• Carbonated Oranges
• Chocolate "Chantilly"
• Chocolate chip cookie crumble
• Passionfruit gels (fluid and set)

For the carbonated oranges, I cut two navel oranges into supremes (sections), put them into an iSi Soda Siphon, charged it with two CO2 cartridges, gave it a shake, then refrigerated for several hours. At the last minute, after everything else has been plated (since the carbonation will dissipate within a couple minutes), release all the pressure through the valve, open up the soda siphon's main canister, and dump out the orange slices. I removed them from the canister too early and so, by the time I served, they weren't quite as fizzy as they were initially. Now I've learned from that mistake.

But these were awesome! When first out of the soda siphon, they were super fizzy when bit into, and after about ten minutes, they remained slightly carbonated, but not to the same degree. There was also a very subtle but pleasantly bitter flavor note added to the normal orange flavor. It will be familiar from seltzer water, or any other carbonated thing you've ever had. And best of all, this same technique could be done with any kind of fruit or berry, as long as it contains a lot of water (i.e., not a banana). I have read elsewhere that it helps if there is a cut side to expose the fruit's water to the carbonation, but I have not tested this. Anyway, this is something I will definitely do again, maybe with strawberries, or cherries, or grapes, or watermelon, or pineapple. Anything. Super awesome.

I made chocolate "chantilly" from this recipe from a new column in the WaPo, but I added a touch of cream. It was delicious, unadulterated, intense chocolate pudding, and I highly recommend it. Next time, I would take more care in plating it, so as not to have it look like a pile of novelty fake poo.

For the cookie crumble, I screwed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies the other day. They ended up being way too flat. So I decided to cook them much longer than normal, but on lower heat, to make something like chocolate chip cookie "tuiles," or dehydrated chocolate chip cookies. Then really quickly while plating this dish, I took one of them, put it into a zip-loc bag, smashed it up, then sprinkled it on the plate. In the future, I'd crumble it a lot more, but otherwise, this was yummy. Unfortunately, I don't know what mistake I made in measuring out cookie ingredients (too little baking soda?), so I don't know how to duplicate these exactly. Further experimentation is warranted.

I also made a passionfruit gel with 250g passionfruit juice, 1 g iota carrageenan, 1 g kappa carrageenan. The ratio of iota to kappa was fairly arbitrary, I've just read about better mouthfeel from a combination of the two. I let it set, then cut it into small rectangles. Then I took the leftover gel and whipped it with a whisk, added some cream, then whipped some more, and it turned into a nice, fluid passionfruit sauce. The only problem was that for the set gel, the passionfruit juice separated, with the pulp sinking somewhat, yielding a non-homogenous appearance (since it's transparent). Next time I might add some xanthan gum to help keep it from separating.

Posted by Barzelay on 2008/02/21 @ 16:16 | Comments (2) | Desserts, Food Additives, Science, Technology, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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