What Kind of cooking is Molecular Gastronomy?
Transparent raviolis, Cocktail icesphere, Clear canape – Heard of them? Or how about sardine-flavored sorbet, pasta made out of Jello, snail porridge, or a parmesan cheese ice cream. What do you think, what are they?
These are names of some unusual and original recipes created through Molecular gastronomy, or progressive cuisine.
What is Molecular gastronomy ?
Molecular gastronomy is defined as the scientific discipline that explores the phenomena occurring during culinary transformations. Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French chemist Hervé This coined the term Molecular gastronomy. Molecular gastronomy is also referred to as culinary alchemy.
Molecular gastronomy experiments have given so many innovative dishes like hot gelatins, airs, faux caviar, spherical ravioli, chocolate chantilly, beaumés, gibbs, nollet, liebig, crab ice cream and olive oil spiral.
What are some Molecular gastronomy techniques?
1. Flash-freezing: Flash-freezing is a process in which liquid nitrogen is used to quickly freeze the exteriors of foods
2. Froth: In this technique, the sauce is converted into foam using a whipped cream canister
3. Meat glue: Meat glue is transglutaminase, a substance that binds different proteins together. Chefs use meat glue to gluing back together with the steak after removing all its fat or fashioning noodles from shrimp meat etc.
4. Spherification: In this technique, sodium alginate is added to liquid foods and then bathed in calcium chloride, which creates small spheres with liquid in the center
Molecular gastronomy techniques:
Liquid nitrogen,Food dehydrator, Tabletop distilleries, Ultrasound, Vacuum machine etc
Molecular gastronomy Ingredients:
Carbon dioxide, for adding bubbles and making foams; Hydrocolloids such as starch, gelatin, pectin as thickening agents; Emulsifiers like soy lecithin and xanthan gum etc
Is molecular gastronomy healthy?
When you read about the tools and ingredients you might think that its completely unhealthy. In large quantities it might be harmful, but in moderation its not. Finally these recipes no one would be taking consuming on a daily basis.
Molecular gastronomy can bust the cooking myths
[bctt tweet=”Molecular gastronomy can bust the cooking myths.”]
For example, we all diligently add oil to boiling water to prevent pasta from clumping. But then actually oil and water do not mix, and oil stays on the surface, far away from noodles. Instead of this method try adding something acidic, like vinegar or lemon juice, which can inhibit the breakdown of starch and thus reduce the stickiness in noodles.
Where can you buy Molecular gastronomy starter kit?
Molecular gastronomy starter kits have everything you need to make mint caviar beads that burst in the mouth, chocolate spaghetti, lemon foam or tzatziki spheres, etc. You can buy it from amazon too.
Notable molecular gastronomy chefs:
1. Wylie Dufresne, the chef/owner of Du’s Donuts and the former chef and owner of the wd~50 and Alder restaurants in Manhattan
2. Grant Achatz, the chef/restaurateur of Alinea and Next restaurants in Chicago, Illinois
Molecular gastronomy recipes: Try out Molecularrecipes
Things to keep in mind while you do the culinary experiment
- Follow the steps in the specific sequence or the whole dish may be a disaster.
- Measure ingredients perfectly. There should not be variation by single grams or fractions of a percentage.
