DIY
KITCHEN
MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY
Spherify your food for a new culinary
experience. By Michael Zbyszynski
There is a movement in the cooking world called
Molecular Gastronomy. The term was coined by
Nicholas Kurti and Hervé This, and it has become
associated with chefs like Ferran Adrià at El Bulli
in Spain, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in
England, Wylie Dufresne at wd~ 50 in New York,
and Homaru Cantu at Moto in Chicago.
Photography by Henry Zbyszynski
Essentially, it involves applying scientific techniques
to the cooking process. One of the more interesting techniques is the use of common substances to
control the texture of foods, often in surprising ways.
You don’t need a chemistry lab to pull off such
effects. With a few inexpensive tools and chemicals, it’s possible to use spherification to make
all kinds of “caviar” (and other shapes) in your
own kitchen.
In this project, I’ll explain how to make a “
spherification array” that allows you to quickly create
many pieces of caviar. Next, I’ll show you how to
use it to make juice caviar and a molecular mojito.
Making a Spherification Array
Squirting the first dozen spheres out of a syringe
is pretty fun. But it’s somewhat time-consuming to
make a large amount of caviar with this method and
it’s impossible to leave all the spheres in the setting
bath for the same amount of time if it takes most of
a minute to squirt them all out. That was unacceptable to me, so I wanted a different solution.
I found a product called the EZ Pipette 96 that
is essentially a 96-headed syringe, made just for
this purpose. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend $50,
though, and then I saw a video on You Tube that
showed chefs in Tokyo making carrot caviar using
an array of syringes in an acrylic stand. That seemed
perfect, and easy to build.
Make: 149
