April 3, 2008

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TGRWT#10: My Entry, Pineapple Encapsulation, Fruit Glue, Fruit Ravioli

Here's my entry to They Go Really Well Together #10, which asked everyone to pair pineapple and blue cheese. For these pairings, everyone is also invited to include whatever other ingredients they want to, but here, I've shied away from other flavors and just used those two. This is because the things I'm posting today evolved out of what was intended to be a more simple component of a cheese course at a dinner party of mine. I'm going to post a roundup of all the entries within the next day or two, so if you still haven't sent me an email letting me know about yours, you still can do so.

For mine, the initial concept was borrowed from Shola at Studiokitchen: pineapple "ravioli," with very thinly sliced pineapple simply wrapped around something else and calling it "ravioli," with the quotes. And it evolved from there. When I did mine for the dinner party, I didn't have time to macerate the pineapple slices, so I just went with it. Because of that, they ended up being tough to bend without breaking. The final result was basically just thrown together, and the picture at right is fairly typical of what it looked like on the plate. Basically, like crap, but the flavors were there. Most of the people at the party liked the pairing. But I was later thinking about, and realized that even if I macerated the pineapple, and made nicer packages, it's still pineapple "ravioli." With the "quotes." I wanted to be able to take the quotes out.

The distinction I'm drawing is this: in order for it to be ravioli without quotes, it has to be two layers of something, completely encasing something else, with the edges sealed. It may be an arbitrary distinction, but if whatever's inside is visible, or leaks out, it is "ravioli." If it's sealed, and fully encasing the filling, it's just plain ravioli. So I wanted to figure out a way to seal two slices of pineapple together.

While writing this post, I discovered that plenty of other people have made pineapple "ravioli" as well. Here's Gordon Ramsey's take, for instance, and here's the recipe in the London Times. And some have even tried to seal slices of pineapple together by simply pressing them. But I wanted to go further. I wanted something that would actually hold together when moved, something that's somewhat water-tight, maybe even something that would feel a bit al dente.

As luck would have it, I'd been working a bunch with pectin lately, for various components of that same dinner party. And as luck would have it, I was using my blowtorch for something the other day. And as luck would have it, an idea occurred to me (can one attribute ideas to anything but luck?). My train of thought went like this: Normally, with many hydrocolloids, once they are fully hydrated, or dissolved in the medium they are acting upon, they have to be brought up to a certain temperature in order to activate them. This is true, for instance, of gelatin, pectin, carrageenan, agar agar, etc. The way we normally bring them up to temperature is by boiling (or at least heating) some liquid or puree until it reaches temperature, then cooling it to set the medium. My idea was to heat it up instead with a blowtorch. And so I had all the components of my ravioli.

I sliced very thin slices from a pineapple. In truth, I had already cut up the pineapple, and I didn't really have any appropriately-sized pieces left, or else I'd have made bigger ravioli, and more of them. But I digress. I took the slices of pineapple and laid them out on a rack on a cookie sheet. You can use something else, but it has to be something that won't be damaged from direct torching for ten seconds or so. I then sprinkled pectin over all but the centers of the slices, spread it around with my finger, and blew off the excess. I waited a minute or so for the juices in the pineapple to start absorbing some of the pectin. Then I sprayed a small quantity of water (misted, really) directly onto the pectin-dusted slices of pineapple, and proceeding to the torching. I torched each slice, moving the flame constantly, until each slice was a tad charred, with the pectin layer starting to form bubbles. Once I finished one, working quickly, I placed a a small rectangle of blue cheese on the slice, then torched a second slice and placed it on top of the first, encasing the cheese. I briefly pressed the edges to seal, then I transferred to the refrigerator for the pectin to set. They could be held in there for a day or two, until the pineapple dries out to the point that it would no longer be pleasant to eat.

So after giving them time to set, I tried them, and it worked quite well. Actually I'd done a test run first, with just two slices of pineapple, to make sure the bonding would occur. The two slices in the test run, and in the ravioli, were stuck together fairly well. About as well as ravioli is usually stuck together. It wasn't watertight, due to natural imperfections in the pineapple slices, but it was damn fine fruit ravioli, and I definitely feel comfortable not using the quotes. So, how did they taste? Well, if you like pineapple with blue cheese (I certainly do), they were excellent. If you don't dig the pairing, then sealing it up won't make it miraculously delicious. I find the salty pungent blue cheese to go very well with the astringent, sweet pineapple.

Anyway, this technique of using pectin to seal fruit (or even veggies) is potentially very useful. In practice, it offers some of the functionality of transglutaminase, but for non-proteins. I made a couple more items using the method outlined above. I made a nice little gnocchi-shaped thing by wrapping a piece of Danish blue in a slice of pineapple, then sealing the covering in order to keep it from unraveling when picked up. Then I cut off the ends in order to make it look more tidy. Note that this is "gnocchi," not gnocchi. I also made a long layered thing that I was hoping would be bendable. It wasn't. Since the different layers are quite sealed, bending would require them to slide against each other, and therefore would break the seal.

But in any case, this a nice addition to the repertoire for whimsical stuff like this, or for more serious apps in an entree. Oh, and I should note that, in general, this is going to require an LM pectin, and with most products it will have to be amidated pectin. Some products may even require the addition of calcium. I used Genu Pectin LM-20AS. For more info on pectin, this Ideas In Food post is a good place to start.

The other stuff on the plate is just some stacked cubes of pineapple and blue cheese. The blue cheese cubes were made by pressing the blue cheese, then leaving it in the freezer for a while until it's more sliceable. It's basically just a garnish, but also exhibits the pairing.

Posted by Barzelay at April 3, 2008 3:18 AM | Comments (2) | Science, Technology

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