Workshop on hydrollcoids and Foodpairing

Some months ago we started again with our course on cooking and science. The last three weeks we've talked a lot on hydrocolloids. It was time to do some practice.

Following dishes were made last week and we used our new Foodpairing website (www.foodpairing.com) to create the recipes.

This dish was inspired on "The sound of sea" from Heston Blumenthal

Sea (mussel broth, iota), sand (tapiocamaltodextrine, miso oil, anchovies), clams, shrimps, mussels, different kind of algae, oyster leaves and foam of clams, fluid gel of lemon

Second dish was a deconstruction on a classic crab cocktail 

Cannelloni of crab and ketchup (mayonnaise + crab meat, tomato ketchup gel) tomato foam and croquant, grapefruit fluid gel, guacamole

Next was also a deconstruction: Fôret Noir

Chocolate flan, cherry crumble, cherry cream, cherry croquant, vanilla ice cream, Kirsch gel

Fourth recipe is a combination of two classic dishes (asparagus with orange and asparagus with smoked salmon) with a twist

Gnocchi of asparagus (made with kuzu), pickled asparagus, asparagus dashi, smoked salmon, orange fluid gel and fresh grounded coffee

As second dessert we made a recipe based on strawberry

Strawberry gel, strawberry/bell pepper cream, strawberry croquant (obulata with freeze dried strawberry and palatinose, basmati rice soup flavored with cardamom

Hydrocolloids in the kitchen

What are food hydrocolloids and what can we do with it in the kitchen?

Hydrocolloids or gums are waters dispersable products producing gels or viscous liquids.

There exist 2 different types of hydrocolloids: thickeners and gelling agents

Hydrocolloids disperse or “dissolve” in water. A hydrocolloid in solution can be compared with a strand where molecules of water are bound to. 

In a thickened product, these strands with bound water are moving separately and freely, which results in a product with fluid properties. In a gelled product, the strands are bound to eachother and form three dimensional network, in which the water molecules are kept. This product does not have fluid properties and is more like a solid.

In addition to their primary purpose of thickening and/or gelling, they often have secondary functions, such as emulsifier, whipping agent,… .

Gelatine for example produces a gel when cooled down. We can also use gelatine as an emulsifier (a gelatine based gel mixed with some oil gives a mayonnaise-like structure), a whipping agent (a whipped mixture with gelatine gives a marshmallow-like structure) or clarification agent (a stock lightly gelled with gelatine, frozen and defrosted gives a consommé).

In following examples the students made some dishes using different hydrocolloids.

Deconstruction of a crab cocktail: tomato paper, marshmallow of tomato, flexible gel of ketchup filled with crab mayonnaise, grapefruit fluid gel

Cod – aubergine/miso gnocchi – pork dashi – lemon zest

Deconstruction of a classic Foret Noir: chocolate flan, cherry crème, cherry crumble, cherry croquant, pâte de fruit of cream and Kirsh

Forest: chocolate/hazelnut espuma, chocolate powder, hazelnut powder, lemon merinque, pistachio/hazelnut sponge cake, cep ice cream, puffed quinoa

Deconstruction of a classic “Hutespot”: Brussels sprout sponge cake, pickled carrots, mustard sphere, leek mayonnaise, potato espuma, turnip, puffed pork fat, onion foam