Arugula spaghetti: molecular cuisine number 2

I was bored on Sunday so this is the next recipe from the Molecular Cuisine set I purchased on thinkgeek.com.  The idea for arugula spaghetti is a simple one:

You start by placing 2 cups of arugula and some water in a blender to make an arugula shake.  Yummy.

Then you boil that mixture with some agar-agar for a few minutes and then you have the start of what you need.  The agar-agar, activates when it comes to a boil, just like corn starch, and will start to gel and thicken once it starts to cool down.  So, you take your tubing and your giant syringe and start going to work.

You fill the syringe with some of the hot mixture, then attach the tubing onto the syringe and then squeeze out into the tubes.  When they are filled, you carefully place them into a bowl of cold water, to 'cook'.

You have them 'cook' for about 3 minutes and then you take them out of the water.  I took a smaller syringe, not included, and stuck it right in one side of the tubing to push air through and push out the spaghetti into a white bowl.

I was a bit shocked on how easily it worked, or I just have a knack for these things.  The spaghetti tasted like raw arugula and while not a huge fan of the green, the procedure lends itself to other applications and use of other ingredients.  What about a citrus spaghetti or perhaps some fruit juice noodles?

My review of the Molecular Cusine Starter Kit, from ThinkGeek

So, ThinkGeek is offering something that looked so fun and fantastic that I had to get it. 
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/e71f/

This kit was $79.99 and came with a few things so that you can work your way through all 50 something recipes. 

The box with the "T" on it, is for the tools, like a slotted spoon, pipettes and some other fun stuff.  I have already made some caviar the regular way so I thought I would try their version of spherification would be fun because it would allow for a broad application.  I tried the ravioli recipe first and that meant that I was adding chemicals to drinkable yogurt and making medium sized spherical shapes in the bath to produce something as cool as below:

This is a strawberry flavored ravioli.  It was just as it was supposed to be.  The outside was a thin layer of gel as the inside was still liquid.  I think that the kit is great for those who want to get into Molecular Gastronomy or Molecular Cuisine and don't know how to get in.  The instructions are easy that someone new could get whatever they wanted out of this.  Be caution though: these type of recipes require patience and a keen eye for measurements.  If you are not strong in these virtues, find someone else to make this cool food. 

A short allegorical and metaphorical view of molecular gastronomy....

Wow, that title did it didn't it?  I'm sure if you told others what you were reading they would think you are super smart and you are because you are reading my blog.  Some people don't know what I do when I tell the about molecular gastronomy and a good way that I can describe it is this: when you go driving and you see some one's license plate that has a strange saying on it, you try to figure it out but sometimes it is difficult.  So you see a plate that says something like:

PRPLHRT

What could that be?  Well, if you play around with it, prep, preple, preplert?  Well, I made it to say "purple heart".  Do you see it now?

I think of this being a metaphor to molecular gastronomy because with the molecular gastronomy, you some are basically making something of different components that when together may not resemble but work just like the inspiration.  For instance: do you like BLT's?  What if you were offered a plate with two pieces of white toast, with mayo on the sides, a thick and juicy tomato, a crisp piece of lettuce and a few strips of bacon?  That is the traditional view of the BLT.  My take on molecular gastronomy has to do with the science of cooking a BLT and then challenges me to make something that tastes like that sandwich, but to me completely different.  My idea was to have an Asian soup spoon and inside of it place some bread crumbs.  On top of the bread crumbs would be some powdered bacon, then some lettuce foam and on top of the foam would be some tomato caviar.  Should it would look a lot different, but with each bite, you would taste something that tastes juts like a BLT sandwich.  That is molecular gastronomy to me.

So, try to do something different or make some sort of food different.  Make something that tastes the same but looks and feels different.

An imperfect sphere...

Ever since I saw an episode of Top Chef, in which the chef made some food into spheres, I was hooked, thinking it was the best way and a brand new method. After all this time I thought that food was cooked the way it was given, as in, the only way to change the texture of food was to do it by juicing it or mashing it. A carrot has the carrot texture unless you juice it or mash it then it has a liquid texture and mashed potato texture.

So, as great chefs like the ones at WD50 and El Bulli have shown us, using chemicals we can drastically change the texture of things. After reading a free downloadable book on textures and hyrocolloids, by Martin Lercsh, I was very interested in other hydrocolloids. Recipe upon recipe of spherification gave ideas for me to try. One of the recipes used olives and making olive juice and then dripping it into ice cold oil, making the spheres form there. A good idea and worked for the mixologist in the video, but not for me.

I did the next best thing, finding a place that sold a mixture of an unknown percentage of sugar and sodium alginate, I thought it was pure sodium alginate but was mistaken, I used it anyway, using twice as much as the recipe called for. I also bought some calcium chloride for use as well. The recipe had me taking a soda, boiling it a bit, then adding the sodium alginate, or in my case, adding a bunch of the mixture.

I let it cool so it would start to gel. I then mixed water and the calcium chloride and dripped the soda mixture into the water one.
Little spheres formed perfectly and floated to the bottom of the bowl.
I then poured the whole bowl over a sieve and collected the water in another bowl, underneath, to be used again. I rinsed the caviar off in water, then dipped in a separate bowl of clean water. When I had enough, I placed them in a white dish and thought they looked like caviar, my wife, the sushi lover, thought it looked like flying fish roe.
However, the taste wasn't what I had expected: The small balls of strawberry soda flavor, had a gummy shell but a juice on the inside, like a paintball. I rinsed them off multiple times but still, there was a salty or sour flavor afterwards, which could have come from the calcium chloride since it is a salt. I have read online that people say that it has no taste, but it clearly does. It was an interesting process and I am very happy to have done it, but this may not be something I would do many many times.

molecular gastronomy

Molecular gastronomy isn't a new term but it is new that you may have heard it. Originally known as the science of food and cooking, it has become a term for new science techniques applied to food. For example: while adding gelatin to foods and liquids is nothing new, it seems that using it in new ways is. In this video with Jamie Boudreau, he takes a simple liquid and adding gelatin to it, makes it a jelly-like consistency that when added to an oil, causes the item to come together and form balls or "caviar" that help make any dish new and exciting.
http://www.smallscreennetwork.com/video/26/molecular_mixology_aviation/#vcx_xocz9tdg4081

In this site, carrot caviar was made using a similar idea pattern but different solutions.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Carrot-Caviar/

A hydrocolloid is the term that describes gelatin es and things like agar or pectin that can tern a liquid into a solid or a jelly-like state. So, for any of you experimentalists out there, try playing with your food.