Molecular Cuisine

For the first time, molecular cuisine , or molecular gastronomy , became known in 1992. Its founders are two outstanding scientists: chemist Herve Thies and nuclear physicist Nicholas Kurti. It all started with an interest in the physico-chemical aspects of food preparation, laboratory research and conducting seminars on the topic " Molecular and physical gastronomy ". In general, despite the bright term “ molecular gastronomy”, which was inserted into the seminar almost by accident, they dealt with quite traditional questions that have been of interest to cooks for at least the last two centuries: how to properly fry meat, exactly how protein molecules coagulate when cooking an omelette, etc. One of the first reports was called "The Fractal Structure of the Rum Woman". It was these annual seminars that ignited the interest of professional chefs in scientific problems and made them look differently at what happens in pots and pans. Two regular listeners of the seminars were Heston Blumenthal (English) and Ferran Adrià (Spanish), they started actively using Curti's work in their restaurants: Fat Dack and elBulli. As a result, the term " molecular cuisine "” thundered to the whole world. In 2006, Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adria and their American colleague Keller published the manifesto of the "New Kitchen", in which they renounced the term molecular , considering it incorrect. "We use all technical innovations, from liquid nitrogen and centrifuges to enzymes and sugar substitutes, but our kitchen is characterized not by this," the manifesto said, "but by the desire to create more and more perfect dishes." Chemists have been helping chefs for centuries, and the term ' molecular cuisine ' doesn't really explain anything." Nevertheless, the term has caught on. Branch of molecular gastronomycharacterized not so much by cooking in order to satisfy carnal needs and feed people from the belly, but in order to reassert cooking as an art. The main emphasis in molecular cuisine is the bright taste and pure aroma of the dish. Masters of molecular cuisine are somewhat like alchemists — their workplace is equipped with quite a lot of tools and devices that will cool, grind, mix, heat, measure temperature, mass, acid-base balance, filter, inject pressure and create vacuum. Cooks, in turn, can forget about pans and pots, their best friends in the field of molecular cuisinewill become a centrifuge, a vacuum evaporator, liquid nitrogen, dry ice, and even transglutaminase. Molecular master chefs will offer you a menu of more than 10 dishes, each of which will be a surprise for you, both in appearance and touch, but will give you unforgettable sensations. Here you will not see the usual soups, second courses and desserts, but you will be able to taste delicacies in the form of foam, gels and spheres.

Business card of molecular cuisinethere are espums — dishes in the form of foam. They best characterize her approach: it is an aromatic essence obtained in a difficult way. It is not burdened with excess fat. We can safely say that this is an expression of taste in its purest form. Ferran Adria first introduced espumas to the menu of his restaurants. And he was inspired by nothing else than the foam from fresh juice. Molecular foam can be obtained from anything — starting with meat and soups, and ending with fruits and desserts. For example, a classic dish that brought victory at the gastronomic summit to one of the chefs - Borodino bread with salt and sunflower oil in the form of espuma. The dish is an extremely delicate mousse that is served on a spoon. Its structure is barely perceptible, all that is felt is the extremely bright and familiar taste of a piece of bread doused in oil.

Gels and spheres

Experiments in the field of turning food into gel were actively carried out by companies involved in the mass production of food products at the beginning of the century. In addition to the well-known gelatin, in the 1950s alginates (salts of alginic acid, a viscous rubber-like substance obtained naturally from brown algae) were discovered. However, while food giants crystallized alginates to produce cheap jellies, Adria developed a system called “spherification”: he created gel spheres of various sizes, filled with edible substances, which literally exploded in the mouth with a fountain of concentrated pure taste. Similarly, in Soviet times, technologists produced artificial red and black caviar. The difference is that in molecular cuisinethese spheres are used as a trick, and they are filled with precious concentrates, the production of which usually takes tens of kilograms of products. Various gel-like substances are used both to prepare unusual jellies and to play with hot and cold: "Hot and Cold Tea" by Heston Blumenthal is made in such a way that at first the guest drinks cold tea, and somewhere in the middle of the drink, the tea suddenly becomes hot. Of course, these are not liquids - they would mix according to the laws of diffusion - but two gels of different densities, which visually and taste do not differ from ordinary black tea.

Transglutaminase

 This is a family of enzymes that allow you to "glue" muscle tissue — that is, to combine pieces of protein, say, fish or meat, into one mass. It is with the help of transglutaminase in the food industry that fake shrimp and crab sticks are made from surimi - ground and pressed fish mass. It is used in the production of Japanese buckwheat noodles, and in addition, the same enzymes take part in the blood clotting process. The enzyme was first isolated and studied in Japan in 1959, and now it is used not only for the production of crab sticks, but also in molecular cuisine restaurants . Despite the wild, from the traditionalist's point of view, history of use and unpleasant name, from transglutaminasethere is no harm. This is just a catalyst that does not directly take part in the cooking process itself, and it is not chemistry - it is obtained with the help of fermentation of living cells. In turn, food, in which enzymes play an important role, has been known to people for a long time - let's take soy sauce and miso soup as an example. The main popularizer of transglutaminase was Heston Blumenthal, advertising it to his colleagues as an ideal "meat glue" without side effects. Blumenthal himself prepared with her help an avant-garde fish sandwich, where he used a perfect-looking piece of mackerel, which was actually a fillet of mackerel glued together in the shape of a fish and bound with transglutaminase, made using the surimi technique.

Liquid nitrogen

Heston Blumenthal was the first to use liquid nitrogen in his kitchen. It is used for instant freezing of any substances. Thanks to the instant evaporation of nitrogen without any traces, there are no contraindications for its use in creating culinary masterpieces, and especially those that are prepared directly on the plates of guests. For example, one of the signature dishes of a molecular cuisine restaurantFat Duck is green tea and lime mousse in liquid nitrogen. In appearance, it is a ball of mousse served on a spoon, bathed in liquid nitrogen, sprinkled with powdered Japanese matcha tea and sprinkled with an essence of lime leaves, flowers and fruits. The density of the dish is close to meringue, but it instantly melts on the tongue, leaving a light and fresh feeling. This is a kind of perfect ice cream - without a drop of fat, but with a concentrated aroma. Blumenthal tried to make such a mousse in other ways, using various natural stabilizers, and was defeated - a mousse of the required lightness and tenderness was unstable and fell in less than a minute. Liquid nitrogen became a successful solution to the problem. It is interesting that, despite its obvious futurism, this method of cooking arose almost simultaneously with the discovery of liquid nitrogen.

Dry ice

Dry ice is much more affordable than liquid nitrogen. With its help, you can make the perfect ice cream. Ordinary home ice cream makers do not freeze the milk mixture very well (not fast enough) from which the ice cream is made, and as a result, quite large ice crystals form in it. Thanks to dry ice, the freezing process takes place in a very short time, so we get a perfectly smooth structure. Dry ice is carbon dioxide in its frozen form, which, when heated, immediately turns from a solid state into a gas: an effect that has long been used at rock concerts. When this smoke reaches the lungs, it causes a cough — the body's signal of danger. The same technique is used for the production of sparkling waters and sparkling wines. The smoke released when dry ice is heated sharpens not only the taste, but also all other sensations combined.molecular cuisine : if you pour a dry ice cube with a special aromatic substance mixed with water, you can envelop the guest with an aroma that can radically change the taste and sensation of food. For example, this is what Blumenthal does in his dish "Burning Sherbet" - the guest is enveloped in a fog with the smell of worn skin, a burning hearth and an old suburban house.

Rotary evaporator

A rotary evaporator is traditional chemical laboratory equipment for very delicate liquid evaporation. In the glass container, the pressure decreases, which leads to boiling water at lower temperatures, for example, 20 degrees. During this, the flask rotates, a thin film forms over the entire inner surface, which speeds up the evaporation process. The resulting steam is condensed in the coil — a valuable concentrate is obtained. All of this equipment is needed to capture the delicate aromas of a wide variety of foods and liquids that contain volatile essential oils. Thus, if we put fresh rosemary and water in a rotary evaporator, we will get a rosemary concentrate at the output, which cannot be obtained by traditional evaporation (since high temperature changes the rosemary aroma).

Centrifuge

It separates loose bodies and liquids of different weights using centrifugal force. Let's consider what we get by putting tomato juice in a centrifuge. At the exit, we will get three different substances. At the bottom we have a dense red sediment - cellulose, pectin and coloring pigments - essentially tomato paste obtained naturally. In the middle we have the pale yellow juice itself - a solution of acids, salts, sugars and aromatic compounds. And a thin film will form on top, which contains fats - nothing but a concentrated and pure tomato taste. Each of the substances can be used to obtain more subtle, aromatic and light sauces and components of dishes. The separation of fats also makes sauces and foams more stable, highlights their taste and aromatic qualities.

Sous vide vacuum cooking

Sous-vide- the name of a specific method of cooking in a water bath. Products are packed in vacuum bags and cooked for a long time in water at fairly low temperatures. The discovery of this method is attributed to the British physicist Count Rumford back in the 1700s and 1800s. However, he was given a new birth by chef Georges Pralus in the mid-1970s, working in the restaurant of the famous Troiagro brothers. Meat prepared using this technology is extremely soft, juicy and aromatic. In vacuum conditions, meat is perfectly marinated, and fruits and vegetables are characterized by a dense structure and rich taste, due to an unusual way of compressing their cells. For a successful result of sous-vide cooking, specialized water baths with thermostats are required, which are able to guarantee the same temperature (to the nearest tenth of a degree). In the beginning, experimenters used chemical baths, but over time they began to produce specialized water baths for restaurants molecular cuisine , as well as for home use.