Peter Barham writes that chocolate is shear-thinning; it becomes fluid when shear stress is applied to it, such as by a meat grinder. I went on grinding...
A shear thinning, or pseudoplastic, medium is one that exhibits decreased viscosity when shear stress is applied. The most common example is probably ketchup. Turn the bottle upside down, and the contents stay put. Give the bottle a knock, and annoyingly half the bottle pours out. The same phenomenon is in action when a great landslide results from just a small shaking (i.e. quake) when the area resides on clay ground. Paints also rely on this phenomenon: they are runny when brushed or rolled, but become viscous as soon as the pressure is removed, and thus don't run down the wall.
Following Peter Barham's idea, I had another look in Beckett's "Science of chocolate", which confirmed that chocolate is shear thinning (I suspect that Barham indeed refers to Beckett). In addition, when the softened chocolate firms up again, after just a few seconds, it recrystallises in the same crystal form as before. This is important, because heating-cooling sequences (such as when melting melting) might lead to blooming, such as fatbloom.
My idea was hence: is it possible to use this property to shape chocolate and still avoid the need for apparently laborious and complicated tempering?
My only available equipment for applying shear stress on such a hard medium as chocolate was our kitchen machine with the meat grinder/mincer attached. Running the chocolate through this grinder, the result was what I've termed "chocolate twigs":
Comments on the result I'm fairly content with the result, but my detailed knowledge of crafting chocolate isn't good enough for me to do a proper evaluation. Even though the texture seems fine, still a nice snap when braking, the colour and surface structure is changed. Maybe that's just OK? However, there are some relevant points to consider:
- The point is applying shear pressure, and not melting the chocolate
55% dark chocolate worked fine, whereas milk chocolate softens too much in the grinder (becomes pasty)
the metal grinder needs to be kept cool, since grinding generates heat and might melt the chocolate. Cooling can be done by wrapping a cold moist cloth around the grinder
the chocolate was kept at room temperature overnight (20-25 °C), but taking the chocolate directly from the fridge did also work (in a previous experiment)
- Amount of chocolate You need quite a lot of chocolate to produce a moderate amount of twigs. In the video above, I spent 400 g. However, the chocolate may be run several times through the grinder. The rest is of course perfectly OK for making other chocolate-based stuff, or maybe practice tempering chocolate...
Coarse or fine mincing screens? The coarse screen (8 mm holes) was the only one that worked in my hands, as the finer ones resulted in too much resistance. Too much resistance results in clogging and eventually warming/melting the chocolate.
Equipment Our Kenwood Major (800 W) did the job, but I felt that I overloaded it slightly, especially when it clogged. Dark chocolate is really hard stuff. It'd been fun having some professional extrusion equipment with enough power and temperature regulation allowing to make various shapes. Barham mentions using a pasta machine for "shear shaping" chocolate, but I doubt it'll be strong enough to shape the chocolate, rather than crumble it. Maybe it'll work with milk chocolate?
References I didn't find any directly relevant scientific literature on this, and the two only references I've found mentioning this (briefly) are
Also, Corriher's "Cookwise" has quite a lot of information on dealing with chocolate (again, I've still not got my hands on a copy of Bakewise, unfortunately)
As this year's Easter greeting, Deptartment of Chemistry at the University of Oslo has developed an egg cooking calculator with reference to Martin's Khymos and my Maturfag ("Norwegian fooducation").
The issue of cooking the perfectly boiled egg has been discussed several places, amongst others on Khymos, fooducation, and on "Maturfag" which is fooducation's teacher resource pages at the Norwegian Centre for Science Education (Google translation of the resource pages here). Also, Douglas Baldwin's Practical guide to sous vide cooking has an excellent section on controlled-temperature cooking of eggs.
Formula for calculating the boiling time for eggs. For details and references, see Khymos egg boiling post
Now, Department of Chemistry in Oslo has converted this formula into an interactive animation/calculator for cooking your Easter egg the way most people do it: in boiling water. This has already collected some attention, amongst others in the national newspaper VG (and supposedly on radio at the national broadcasting corporation NRK during Easter holiday). The cooking time depends on several factors, taken that you use boiling water:
egg size (circumference around the thick end)
initial temperature of the egg
altitude (since temperature of boiling water varies according to this)
the way you like your egg (soft, hard, medium)
The categories should be rather self-explaining. Click the illustration to go to the calculator (I love the nifty automatic timer function :)
Tip: For measuring the circumference of the egg, use a piece of string and measure the length that goes around the "belly" of the egg.
Markus at Supernova Condensate has posted the invitation to join in on episode #16 of "They go really well together" (TGRWT). The idea is that foods with one or more flavour compounds in common will taste well in combination; the concept of flavour pairing. This months ingredients are chicken and rose.
I like to keep things rather simple flavourwise so that the flavours are allowed to come forth, the combinations becoming more evident. I've read that risotto is a real challenge, being many a cook's "nightmare". I suppose it's my ignorance that made me try making...
"Approximate-sous-vide" soy sauce marinated chicken breasts with chicken/rose risotto and sweet chilli tomato salsa
The risotto and tomato salsa was based on a modified recipe found at egg.no (English translation). The foodpairing scheme for rose indicates that rose should match well with tomato (strong correlation) and soy sauce (weak correlation), in addition to a weak correlation with chicken. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any asparagus, as this is also indicated to be a good match with rose and might go well with the risotto and chicken. I simply went for green peas and asparagus beans.
Ingredients (four persons) 4 Chicken breast fillets Soy sauce, sweet + salt
100 ml sweet chilli sauce 2 tomatoes
1 onion, finely chopped 300 ml rice suitable for risotto 1/2 t saffron 2 T white wine vinegar + 50 ml water 1 l chicken stock 3 T butter (had only margarine, unfortunately) 75 ml grated parmesan (actually grana padano) 1 T rose water basil leaves (garnish)
Directions The chicken fillets was slashed and left in soy sauce to marinate for 8 hours (two fillets with sweet soy sauce and two in salt). The fillets were put in plastic bags and immersed in a pot with water, cooked "approximately-sous-vide" (65-69 °C) for 2 hours. They were fried quickly just before serving.
I won't give a detailed description of how the risotto was made. I simply followed a typical risotto procedure found in most standard cookbooks. The rose water was stirred in at the end of the process. I wanted just a hint of rose, and combining saffron and rose might give a distinctive Persian touch to the risotto. At least, that was the idea, and I didn't want the rose to dominate as it easily will if it's not used with care.
Verdict I'd say that the chicken vs. rose combination worked well, rather despite than because of the dish as a whole. I felt that several things didn't really work out great:
the chicken was good but not great, mostly due to the marinating (it'd probably been better plain than marinated, as my son commented)
the risotto was somewhat on the tart side. I guess I should have spent that extra money on white wine rather than using cheap vinegar (or been lighter on the vinegar). Also, I felt it was a little heavy on parmesan
That said, I felt that the rose did not dominate, probably because of the strong parmesan flavour (before adding parmesan, I thought it was heavy on rose, but not afterwards). The rose and chicken blended well together, and still after the meal I could in some way imagine/"visualise" the two flavours lingering together. It's strange, but I can't say the chicken and rose flavour resemble each other, but in some way they're definitely related. However, I really missed the asparagus...
An appropriate Norwegian name for this dish might be "Ros og ris", a phrase for giving feedback/response; "praise & smack".
Revised June 2nd 2015 (Important: See the last set of comments for a critique which possibly requires some major revision to the text and figures). If just a little amount of water finds its way into melting chocolate, it goes all grainy and solid - it seizes/curdles. There is really no fix to the problem. However, if some more water is added, the chocolate suddenly becomes fluid again. How come? In threerecentposts in the Swedish food blog Matmolekyler ("Food molecules"), Malin discusses the physics of chocolate. In the third one, the question arose on what really happens when a little water makes the chocolate go all grainy, and why adding some more water solves the problem. It made me start looking around in my "standard" food literature base: Corriher, McGee, Belitz/Grosch/Shieberle, Barham, Pedersen, Dahlgren. Although Corriher came closest, none of them had the answer to Malin's question: "is there an oil-in-water emulsion going on or something?". Finally, Beckett did have the answer, maybe not very surprising, since the name of the book is "The Science of Chocolate". However, it took some serious searching even in this book in addition to a few research papers. Hence, I expect to write a couple of more posts on chocolate since I've dug into the topic.
Chocolate seems like no easy medium to work with, and according to books on the topic I have to follow loads of specific directions in order to avoid failing. I've postponed it in fear of failing. The solution to the problem: start by failing on purpose!
The problem
It all starts when trying to melt the chocolate. (Cook)books say:
the chocolate should be carved or cut into small pieces
use low heat, preferably a water bath or double boiler , stirring continuously
don't ever get water in the chocolate (either from the water bath or from moist equipment)
(microwave oven might be used as an alternative, although carefully)
I have an inherent need of doing things as easy as possible, and using the double boiler method makes me go nuts waiting for the last bits to melt. To me, water bath equals splashing warm tap water around in the kitchen sink. In that respect, points 2-3 pose a problem, because getting water in the chocolate results in this:
Left: 100 g melted pure (55%) chocolate Right: the same melted chocolate after adding less than a teaspoon of water
In fact, so little water is needed for this to happen that steam from a boiling pan might be enough to make the chocolate go grainy. When this happens, there is no way back to the pure chocolate. However, it is perfectly usable for other purposes such as chocolate sauce, ganache, drinking cocoa etc. Alternatives to using water bath or a double boiler principle. In stead of water bath or double boiler, I usually use the microwave or even melt the chocolate directly in the pot using low heat and stirring continuously (have to be very careful). However, I love sabotage experiments. When recipes tell me by all means not to do something, the little boy awakens and I go for it. And that's the point in this post: what happens when chocolate seizes?
To understand what happens one need to know what chocolate is...
Basically, chocolate is
cocoa fat (cocoa butter) - water repelling
sugar particles - water loving
cocoa particles - somewhat unclear*
lecithin emulsifier - water repelling and water loving
(for milk chocolate: milk fat and/or milk powder)
Chocolate is a dispersion, consisting of solids distributed in a fatty (continuous) phase. It contains miniscule cocoa particles (mean diameter ca. 0.016 mm) and sugar particles too small for our tongue to notice them as grainy when properly distributed. The sugar is hydrophilic (water loving), and repelled by the fat. An important function of the lecithin emulsifier is to build protecting layers around the sugar particles so that they don't separate from the fatty phase and give a grainy texture. The emulsifier is commonly lecithin (lecithin is also a natural constituent of egg yolk, and the main reason for why the yolk doesn't split into a fatty and a watery phase).
Schematic drawing of the above photos Left: pure chocolate. Right: chocolate after adding just a little water
What happens when water gets into the chocolate?
In it's solid form, pure chocolate is a relatively stable system virtually free of water (0.5-1.5% by weight). When the chocolate is melted, the stable dispersion is challenged. If just a small amount of water (or steam) finds its way into the chocolate, the water molecules form droplets, since they don't want to mingle with the fat. Since water and sugar like to mingle, the sugar particles are wetted by the water. The result is "the sugar bowl effect", just as when a few drops of water are spilled into a sugar bowl. The tiny sugar particles in the chocolate become moist and cling together giving larger lumps (agglomerates). The result is an inhomogeneous mixture between these sugar agglomerates and the cocoa fat mixture. These won't mix evenly because the sugar has gone watery (the lecithin is probably not capable of stabilising such large amounts of hydrophilic constituents). Since sugar is a major ingredient in chocolate, it all goes grainy. A water content of 3-4% by weight is enough to make the chocolate seize. Since the chocolate might contain som water already the critical amount of added water might be as low as 1.5% by weight (1/3 teaspoon on 100 g, ref. Afoakwa et al.).
Add some more water, and everything is "fine" again
If the chocolate has seized, there is really no way back to the original chocolate. However, if some more water is added, the grainy mass magically turns silky smooth again. What happens is that the emulsion inverts; whereas fat was the continuous phase in chocolate, now water is the continuous phase and the fat is distributed/"dissolved" in the water:
Left: 100 g melted pure (55%) chocolate, seized with less than a teaspoon water
Right: the same chocolate after a tablespoon of water
A definite explanation of this was in fact rather difficult to find, and the only literature source stating this explicitly was in fact Beckett's book (The Science of Chocolate. Afoakwe also states this, but refers to Beckett's book). He writes that about 20% by weight water vs. chocolate is needed to achieve such a phase inversion, whereas Corriher writes that you need a minimum of 1 tablespoon water per 56 g (2 oz) chocolate. This roughly equals 30% 20% by weight. Note that this is total amount of water; if cream, butter or some other water-containing ingredient is used, this contribution counts.
Schematic drawing of the above photos
Left: seized chocolate. Right: after adding a tablespoon of water
Since chocolate contain plenty of emulsifiers, this emulsion might be quite stable and a good starting point to many wondrous things such as drinking cocoa, chocolate sauce, ganache/truffles, foam/mousse ("chocolate chantilly") or even a chocolate mayonnaise.
solutions/solubility, hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties
experimental and cooking skills (dealing with chocolate)
observational skills (what to look for in an experiment)
*Note: Some sources (Rowat et al., 2011, and these ppt slides by Naveen Sinha) state that the cocoa particles are hydrophilic (water loving) and that the emulsifier surrounds these rather than (or just as much) as the sugar particles. I have not been able to confirm this and have thus drawn it as neither water loving or water repelling. However, I've found a couple of papers stating that the cocoa particles in fact contain fat (points towards water repelling, see Do et al., 2011) and that the emulsifier primarily attaches itself to the sugar particles (Vernier cited in Svanberg et al., 2011).
References, bookswith relevant information on the subject
Beckett: The Science of Chocolate (1. ed.). Cambridge : Royal Society of Chemistry 2000.
Belitz, Grosch & Schieberle: Food Chemistry (3. ed.). Berlin: Springer 2004.
Dahlgren, Ö.: Laga mat - hur man gör och varför. Stockholm : Liber utbildning, 1994.
McGee, H.: McGee on Food and Cooking. London: Hodder and Stoughton 2004.
Corriher, S.: Cookwise. New York: William Morrow 1997.
Pedersen, T.: Kemien bag gastronomien. Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag 2005.
The ingredients to match in round no. 15 of "They go really well together" are cold smoked salmon and dark chocolate, and the round is hosted by Mex Mix. I thought I'd give it a go, and ended up with smoked salmon-goat's cheese-chocolate ganache-tortilla roll-ups/wraps.
I've attended "They go really well together" a few times now, and a description of what this flavour pairing relay is really about is given in the previous posts.
Cold smoked salmon wraps are quite popular starter or hors d'oeuvres in Norway, and is commonly made with spreadable goat's cheese. I thought this simple dish with its rather uncomplicated flavour might serve as a good basis for evaluating the salmon-chocolate combination. I wanted the chocolate to be spreadable and therefore made some ganache.
Some of the salmon here in Norway is made using juniper-flavoured smoke. Even though I could not find any match between smoked salmon and juniper berries on the foodpairing web site, this is an "accepted good combination". So I thought using juniper-flavoured cheese and chocolate might add a nice touch (although juniper berries of course are not equal to juniper smoke).
Basic chocolate ganache: - 100 g dark chocolate (Odense 55%), chopped - 100 ml double cream - dried juniper berries, five chopped
The double cream was heated to the boil, the juniper berries were added and let to infuse for a couple of minutes. Chopped chocolate was added while stirring until fully melted. Left to cool, first in room temperature and then in the fridge for 1-2 hrs.
Smoked salmon-goat's cheese-chocolate ganache-tortilla roll-ups: - Soft wheat flour tortilla - Spreadable goat's cheese (chevre would probably work as well) - Smoked salmon - Rocket/argula
- Balsamic vinegar or lemon juice - (gin)
The salmon was sliced thinly and brushed with gin and left in the fridge for 3-4 hrs (this made no noticeable difference, save your gin). Goat's cheese, ganache, salmon slices and rocket was spread on the tortilla. The tortillas were rolled and served with either balsamic vinegar or lemon juice for some acidity.
For cheese, I tried two different flavoured varieties: dill and juniper. Both worked, but I'd say that dill was a notch better, as juniper flavoured cheese together with juniper flavoured ganache and rocked gave a slightly too bitter overall experience.
Verdict: There was no real crash in this dish. However, the salmon and chocolate didn't go up into a higher unity either. The roll-ups do just as well without the chocolate, and in my opinion this means that the chocolate is redundant. The juniper in the ganache was ok, adding a slight bitterness together with the rocket. The acid (balsamic vinegar or lemon juice on the side) was necessary to balance the flavours.
Two different cheese-to-ganache ratios were tested, depending on the area covered by cheese/ganache on the tortilla. Ca. 60:40 cheese:ganache resulted in the chocolate flavour dominating the cheese (but not the salmon). Using less ganache (ca. 80:20 cheese:choc) resulted in just a hint of chocolate.
By the way... when first seeing this month's combination, my thoughts went to the wonderful comic character GastonLagaffe created by ingenious Belgian AndréFranquin (in Norway, Gaston goes by the name Viggo). Among Gaston's numerous distinctive features is his inherent need for experimenting with explosives and food, and often you wouldn't notice the difference. His favourite office-made dish is chocolate glazed herring (fresh or as kippers). To most of Gaston's readers, this probably sounds like a horrific combination, and I guess that was Franquin's motive. Such an irony then, that Franquin's countrymen at foodpairing.be now indicate that sardines and cocoa/chocolate might indeed be a good match!
Facsimile from a Norwegian Gaston album. Copyright probably the publisher Semic (Egmont), but believed being covered by fair use.
Yes, I know. I'm six years late to be among the cool guys, but who cares? To me it's all about having fun and learning, and then being late is no issue.
As far as I know, spherification and it's related methods were introduced by El Bulli chef FerranAdrià et al. some time after the turn of century. I has got a lot of attention, and a You Tube search on the term gives quite a few hits on demonstrations of DIY spherification.
The phenomenon is based on using hydrocolloids, that is compounds that can generate gels, mostly with water but other media are also know (oils and alcohol mixtures, that is). A good place to start is Martin Lersch's hydrocolloid recipe collection "Texture". A number of different gelling agents are being used, the most common household substances being gelatin and fruit pectin, the latter often used when making jams and jellies.
In this case I got my hands on some sodium alginate that I wanted to play with. When a mixture containing sodium alginate comes in contact with a calcium solution, the alginate starts to cross-link and a gel is formed. In this case, dripping a alginate-containing solution into calcium chloride generates small beads that are gelatinous on the surface and liquid in the centre. Alginate is somewhat sensitive to the pH, and sodium citrate might be used as a buffer to stabilise the pH at ca. 4-5 (all this information is found in the Textures recipe collection).
Sodium alginate is a polymeric carbohydrate-like compound which is soluble in water. When it reacts with calcium ions, cross-links are formed giving large three dimensional webs that become viscous/gel-like and holds water.
Strawberry spheres in sparkling drink (for lava lamp effect) (Sparkling Chardonnay or non alcoholic cider are both fine)
Equipment (immersion) blender scale (0.1 g precision is needed) some general kitchenware disposable plastic pipette (7 ml) or plastic syringe (10-20 ml) (pH strips)
Ingredients frozen and thawed strawberries, 200 g sugar, 25 g sodium alginate, 1.9 g sodium citrate1, 2 g calcium chloride2, 2.5-4 g water, 500 ml Sparkling Chardonnay or non-alcoholic drink (i.e. apple cider)
Procedure (see You Tube for informative demonstrations) For template, the recipe for Melon cantaloupe caviar taken from El Bulli's texturas recipes: The strawberries were blended and mixed with the sugar. pH measured to be ca. 3 (somewhat uncertain since the berries gave some colour to the strips). Sodium citrate was added gradually, stopping at a total of 2 g to get a pH of ca. 4-5.1 Sodium alginate was added and blended (the alginate partially turned into lumps; should have added the alginate to a small portion, mixed this, and then added the rest. Lots of blending did the trick). The mixture was strained through a sieve. For easier dripping (see below), the mixture was diluted 1:1 with water (the initial strawberry mixture was rather viscous, resulting in oblong or drop-shaped "caviars"). This would of course affect gelation, hence the amounts here are deduced on a try-and-fail basis.
Calcium chloride was dissolved in the water. The strawberry mixture was dripped into the calcium chloride solution, the drops forming small strawberry beads, and left for 1/2 to 1 minute.3 The beads were strained, rinsed in water and added to the sparkling wine or cider.
(Tri)sodium citrate functions as a buffer due to its three carboxylic acid functional groups.
Verdict The strawberry beads/spheres/caviars tasted good, no detectable flavour from the matrix. Simply strawberry. While mixing, the strawberries turned somewhat greyish. Not surprising, since the colour is an anthocyanin pigment (anthocyanin colours are pH dependent, often bright red in acidic environment and more on the green/blue side in basic conditions).
The reason for using Chardonnay was simply that I found Chardonnay to match well with strawberries at the food pairing database, and that this might be a fun aperitif (although I would maybe not spend money on an expensive wine and then put strawberry in it).
What might be taught
chemical reactions might occur between chemical compounds
experimental and cooking skills (weighing exact amounts, diluting etc.)
dispersions: gels (hydrocolloids) and macromolecules
pH, acidity and buffers (citrate)
density (the beads float up together with the CO2 bubbles, and sink when the bubbles burst)
The procedure is somewhat complicated, and I'm glad I didn't bring the kids the first time. When the table was set, and the solutions were ready, the kids loved dripping the solution making beads. Now I've got some experience, and next time I'll bring them along from the beginning.
Notes/comments 1 It was difficult to assess the pH correctly, and the amounts of sodium citrate suggested in the textures recipe collection did not (seemingly) have the desired effect. Hence, citrate was added until the desired pH, adding up to 2 g. 2 The CaCl2 must be dry/dehydrated. In my case, it had absorbed moisture from the air and gone all wet (quite hygroscopic). It was in left in shallow bowls in the oven at 150-200 °C stirring occasionally. A couple of hours later, a white crystalline/powdery salt was left. 3 Using 2.5 g CaCl2 per 500 ml water and leaving the beads 30 seconds in the bath resulted in rather soft beads. Leaving them for one minute gave beads that were solid almost throughout. I wanted firmer beads with a soft interior. Increasing the concentration to 4 g CaCl2 per 500 ml water did the trick: firm shell, and liquid interior when the beads were left in the bath for somewhat less than a minute. References McGee, H.: McGee on Food and Cooking. London: Hodder and Stoughton 2004. Lersch, M.: Hydrocolloid recipe collection
The term Molecular gastronomy has been debated quite heavily the few last years, and several prominent chefs and writers have denounced the term. What's in a name?
An interesting post on the development and applications of molecular gastronomy (MG), both as a term, but also as a phenomenon at Martin's khymos. Most of the relevant links are found in that post as well. Also, many of the comments are relevant and interesting, making the post more complete.
Has MG reached a point of matureness in the sense that it might have some real impact on peoples cooking in general? As mentioned in Martin's post, it has already to a certain extent, such as sous-vide cooking. However, some of the more spectacular applications (foams, alginate spheres etc.) combined with misuse of the term in media has resulted in the term being discredited. In my opinion, the name is not the main thing (although its ok to avoid misunderstandings and establish a common ground languagewise as well). I'll continue using the term until a better alternative gets the main foothold.
"Iberico on window pane". Photo: Naturlegvis/Erlend Krumsvik
However, I'd be somewhat surprised if we don't see more of the results from MG/research reaching a general public soon. Hopefully, some of the "less spectacular" but more "relevant" or "useful" knowledge might hit the domestic kitchens in not too long. The real test for me is: is this knowledge so relevant to the everyday citizen that I should teach this to my preservice teacher students attending our Food & health courses? A few examples from the top of my head:
Alginate/hydrocolloid spheres (specifically)? No
Sous vide cooking? Yes if the focus lies on the method rather than specialty equipment
Application of knowledge about maillard reactions? Yes/probably
Application of knowledge about umami taste? Probably
Dispersions in food and everyday life (twoposts)? Yes
Among the more recent and interesting examples is the 2007 Mottram et al. (incl. Heston Blumenthal) article on tomato pulp being more rich on umami taste than the flesh (short RSC chemistryworld article free of charge). When dealing with tomatoes, many cookbooks and recipes tell you to remove the pulp and use the flesh of the tomato only. However, Mottram's results indicate that the pulp and seeds carry lots of wonderful umami taste, and hence it'd be a shame to throw that away. Heston Blumenthal demonstrates this in one of his BBC In search of perfection episodes, more specifically making tomato sauce in "The perfect hamburger" episode. Also, tomato sauce figures among the freely available Blumenthal BBC videos.
Many cookbook recipes might be rewritten just slightly to incorporate this knowledge, giving more flavourful dishes. Furthermore, this knowledge is something that the domestic cook might adopt rather easily. I'd be really happy to see something like this making it into the domestic kitchens around. In that case, MG (or whatever one prefers to call it) does indeed have had an impact. References (not comprehensive) Ubbink, J. et al.: "Molecular gastronomy: a food fad or science supporting innovative cuisine?", Trends in Food Science & Technology, 2008, 19, 372-382
Thorvald Pedersen has been writing about food and cooking from a scientific perspective for years (mostly in Danish as far as I know), probably well before the term molecular gastronomy gained much attention.
Now he's published his third book on the subject and has dared to use the debated and, according to some, oft misunderstood and misused name Molecular gastronomy. In fact, Pedersen has suggested his own definition of the term, being different from Hervé This' and Harold McGee's:
Pedersen: "The science of choosing, preparing and eating good food"
This: "The scientific discipline that looks for the mechanisms of culinary transformations and processes, from a chemical and physical point of view"
McGee (1 and 2): "The scientific study of deliciousness"
This debate has been running on the MG mailing list also, by the way.
Anyhow, the book has been out for a few months and I got it for present. I've always loved reading Pedersen because he's got this way of making everything warm and cosy, very Danish in a way (Danes seem to be far more relaxed and life-enjoying than us Norwegians, or Swedes for that sake). Reading his books and articles are almost like having one's grandfather telling stories. For that reason, I think Pedersen is even more enjoyable to read than This and McGee language-wise. He seems more relaxed somehow, maybe because he has nothing to prove, being a professoremeritus in chemistry.
The book is shorter than his previous books "Kemikeren i køkkenet" (Chemist in the Kitchen), a collection of his articles in the Danish magazine Dansk Kemi (Danish Chemistry) and "Kemien bag gastronomien" (The Chemistry Behind the Gastronomy) which is more of a textbook in food/cooking science or molecular gastronomy.
"Molekylær gastronomi" is divided based on short articles into two main parts (following the introduction):
The preparations. Articles on various foods (not dishes); carrots, potatoes, onions, fish, meat. Each article has one or two recipes, mainly taken from classic(?) cookbooks , exemplifying the main point in the article
The meal: starting off with an article on flavour and goes on to describing three meals of increasing complexity, from outdoor cooking during his time as boy scout, to a tasting menu at the fat duck
Also, the book is scattered with 27 small boxes on various themes such as plant cell structure, starch, how to identify fresh fish, colours in food, viscosity etc.
In terms of what he writes, most of the results refer to McGee and a few other sources, including his regular food column in Dansk Kemi (the Danish research on gourmet salting for juicy and tender meat is especially interesting, and I've planned to write a post on this). Hence, if you've read McGee, there are not many new astounding discoveries.
One interesting thing is how he uses the tables of nutrients given the various foods. Most commonly people use such tables looking for amount of sugar, fat, whether a food contains gluten etc., that is health purposes. Pedersen however, uses this information for cooking purposes, and he gives the relative amounts of nutrients by dry weight as well. This is really useful, because various foods are easier to compare. One example is looking for amount of starch in different sorts of potatoes, which might have different percentage amount of water. Given values by dry weight makes it much easier to compare (there seems to be something wrong in the potato tables however, as the amount of nutrients add up to more than 100%).
In my opinion, the book is worth buying just for the sheer enjoyment of reading it. Also, I warmly recommend his food column "Kemikeren i køkkenet" in Dansk Kemi, mentioned above, freely downloadable (single pdf files).
Matmolekyler published last month an incredibly easy and straightforward experiment for illustrating the phenomenon of odour adaptation.
Adaptation is the phenomenon in which you stop noticing an odour/aroma when you've been subjected to it for a while. This is, amongst other, used as a motive for varying aroma components throughout a meal. Have a look at "Jullovsexperiment: Hacka ditt luktsinne" (Google translated version: "Christmas holiday experiment: Hack your sense of smell"). In this case, Malin Sandström, proposes to use coffee and cinnamon.
I'm on constant search for experiments that give personal experiences with food and science. In my eyes, the sheer ease of this experiment is maybe the greatest advantage, making it very acessable for anyone wanting to experiment with these phenomena.
Heston Blumenthal and Peter Barham have also described this in one of their Kitchen Chemistry episodes (Discovery channel):
"Our brains, it seems, respond much more to changes in which molecules are in the nose and mouth than they do to what is actually there, for example - if you chew a piece of gum, the flavour will disappear after a few minutes, as your brain gets "bored" by the aroma in the nose - but there is virtually no reduction in the amount of flavour molecules in the nose. However, if you simply change the input from your tongue, by, for example - taking a sip of sweetened water - the full flavour will be instantly restored"
(Experience that flavour experience is both taste and aroma)
Post-comment I tested the experiment with our students and it worked perfectly! The student with the cinnamon even commented: "the odour fades away while I'm smelling it". Great fun. A colleague has been doing this experiment for several years using (synthetic) almond and rum essences. However, the intensities of these are somewhat uneven, and one swamps the other. Coffee and cinnamon works perfectly :)
It's time to sum up the entered dishes for They go really well together #13. From the entries, it seems like caraway and cocoa/chocolate indeed do go well together.
However, for starters it should be mentioned that this combination has been discussed on khymos at several instances already. Also, I was made aware of the fact that pumpernickel contains both of these, see discussion and links at Medellitin.
What fascinates me with this month's entries is that you can literally build a whole multi-course meal on caraway and cocoa (in order of submission):
Caraway cocoa chili by Brian at The Food Geek [...] the chili turned out great, [...]all the flavors were balanced quite well. I could certainly taste the caraway, [...] and it definitely adds a new note to the chili. Probably some sesame would have rounded it out nicely.
Caraway chocolate cake by M [...] mixed 150 gram self raising flour, 1 tablespoon cocoa, 1 teaspoon caraway fruits, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 150 gram brown sugar, 75 gram walnuts, 75 gram pine nuts, 75 gram raisins and 75 gram chopped chocolate. I added 300 gram Turkish yoghurt, mixed everything gentle but thoroughly, spooned the mixture into a silicon cake pan and baked the cake in a preheated oven, 170 degrees Celsius, for about 75 minutes. Caraway cocoa egg cream by Rob at The Curious Blogquat I was able to get the caraway flavor to stick with the chocolate [...] The chocolate is already subdued in an egg cream due to the seltzer, so it was nicely balanced with the caraway. We both enjoyed the drink and found it to be a nice pairing. [...] Interestingly I wouldn't do this combination again, but only because its a bit too "normal" for my liking. It was too good together, and not enough "wow" factor. Chocolate cookies with caraway by Martin at Khymos In the stripped down version with only cocoa, caraway and some bitter lemon peel there you first notice the cocoa, then there is an aftertaste of caraway. I like caraway, so I was very pleased with the result. [...] Anyhow I think the 10:1 ratio of cocoa to caraway worked very fine. [...] With all the other spices present I wasn’t able to single out the caraway flavor, but it (probably) added to the overall complexity. I really recommend the recipe - even if you decide to omit caraway! Chocolate-caraway mousse/caraway caramel tree surrounded by coconut water gelee pond, white chocolate-caraway-rye bread puree and dehydrated chocolate mousse rock (!) by Larry at tri-2-cook I like the flavor combo. It's not a powerful statement and it wasn't particularly easy to keep the caraway at the top of the flavor profile with the chocolate but they really do "go well together". Fun stuff. Chocolate - caraway - peanut - Kumquat dessert by Sølve at strezzafoods I was quite happy with the result. A rich creamy dessert, and the caraway brought a spicy dimension that was both new but also very harmonious. The kumquat added much needed acid and bitterness. All in all a very different and amusing dessert, almost savory with nuts, spice, bitter chocolate and salt. Beignets with Duck, caraway-chocolate and juniper sauce by Alessio (alessiofangano [at] msn.com)
For 15 beignets: 15 Beignets 245 g Duck breast 40 g dark chocolate (60%) 1 tsp Caraway 100 g Butter 60 ml Red Wine like Shiraz 5 Juniper berries ½ tbsp Sugar 0.5 g Guar gum
Put the red wine with the juniper berries in a small saucepan and reduce over low heat with the lid on. When reduced of half, add the sugar and let simmer for some minutes. Strain trough a fine sieve and add guar gum while still warm. Brown butter on a skillet over medium fire. Strain and reserve. Grind caraway seeds in a mortar or spice grinder. Melt chocolate, caraway powder and 1 tsp of brown butter over a bain marie. Pour it on a shallow container so that the chocolate layer will be around 4mm thick. Let cool down at room temperature, unmold and cut into cubes. Refrigerate until ready to use. Take away the skin from the duck breast. Cut the meat in small dices. Render the duck skin in a warm skillet under a weight, drained the excess fat from time to time. Put the brown butter on a pan and when well warm, sauté rapidly the duck dices. Mix duck and chocolate dices in a bowl. Open in two the beignets, put in the lower part some of the duck chocolate mixture. Spoon over a teaspoon of the red wine sauce. Grind over some black pepper and close with the upper part and serve. Verdict: When eating the beignet, the first aroma to be perceived is that of the juniper. The crunchiness of the beignet is followed by the juiciness of the duck meat and the barely melting chocolate with its caraway notes. In the whole the dish works very well, the tricky part is in the lightness of the beignet. The flavors come out very harmoniously and fulfilling. Chocolate and caraway are a perfect combination especially with red meat or game. Chocolate sauerkraut by Ole Eivind at Helt naturlig As the sauce coated the cabbage shreds, the initial taste was very chocolatey with a nice caraway aftertaste. I could clearly taste that the two ingredients go really well together. The texture wasn't too bad either, but I wouldn't call the dish a success. The cabbage itself didn't work well, and for a dish consisting of little more, having the cabbage work against you can't be described as much other than a failure. It was an interesting failure however [...] Almond-caraway coated chocolate truffles by yours truly at fooducation Firstly, a burst of crunchy, salt, roasted almonds followed by rich, dark chocolate. Second, while the chocolate melts and the cocoa flavour still dominates, the caraway comes through and lingers on together with the chocolate. [...] the chocolate and caraway work very well together. Some comments on caraway aroma and flavour pairing with cocoa Interestingly (at least to those of us with chemistry-oriented brains), the compound responsible for the intrinsic caraway aroma is (S)-carvone. The other stereoisomer, (R)-carvone, has a spearmint aroma. A striking example of the effect of chirality/handedness in chemistry: the two compounds are identical apart from the fact that they're mirror images, resulting in very different aromas.
(S)-carvone is also an important aroma component in dill seeds, and caraway is suggested to function as substitute for dill aroma (R. Zawirska-Wojtasiak: "Oils obtained from caraway and dill seeds are almost identical in composition").
(S)-carvone (left) has caraway aroma whereas (R)-carvone on the right smells of spearmint
Aroma components in caraway Surprisingly, I could not find any literature reports on aroma components in caraway, but The Good Scents Company has listed aroma components for both caraway and chocolate/cocoa:
Also, Flavornet has information on flavour components in caraway, only including carvone and carveol isomers, though. Compared to chocolate and cocoa, caraway seems to be a relatively uncomplicated mixture of aromatic substances. Is this possibly due to roasting of the cocoa beans resulting in very complex mixtures of aroma substances in these (from Maillard reactions etc.)?
I was quite surprised when I didn't find any direct matches between caraway and cocoa/chocolate. Maybe are any common substances in low concentrations? A caraway+cocoa google cross-search at The good Scents company returns a lot of hits, but none(?) with natural occurrence in both ingredients. The matches are mostly in the "odor and/or flavor blends with" category. This is of course uplifting, but gives no definite answers in terms of common components. If anyone can come up with such matches, I'd be happy to have a comment.
Finally, I can't resist taking a somewhat amusing detour by the 1927 Nature articleFluctuations in Affective Reactions to the Odour of Caraway Oil by J. H. Kenneth:
"Fluctuations in the affective reactions to caraway oil claimed attention [...the preference being] higher after lunch than that before. In the case of camphor, rosemary oil, menthol, sassafras oil, fennel oil, and a few other odours, no consistent fluctuations of this nature wore [sic] observed."
So, according to Nature, it's not indifferent what time of day you have your caraway. The paper also includes a plot of preference of caraway odour vs. time of day and moon phases :)
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