Molecular Gastronomy is a growing trend in food preparation. While all food preparation involves chemical processes, a growing number of chefs are employing techniques and using equipment more commonly associated with the lab than the kitchen to create unique and inspiring dishes.
What is your take on molecular gastronomy and other food trends? Post your restaurant experiences here. What’s the most interesting molecular meal you’ve had and how was it prepared?
Very interesting technique. This is the approximate gelatinization temperature to the potato starch granules. One thing to consider is the geometry and consistency of the size of the potato pieces to promote more even thermal penetration. The rapid cooling would result in retrogradation of the starch, thus toughening the granules against pasting during the mixing process. I generally drain my potatoes and return them to the hot pan to dry for a few minute before ricing the hot potatoes, followed by whipping in the Kitchen Aid with the lipids du jour. The ricing provides a gentle disruption of the starchy tissue and minimizes the destruction of the starch granule and producing a fluffier product. If you want to understand the problem with starch granule disruption, put the potatoes in a food processor or use an immersion blender. Wall paper paste! Salsa verde sounds great. You could put roasted tomatillos in during the whipping, or cook them with the potatoes (fewer dishes to wash)
I love meringue and their is a lot of science behind creating it, such as physically denaturing the proteins in egg whites by beating them. Some bakers use copper bowls to make meringue to delay coagulation of the proteins.
I believe that the copper bowls do not "delay" the formation of the meringue. The current thought is that the divalent copper ions scraped off of the bowl's surface create an electrostatic cross bridge between negatively charged amino acid residues in the albumen proteins. This will better stabilize the protein and delay the eventual collapse of the foam dispersion. In my experience in professional pastry kitchens, it does work very well along with the addition of acid to enhance denaturation of the proteins, and sugar (after there is a bit of foam developed) to hydrogen bond with the available water to increase the viscosity of the continuous phase. At least this is what I learned in a food chemistry course.
J Bohlscheid
I've always wondered if a copper bowl really made a difference and have 'delayed' purchase of one, til now! Thanks for the clarification on what is actually getting delayed in this process. Wanting to delay collapse makes good sense to me. - Doni
Check this out: MotoRestaurent.com.
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W2O Food Innovation
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Mashed Potatoes!
I found the recipe from a cooking show. You first fix a crystal seed in the potatoes by heating up the potato in water to 62.5 ºC. Then take the potatoes out an place over ice to cool down. Then take the potatoes back to the boiling water until they're cooked. Then mash the potatoes and mix 3 spoons of butter and milk. These are the best mashed potatoes I had without tons of butter. I'll been trying to refine the temperature crashing to be more evenly, since I've noticed some spots of the potatoes where the starch looks darker and more watery. Anyways, it's worth trying.
I'm been also trying to make mexican potatoes in salsa verde using this technique and the potatoes feel in the palate is great.