOUSSE & MANGO PUREE EGG

My fiance, the Gorgeous Gourmet, got me into watching Master Chef Australia when we first started

dating. At first I wasn’t super keen to watch a cooking show but figured it was worth the brownie points.

Then I saw an episode were they made a fake soft-boiled egg and it blew my mind.

So in tribute to that amazing episode, here’s mine:

Tada – Vermouth-vanilla mousse with Mango puree. That’s how I roll.

You can read about how to make the Vermouth Mousse here.

Besides that, everything is fairly straight forward and the only thing that takes a bit of time to do is to cut

the shell – patience is key.

Those cuts are done with a steak knife. Very slowly. Very. Slowly. Let that sink in.

Some Mango pieces ready to become puree.

You don’t have to use syringes but it’s much less messy if you do, not to mention the cool factor goes

up… which I just mentioned.

Mix your mixture to form soft peaks. Note the Vanilla seeds.

this is from a few seconds in the microwave, and just illustrates how amaze-ballsically surgical my shell

cutting skills are. Booya!

And here we have the final product. I used an apple corer to make the cavity for the Mango puree.

This is a new favourite.

Thank you MC Oz.

VERMOUTH MOUSSE

Let me begin by saying that I have a major head cold and this idea came to me in my delirium. That

being said, it is amazing! I need to get head colds more often if this is the result.

Super light, and super bright, have some molecular vermouth mousse tonight!

What you need is:

1 shot vermouth. I used Martini Bianco

Torino Vermouth (I don’t drink much and

found this in the back of the cupboard after

making my fiancé a surprise Mojito).

2 egg whites.

Half a cup of sugar, I used brown sugar

because it has a more wholesome flavour,

that and it was all I had.

An orange/grapefruit .

So simple. So good. (Unless you’re an alcoholic in which case it’s terrible, don’t try it.)

Beat the egg whites and sugar till they form soft peaks. If you can do this part with Michael Jackson’s just

beat it playing in the background you get extra pun points.

Then add the shot of vermouth. Beat further till you get soft peaks once again.

Put your alcoholic meringue in the microwave for 30 or so seconds. Take out, slice, pour some

orange/grapefruit juice over it. Serve.

This stuff is super light and yet you can cut it quite easily and it keeps its shape – Magic

What happens is that microwaves make the water molecules in your meringue vibrate and heat up, this

is what cooks your food. The heat from these agitated water molecules denatures the proteins in your

egg whites and they form a gel. The air in your mixture will also expand slightly, but be warned, eat this

within 30 minutes or it will start to shrink a bit and separate slightly.

Drizzle some orange/grapefruit juice over it to cut some of the richness.

This gellified foam/mouse is incredibly light and amazingly delicious and would go well with dark

chocolate shavings or even a citrus sorbet on the side. Enjoy!

STRAWBERRY AND CORIANDER AIR

A little while back I had the honour of going to La Colombe with my amazing fiancé, the Gorgeous

Gourmet, and for desert she had this:

Quite a yum desert from La Colombe. Look at that foamy stuff.

I’d seen restaurants on the interweb giving their patrons big glasses full of foam they called “Air”, and

after having a spoonful of the foam from La Colombe I decided I would give it a crack and see what I

came up with.

In the research I did on Soy Lecithin, I discovered that it’s a great emulsifier and is perfect for creating a

flavoured foam.

Useful ingredient in vegan mayonnaise and can usually be eaten even by people with Soy allergies

It’s not often you get to make “air” for the first time so I thought I’d be adventurous and make a

strawberry and coriander air. The thought being that it would be sweet from the strawberries and

savoury from the coriander.

An interesting combination for sure but a nice savoury twist.

So, you’ll need to get your own blend of ingredients to suite your palate – I very technically just put a

“bunch” of both in, added half a cup of water and mixed them in the blender and then measured out

350ml. This brings us to what you will need to make your very own foam/air.

350 grams liquid (which is pretty much the same in millilitres)

2 grams Soy Lecithin

For the technically inclined out there, this is what my quantitative stipulation  of  ”a bunch” is.

Mix them with an immersion blender (because the aim is to get bubbles), and scoop the bubbles off. This

air can apparently last for a few hours and can even be frozen for a few months.

I present my strawberry and coriander foam. I guess in retrospect it would make sense that red and

green make orange-brown.  At least it taste good.

I froze mine and put it on Lemon curd and cinnamon ice cream I made a while back. There’s no photo

because I’m not a good food blogger yet and I ate it before I could take a pic. My apologies. Not really.

FAKE CAVIAR

After hunting down chemical companies for weeks I finally found one that can help me, and today I cut

open the vacuum sealed silver bags for the first time – It is an early Christmas!

With a drop of colour PRESTO! You have yourself some fake pomegranate seeds

I get Calcium Alginate all over my hand so try and wash it off, at which point my hand immediately gets

covered in slime- I am half super hero with creepy slime ability and half idiot. Great start.

The great restaurant elBulli discovered that if they dissolved Sodium Alginate into one liquid and then

dripped it into a Calcium bath the two chemicals would react forming a thin gelatinous skin around the

first liquid.

What you then had was a small, round, liquid filled ball, so they called the process spherification, which I

guess does sound better than ballification but can seem a little poncy.

Here is what you’ll need:

1g Sodium Alginate

3g Calcium Lactate

255g Juice

510g Cold water

Syringe

Strainer

Straining spoon

Blender

First thing to do is mix the Sodium Alginate into your juice/alcohol/soup/stock. I used Apple juice. I like

apples. One day I’ll be more hard core and go for bat’s blood but for today I choose the juice of the

innocent apple. This takes longer than expected but a good idea is to mix it into half your juice first and

then add the rest to it.

It will thicken your liquid a bit so the trapped bubbles will take a while to escape. Straining this gloopy

liquid will help get out the bits of Sodium Alginate that you missed.

While you leave your thickened chemical ridden juice to get rid of its unwanted gas, you can start on

your Calcium bath. Some people use Calcium Chloride but I used Calcium Lactate because that’s how I

roll. Its takes a minute or two to whisk the 3 grams of chemical into your water.

Its best to leave the juice for a bit before putting it in the chemical bath to get the bubbles out, but it still

looks look awesome – that is grape juice!

The next step is to suck up Juice with a syringe and drip it into your Calcium bath. This I have learned is a

skill, so easy does it. My first attempt was quite ambitious and I ended up with worm shaped fake caviar.

The second thing I learned was that you need a decent scale, or you may fall into the trap I did of adding

too much Sodium Alginate. This made my juice quite thick and the bubbles refused to leave no matter

how I begged and pleaded. Worse than that, I could not get a perfect sphere. The best I got was a little

tear drop shape, probably the scale trying to mock me for trying to improvise.

As soon as you drop in the juice it will start to react with the Calcium bath, and will continue to do so until

the entire droplet has gelified. This method is best suited for immediate consumption.

After about a minute or so take your newly formed fake caviar out of the chemical bath with your slotted

spoon and put it in some cold water to wash off any excess Calcium Lactate solution.

Then very carefully dry your fake caviar.

Ideally, when you eat it you shouldn’t notice the skin as it bursts in your mouth, so play around with the

chemical bath times until you find what works for you.

BEETROOT CAVIAR

Beetroot. I have rediscovered it, and reclaimed it from my childhood plate where it was always a crinkle-

cut purple slab that oozed and stained everything that was within dribble distance.

This hearty and wholesome root has an earthy flavour that makes you feel healthy just tasting it!

Sent this to my girlfriend- She’s now my wife. Showing that bad food punnage works… or I’m just really

good looking.

Cringe-factor cuteness aside, here’s how to make what you came here to make:

Add 1g Sodium Alginate to about a cup of beetroot juice, blend till in solution. Put in the fridge and give it

some time for the bubbles to go out.

Prepare a Calcium bath so long by mixing 3g Calcium Lactate into about 500ml water. Put into fridge to

cool down.

Once your bubbles are out of the beet juice (you can leave the bubbles in if you want but it looks better

without bubbles), drip into the calcium bath one drop at a time. This takes practice because if you drip

from too high the drops will flatten and won’t form nice little spheres, if you drop from too low the drops

won’t sink down and you won’t get nice little spheres. If you drip too fast, you won’t get nice little

spheres. You get the picture. Good luck and have fun with it.

Why yes, this is stick blender some water with Calcium Lactate.

The blood of the innocent. Apparently it’s also very good for you, will clear your debts, give you sexual

powers, and make things better with noisy neighbours. That’s at least what Dr Jumbawisa says…

It turns out the pigment is really quite sneaky at escaping from membranes. This are pigment trails from

caviar at the surface.

Ever play that game “Goo”, well I tried playing the real version while shooting this.

 

Rorscharch test of the culinarily insane.

SUSHI AIR

Sometimes you really feel like sushi but your wallet is looking decidedly dusty, and you realize you are

just craving the taste, the reminder of good times with friends.

As said in an earlier post about making foams/airs, it’s a great technique that was stolen by the

pretentious. I’m taking it back. Food should be delicious and fun and close to heart (just not in a heart

disease kind of way), and if you happen to fall into the crowd that would battle to get a pin out of your

derrieres with a tractor please do not try this. Ponsy folks please stay at home.

Soy Lecithin is the key ingredient here. For each cup of liquid I added roughly a teaspoon of SL powder,

whipped it up with my trusty stick blender, waited a few seconds for the foam to stabilize, and scooped

off.

For this I took a few good sized pieces of pickled ginger, added some water and the liquid from the PG’s

bottle and blitzed it up. Add ginger till you’re happy with it.

Once I had foams for cucumber, wasabi, soy and pickled ginger, I bunged them into the freezer for a few

minutes. Layered the frozen foam on each other and sprinkled some caviar for the fish factor. It is

incredibly weird to put something in your mouth that seems to explode with flavour and BAM! is gone.

It’s like a flavour ghost is haunting your mouth.

This picture has the highest pride:weight ratio of any I’ve taken so far.

Moonscapes of flavour. David Bowie’s next album cover.

 

For some reason you really don’t expect much from this dish when you look at it but when it’s in your

mouth it’s sushi. Happy, friendly, sushi.

CHEESE RUSSIAN HOT DOG & WASABI FOAM

In a past post I tried to create an “air” with only half-hearted success. Sure, it was technically foam but it

didn’t live up to the hype in my head, and I realised that the big problem was that I made it with a

blender. It’s a KitchenAid blender and is quite amazing, but somehow I couldn’t make it do what I

wanted, namely – go upside down and froth till the cows came home.

Enter Uber cheep stick blender from Clicks. Foamy goodness abounds. Just goes to show you always

need the right tools for the job.

A second problem I had previously wasn’t in the making of the foam but rather the pretentiousness that

went with it. I could imagine one of my friends coming to visit and this is what the conversation would be

like:

You can even freeze this foam so it has an interesting crunchiness.

Friend: “So what you making?”

Me: “Foam.”

Friend: “Cool. What for, is there a fire or something?”

Me: “It’s to put on food, kinda like a sauce.”

Friend: “Oh, cool. So why don’t you just make a sauce, I saw some sweet chilli in the fridge if you want

it?”

Me: “No, thanks though. It’s meant to be a foam that tastes like stuff.”

Friend: “Oh ok. So it’s a sauce that taste like other stuff without being that other stuff?”

Me: “Yup.”

Friend: “Sounds a bit hoity toity to me hey. Hey do you have any leftover pizza?”

 

So how do you unpretentiousnessness something? By using it on the food of the people – Hot dogs!

One Cheese Russian with Wasabi foam Hot Dog. Yum

Ingredients:

Tablespoon Wasabi

Tablespoon Rice vinegar

4 Tablespoons water (just to add more

liquid)

1 Gram of Soy Lecithin (add more if you

want a thicker foam/mousse)

This in my humble opinion is the best way to cut a hot dog roll so that it holds onto the sausage and has

space enough for sauce.

Mix them with an immersion blender until you have foam. You can either keep blending or scoop off the

foam as it rises.

Cheesy, porky, burny goodness.

This sounds obvious but wear eye protection… It didn’t sound that obvious to me. Just saying.

JACK & LIME SPHERIFICATION

I’ve briefly covered how to make fake caviar in a previous post, using Sodium Alginate and a calcium

bath.

But what if you don’t have those chemicals and still want to do something?

Well never fear, Agar agar is here, or at least it’s still an easier option. The only down side is that that

your spheres will be set all the way through and not liquid in the centre. It all comes down to what you

want to do with it.

1 part Jack. 1 part Lime. Good times.

One of my favourite drinks is a Jack & Lime (1 shot Jack Daniels Whiskey and 1 shot Lime cordial)

1 shot is 44.36ml, so I’m just going to round off to 50ml of each just to make the math easier.

You’ll want to dissolve 1% of the liquids weight of agar agar. So in this case there is 100g of Jack & Lime

(this has approximately the same density as water so one millilitre will be roughly one gram), so we will

only need 1 gram of Agar agar.

Good ‘ol Tennessee Whisky and Lime cordial

Agar agar melts at 85° C so you don’t have to boil your solution and loose the alcohol content, even if

you do boil the liquid it will still retain quite a bit, if not most of its alcohol.

Then drip the Agar/Jack solution into the cold oil and watch it fall down to the bottom. It is a good idea to

have the cooled oil in a tall, thin container so that the spheres can have time to solidify properly before

getting to the bottom and losing shape by bumping other spheres. This part is quite therapeutic and I’d

happily go through the whole process just for this step.

Happy Jack and Lime spheres nestling at bottom of the cold oil receptacle.

After you’ve gotten all your spheres made, wash them in warm/hot water to get the oil off.

Caution: These little gems still have alcohol in them and you can quite easily forget than when you eat a

handful…

And there you have cold oil spheres that are great to put into drinks or as fake caviar. I found that

depending on how hard you squeeze the syringe, you can create quite a variety of  sphere sizes. Enjoy

GLUTEN FREE AGAR AGAR NOODLES

“I love bread. I can’t eat bread. I cry myself to sleep…”

That is an extract from my new hit single “Gluten blues” and if anyone wants it, it will be available for

download at some point in the future depending on demand.

I also really enjoy pasta in all its wonderful forms, regrettably however, most of it has gluten in it. So in

true MacGyver style, I made my own. It was good. Darn good.

Food meets science meets my stomach.

You can make these noodles out of any liquid so long as it’s not too acidic or the Agar agar won’t set, you

could try adding some Bicarbonate of Soda to make it more alkaline.

These are the tools I used:

1 x 2m long tubing (you can get it from any pet store and it’s pretty cheap)

1 x Syringe

2 teaspoons of Agar agar

2 cups of Chicken stock

I made my own stock from some chicken pieces that I browned in a pot with 1 teaspoon of garlic. Once

browned, I added enough water to cover the pieces, the rest of the chicken carcass and a pack of basil.

Let that simmer so that all the flavours can mingle.

After straining my stock I added 2 teaspoons of Agar agar and brought it to the boil, then let it simmer

for 5 minutes while stirring so that all of the Agar can melt into your stock. It has a melting point of

around 78 degrees Celsius but luckily your mouth will burn with food hotter than 65 degrees Celsius

which works well for everyone that’s worried about their noodles melting. Don’t worry if the stock sets

while you’re doing something else, just heat it up a bit and it will melt again.

Once all of the Agar agar has melted into the stock attach your tubing to the syringe and suck up your

glossy, yum looking stock. Careful, the tubing is hot and will burn you- it didn’t burn me because I’m

hardcore.

Hint: Use water to push it out with your syringe.

Take your coiled tubing and put it in the freezer for a few minutes to set, it will set anyway but this

speeds up the process.

Hint: an easy way of getting the noodle out of the tubing without too much fuss is to fill the syringe with

cold water. Air compresses and takes ages to get your 2 meter long noodle out- water does the job much

quicker. I caught my noodles in a strainer and dried them off before plating.

And that is how you can make gluten-free noodles easily.

Chicken, garlic and basil noodles, perfect with some sweet corn soup.-Yum indeed.

COFEE & AMARULA SPHERES

Sometimes my caffeine dependency gets too much, and gets the better of me, at which point I need

something stronger, smoother, and more refreshing.

Cold percolated coffee using a standard percolator “Macgyver” style.

This is where cold percolated coffee comes in. Imagine if coffee wasn’t as bitter, didn’t need milk or

sugar, and no risk of burning yourself with pesky spills.

Having none of the fancy equipment needed, I decided to improvise. It might be insightful to mention

that even in pre-school my nickname was “Macgyver”.  The simplest way I could find was to take a

normal coffee percolator and invert it with ice in the water compartment, then take out the coffee cup

filter and place it underneath so that the melted ice water would slowly drip into your coffee grinds, filter,

and collect into a glass. This is not an easy road to take for coffee, and took a good few hours to produce

a single cup.

With a little rearrangement of my coffee percolator I was able to have produce a smooth tasting ice

percolated coffee. Took hours though…

This was all fun and all, but I wanted more.

We have just had a house-warming party and someone gave us a bottle of Amarula. After having a

somewhat misspent childhood, even the thought of this drink has since sent shivers down my body,

accompanied by vivid flash-backs. That was until I had a little test-sip of marvellous stuff. But still, you

have to ease your way back into the Amarula good books, and what better way than to spherify it. Cold

oil spherification to be precise.

Soft little spheres of Amarula waiting happily to be devoured.

The process is simple enough:

1. Melt agar into the liquid you want to

spherify.

2. Using a syringe/pipette, drip the liquid into

oil that has been chilled in the freezer.

3. Rinse your spheres in warm water to

remove the oil. 

The ratio I found that worked best to give the spheres a subtle firmness was 2/3 ts agar powder : 65ml

Amarula

With the mildly demonic looking bunny-of-Amarula-past appeased, here is my cold percolated coffee with

Amarula spheres.

(note: 1/3 ts agar :65ml Amarula makes for a really great Amarula Panna Cotta!)

BACON INFUSED JACK DANIELS

For the bacon lovers out there that can’t get enough of the other white meat, there’s bacon bits, bacon

jam, and even bacon ice cream.

Now for your over indulgence I present the “Jack-Ham’er” – bacon infused Jack Daniels.

Now you can “Swine & Dine”… Da dum tshhh

I opted for Gentleman Jack, which in a nutshell is Jack Daniels that’s been twice charcoal mellowed

instead of once, and makes it smoooooth.

Double charcoal mellowed smooth Jacky D.

All you need is:

1. 1 pack bacon 

2. 250ml Jack Daniels

3. Avo to eat with the bacon after you’ve fried

it

Grill/fry the bacon and put 2 teaspoons of the rendered fat in your Jack.

 

Stir it up a bit to get a good mix and leave it out for 12 hours or so, to let all the bacony goodness infuse

into the Jacky goodness. As a point of note, apparently when fat is put into bourbon it absorbs a lot of the

harshness (brilliant), and then the alcohol dissolves a lot of the aromatic compounds that make bacon so

awesome (twice brilliant!).

Just in case you didn’t know what frying bacon looked like…

Cool for a bit to solidify the fat and strain. Strain again for good luck – as much as bacon is delicious,

finding a fat globule in your evening drink isn’t.

Good little piggy.

 

You can also read how to make Jack into fake caviar here.

Molecular Gastronomy – Spherical mango yolk

Hey there, I’m happy to let you know that this post is the first of three back to back basic spherification posts. These recipes and experiments are designed to help you learn and deconstruct the concept of spherification for yourself while having fun in your kitchen.

So, yesterday I decided to open up my sodium alginate and thus open the gateway for spherification and more advanced molecular gastronomy. Sodium alginate is derived from different types of brown algae which grow in cold water regions all over the planet! It gels in the presence of Calcium and is soluble in cold and warm liquids.

Sodium Alginate and sodium citrate - click to buy

What I set out to test for this experiment was to see if using the sodium alginate would in fact gel in presence of calcium ion. I also wanted to test to see if that gel would be strong enough to hold firm when combined with the mango puree.

For this experiment/recipe I needed a spherical mango base that consisted of sodium alginate (1.8g), sodium citrate (1.3g), water (250g), and mango pure (250g).

What I did first was to mix the sodium citrate in water in my vita-mix blender.

Blending the sodium citrate - click to buy sodium citrate

I added the sodium alginate and blended again.

Blending the sodium alginate and sodium citrate

Once the two ingredients where blended I transferred the solution to a saucepan until boiling stirring constantly.

Mixing the solution to a boil

After I reached a boil I allowed the mixture to cool down. Once the mixture cools down enough you could add the mango puree.

But first, let’s do the mango puree.

How I pureed my mangoes was quite easy. All I did was peel three mangoes and cut them into chunks.

Cutting up mangoes

After I cut up the mangoes I transferred them to the vita-mix for blending. I put the magoes in the blender until a puree formed (about level 6 for 2min).

mango puree

Next, I combined the mango pure with the sodium alginate and sodium citrate solution.

Mixing mango puree with solution

After I combine these ingredients I keep them in a hermetically sealed container and stick it in my refrigerator.

Mango puree and mix

Once I had the mango base ready I had to prepare the calcium bath. In this experiment I used the texturas line ‘Calcic’ molecular powder. This powder is composed of granulated calcium chloride, and has a high water solubility.

I prepared this bath by combining Calcic (6.5g) with water (1000g) and mixing it with my immersion blender.

Calcic a calcium chloride product - get it here

mixing with my immersion blender until completely dissolved. I also made sure to place the mixture in a container that allowed for a height of about 5 cm (2.5in).

Mixing the water with the Calcic

Once the water was mixed I prepared for the spherification process. For this procedure all I had to do was take my mango mixture and drop it in the Calci bath. How I did this was to simply use a hemispherical spoon.

Mango mixture and Calcic bath

Mango mixture on hemisphereical spoon

Dunking the mango mixture in the Calcic

Once the mango mixture is the Calcic bath you could gently use your finger to guide the mango sphere into the Calcic bath. Leave the spherical mango for 2 min in the bath.

poking my mango sphere into the Calcic

Leave the spherical mango ravioli for 2 min in the bath. Take out the mango sphere and clean them in cold water by dunking the sphere in a pool of clean cold water. Strain the water from the mango sphere and dry them on absorbent paper, trying not to break them.

Cleaning the mango sphere in cold water

mango sphere

The mango spheres have a tough enough texture on the outside yet a liquid explosive interior.

Knife test with mango ravioli

Liquid burst inside

Mango spheres

Spherical mangoes communicating

Mango sphere with lavender

The results were clear, the sodium alginate did in fact gel in the presence of calcium ions. The reaction happened instantly and it held throughout the experiment. The inside of the mango sphere was liquid and the outside was gelled tough but delicate texture. The taste was amazing and the process was exhilarating.

As you can see in the pictures above the mango spheres held their texture when exposed to the outside world. This leaves an endless amount of possibilities for further experimentation and recipes.

until next time.

Happy spherification

your friend,

Chef Tali Clavijo

Molecular Gastronomy – Goji caviar tiny spheres

So today I decided to make goji caviar. I really wanted to just make a sphere out of a regular dried up goji berry. So, what I needed for this recipe/experiment was 1.8 g sodium alginate, 1.3 calcium citrate, and 6.5 calcium chloride. The first step was to prepare the goji mixture. For this, all I did was simply blend 500 g of goji berries in my vita-mix. The end result was 250 g of goji pulp (after passing the mixture through a chinos).

Next, I blended the calcium citrate with 250 g of water and added the sodium alginate until blended well. i placed this mixture in a saucepan and heated it up until boil constantly stirring. I allowed the mixture to cool at room temperature and once cold I added the goji puree and mixed.

For the Calcium chloride bath I mixed 1000g of water with 6.5 g of calcium chloride. I placed the mixture aside and kept it ready for the goji mixture.

Viscosity

A material is a liquid if the molecules can move around each other

The fundamental quantity that governs this is the time that it takes for molecules to move around their neighbors.

If it takes a long time to move by each other, the material is very viscous.

If it takes a short time, the material is less viscous.

Example: Olive Oil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes longer for the molecules to move through olive oil than water because it has a higher viscosity.

 

Molecular viscosity

length²/time           v = l x c

where v = length

c = length ⁄ time

Very important Equations:

Molecular viscosity: v = l x c

elasticity: E = kBT ⁄ l³

Let’s look at the viscosity of hot oil

Hot oil flows faster than cold oil

Viscosity decreases with increasing temperature

Molecules move around each other more easily

 

Let’s look at how using a thickener helps make liquids thicker

Xanthan Gum makes liquids thicker

Xanthan Gum (E415): makes food thick and creamy; also stabilizes foods to help solids and liquids stay together

You could see Xanthan Gum is sauces, low fat or non-dairy, and dressings.

The reason thickeners works?

Thickener is a polymer

Polymer forms network in the water

This forms a solid gel

Note: The bonds in gels are not permanent

Molecules can move

Molecules must disentangle to move

This is important because it means if you form a gel you could easily manipulate it by shredding it in a thermomix or blender.

doing this will change the viscosity by either a small percentage or a large one.

Let’s get into some recipes with some molecular ingredients:

Soft Creamy Jelly

You will need:

100g of water, fruit juice, or wine.

2.5g iota

100g of olive oil (extra virgin)

Procedure:

You will need to bring water to boil and stir in iota, whisking constantly. Take the saucepan out of the warmer and slowly add the olive oil, stirring constantly.

Pour mixture into molds and allow to cool.

Once it has set you could slowly remove the olive oil jelly from the mold

Finally, serve on bread with tomato and jamon iberico.

 

For the next recipe you will make Olive oil gummie bears

You will need:

150 g extra virgin olive oil

7.5g xanthan gum

7.5g locust bean gum

310g glucose

160g sugar

10g water

For the procedure you will need to use your thermomix at speed 3, veroma 100 C for 5min. Mix all ingredients.

Once the mixture is complete transfer to piping bag and pipe little goblets over cornstarch.

Completely cover with a thin layer of cornstarch.

 

 

 

 

 

Molecular Gastronomy – Carrageenan Kappa and Iota

I’m back with some awesome molecular gastronomy adventures. Today I want to take you into the world of the Carrageenan. What are carrageenans? They are composed of a linear polysaccharide made up of galactose units with sulfur side groups. The origin of carrageenans are red seaweeds. There are several types of carrageenans such as, kappa, iota, and lambda. I’m going to focus on Kappa and Iota carrageenan for this post and share an awesome molecular gastronomy recipe.

A short introduction to Carrageenans:

Natural Carrageenans occur in a mixture of kappa, iota, and lambda types. Note that manufactures desperately try to separate the various types as best as they could, nevertheless; total separation is impossible. Carrageenans also vary from mixture to mixture, therefore; they are standardized for a particular application. Note: when specifying for a carrageenan make sure to tell the manufacture whether you will be using it for water based system or milk based system. Carrageenans are most often used in milk based applications due to the fact that are effective at very low concentrations. For example, gels can form at .3% in milk.

The Kappa and iota carrageenan can be mixed to obtain intermediate textures. Kappa carrageenan shows a great combination with the thickener locust bean gum. By combining these two together you get a stronger, less brittle, more cohesive, and less prone to break. I’ve found that the strongest and best ration is 6 parts kappa carrageenan to 4 parts LBG. Kappa-LBG mixes are often used to substitute for gelatin and make for a great vegan friendly dish.

You use Kappa carrageenan by dispersing it in water or milkl under shear and heat until completely dissolved (usually above 60C). Kappa-LBG mixes need to be brought almost to boil to become fully functional, but will set and re-melt at lower temperatures.

Solutions up to 3% can be made using cold water dispersion. Solutions up to 8% can be made if the carregeenan is dissolved directly into very hot water under high shear.

Typical usage is .75% to 1% in water, and .35% to .5% in milk.

Kappa Carrageenan is used mostly to gel mixtures – it is the most like agar in behavior. The gel type is thermo-reversible with a texture that is firm, strong, and brittle. Gel temperature increases with ion concentration, with values ranging from 40C – 70C. The setting factor is very fast with a PH tolerance down to pH 3.6 if boiled, lower is not over heated. Moreover, the kappa carrageenan is not freezer stable and has an ion sensitivity when potassium salts are not present. Kappa also forms gels at very low concentrations with milk and the flavor release is good.

Iota Carrageenan is used mostly to gel mixtures – it is more rubbery in texture. The gel type is thermo-reversible with an elastic and cohesive texture. The gel temperature increases with ion concentration, with values ranging from 40C – 70C, and has a fast setting time. Iota is freezer stable and has an ion sensitivity in the presence of calcium or potassium. Once you shear Iota a gel will form and be loaded with a flavorful release. Moreover, iota forms gels at very low concentrations with milk.

Carregeenan Recipe

Vegetarian Marshmallow

27.5 g Cornsyrup

275g Fine Sugar

2.5g Lactose (milk sugar)

12.95g Water

.5g Versawhip

28g Hi Fructose Corn Syrup

1g Genutine x-9303 Carrageenan

Combine in mixer with mixing attachment and mix until you get fluff. Next pour into marshmallow molds (or ice molds) and allow to set. Once set, powder in confectioners sugar and serve.

 

Enjoy your explorations with the Carrageenan and look for more molecular gastronomy recipe posts coming soon.

Molecular Gastronomy – Xanthan Gum

Welcome back to my Molecular gastronomy blog. I’m glad to say that I’m back with some great content for the molecular gastronome out there. Today, I’m going to write about the hydrocollid xanthan gum and introduce a recipe for your enjoyment.

Xanthan Gum:a brief description

Xanthan gum is a linear polysaccharide made of a cellulose backbone units with trisaccharide side chains. It is produced by fermentation of glucose or sucrose by the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium. It is used as a thickener.

Xanthan gum is amazing because it’s very user friendly: Xanthan gum works on any temperature and can be added to sauces without weighing.  Pay attention to what amount works best for you.

How to use xanthan gum in your moelcular gastronomical kitchen is by simply dispersing it into hot or cold liquid under a shear. Typically you only want to use between .2% – 1%.

The solution type is shear  thinning, a pseudoplastic, that exhibits an effect where viscosity decreases with increasing rate of shear stress. In high levels, xanthan gum can give food a very thick, almost mucus-like, consistency. PH tolerance: high. Also, xanthan gum is highly stable when frozen and thawing. The best part is xanthan gum works well with other hydrocollids (Lotus bean gum, Kappa Carrageenan) and even versawhip!!!

Note: Combining xanthan gum with other hydrocollids creates a synergistic chemical reaction that will take your molecular gastro cuisine to a higher level.

RECIPE: Cupuacu Foam with Tonka Bean

Ingredients:

Almond milk 100g

Cupuacu powder .7g

Sugar: 40g

Tonka Bean: .3g

Versawhip: 2g

Xantan Gum: .5g of Texturas Brand

Procedure:

Combine all ingredients except for the xanthan gum into the vita-mix. Mix on high until you get a nice funnel in the middle of the vita-mix. Slowly pour in xanthan gum into the funnel until mixture starts to thicken.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for when I break down the Carrageenans Kappa and Iota.

Agar agar

Molecular gastronomy is back and ready to dish out more advanced and novice molecular based gourmet recipes. I want to start with a primer of sorts: something to introduce the topic of discourse before we start to deconstruct. For this post we will be focusing on the hydrocolloid: Agar.

Agar: a brief description

A linear polysaccharide made of glaactose units. Agar is a red seaweed and its function is for Gelling (but I will show you a recipe for “cold-oil spherification.”

Agar is very similar to carrageenan but lacks the sulfate groups found in carrageenans. Agar is very adaptable to high heat and is often served hot and allowed to gel while cooling. To use agar in “cold-oil spherification” drop liquid agar at a temperature of roughly 45-50C into a bath of cold oil.

How to use: Disperse in a cold liquid and heat while stirring until completely dissolved. The target temperature for this to occur is about 90C or above.

You will expect to use about .5% to 1% in your recipes

To make a fluid gel: Make an agar gel in the range of .6%-1.2% and shred in blender until a smooth consistency is reached. You could thin out the gel by adding more liquid or you could thicken the mixture by adding some xantham gum. Could be served hot (but never to boiling).

Gel type: thermo-reversible: Thermo reversible gels melt when heated to a high enough temperature. Texture: firm, strong, and brittle. Gel Temperature: Approx 35C. Setting: Very Fast. PH tolerance: very good except for the fact that keeping acidic solutions heated for a long time will cause the agar to break down. Freezer stable: No. Flavor Release:Good.

Note: you could solve the issue of keeping acidic solutions hot, and thereby causing your agar to weep, by adding some more ascorbic acid to your solution to balance things out.

RECIPE

Blackcurrant and ginger fluid gel sauce

INGREDIENTS:

100g Simple Syrup

500g Blackcurrant puree (I use The Perfect Puree from Napa Valley)

30g ginger juice

pinch of salt

6.3g of Texturas brand Agar(.8%)

EQUIPMENT

Blender, Scale

PROCEDURE

1: Add simple syrup to the blackberry puree until you reach a desired sweetness

2: Add ginger juice

3: Add salt

4: Weight blackcurrant mixture and place in a pan with .8% by weight agar. So if total is 780g, use .8% of 680g which will give you approx 6.34g

5: Bring mix to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 2min. Lower heat and stir to dissolve the agar.

6: When agar is fully dissolved, pour into plate to chill.

7: Take the chilled gel and place it in the blender. Blend until smooth.

That’s it for now. Feel free to ask me questions. Stay tuned for more molecular gastronomy!!!

Coconut milk ice gelatin

Today I started a quest to make a liquid I really love into a gelatin that is frozen cold. How could I do this? Is it even possible to have a frozen gelatin? Can I do this without using any animal products, and make it vegan friendly? I really enjoy one liquid more than anything in the world…Coconut milk!

I just love raw coconut milk. I love making it and love tasting it in various forms and textures. So, after I made some of my world famous coconut milk (e-mail me for the recipe at molecularfood@gmail.com) I started to get ready for the coconut gelatin ice experiment.

For this recipe all I used was 500 g coconut milk, 250 g water, 36 g powdered coconut (dehydrated and graded), 200 g of sugar, 9 g sodium alginate, 2.4 g of calcium gluconolactate, and other 50 g of water.

Raw coconut milk

After I made my 500 g of fresh raw coconut milk I put it in a saucepan along with the powdered coconut and 250 g of water to a heat of 70 ºC.

Coconut milk, water, and powdered coconut to 70 ºC

Once the mixture reached 70 ºC I added the sugar and the sodium alginate and stirred, then added the calcium gluconolactate.

Mixing the sugar, sodium alginate, and calcium gluconolactate

After I added all of the ingredient, I took the mixture off of the heat and added the remaining 50 g of water.

Adding water to the mixture

The final mixture cooling

After I took off the heat I stuck it in the fridge and allowed to rest for 3 hours.

Mixture resting in the fridge for 3 hours

After 3 hours I took out the mixture and placed in my vita-mix

Getting ready to blend mixture in vita-mix

I blended for about 2 min until the mixture was smooth

Smooth blended mixture

I transferred the mixture to a mold and placed it in the freezer for about 12 hours

Transferring mixture to mold

Coconut mixture in mold getting ready to freeze

After 12 hours, or overnight, I took out the mold and got ready to place the final coconut gelatin serving

Flipping my coconut gelatin frozen mold

The final result

Coconut milk ice gelatin

Serving suggestion:

Coconut milk ice gelatin with wlanut dust biscuit

Suprises crispy honey

So I decided to make crispy honey today. This was achieved by simply combining maltodextrin, sodium alginate, and some natural honey (60%). Note: for the recipe please e-mail me at molecularfood@gmail.com.

After I got the honey mixture together it looks something like this:

Honey Crisp mixture - Learn more by clicking on pic

At this point the honey crisp mixture is just like sand so you will have to shape a layer with your hand. I placed my mix on the parchment paper and then I stuck it in the oven (275 F) for approximately 10 min.

Honey crisp mix in the oven - click pic to order now

After 10 min I took the honey crisp out of the oven and allowed it to cool for another 10 min. The difference in the mixture, another molecular gastronomy masterpiece.

Crispy honey - click to buy online

Once you allow the honey crisp to cool down and harden. You could easily just start to rip pieces out of the parchment paper and start getting creative.

Honey crisp in hand - click to learn more

Final presentation.

Honey crisp panna cotta house

Honey crisp panna cotta house - click to buy now

Bath

Ingredi

ents

Caviar /

Spherical

Ingredient

s

Preparati

on

Summari

zed

custard spherical 1L (0.26

gallons)

water

5g (0.18

ounces)

sodium

alginate

1 cup of

heavy

cream

1/6 cup

sugar

4 egg

yolks

¼ tsp

vanilla

extract

5 g (0.18

ounces)

Calcium

Lactate

pinch of

Bring the

cream &

vanilla to

boil.

Whisk

the egg

yolks

with the

sugar in

a bowl on

simmerin

g water

until the

mixture

thickens.

Xanthan Remove

from

heat and

add the

heated

cream.

Cool, add

xanthum

if

needed.

Dilute

the

calcium

lactate in

a

tabespoo

n of

water

and add

to the

custard.

chocolate spherical 500ml

water

4g (0.14

ounces)

calcium

lactate

250ml

water

small

pinch

sodium

bicarb

1.8 g

(0.06

ounces)

Sodium

Alginate

250 g

(8.82

ounces)

dark

chocolate 

Bring the

cream &

vanilla to

boil.

Whisk

the egg

yolks

with the

sugar in

a bowl on

simmerin

g water

until the

mixture

thickens.

Remove

from

heat and

add the

heated

cream.

Cool, add

xanthum

if

needed.

Dilute

the

calcium

lactate in

a

tabespoo

n of

water

and add

to the

custard.

Divine Chocolate Ginger

Sphericals

1L (0.26

gallons)

water

5g (0.18

ounces)

sodium

alginate

200ml

cream

1

tablespoo

n grated

fresh

ginger

(optional)

20g (0.71

ounces) (1

tablespoo

n) caster

sugar

3.2g (0.11

ounces) (1

teaspoon)

Calcium

Chloride

100g

(3.53

ounces)

dark

chocolate

melts (or

chopped

dark

chocolate)

Combine

the

cream,

ginger,

sugar

and

calcium

chloride

and

microwa

ve for

1min

30sec (or

bring to

the boil

on the

stovetop)

.  Strain

through

a sieve to

remove

ginger

and then

pour hot

cream

mixture

over the

dark

chocolate

.

mango caviar 3g (0.11

ounces)

calcium

chloride

500ml

water

250ml

mango

nectar

2g (0.07

ounces)

sodium

alginate

0.2g (0.01

Pour a

third of

the

mango

nectar

into

blender

with the

ounces)

sodium

citrate

heat to 90

deg C

then cool

alginate,

blend

well.

Heat to

90 º C

and

remove

from

heat. Add

remainin

g juice

and

dissolve

the

sodium

citrate.

Strain.

melon caviar 1000ml

water 

6.5g

(0.23

ounces)

calcium

lactate

500 g

(17.64

ounces)

Cantaloup

e to make

250ml

juice 

2g (0.07

ounces)

sodium

alginate

Puree

the flesh

of the

melon in

a

blender.

Strain

through

muslin

cloth.

Take

100ml

Cantalou

pe juice

and mix

with

sodium

alginate

in

blender.

Mix with

150ml

remainin

g parts,

strain

and let

rest for

30 min

before

using.

blueberry caviar 6.5g

(0.23

ounces)

Calcium

Chlorid

e

1lt of

water

400g

(14.11

ounces)

blueberrie

s

1 cup of

white

sugar

½ cup

good dry

white

wine

1g (0.04

ounces)

Sodium

Alginate

¼ tsp

sodium

nitrate

Place

blueberri

es, white

sugar

and

white

wine,

over a

very low

heat for

an hour

Puree,

and drain

through

muslin

cloth

over

night.

Freeze,

place ice

block on

a muslin

cloth

again

and let

“defrost”

in the

fridge.

Take this

juice and

add in

the

sodium

nitrate,

mix it in

with a

stick

blender,

add the

sodium

alginate

and

blend,

leave for

1 hour.

chocolate cherry spherical 400ml

water

100ml

Maker’s

120g

(4.23

ounces)

strained

Puree

cherries

and

strain

Mark

Bourbo

n

30g

(1.06

ounces)

cocoa

2.5g

(0.09

ounces)

sodium

alginate

pureed

cherry

0.2g (0.01

ounces)

Ascorbic

acid

0.5g (0.02

ounces)

sodium

citrate

1.8g (0.06

ounces)

gluconola

ctate

0.5g (0.02

ounces)

xanthan 

through

muslin

cloth to

get 120g

(4.23

ounces).

On a

blender

add

other

ingredien

ts one at

a time.

Leave to

stand for

an hour

to let any

air

bubbles

escape.

watermelon caviar 500g

(17.64

ounces)

Water

2.5g

(0.09

ounces)

Calcium

chloride

250g

(8.82

ounces)

concentat

ed

watermelo

n juice

2g (0.07

ounces)

Sodium

alginate

source

Boil the

water

melon

juice to

lose

some of

the

water.

Take

250g

(8.82

ounces)

of this

concentr

ated

juice and

blend

with

sodium

alginate.

strawberry yoghurt spherical 500ml

water

1.5g

(0.05

ounces)

sodium

alginate

plain

yoghurt 

strawberr

y

‘nesquick’

mix some

nesquick

with the

yoghurt

to

desired

taste.

powder

lemon iced tea spherical alginate

bath (no

quantiti

es given

for this

recipe)

tea

calcium

salts

frozen

lemon

juice

Mix tea

calcium

salts.

with

Place a

cube of

frozen

lemon

juice in a

tablespo

on of the

tea. Pour

into bath.

coconut cream spherical 4 g

(0.14

ounces)

sodium

alginate

10 cl of

coconut

cream

300ml

water

6g (0.21

ounces)

calcium

lactate

sugar

(quantity

not given)

Mix

coconut

cream,

water

and

sugar

with

calcium

lactate.

Using a

spoon,

make

pearls.

Store in

the

freezer

before

cooking

in

chocolate

lava

cakes.

mint caviar 5g (0.18

ounces)

calcium

lactate

4 cups

of water

1 1⁄4 cups

of water

4g (0.14

ounces)

sodium

alginate

1/3 cup

mint syrup

Blend

water

and

alginate

to

dissolve,

then put

in a pan

and

bring to

the boil

then set

aside for

10

minutes.

Mix 1/3

cup

alginate

syrup

with mint

syrup.

mint yoghurt spherical 2g (0.07

ounces)

sodium

alginate

500ml

water

high

calcium

plain

yoghurt

chopped

mint

Mix mint

into the

yoghurt

and

spoon

into the

alginate

bath.

lychee caviar 2.5 g

(0.09

ounces)

calcium

chloride

500 g

(17.64

ounces)

water

Use

canned

lychees to

get: 210 g

(7.41

ounces)

lychee

40 g (1.41

ounces)

lychee

liquid

2 g (0.07

ounces)

sodium

alginate

Blend the

lychee

until

smooth

and pass

this

through

a sieve.

Add

Algin to

1/3 of the

lychee

mixture

and

blend

until

complete

ly

dissolved

.

Mix

Algin-

lychee

mixture

to the

rest of

the

lychee

mixture

and leave

to rest

for about

1 hr so

that it

loses

part of

the air

created

by

blending.

pomegranate caviar 3.25g

(0.11

ounces)

calcium

chloride

500g

(17.64

ounces)

water

125g

(4.41

ounces)

pomegran

ate and

cherry

juice

(POM

brand)

1g (0.04

ounces)

sodium

alginate

1/2 tsp

sodium

bicarbonat

e

Blend the

juice and

sodium

alginate

using a

stick

blender.

Add the

sodium

bicarbon

ate and

blend

again.

This will

change

the

consisten

cy to a

thin gel.

Leave to

stand for

half an

hour so

the air

bubbles

rise to

the

surface.

fruit gel ‘fake’ caviar cold oil Fruit or

juice that

you want

Heat the

juice to

60

to make

spheres

from and

weigh the

liquid

amount

out.

Agar 2.5%

of the

weight of

the juice.

degrees

and add

agar.

Blitz with

an

immersio

n blender

to make

sure that

it is well

disperse

d. Drop

into cold

oil.

grapefruit caviar 540ml

Cold

Water

3 g

(0.11

ounces)

Calcium

Chlorid

e

270ml

Ruby Red

Grapefruit

Juice

1g (0.04

ounces)

Sodium

Alginate

Mix the

sodium

alginate

with 1/2

the fruit

juice and

blend

until

complete

ly

dissolved

. 

Mix in

the

remainin

g fruit

juice

raspberry ravioles 500ml

water 

2 g

(0.07

ounces)

Sodium

Algninat

e

1 2/3 cup

raspberrie

s

1

Tablespoo

n sugar

1/2

teaspoon

calcium

lactate

Blend the

raspberri

es,

calcium

lactate

and

sugar in

a

blender.

Ten tips for making sphericals at home:

1. If using a sodium alginate bath make it a day ahead. To mix the sodium

alginate with the water first combine it with some sugar, this helps it not to

clump together. Sprinkle a little on top of the water, mix and repeat until it

is all added then blend for at least 2 minutes. You will need to use a

blender. Leave in the fridge overnight so all the air bubbles disappear and

the sodium alginate can completely rehydrated. If you do not do this you

will get air bubbles in your gel coating so it will not look smooth and shiny.

2. Test, test, test… if you are trying a new recipe pour some of your

alginate or calcium bath into a small bowl and use it to test your spherical

solution. If your solution does not become properly encapsulated in

alginate gel it will disperse in the bath – making a mess. This methods

saves you wasting the whole bath.

3. What if your sphericals are mishapen? If they flatten out before sinking

you may need to make you mix thicker / heavier – play with the viscosity of

the solution using xanthum gum to thicken it (remember a little goes a long

way blend and leave for a couple of minutes). It could also be too high in fat

or have too many little air bubbles both of which cause it to float. If you

caviar is tadpole shaped check that it is not too thick and experiment with

adjusting the height and angle of pipette. If your caviar is flat either

thicken or drop from slightly higher so it penetrates the surface as it drops

in.

4. If using an alginate bath (reverse spherification) do no allow your

sphericals to touch while in the bath or they will gel together.

5. Use distilled water in the alginate bath – or the calcium in your tap water

may cause it to gel.

6. The alginate gel is senstive to pH, it works best with pH 4.5 to 6. Click

here for pH levels of foods. You can adjust the pH content by adding

sodium citrate to the liquid base.

7. Alcohol breaks down the gel so if using in cocktails it will only work with

drinks that are less than 20% alcohol.

8. Sodium alginate cannot be dissolved in oil.

9. If it is not forming a gel and when you stir it the mixture just disperses in

the bath or it forms a weak gel that breaks as soon as you lift it out of the

bath – check the amount of additives, check the pH of the solution, look at

the fat and alcohol content of ingredients in your recipe.

10. To get perfect spheres freeze the sauce in a spherical mould and then

place in a warm bath to encapsulate.