On Molecular Mishaps (and why not to pour Algin baths down the sink)

Occasionally triumph arises out of adversity.

More often, though, things happen the other way around.

After successfully recreating el Bulli type spheres of deliciousness (about sixteen different varieties – including a pea sphere which was turned into the filling of some fresh ravioli), I was left with a couple of pints of algin bath.

Which I absentmindedly poured down the sink without so much as a blink before commencing with Mount Washmore (seriously, I don’t know how two of us create so much washing up).

‘Hon, why won’t the shower water drain away?’ my girlfriend asked, her tone heavy with innocent confusion come Sunday morning.

‘I’m not too sure,’ I replied, ‘but the sink is taking ages to empty as well.’

The answer didn’t elude us for long.

‘Erm, the outside drain seems to be full of jelly,’ she shouted through the kitchen window. I went cold and turned a distinct shade of rose that can only be associated with a realisation coupled with guilt and a heavy dose of stupidity.

She was right. It looked like a jellyfish massacre had taken place just outside the back door.

Forgetting my initial travails regarding the effects of hard water on alginate solution, it was with gay abandon that I’d disposed of the liquid down the sink. More than once.

‘Oh my god,’ she said. ‘You’ve blocked our drains with molecular gastronomy. YOU’VE BLOCKED OUR DRAINS WITH MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY.’ If the entire scenario hadn’t been so comical I’d have been more scared.

As it was, she could do little to stop the beginnings of a smile gently touching at the corners of her mouth. My fear gradually fell away.

But it didn’t alter the fact that our drains were blocked with what looked like the contents of the world’s largest sneeze.

‘Do you not remember what happened when you tried to mix that stuff with tap water?

I hadn’t. But now I did.

‘Oops,’ was pretty much all I could manage. It was followed by a sheepish ‘Shit.’

Google was no assistance. Results for ‘dissolve calcium alginate gel’ were unhelpful aside from telling me that it wasn’t heat soluble. The four kettle-fulls of water I’d already poured through the drain cover had probably exacerbated the problem then.

I turned to eGullet and posted my query.

And the good folks there brought answers like the postman delivering a letter to a wartime bride.

‘You could try using an auger or drain snake,’ came one outstanding suggestion.

It’s good to know that when all else fails, brute force is still a veritable option.

After much pushing, shoving, wiggling and dry-heaving the blockage was dislodged and came sailing down the pipe followed swiftly by assorted detritus. No details necessary. I’m sure your imagination can stretch to picturing a giant ball of jelly that had possibly been clogging the pipes for weeks.

And all that followed in its wake.

Success. And like an episode of Thundercats I shall end with a moral. Perhaps one that I should have learnt after watching ‘The Fly’ aged 8: Those with only a rudimentary understanding of science shouldn’t play with forces whose power remains unknown

Jeff Goldblum should probably have taken heed too. Honestly, he should have known Jurassic Park was going to go wrong.

For more acts of occasional idiocy, follow me on Twitter.

Spherification: Why Inverse?

Oh, you lot ask some good questions. Aren’t you a bright bunch?

In response to last week’s post about mozzarella spheres, I received literally two (possibly three if you include Twitter) requests for explanations regarding the ‘inverse’ part of ‘inverse spherification’.

So, how does this differ from regular (!) spherification?

The original method Adria used for creating these suspended ravilo (singular for ravoli, apparently) was first developed back in 2003 and kept hush-hush secret for quite some time.

He discovered that salts and alginates reacted to each other and created colourless, flavourless ‘skins’ capable of holding flavoured liquids within them.

The alginate would be dissolved into the liquid to be sphere-ized and then dropped into a calcium carbonate solution where the two would react thus creating the famous orbs.

For example, alginates would be added to a puree of peas, spoonfuls of which would be dropped into a calic bath.

But there was a problem.

Even when rinsed clean in fresh water, the reaction continued.

Over a period of five minutes the sphere solidified and the diner was left with a rather disappointing ‘jelly’ as opposed to a satisfying ‘pop’ as the skin burst and filled the mouth with essence of pea, mango or mozzarella cheese.

How to get round this?

Well, simply switch the two elements. Inverse them.

Instead of adding the alginates (derived from seaweeds, much like agar agar) to the desired flavour, Adria developed an algin solution which would react with the calcium salts inside the foodstuff.

The reaction produced an almost identical outcome with the benefit of being able to halt it by rinsing the spheres in plain water. No more disappointing jellies.

Instead the result was a more stable sphere whose inside remained liquid for much longer and inverse spherification was born.

Inverse Spherification – Mozzarella Spheres

You want to do what to my sphere? Inverse it? Well, that’s quite enough of that, thank you very much.

Despite sounding like the name of a prog rock group from the mid 70s or the title of an obscure drum and bass album, inverse spherification is a rather nifty culinary technique.

It may sound scientific (partly because it is) but fear not. There is as much chance of me boggling you with science as there is of George Bush being named Iraq’s Man of the Century.

Spherification is a principle whereby a flavoured liquid is encased in a flavourless skin. Imagine ravioli with invisible pasta and you’re somewhere close. It is a technique perfected by Ferran Adria and one he uses to great effect with his ‘olives’.

Here fresh olives are juiced then strained before being mixed with calcic gluconolactato. The mixture is then spooned into an algin bath where the two chemicals react together, instantly forming a translucent skin which holds in the liquid.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWgmx0kc1A]

Phew. Still with me? Good.

The effect can be repeated with almost any liquid thus creating a tasty burst of flavour with near infinite possibilities. Imagine dishes that ‘self-sauce’ at exactly the right moment or cocktails that mix in the mouth rather than the shaker. Oh what fun to be had.

For the cauliflower cheese dish, the inspiration came in the form of incredible buffalo mozzarella from Laverstoke Park Farm (A British made mozzarella? Believe it).

Whilst it tastes superb unadorned, oozing freshness from within the delicious pale orb, I was desperate to try Adria’s method for making mozzarella spheres.

Previous attempts at spherification had yielded mixed results varying from partial failure to complete and utter failure. Only when I found a thread on eGullet about the effect of hardwater on algin baths did I realise what was going wrong. The natural lime present in the water was setting the algae extract and creating a jelly.

Enter bottled water and, huzzah! Success. No more jellies.

The cheese (125g) was blended with a little cream then passed through a sieve before being mixed with about 2g calcic gluconolactato. Spoonfuls were then dropped into the waiting algin bath and fingers were crossed.

The excitement of seeing the spheres set for the first time was truly palpable. I couldn’t hide the smile from my face, neither did I want to. Half expecting the white liquid to ooze out, it was fantastic to see it set instantly into a neat little orb that looked exactly like a mini mozzarella cheese.

The surprise comes when you bite into it – instead of the slight resistance of a semi-solid cheese you get a burst of mozzarella flavour in liquid form. A real revelation and certainly one to try again.

For more bursts of flavour, follow me on Twitter .

For UK supplies of the necessary bits and bobs to re-create some Adria inspired dishes try Cream Supplies who have a incredible range.

Salt and Vinegar Crisps

With the intro out of the way, we can crack on. Let’s begin with air. Or maybe foam. Anyone know when an air becomes a foam? Answers below please.

For the uninitiated, and those without access to liquid nitrogen, vacuum packaging devices, Large Hydron Colliders and other assorted machinery, airs and foams seem to be an excellent point of entry into the seemingly murky (and achingly complex) world of molecular gastronomy.

They are also relatively easy to create and apparently hard to fuck up (although, as expected, I did manage. You shan’t be seeing my ‘poached egg with paprika foam and roasted chickpeas’ because it looked like something from low budget Korean horror movie, circa 1983).

Airs and foams have come in for a bit of stick recently with some chefs apparently desperate to adorn all their dishes with a garnish that looks like gargled frog spawn. This is a bad thing.

But they do have their uses. They are light, delicate and carry flavours in a completely unexpected way. They’re also tremendous fun.

If you think you’ve never experienced such a level of gastronomy, think again. Unless, of course, you’ve never had a cappuccino – foam at its most famous. Or Foamous. *Sigh*

Using milk is one way to create the effect. Another is to use a chemical derived from soya beans or egg yolks called lecithin.

Although predominantly used in food production as an emulsifier (a go-between that helps the combining of fats and water – as in a béarnaise sauce), lecithin can also be added to virtually any liquid then whizzed up to create delicate bubbles of flavour.

Not wanting to ruin another perfectly good egg (see above), I thought about other possibilities and came round to the idea of using an air to flavour homemade crisps – something I first encountered at Midsummer House in Cambridge where we had crisps with a sweet balsamic foam as a pre-lunch nibble.

It was a neat twist on olive oil and balsamic vinegar, so often a satisfying starter when served with crusty bread. Time to get experimental.

With this in mind, instead of deep-frying the thin slices of potato, they were brushed on both sides with extra virgin olive oil and put into a hot oven.

Meanwhile, I mixed 75g of balsamic vinegar (not the good stuff) with the same amount of water, added 0.5g of lecithin and let it dissolve into the liquid.

Using a ‘wide mouthed container’, as recommended by another blogger, I then applied a hand blender to the surface of the liquid in an effort to create the small, stable, bubbles that form the ‘air.’

Oops.

There are still dots of balsamic vinegar on the ceiling, the fridge, the kettle and, probably, my hair.

Panicking, I plunged the blender deeper into the dark liquid.

Oops. Again.

The blade managed to cut cleanly through a small raised nipple in the base of the plastic tub and all I could do was watch as foamy (hooray!) vinegar and water slowly leached out onto the surface and down onto my socks.

Sometimes all you can do is watch as the horror unfolds. So that’s what I did.

Two towels later I remembered the potatoes, now a slightly darker shade of brown than I’d anticipated.

Oops thrice. Time for coffee.

Composure and cool regained I forgot everything that had gone before and started again.

Peel potato. Slice thinly on mandolin (carefully avoiding the cutting off of fingertips). Brush lightly with EVOO and bake in a slightly cooler oven for about four minutes on either side. Salt with Malden sea salt on emergence and leave to cool on something slightly absorbent. Like David Guest’s face. Or some kitchen paper. I tend to use the latter.

Meanwhile: mix vinegar and water with weird yellow powder and blitz carefully with a hand mixer. Leave for five minutes then collect the resultant bubbles into a small receptacle. A shot glass or small espresso cup will suffice.

Phew.

Dip each crisp into the foam and then shove it into your expectant mouth. Prepare yourself for a flavour explosion and a melding of textures so wondrous you’ll want to streak naked through the streets. Or at least have another. And then keep going until they are all gone.

For more delicate morsels, follow me on Twitter.

Nose to Tail Tuesday – Pork Cheeks

After much bluster and fanfare, it’s finally time to get on with the show.

Nose to Tail Tuesday (or N3T as it shall be known from now on) is about rediscovery, thrift, culinary philosophy and, above all, taste (for a more complete break down of the ethos behind the feature see this post). If we can’t make these cuts taste sublime, or just as good as the expensive bits, then the exercise becomes moot.

For the inaugural dish, we’re starting with these…

…pork cheeks.

These are a criminally cheap cut, often dispensed with or turned into budget sausages. More adventurous butchers, with a more adventurous clientele, might turn them into Bath Chaps. But often they are ignored, especially by the consumer.

Which is a real shame because they are incredibly tasty and, as I found out, very easy to cook.

You could cook them long and slow with stock vegetables, let them cool and eat them, thinly sliced, as you would a ham. Alternatively once cool you could breadcrumb them and fry them. Served with a punchy aioli, they would be delicious.

But I wanted something a bit special to kick off this feature.

Pork and apple sauce is a classic combination, for good reason. The sweetness and faint acidity of the apple cuts perfectly through the fatty richness of pork meat.

With this in mind I chose to confit the pork cheeks, stuff them with stewed apple and serve them, sliced, with apple jelly, candied bacon, spiced parsnip puree and seasonal greens.

Pork and apple, perhaps, but not in the traditional sense.

This is good slow cooking, perfect for a Sunday when you can turn on the radio, fill the house with the most delicious smells and take your time. It really isn’t very labour intensive and you could even do the vast majority of the work the day before or while the pork is cooking.

The end result is totally delicious – like belly only with a more intense flavour. It’s got the perfect ratio of meat to fat giving a juicy, porky flavour with the added bonus of crackling as well. This is a rich cut of meat – you don’t need much which adds further to the economy of it.

But true test is whether I’d choose to have it again. The answer? Yes. In a heartbeat, as often as is possible.

Want to know how to do it? Course you do.

1. First off, cut each cheek into three. Season well with salt, pepper and a hefty amount of finely chopped bay leaf and rosemary (about 4 sprigs of rosemary and three bay leaves). Leave them in a bowl in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably overnight.

2. Melt some fat (pork, duck or goose is ideal. I used the leftover fat from the pork scratchings) in an ovenproof dish, wipe any excess salt from the cheeks and nestle them into the liquid. Cook for about three hours in a low oven (about 150 degrees centigrade), turning three or four times. Leave them to cool.

3. For the parsnip puree add one star anise and three cloves to 200ml of milk and 200ml of water and bring to a gentle boil. Let it cool then remove the star anise and cloves. Add two diced parsnips to the infused milk and water then simmer for 20 minutes, or until they are cooked. Strain (reserving the cooking liquid), blitz in a food processor and pass through a sieve. Add some of the cooking liquid if it is too thick. This will keep for 2 or 3 days in the fridge.

4. The apple jelly is easy. Dissolve 2g of agar powder with 125g of apple juice, bring to the boil, stirring all the time. Pour the liquid into a suitable container and leave to cool. Cut into square dice when it is set.

5. For the candied bacon – sprinkle two rashers of bacon with Demerara sugar on both sides (use baking parchment or Silpat for this, unless you want to be scrubbing your trays for nine hours) and cook in a moderate oven (about 170 degrees). Turn once or twice during cooking. When cool, chop the bacon finely. Don’t forget to eat some while you are doing this because it is freaking delicious.

6. Stewed apple is simple, too. Peel, core and dice two eating apples, put into a pan with a splash of water, a tablespoon of sugar and a quarter of a lemon (helps to maintain the colour as well as add an acidic note), with the juice squeezed over the apple. Cook, partially covered with a lid, until the apple starts to break down.

7. Once cool enough to handle, remove the cheeks from the confit and sieve the liquid fat into a plastic container to keep in the fridge. It’s great for many things and keeps forever (almost). Finely dice the meat. Lay a square of crepinette (caul fat) onto a sheet of plastic wrap and press a layer of the meat onto it, almost covering it. Spoon the apple puree in a line down the middle and wrap the whole lot into a tight sausage.

*You could use cured ham instead of crepinette. Let it cool in the fridge to help it keep its shape when you fry it off*

8. To complete – remove the plastic wrap from the cheek and apple ‘sausage’. Fry in a dry frying pan for about a minute on each side (so four minutes in total). Leave to rest while you plate the rest of the dish. Cut the ‘sausage’ into half inch thick slices, place on a small pile of wilted greens and serve with a crisp white wine to help cut through the richness.

Verdict – N3T 1: pork cheeks – total success.

Follow Just Cook It on Twitter

Sheer Awesomeness – molecular gastronomy in the home

Of all the culinary fads and fashions and phases and phenomena, molecular gastronomy is perhaps the one that excites me most. Of course, I adore and pursue simplicity in much of my cooking and gastronomic pursuits but there is something so wondrous, so exciting and almost ethereal about re-imaging food in way propounded by Heston Blumethal, Ferran Adria, Hervé This et al.

Molecular gastronomy is oft misunderstood and seen as over-complicating cooking purely for the sake of it, merely for showmanship and bravado. Its deriders see it as a pointless addition or fleeting distraction from the tried and tested elements of classical cuisine: a bastard off-spring of that much parodied style nouvelle cuisine.

Granted, in the wrong hands, this form of cooking can lead to gross misrepresentations and laughable creations. I dare say that there are a number of enthusiastic young chefs who feel as if they can forego learning about the base elements of cooking and move directly into the world of culinary alchemy with some horrendous Dr. Frankenstein style creations ensuing. Words like ‘deconstructed’ and ‘emulsified’ appear on menus as chefs allow their egos to pollute their food.

But this is not what molecular gastronomy is about. It is about understanding. It is about breaking things down to see why they work, how they work and how they can be improved. How flavours, textures, tastes can be made better and new combinations created. It is about finding how much truth there is in kitchen folklore, such as should you salt your steak before cooking and does searing meat help retain juices (the answers are yes and no, respectively). It is an exciting and wonderful way of cooking that utilises new techniques and complicated sounding ingredients which has thus far been the preserve of chefs and scientists and unavailable to the home cook.

Until now.

Ferran Adria is one of the founding fathers of molecular gastronomy. As the chef/owner of El Bulli, deep in the heart of Catalan country close to Spain’s northern most tip, he has been the recipient of the prestigious ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ award no less than four times. His 30-some course tasting menus have become legendary and it is close to impossible to book a table at this place of gastro-pilgrimage during the six months of the year that it is open.

For the second half of the year, Adria and his team of chefs spend countless hours in the restaurant’s lab kitchen creating new dishes, refining old ones and conjuring up exciting new techniques to stay ahead of the game. They use a selection of weird and wonderful ingredients to achieve the remarkable techniques that they showcase in the restaurant: airs, jellies, spheres, caviars and numerous others. And they’ve recently made them available in quantities suitable for home use.

I had no idea that they were available until I picked up my (fabulous) girlfriend from work on Friday. She was clutching a box wrapped tightly in bubble wrap and smiling a broad and slightly cheeky smile. ‘I’ve got you a present’ she announced. I had to wait until we got home and we were sat down before she would let me open it, which was probably a good job because I might easily have fallen over had I not been on the sofa.

It was a sleek black box with the words ‘Minikit Sferificacion’ picked out in stark white lettering on the front. Although not immediately obvious what I was holding, the words ‘Albert y Ferran Adria’ made things clearer. Cut into the cardboard housing were five round holes, each offering a tantalising glimpse of the contents.

I’d previously only read words like ‘lecite’, ‘algin’ and ‘xantana’ in This’s books and on sites like Ideas in Food. Now I had five intricately packaged tins on my lap each containing one of these magical ingredients. This was exciting stuff, seriously exciting stuff. As well as the powders, the package contained a set of precision measuring spoons and a plastic syringe.

All those amazing creations I’d admired and read about are quite suddenly within reach. Spheres, jellies, airs, foams, suspensions and other intensely flavoured delights are no longer in the realm of impossibility but available to any enthusiastic home cook.

This is where the line between cooking and science becomes very blurred indeed and I cannot wait to start experimenting with these strange and alien additions to my kitchen.