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2007/12/02
I've been playing around with chemicals in the kitchen, and doing some experimenting. It's nothing new for avant garde chefs, but it's mostly new to me, and definitely new to most home cooks. So here's one of my first successful experiments with spherification: Sweet Tea "Ravioli" with Lemon.
It's basically a gelled sack surrounding liquid sweet tea. The lemon zest is free-floating inside the liquid. So, three questions arise:
- How does it taste? Fine, but not special at all. It tastes like sweet tea with lemon. No biggie.
- How does it feel? Awesome. Imagine a very thin skin of pliable, stretchy jello. You can hold it in your hand, pick it up, set it down, and as long as you're careful, it won't break. Then you put it in your mouth and feel the little sac resting on your tongue. You crush down on it gently, and it bursts, sweet liquid gushing out into your mouth. It's a really interesting experience, and if you've never had one of these spherified liquids, it'll definitely be a new texture to you.
- How is it made? Well... I'll tell you this... if this really excites you, you're not going to be able to run down to the corner store and pick up the ingredients. But they can be bought from sources online, in small enough quantities that they won't be too ridiculous. Basically, I made a solution of sweet tea and sodium alginate. Then I got a tablespoon full, dropped lemon zest into the tablespoon, and spooned it delicately into a "bath" of calcium chloride dissolved in water. Immediately when the alginate solution touches the calcic solution, the alginate solution forms a pliable gel membrane around its outside. This membrane holds the rest of the liquid in. Strain, then rinse under cold water, and it's ready to go. More detailed instructions are below.
Oh, and you can do this, by the way, with lots of things other than tea. Just about any liquid that doesn't have calcium in it, and isn't too acidic will work. I even tried adding whiskey to the tea, making a 1/3 whiskey, 2/3 tea mixture, and it worked fine. Much better than jello shots! I've seen it with mango puree (which is too acidic, but if you add Sodium Citrate, it raises the pH), and plenty of other things.
Spherified Sweet Tea "Ravioli" with Lemon Zest inside
Makes up to 600 grams? Um... this is not a filler upper course. Time: 20 minutes.The ingredients: (by weight because it is much more precise)
500 g Sweet Tea. Brew it yourself; storebought teas will have added chemicals that can interfere with the reaction. And make it very strong. Let it cool.
75 g water
1.5 g sodium alginate (buy from here or here)
500 g water
3.5 grams calcium chloride (buy from here or here)
The algorithm:
You need to dissolve the sodium alginate into the tea. Problem is, sodium alginate turns into a sort of gel on its own as soon as it touches liquid, so you can't just stir it in, or else you'll just have clumps. You need to shear the sodium alginate into the tea. Do this in a blender. Put in 100 grams water and the sodium alginate and puree. Pour in the tea, puree for another thirty seconds or so, then strain through a fine mesh sieve and let it rest for five minutes (for the bubbles to rise out).
In a wide, shallow bowl, dissolve calcium chloride in 500 grams water. You can just stir it in and it will readily dissolve. This is your calcium bath.
Once the alginate solution is mostly bubble-free, you can start bathing the alginate in the bath in order for it to form gel sacs. You can make them of many different sizes. For "ravioli," fill up a tablespoon measure (an actual "tablespoon spoon" works best). Tilt the bath so the liquid is right up to the edge. Take the tablespoon of alginate solution and dip the bottom of the spoon into the bath, then gently but in a single motion, tilt the spoon so that the spoon's edge is just below the surface of the bath and pour out the alginate into the bath. The ball of liquid will settle to the bottom of the bath. Once it has sat in the bath for between thirty seconds and one minute, you can then take a straining spoon and take out the ravioli, rinse it under cold water, and then do whatever you want with it.
To get the lemon zest inside the ravioli, just sprinkle some lemon zest into the tablespoon and wait for it to sink a bit before bathing it in the bath.
For "caviar" instead of "ravioli," an eyedropper or syringe works well. You just drip single droplets of alginate solution into the bath. It may take some practice before you can quickly drip a bunch of single droplets in a steady stream from your syringe or eyedropper. Don't leave the caviar in the bath for more than thirty seconds. Strain, rinse, and serve quickly. I've found that the "caviar" made from liquid alginate solutions tends to be quite small and, well, caviar-like. For larger balls like salmon roe, you'll need larger droplets, and that means that it needs a higher viscosity. Use another gelling agent (I've tried Xanthan Gum, which is really useful in everyday cooking stuff, too, and can be bought here or select a variety from here) to increase viscosity of the alginate solution.
Another variation is that, with practice, you can extrude the alginate solution from a syringe in a single, long strand. It makes a "noodle."
Even after you take the spherified liquids out of the bath, the skin continues to gel inward. If you wait an hour, the entire ravioli will be gelled. It's fine to wait a couple minutes, but you should serve them as soon as possible after making them.
Posted by Barzelay on 2007/12/02 @ 16:51 | Comments (3) | Drinks, Food Additives
Comments
Great post. I'd really like to try this out.
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Posted by: judith at July 8, 2010 1:22 AM
Great recipe I just made it for some guests and it was the talk of the evening thank you
Posted by: Judit at March 21, 2011 5:29 PM