Category tips & tricks

Practical molecular gastronomy, part 5

5. Learn how to control taste and flavor. When invited over to friends for dinner, even before eating, you judge the food by it’s aroma, handing out compliments such as “It really smells nice”! Thankfully, nature is on the cook’s…

Searching for flavour pairings

Google can be of great help when exploring flavour pairings, especially for those of us who don’t have access to the commercial database VCF. The following tip has been mentioned in a comment to a previous blog post, but I…

Recipes with carbonated fruit by Homaru Cantu

In a comment to my post on making carbonated fruit the iSi way, JoJo at eat2love made me aware of a company, FizzyFruit, that actually sells carbonated fruit in pressurized containers. The fruits currently available are grapes, honeydew and cantaloupe.…

Coffee cream foam

Based on some googling of espuma and foam recipes (including Ferran Adria’s coffee espuma), I figured that the following should work: 2 dL coffee 2 sheets of gelatine 3 dL heavy cream sugar/vanilla sugar Soak gelatine in cold water. Strain.…

Carbonated fruit the iSi way

I blogged about carbonated strawberries some while ago. Those were made using dry ice which unfortunately is not always easy to get hold of. Last week however I bought a iSi Gourmet Whipper – one of those Ferran Adria uses…

Dyeing eggs for the easter holiday

About.com has a nice guide on how to color eggs, and the list of colors is quite impressive (click for instructions): Lavender Small Quantity of Purple Grape Juice Violet Blossoms plus 2 tsp Lemon Juice Violet Blue Violet BlossomsSmall Quantity…

First experiments with sodium alginate

Here’s some pictures and a video of my first experiments with sodium alginate and spherification. I used sodium alginate from the Texturas series and calcium chloride from a drug store. Needless to say, I’m very fascinated by the texture and…

DJ for your nose: Aroma jockey Odo7

Erich Berghammer, also known as Odo7 [homepage, myspace] is an aroma jockey or AJ for short. He blows scents over his audience with huge fans and has stocked up a pantry with exotic spices, roots, leafs, oils, extracts and herbs.…

Practical molecular gastronomy, part 4

(Photo by vintage_patrisha at flickr.com) 4. Learn how to control the texture of food Taste and flavour normally get more attention when food is discussed, but the texture of food is equally important and our tongue is very sensitive, not…

Simple temperature calculations

Although I recommend the use of a thermometer, sometimes it’s convenient to know how you can also manage without. If you mix water at two different (but known) temperatures, you can easily calculate the temperature after mixing. Just multiply the…