The Biochemistry of Food and Cooking: 2012

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Molecular Gastronomy: Transformation Into a Mad (Cooking) Scientist!

It's bittersweet to admit it, but this was my last cooking adventure for this Jan-Term course! To say it was a great ride would be an understatement. I cooked outside the boundaries of what I was used to. I read, I watched, I learned, I observed, I listened...I enjoyed! Looking back, I am blown away by the expanse of how much I learned in only a month. I saw how food could bring people together, as well as how cooking is a very personal experience. I felt how my body changed as I consciously paid more attention to what I was putting into it. I felt lighter and more energized. I made mistakes and challenged myself, pushing myself to take my studies to the next step-- to ask why, how, and what if. This was a fantastic and rewarding experience.

Ready? Here we go!

For this activity I chose six unconventional "molecular gastronomy" recipes to try.

MANGO BUBBLES

Calcium Solution:

6.5 grams calcium chloride

1 liter water

Mix ingredients well

Mango Solution:

250 milliliters water

1.8 grams sodium alginate

250 grams mango puree

1.3 grams sodium citrate

Bring water to a boil to dissolve sodium alginate. Allow to cool, and then mix well with mango puree and sodium citrate. Drop into the calcium solution. Allow to set. Strain, rinse, and serve cold.

I'm not sure if I liked how these actually turned out. They looked amazing in the end, but the taste was very disappointing. If I were to do them again I would do three things differently. First of all, the mangos weren't very ripe and the whole dish would have been a lot tastier if I had waited until they were juicier/sweeter.

The way you can tell that a mango is sweet and ripe is mainly from the color of it. When you cut into it, a ripe mango should be soft, it should be a bright, rich golden-orange, and it should be dripping with juice. This one wasn't very juicy, had a lighter color to it, and was still stiff. It didn't taste bad, so to say, but if I had waited another week or so it would have been much better.

The second thing I would have done differently is I would have put the mango through a juicer rather than puree it. The texture of the pureed mango made the bubbles less "pop-in-your-mouth" caviar-like and more of a solid consistency. I'd like to try making a watermelon juice caviar next time!

And the third thing I would have changed is that I would have used an eyedropper. Since I didn't have one on hand I had to get creative and use two spoons to quinelle the puree and drop it into the calcium bath. The original recipe actually was titled "Mango Caviar", but since I didn't have an eyedropper and they ended up being bigger than expected, I retitled them "Mango Bubbles". Also, for the final product, I ended up adding a tablespoon of brown sugar to make the dish sweeter.

Touch

Balloon-like
Bumpy
Squishy
Fragile

Odor

Mango fruit

Sweet
Fruity
Tangy
Fresh
Cold

Texture

Stringy puree
mushy
like a liquid that you can pick up!!!
Watery

Taste

Not very flavorful (not ripe)
Slightly sweet from the brown sugar
Kind of bland

All in all, this project was very successful, but pretty horrible in the flavor department. The most amazing part of this process was watching the chemicals instantly interact when I dropped the mango puree into the calcium bath. What I saw happening in this step is this: since the calcium chloride has already been mixed well into the bath, when the puree is dropped in, it only surrounds the very outer layer of the droplet. The mixture of the calcium, sodium citrate (which enables the alginate and calcium to interact because it adds creates the right acidic balance), and the alginate causes a quick chemical reaction. The result was a beautiful, invisible, gelatinous membrane that encased the puree in it's spherical quinelle shaped droplet! Amazing!

LIME AIR

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup lime juice

1 teaspoon lecithin

Froth with the immersion blender, holding it just above the liquid

For this project I only had soy lecithin available. It was a sticky and tough, like old silly putty. I had to spend some time breaking it into little pieces. If the lecithin that I used had been finer I think that it would have mixed more efficiently with the rest of the ingredients, resulting in a lighter and fluffy air that was dense with even smaller bubbles. It would have been more frothy and it would have have stayed frothy for a longer amount of time.

Odor

Mild lime sting
Citrusy
"Zing-y"
Tangy

Texture

A full, airy foam that resembles soft soap bubbles

Touch

Doesn't feel like anything when you touch it, almost like touching a thin mist
Slightly damp after-feel

Taste

Watered down with lime juice
Strange, bitten aftertaste

This dish would have been good on a savory fish dish to break up a heavier sauce. I also thought that it would be a good touch on top of sushi! So many fun recipes in our future.

WATERMELON FOAM

500 mL watermelon juice

5 g gelatin (3 sheets, 1.0%)

Heat half of the watermelon juice. Dissolve the gelatin sheets in the hot watermelon juice. Add the rest of the juice. Strain the juice and transfer to a 0.5L whipper. Charge the whipper with nitrous oxide and refrigerate until chilled.

Unfortunately, for this watermelon foam I didn't have a nitrous oxide whipper available to me, so I used my immersion blender very delicately. The nitrous oxide would have turned the watermelon juice into a very light, fine, foam rather than the consistency of the froth that appears when you blow bubbles into your chocolate milk (which is one of the many obvious rules of drinking chocolate milk with a straw, including squirting a little extra syrup in so that you get a chocolate surprise at the bottom of the cup). Anyways, despite the added gelatin, which should have helped the foam set in the fridge, the "foam" melted into a puddle at the bottom of the dish with a thinner layer of foam at the top, as you can see in the picture. The place where the bottom half of the dish gets darker is all liquid that came from popping bubbles.

Odor

Really concentrated watermelon flavor

Texture

Jello-jam-like consistency (deflated foam)
Light
Gooey

Touch

Bouncy
Light
Airy
Jello-feel

Taste

Watered down watermelon
Deceiving. It was almost artificial.

The whole thing was still tasty, sweet, and refreshing. However, the watermelon jello at the bottom after it has set in the fridge was kind of weird. It needed to be sweeter. I would love to try this with the nitrous oxide whipper. It would be a great addition to top off a fruit tart or and ice cream/sorbet!

MAPLE GEL

50 g maple syrup

250 g cold water

3 g gellan (1.0%)

Hydrate the gellan in cold water. Boil the maple syrup. Blend together and chill.

Alright. So in all honesty, this was downright gross. As much as I wanted this to be tasty and delicious... it really wasn't! haha I think the main problem was that since I didn't have gellan available, I used gelatin instead. From my research, I found that if I had used gellan, the results would have been more of a stiffer, more compact, almost fruit-roll-up consistency. By just using gelatin, I basically ended up with maple syrup....well...jell-o!

Odor

mostly odorless
slightly sweet

Texture

Broke apart easily
Gooey when eaten
Firm like jell-o, but smoother like a jelly when broken apart
Wiggly

Touch

Cold
Bouncy surface
Slightly sticky

Taste

At first it tasted like nothing-- just cold, mushy goo in your mouth-- but then, little by little, the flavor of the maple syrup escaped and covered your tongue. It tasted watered down and would have been better if sweeter.

Chicken Noodle Soup? No Way. CHICKEN SOUP NOODLES!

200g flavored water base, soup or broth

(I used organic chicken soup broth)

0.8g agar(0.4%)

0.5g locust bean gum (0.25%)

(I used guar gum instead of locust bean gum)

0.4g xanthan (0.2%)

Disperse hydrocolloids in cold water with immersion blender. For easier dispersion the hydrocolloids can be grinded with some sugar in a mortar prior to dispersion. Bring to boil. Fill straws or tubes with hot solution and leave to set in a cold water bath. Eject the noodles and heat under a lamp. The noodles are soft, palatable and heat resistant, but there is some syneresis.

Straight from the pot into the straw into the ice bath

Cold ice water bath. They set the INSTANT they were put in!

The beginning of many chicken soup noodles!

Here he goes...

Max's AMAZED reaction! :)

Blowing the noodles out of the straws

FINAL PRODUCT. YUM!

I thought these were delicious in a very strange way. It was incredible that the noodles could set that fast without leaking into the cold water bath. The final product was SO much fun to eat

Odor

Salty
Cool
Savory

Texture

Feels like a slippery noodle in your mouth
Mushy and gelatin-like when pressure is applied, but in an appealing way
Able to pick up gently

(some were more set than others)

Touch

Slippery
Fragile
Compact
Cool

Taste

Salty
Flavorful
Savory

NUTELLA POWDER

80g tapioca maltodextrin (40%)

120g Nutella

(I used a organic chocolate-hazelnut Nutella replica)

Combine ingredients in a food processor. Process until the mixture has the texture of soil. Pass mixture through a tarnis or a fine-meshed sieve to lighten its texture. Store in a cool dry place until ready to serve.

Odor

Faint, airy, chocolatey smell

Texture

Feels like the texture of snow
Airy
Melts in your mouth

Touch

Fluffy
Light
Slightly sticky when moistened

Taste

Sweet and airy!
Chocolate richness

This was the most fun I'd had all week. It was a total success, completely delicious, amazing snow-like texture, and more! I could picture this topping a cake or brownies, acting as an ice cream topping, or even sprinkling some into your coffee.

As you can see below, Max and I had a litttlllee too much fun with this chocolate snow! We couldn't help ourselves!!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Gettin' Saucy

Alright, alright, calm down. Gettin' Saucy doesn't mean anything except for some downright delicious sauces! I chose to make a basil pesto (no cooking involved), a sun-dried tomato cream sauce (I love sun-dried tomatoes), and a traditional Italian sausage meat sauce. I tested each with fresh, homemade pasta, and did a sensory evaluation of each sauce individually to determine the main differences.

BASIL PESTO

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup pine nuts

2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese

Combine the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.
Add 1/2 cup of the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth.
Season with salt and pepper.
If using immediately, add all the remaining oil and pulse until smooth.
Transfer the pesto to a large serving bowl and mix in the cheese.

[RESULTS]

ODOR

basil is fresh, reminds me of summer
heavy on the oil
strong, pungent parmesan
strong garlic, paired with the cheese is mind-blowing

TEXTURE

grainy
soft and easy
partially slippery and partially chewable

TOUCH

light
oily residue (not too oily though)
grainy and breakable

TASTE

salty
slightly savory
layers of each flavor are distinct
neutral tones at first, then a wave of strong flavor from the basil, garlic, and cheese hits you all at once. The aftertaste is smooth and slightly sweet
refreshing in light doses, heavy and too much in large doses
SUPER RICH

SUN-DRIED TOMATO CREAM SAUCE

1 cup heavy cream

3 tbsp butter

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes

1 tbsp pine nuts

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the cream and butter in a saucepan over medium heat until almost boiling, but do not boil.
Add mozzarella and parmesan cheese and stir until melted.
Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper.
Remove from heat and serve over pasta with a sprinkling of pine nuts

[RESULTS]

ODOR

sweet and rich
very buttery

TEXTURE

slightly grainy
smooth with heat
chewy sun-dried tomatoes, feels like chewing on a very flavorful deflated balloon

TOUCH

very light
moist
buttery feel

TASTE

smooth
sweet
heavy
filling
pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes pair beautifully, the tang of the tomato and the earthy smokiness of the pine nuts suit each other
sweetness in the cream
rich mixture of cheese
too rich to eat a large amount

ITALIAN SAUSAGE MEAT SAUCE

1 lb italian sausage, casings removed (mild or hot)

*broken into pieces

1/2 a small onion, chopped

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

14 ounces diced tomatoes

6 ounces tomato paste

15 ounces tomato sauce

1 cup water (for a long period of simmering for flavors to meld. If you don't want to simmer it as long, add less)

1.5 tsp basil

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

1/2 + 1/4 tsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

a pinch of ground black pepper

1/8 cup red wine (cabernet sauvignon)

parmigiano reggiano cheese on top!

In a large, heavy stockpot, brown Italian sausage, breaking up as you stir.
Add onions and continue to cook, stirring occasionally until onions are softened.
Add garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water.
Add basil, parsley, brown sugar, salt, crushed red pepper, and black pepper.
Stir well and barely bring to a boil.
Stir in the red wine.
Simmer on low, stirring frequently for at least an hour. A longer simmer makes for a better sauce. Just be careful not to let it burn!
Spoon sauce over drained spaghetti noodles and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

[RESULTS]

ODOR

salty and flavorful aroma
strong garlic and tomato mixture
sweet and savory scent

TEXTURE

juicy
breakable
chunky
comforting
filling

TOUCH

thick total consistency
thin sauce between fingers
light

TASTE

sweetness of the tomatoes mixed outstandingly with the savory spiciness of the meat
extra flavorful because it cooked for 2 HOURS!

HOMEMADE EGG PASTA

Thick and heavy pasta because of the egg flour

Slightly weighted, but in a good way

Al dante! The only way to cook good pasta :)

Lots of salt in the water

final results...

Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

Italian Sausage Meat Sauce

Basil Pesto

Do you know how you can tell that this was cooked with love?

The food speaks for itself. Check out the heart in the center!

Awwww so much love

Death by Chocolate: espresso themed

After the failing cheese experiment, I was really excited to start this one and I was crossing my fingers for a great result. For this experiment, I chose to make triple chocolate espresso brownies topped with a dusting of powdered sugar and a chocolate espresso cake with a buttercream frosting.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE ESPRESSO BROWNIES

5 ounces semisweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

8 tbs unsalted butter (1 stick), cut into quarters

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1 1/2 tbsp instant espresso powder

3 large eggs

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

Preheat oven 350 degrees F
Butter the bottom and sides of a 8-inch square baking pan.
Put a long piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, letting the parchment extend up two sides of the pan and overhang slightly on both ends.
Place another piece of parchment paper in the same manner, perpendicular to the first sheet (This will make it easy to remove the bars from the pan after they have baked.)
Butter the parchment.
In a medium heatproof bowl set over a a pan of almost-simmering water, melt chocolates and butter, stirring occasionally until mixture is smooth.
Whisk in cocoa and espresso until smooth.
Set aside to cool slightly.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt until combined, about 15 seconds.
Whisk warm chocolate mixture into egg mixture; then stir in flour with wooden spoon until just combined.
Pour mixture into prepared pan, spread into corners, and level surface with rubber spatula
Bake until slightly puffed and toothpick inserted in center comes out with a small amount of sticky crumbs clinging to it(35-40 minutes).
Cool on a wire rack to room temperature, about 2 hours.
Using parchment overhang, lift brownies from pan.
Cut into 1-inch squares, serve, and enjoy!

[RESULTS]

ODOR

Roasted, toasted coffee scent
Bittersweet scent from the dark chocolate

TEXTURE

Compact
Slightly airy
Light
Crumbly
Soft to bite into
Top is well-done
Slightly chewy
Melts in your mouth after 3 bites

TOUCH

Pliable
Crumbly
Crispy on the top
Soft
Moist

TASTE

You can taste all 3 layers of chocolate-- the semisweet, unsweetened, and cocoa
Super rich
Roasted or charred chocolate
Sweet dust of powdered sugar
Strong espresso tones the different layers of chocolate

CHOCOLATE CAKE

2 cup sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

1 cup buttermilk, shaken

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 extra-large eggs, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup hot espresso

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Prepare two 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans-- line with parchment, then butter and flour the pans.
Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.
In another bowl or large measuring cup, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.
Gently whisk.
With the mixer on a low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry.
With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine-- scrape up from the bottom to catch any pesky flour mixture hiding below.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35-40 minutes.
Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack to complete cooling.

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

6 ounces semisweet or dark chocolate (or chocolate chips)

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 extra-large egg yolk at room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 confectioners sugar, to taste

Chop the chocolate and place it in a double boiler (or a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water).
Stir until just melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium high speed until pale and fluffy.
Add the egg yolk (if using) and vanilla and continue beating for 3 minutes.
Turn the mixer to low, gradually add the confectioners' sugar, then beat at a medium speed, scraping down the bowl as necessary, until smooth and creamy.
Add chocolate and continue on low until blended. Don't whip!
Spread immediately on cooled cake.