What is molecular cuisine? Molecular cuisine. What is it, recipes for beginners, children at home Simple recipes for molecular cuisine at home

Ice cream flavored with mustard or scrambled eggs, orange flavored caviar, tea pasta, chocolate flavored fish, foamy green peas… What is science fiction? No, this is reality, and its name is molecular cuisine, a fashion trend in cooking.

All of the above "delicacies" are just a small part of what can be found in restaurants serving visitors with dishes of molecular cuisine. A hundred or two hundred years ago, chefs amazed guests by arranging sweet ice cream with sausage or vegetables, and today they make red caviar from pomegranate juice, and with jewelry precision, drop by drop ... from a pipette. This example is a culinary exotic, but it well reflects the nature of molecular cuisine - the search for new experiences, non-standard combinations of aromas, tastes and textures of dishes.

Shocking cooking. Author in the studio!

The emergence of the molecular approach in cooking was predetermined by advances in physics and chemistry, which could not but resonate in all areas of life. The progenitor of a new method of cooking was a certain Benjamin Thompson, who lived at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. But everything “spun” in the late 70s of the last century thanks to the efforts of the Hungarian physicist Nicolas Kurti and the French chemist Herve Tis. Hervé Thiess was occupied with such questions as determining the ideal temperature for boiling eggs or the influence of an electromagnetic field on the process of smoking fish. Together with a colleague in the shop - Nicholas Kurt - he introduced the term "molecular gastronomy".

"Molecular gastronomy" is a view of food not as whole foods, but as a collection of molecules that have specific physical and chemical properties that can be changed by chemical processes. "Breaking down into molecules" is the key to cooking exotic dishes.

The very term "molecular gastronomy" was interpreted quite broadly - as "a new field for physical and chemical experiments." Its main goals were the creation of new non-traditional dishes, the use of new devices and methods. A demonstrative, shocking break with traditional cooking methods seemed deliberate, but it was he who determined the style and success of the progressive direction.

In Search of the Perfect Taste

Molecular cuisine breaks radically with old ideas about cooking. Its goal is to achieve the perfect super taste - pure and refined, "distilled" and refined, technological and beautiful. Molecular cuisine is an appeal not so much to the stomach as to the mind and imagination.

Features of the molecular approach to dishes:

1. Forms. Traditional boiling, baking, frying - something ordinary, routine and boring - in molecular cooking are rediscovered, used consciously and purposefully. Chefs-physicists, chemists and biochemists conjure over obtaining new combinations of tastes and textures. The results are impressive: hard beer, foamy celery and caviar-shaped eggs can be found in one plate.

2. Toolkit. The decoration of such a kitchen does not look like a typical kitchen in a restaurant, where everyone is fussing, and something is constantly sizzling, gurgling and bursting with heat. There is no place for an abundance of pots, motley pans or braziers. Instead of traditional stoves, convection ones often appear. The aromas of some dishes are extracted and transferred to others using ultrasound. Siphons transform products into foam, while generators, lasers and all sorts of parascientific gadgets delight and amaze.

The goal of the creative creators of molecular cuisine is to surprise the consumer, to make his senses work more intensively, to give pleasure more than usual. The molecular chef does not hide the fact that he intends to impress you: “Food is not at all what you thought. Food is something you could think of if you let your imagination run wild.”

3. Technology. Methods of cooking in molecular cuisine are also far from traditional. For example, cooks fry fish ... on the water. This is possible due to the addition of special vegetable sugar to it, which raises the boiling point to 120 degrees.

Liquid nitrogen is in great use, because with its help at a temperature of minus 196 it is possible to freeze the product in a very short time so that the aromas and any valuable substances contained in it do not have time to disappear. Such a technique as very slow - many hours - baking at low temperatures is also common here.

4. Cooking time. The appearance of such dishes seems like magic, but in fact, molecular cuisine is much more laborious than traditional cuisine: the preparation of some dishes can take several days. In order to create, for example, cold beef tea with truffles, it takes 48 hours.

5. Proportions. Molecular cooking requires high precision. Just one drop more or less - and the dish may be spoiled. That is why many home amateur experiments end in failure.

6. Expensive. In addition to practical skills, molecular cuisine requires sacrifices in the form of serious financial costs. If liquid nitrogen costs a few euros, then a container for storing it, the so-called Dewar vessel, is already about 1000 euros, reagents used to play with texture will cost at least 20 euros, etc.

Molecular cuisine. Beef and chips

Pipette Dishes, or Spherification

Molecular cuisine may be associated with science fiction, but in reality it has little in common with science fiction. But the fantasies of those who do this, do not hold. Sometimes chefs create compositions so amazing that they can be safely called contemporary art installations and exhibited as exhibits in an art gallery.

Chefs make known tastes take on unexpected forms, like serving what we usually eat in solid form as a foam, serving hot jelly or caviar… from anything like watermelon or whiskey. Such caviar, the process of creation of which is called “spherification”, is a real hit, a classic of molecular cuisine. In fact, it is prepared simply: to the broth or a certain flavoring essence (for example, watermelon juice concentrate), you need to add a few grams of sodium alginate, and then pour this mixture drop by drop into water with the addition of calcium chloride. Drops of watermelon juice or meat broth at the same time turn into colored jelly-like balls that resemble capsules with vitamins A + E and taste like watermelon, ham, etc. The balls are hard on the outside, but soft in the middle and burst in the mouth - why not caviar!

Try to cook at home and master the technology of spherification:

Ice cream coffee, molecular version.

Who eats all this? Or about molecular cuisine restaurants

Scientists, albeit in chef's hats, are a special category, people not of this world, ready to devote all their time to experiments, sometimes of dubious practical significance. What about molecular cuisine? Who would like to taste its fruits, eat all these omelette-flavored caviar, mustard-flavored ice cream, meat-flavored foam and other culinary "delights"? It turns out there are many!

Molecular fashion trendsetter El Bulli

Today, restaurants serving molecular cuisine can be found almost all over the world, but there are very few truly famous ones. According to the employees of the most famous molecular restaurant El Bulli in Spain (Spanish Costa Brava), owned by the famous chef-physicist Ferran Adria, two million people want to become his customers every year. Meanwhile, he is able to cope with only 8 thousand people per season. Therefore, you need to book places here about a year in advance.

Maestro Ferran Adria, sorcerer and magician

The restaurant is open only for half a year, the second half of which Adria and his colleagues spend in the laboratory, developing new dishes to be served next season. Ferran Adrià and his team of chefs rely on science and artistic imagination to surprise with more and more complex dishes.

On the menu, you can see pasta that looks like whipped cream, olives in capsules, scrambled egg-flavored ice cream and marshmallow-shaped salmon steak, almond soup and asparagus bread.

Dinner at El Bulli is distinguished not only by the unique forms of dishes, but also by the way they are served. As a rule, 20-30 dishes are served, and each of them should fit on one spoon. All of them, as well as the wine, are pre-planned by the chef: the menu of dishes in the molecular cuisine restaurant provides a certain sequence of culinary experiences. Due to the long production process, it is not possible to select dishes on the spot. A little strange, but despite this, the Adria restaurant is considered the best in the world. The preparation of some dishes can take several days, which explains the lack of a choice of menus on the spot and a long wait for an order. And if the food is cooked slowly, it's hard to make it cheap. The bill at the El Bulli restaurant can reach both 300 and 3000 euros.

The right portion in molecular cuisine.

Ferran Adria calls his work "deconstructivist cooking". Its purpose is to reveal non-obvious connections, contrasting textures, aromas, tastes and temperatures. Food for a restaurant visitor should be a provocation and at the same time an amazing surprise. Adria often says that the ideal client comes to El Bull not to eat, but to experience new experiences.

One of his most famous dishes is cooking foam, which does not consist of eggs and cream, but only of the main component (for example, mushrooms, meat or sugar beets) treated with compressed nitric oxide. Adria made, among other things, almond cheese and asparagus bread.

I don't know what kind of dish it is, but it's very beautiful.

Eccentric The Fat Duck

Almost as famous as El Bull is Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck in Bray, England. The menu, for example, includes liquid almond gel, snail-flavoured oatmeal. The efforts of this adherent of molecular cuisine, invested in the development of national gastronomy, were appreciated by Queen Elizabeth herself, who awarded him the Order of the British Empire. Considered an eccentric, Heston Blumenthal is known for his innovative approach to gastronomy, dubbed culinary alchemy. It uses, above all, very slow cooking, low temperatures, vacuum vessels. Blumenthal was the first to focus on the perception of food by all senses simultaneously. Among the dishes served at his restaurant are bacon-and-egg-flavoured ice cream, and black olive purée that smells like the interior of a new car.

Beet-carrot salad with rosemary foam

Culinary Alchemist Pierre Gagnère

Another recognized master in this field is Pierre Gagnère, a famous French chef who has worked in restaurants in Paris and Leon for 10 years. His Parisian restaurant in 2008 was ranked 3rd in the ranking of the 50 best restaurants in the world according to the British magazine Restaurant Magazine UK. In March 2010, he opened his first restaurant in Tokyo. Gagnier collaborates with physicist-chemist Hervé Thies, and together they pursue their passion for creating gourmet dishes. El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, offers earthy and sea foam-scented mousse and cakes scented with Gucci Envy perfume.

Egg serving method

Cold green tea with mint cubes and lime

Is molecular cuisine healthy?

“Take xanthan gum, 10 grams of sodium alginate, 5 grams of calcium chloride ...” - so begins one of the avant-garde recipes from one of the most fashionable chefs in the kitchen of the 21st century. It sounds, you see, a little intimidating and unappetizing. The fact that there are many hunters to taste familiar tastes in a new guise is not surprising: as they say, curiosity is not a vice. But is it possible to eat such dishes every day (the question of how much it will cost, we will leave behind the scenes), without harming your health?

For many, the chemical and physical processes used in molecular laboratories are associated with something artificial, modified and unhealthy. However, those who think that they are dealing with unhealthy food stuffed with artificial substances are mistaken. Molecular cuisine is not based on the addition of countless "foreign" substances to products - odor and taste enhancers, dyes and preservatives (the presence of which sins almost everything that lies on store shelves today). The substances used to prepare molecular food are completely natural chemical compounds and natural ingredients, and 100% natural.

Submit your label!

For example, a liquid nitrogen used to freeze food. Liquid nitrogen vapor looks impressive, but nothing is more natural: the air we breathe is almost 80% of this gas. mentioned above sodium alginate is a completely natural substance that is obtained from kelp algae, and its symbol - E 401 - can be found on the labels of, for example, jams, since it compacts and stabilizes. It's also - though it doesn't sound so appetizing - it's the main ingredient in denture adhesives. BUT calcium chloride(E509) is a variant of salt, which is added as a binder to powdered milk, to ripening cheeses, and in winter is used to sprinkle the streets. Molecular chefs are happy to add to dishes soy lecithin or various sugars, seaweed extracts that change the texture of food.

It reminds me of something...from Harry Potter...

You should not think that this is caviar or fish eyes. And it's not green pasta. But also edible.

The method of cooking is also evidence that molecular cuisine is a healthy cuisine. An example is at least dishes prepared by vacuuming. So, the fish is placed in a foil bag, the air is sucked off and boiled in water at a temperature of 62 degrees for 20 minutes. The result is a dish with a natural taste and appearance, while full of nutrients. Thus, in all these processes there is nothing supernatural, truly revolutionary, which we should really be afraid of, especially if we keep in mind the dominance of all kinds of "chemistry" on our tables and in everyday life in general.

How does eating these molecular monsters affect our health?

Pampering or the bright future of cooking?

The fruits of molecular gastronomy are shocking and leave no one indifferent. Many adherents of traditional cooking consider them a shame for true cuisine, but there are enough supporters of the "molecular" one. Adepts of new culinary technologies explain that their technology's attraction lies in the more perfect processing of components. They claim that vacuum-sealed rabbit meat cooked for more than 30 hours at 65 degrees is much tastier than just stew. The same can be said about ice cream frozen with liquid nitrogen at temperatures below 190 degrees. Rapid and abrupt freezing leads to the fact that ice crystals are formed much thinner than the usual ones that occur during slow cooling. Consequently, ice cream has a more uniform, creamy texture. Ice cream no longer needs to contain heavy cream, because even Coca-Cola chilled with liquid nitrogen with the addition of xanthan gum (a component that maintains a constant viscosity and elasticity regardless of temperature) has the consistency of cake cream.

The creators of molecular cuisine consider it the kitchen of the future. And yet the chances of it becoming commonplace - at least in the foreseeable future - are slim. Molecular gastronomy, most likely, will not go to the masses, if only because self-cooking can be too troublesome. This is a kitchen for snobs and it looks like it is destined to remain only an object of culinary curiosity. So far, prices are prohibitively high, and the waiting time for dishes is so long that, abandoning the usual cuisine, you can easily die of hunger.

And some more molecular art

And those flowers...

Edible installation in a bowl

chocolate sphere

• Molecular kitchen set;
• Half a glass of lemon juice, water;
• Soy lecithin three teaspoons.

• Complexity: light

Cooking

First. Mix water and juice.
Second. Add lecithin, beat with a mixer.
Third. The resulting foam is used as decoration.

Above was shown a recipe for molecular cuisine - a foam cloud. Let's introduce you to the concept.

What is molecular cuisine? This is a trendy culinary trend. Cooking is based on physical and chemical concepts. In search of an unusual, new taste. Products are frozen, treated with liquid nitrogen, vacuum and pressure are used.

In a restaurant or cafe, the menu of molecular cuisine has honey or chocolate caviar, a mango sphere, molecular ice cream and much more. Unfortunately, there are few establishments that can offer to try molecular cuisine. Not every chef can create such a dish.

In the restaurant of molecular cuisine, the master will arrange a presentation of the selected delicacy. The cost of one portion in the menu of molecular cuisine is expensive. But for those who want to follow the new fashion trends in cooking, prices are not a hindrance.

Molecular cuisine training is gaining popularity. There are more people who want to learn culinary masterpieces on their own. For all beginners, the courses will teach knowledge, special skills and techniques of creation. The master will explain unusual ways of processing products, talk about additives. He will tell you what dishes should be, list the necessary equipment for molecular cuisine.

Molecular cuisine at home

After the baggage of knowledge has been collected. Molecular cuisine at home will become a reality. It will be necessary to buy utensils, additives and equipment in the molecular cuisine store. The average price of a set is about 1500 rubles without additives.

Molecular cuisine recipes with photos will help a beginner prepare a foamy cloud of lemon, carrot caviar, arugula spaghetti.

carrot caviar

Would need

• Sodium alginate and calcium chloride for half a teaspoon;
• Cold water two and a half glasses;
• Three medium carrots;
• Fresh ginger three cm.

1. First. Peel, cut carrots with ginger.
2. Second. I use a blender to make puree.
3. Third. Add water to the mixture until the volume is one glass. Mix, strain.
4. Fourth . Remove the strained mass in the cold for an hour. Then add sodium alginate and mix gently.
5. Fifth. Transfer the mass to a plastic jar. Make a hole in the lid with a diameter of caviar.
6. Sixth. Dilute calcium chloride in two glasses of ice water.
7. Seventh. Squeeze the puree into the water one drop at a time. Put the resulting caviar on a paper towel. Dry off moisture.

emerald spaghetti

Would need

• Half a glass of water;
• Arugula and a half glasses;
• Two grams of agar-agar;
• Special syringe.

1. First. Prepare puree from arugula and water using a blender.
2. Second. In a saucepan with a thick bottom, mix the mass with agar. Stir, bring to a boil.
3. Third. Transfer the puree to a bowl. Draw it into a syringe, squeeze it into a tube.
4. Fourth. Disconnect the tube and cool in cold water for three minutes.
5. Fifth. Draw air into the syringe. Attach to the tube and release the air. Squeeze spaghetti carefully.

Check out the video for another recipe.

You can draw new ideas by visiting the show of molecular cuisine. At holidays and family gatherings, homemade molecular cuisine will surprise everyone and delight with new discoveries.

For a person who is not accustomed to culinary delights, molecular cuisine will seem like something out of the ordinary. This is not surprising: a room equipped with unknown instruments, flasks and test tubes will seem more like a chemical laboratory than a kitchen. Such an environment reigns in the territory of a chef who advocates a scientific approach to cooking, because he is not only a culinary specialist, but also a chemist, physicist and biologist. Adherents of molecular cuisine argue that the use of knowledge about the chemical and physical properties of the product will allow you to create the most healthy dish with impeccable taste.

We have selected some amazing examples that demonstrate the magical possibilities of molecular cuisine.

1. Tomato soup

Research by scientists in the field of ingredients that can turn food into gel has led to the widespread use of the substance agar-agar. Thanks to this ingredient, our usual soup acquires a completely new texture. Without tasting the dish, you will never guess that you have a soup turned into spaghetti. However, the taste of all products is revealed in the mouth, and everything falls into place.

2. Forest haze

One of the commonly used appliances in molecular cuisine is the smoke gun. With this help, you can give the dish the smell of a fire and the taste of “smoke”. Anything can be smoked in this way: fruits, tea, cigars, ice cream or flowers. In many restaurants, a show is created from this process, and the smoking takes place in front of the visitors within a few seconds. One of these dishes is shown in the photo: cold-smoked salmon with vegetables and forest products, served on a wooden slice.

3. Raspberry caviar with strawberry foam and caramel

Such an unusual interpretation of a fruit dessert cannot but surprise. Often, molecular cuisine chefs use whipping products into foam - an essence that has the strongest natural aroma. At first glance, it may seem that the foam does not play a special role in the dish, but it is not. There was a case when a visitor to a molecular cuisine restaurant ordered a nondescript white foam, but after tasting it, he felt the aroma of fresh rye bread and the rich taste of a sandwich with butter. This or that detail cannot be underestimated, as how all the ingredients of a dish take the right place in a strictly measured amount. Foam can be created from almost anything, including strawberries.

4. Herring under a fur coat

Molecular cuisine is not only unexpected flavor combinations, but also the most common dishes known to all people. For example, the famous New Year's salad with herring fits perfectly into the list of the most delicious dishes of molecular cuisine. The salad differs only in an interesting presentation: all the ingredients are collected in the form of Japanese rolls, served with beetroot sauce. People who have tried the salad in this form claim that when chewing all the ingredients in the mouth, the taste of the well-known salad is recreated.

5. Pumpkin and Banana Pie

This dish is clearly not associated with the usual perception of the pie. Looking at it, it is difficult to guess what products and how were used for cooking. This is the case when the appearance of the dish does not meet the taste expectations at all. In your plate, a substance that looks like ice cream, but once in your mouth, it turns into a real pumpkin pie.

6. Dessert for breakfast

One of the tasks of molecular cuisine is to surprise the client. When you get bacon and eggs for breakfast, don't rush to add salt or pepper. In this case, despite the appearance of the dish, the plate contains vanilla yogurt, mango and chocolate. Such an unusual tandem of picture and taste leaves an unforgettable impression.

7. Vinaigrette

Another interpretation of the well-known vegetable salad. In it, beets appear in the form of jelly, a mixture of vegetables - in the form of foam, and an emulsion serves as a dressing for the dish. Thanks to research in the field of mixing water with fats, the consistency of the sauce and the whole dish is stabilized, maintaining a perfect appearance until the last bite is eaten.

8. Black pudding soup

In molecular cuisine, the foodpairing method is widely known. Its main principle is the combination of products according to their common aromatic components. For example, not based on the usual gastronomic combinations, they created a soup of black pudding and pumpkin. Its texture is more like a piece of meat. But the dish is juicy, rich and leaves an aftertaste of freshly eaten soup.

9. Carrot air and tangerine granite

The chef of molecular cuisine is able to enclose liquid in a sphere, turn ice cream into powder, combine many ingredients into a homogeneous jelly. Particularly impressed by molecular cuisine, people claim that the foam in this dish is light, like air, with the aroma and taste of fresh carrots. A tangerine, despite the firm texture on the outside, juicy and soft inside.

10. Radishes in creamy sauce

For lovers of fresh vegetables, scientists have invented a dish that is served directly in a pot of earth. To eat a radish, restaurant visitors will literally have to pull it out of the edible earth and dip it in a creamy sauce. Earth can be made from whatever the cook can think of, as molecular cuisine can turn almost any ingredient into edible soil.

With all the components of the dish, each person can turn their own kitchen into a molecular one. The Internet contains not only recipes, but also tips from famous chefs, as well as many videos. We invite you to see how easily the chef puts the famous Cuban cocktail into a sphere.

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And today I want to bring to your attention a few molecular cuisine recipes that you can handle at home.

Let me briefly remind you of the reasons for the emergence of molecular cuisine.

How did molecular cuisine come about?

You can read a huge amount of materials about the titanic work done by chemists and culinary specialists in order for a new culinary direction to appear. However, the truth, as is often the case, "lies on the ground."

Restaurant brands around the world are facing a big problem: by the beginning of the new millennium, the menus of famous restaurants in France and Italy, London and Madrid, Tokyo and Hong Kong have become similar, like Siamese twins. Whichever country you come to, and the restaurant serves the same dishes (with a slight adjustment for local flavor).

Mix Asian with European cuisine, add some Latin American and season with home cooking. However, this path has its natural ending - the mechanical mixing of tastes cannot be endless. That's when we decided to move on to chemical technologies. That is, at the origins of molecular cuisine lies a simple desire to attract a client, and if we speak Russian, to earn more.

Hence the main function of molecular cuisine is not to feed, but to surprise. Yes, what is there to surprise - dumbfounded!

For example, smoke (steam) from dry people not only exacerbates the taste, but also affects all the senses of a person at once. Try taking a piece of dry ice and pouring it with a mixture of aromatic essence and water - and a magical aura will appear around your table. One of the restaurants offers the smell of a burning hearth in an old house.

And here is how they prepare meringue with the aroma of green tea: a ball of mousse is squeezed out of a spray can, treated with liquid nitrogen, and lightly sprinkled with essence from lime flowers and fruits. The result is a ball of ice cream that is as hard as meringue and incredibly flavorful. As soon as this "ice cream" hits the tongue, it instantly dissolves. There was taste and aroma, and zero calories. Just the perfect dessert.

You may have been puzzled by a spray can of mousse, but in molecular cuisine, the simplest (familiar) foods are also used.

Remember, I talked about emulsification - this is the addition of soy lecithin to a variety of liquids. It can be juice or milk, etc. The result is a very nice foam rack, which can be a separate dish, or it can be a decoration and, at the same time, a "stupefyer" for many dishes.

Here is one of the recipes for making such a foamy cloud.

You will need:

• Lemon juice - ½ cup
• Water - ½ cup
• Soy lecithin - 3 teaspoons

*soy lecithin is now freely available. Don't let the chemical names scare you.

Mix lemon juice and water, add lecithin to this mixture and beat with a mixer until a white foam forms.

Everything - the cloud is ready.

It can be eaten as a dessert. Or decorate any dish with this “cloud”. It is lemon foam that will complement cheeses, meat and fish dishes well.

And this is what a fish looks like under a molecular cloud.

As you may have guessed, the cloud can be not only lemon - what juice you use, this will be the foam.

Here, for example, is a recipe for molecular foam, which is made from star anise and cinnamon.

You will need:

• Water - 1 glass
• Soy lecithin - 5 g
• Cinnamon - 1-1.5 sticks
• Star anise - 4-5 stars
• Sugar - to taste.

Cooking foam:

1. In a saucepan, heat water (1 cup), put cinnamon and star anise in water) and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Taste to taste: as soon as you feel that there is enough flavor in the water, take out the spices and add sugar (to taste) and lecithin.
2. Pour the prepared water into a blender and start beating (try changing the angle of the blender).

Molecular foam is ready.

And you can also freeze the molecular foam and get an edible sculpture (both decoration and taste).

Or here's a simple recipe.

We take: spinach, lemon juice - to taste, little olive, salt and pepper - to taste. I do not write how many ingredients to take - do it to taste. We load all the ingredients into a blender and beat until creamy, taste for salt and pepper. Add what (in your opinion, is missing) and beat again. Put the resulting premium on a plate (preferably in a bowl), on the cream - a piece of mozzarella (or other cheese of your choice), decorate with herbs. Do not be surprised - this is already molecular cuisine.

For example, blend spinach, a few teaspoons of lemon juice, a tablespoon of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste in a blender. Beat everything until a creamy mass is formed. Put the creamy mass on a plate with a recess, and put a circle of mozzarella cheese in it. Garnish with basil or arugula leaves.

Or such a technique as spherification: calcium lactate or sodium alginate is introduced into a liquid (broth, juice, tea, etc.), gently mixed and very carefully poured into a container with cold water, in which calcium chloride is first dissolved. Do you know what will happen? Such, in the form of a ball, dumplings, in which the initial liquid (juice, milk, etc.) is dressed in a thin film.

There are other tricks of molecular cuisine that do not require lactates and alginates. Try injecting quite a bit of rum into hot pies (not half a glass into the filling, but injections into the dough). The pies will acquire just an incredible aroma and become simply airy.
Or, now outside the window is summer - time for barbecues. With the help of a syringe and natural pineapple juice, you will turn your barbecue into an unforgettable masterpiece.

And now some recipes of molecular cuisine.

Molecular cuisine recipes

Red caviar from carrots

• sodium alginate - ½ teaspoon;
• calcium chloride - ½ teaspoon;
• cold water - 2.5 cups;
• carrots - 3 pcs. medium size;
• ginger - a piece, about 3 cm.

Cooking molecular caviar:

1. Peel and cut carrots and ginger.
2. In a blender, we prepare puree from carrots and ginger.
3. Add a glass of water to the puree (you should get 1 cup of the mixture).
4. Mix puree with water and strain.
5. Put the strained puree in the refrigerator for 1 hour. During this time, the puree should settle and air will come out of it.
6. Remove the puree from the refrigerator and carefully add sodium alginate to it, mix slowly and well.
7. Pour the puree into a flexible (eg plastic) bottle. There should be a hole in the cap of the bottle. The hole diameter is the diameter of your calf.
8. Pour two glasses of cold water into a bowl and dissolve calcium chloride in this water.
9. And now we make caviar - we squeeze mashed potatoes from a bottle into cold water one drop at a time. Eggs will form when the puree comes into contact with cold water.
10. Gently strain the caviar and lay out on a paper towel.
11. After the excess moisture is absorbed into the towel, caviar can be used to decorate dishes or as an independent dish.

Diet emerald spaghetti

To prepare this dish you will need:

• Water - at least ½ cup;
• Arugula - 1.5 cups;
• Agar-agar - 2 g.

And also a special syringe and special tubes. And if there are no special ones, then a medical syringe and tubes from the dropper system will do. The system will need to be cut into measuring tubes (the length of the tube is the length of future spaghetti).

Cooking spaghetti:

1. Mix arugula with water and carefully grind in a bender (in puree). You should get a smooth puree. If there is little water, add (no more than ¼ cup. Watch the consistency) and beat again in a blender.
2. Transfer the puree to a saucepan with a thick bottom, add agar-agar and bring to a boil.
3. Pour the mixture into a bowl and draw hot puree into the syringe. Squeeze the puree into the tube.
4. Remove the puree tube from the syringe and place it in cold water until cool (approximately 3 minutes). While the puree is cooling, make the next “pasta.
5. We remove the spaghetti from the tubes: we draw air into the syringe, attach the tube with the cooled puree to the syringe and, carefully, squeeze the spaghetti out of the tube.

And if you do not like green spaghetti, then you can cook, for example, orange ones.

orange spaghetti

To prepare this dish you will need:

• Orange juice - 250 ml;
• Agar-agar - 1 teaspoon;
• Sugar and spices - to taste.
• As with arugula spaghetti, you will need a syringe and straws.

Cooking spaghetti:

1. If you cook from freshly squeezed juice, then it is better to dilute it a little with water (no more than 30%) so that there is no very bright orange note in the finished spaghetti. Add sugar - to taste.
2. Pour the juice into a saucepan with a thick bottom and put the saucepan on the fire. Bring the temperature of the juice to 50-60 degrees, add agar-agar to the juice, mix well.
3. After dissolving the agar-agar, remove the pan from the heat and wait until the juice begins to solidify (just a little).
4. Now let's cook our own spaghetti. The process is similar to that described in the recipe for diet arugula spaghetti: syringe, straws, cold water and bon appetit.

And the last recipe for today. These are cocktails.

Let's make a fruit and milkshake

You will need:

• Fruits (to your taste) - 1 cup (diced);
• Milk - 1 glass;
• Xanthan gum - 1 g;
• Sugar - to taste;
• Ice - 6-8 cubes.

Preparing a cocktail:

1. Place fruits, milk, sugar in a blender bowl and add 1 g of gum.
2. Whisk.
3. Pour into glasses, garnish with mint sprigs, fruit slices.

You say: “Where is the molecular cuisine? It's just a milkshake!"
All the zest is in the gum. Try it and feel the difference.

Today, it would seem that what is new and extraordinary can be invented in cooking? After all, since ancient times, people have sought to learn the science of cooking. What could be tastier and more original than the old recipes of our grandparents, which are still a mystery to modern man? The answer to this question is molecular cuisine, whose dishes are also called a provocation for our senses and taste buds.

MOLECULAR CUISINE RECIPES

Molecular cuisine will dispel all your ideas about how food should taste and color. For example, an ordinary-looking scrambled egg served to you may taste fruity, dumplings - transparent, caviar - with the taste of watermelon. This is the "trick" of such a modern trend in cooking - to make the taste of a product familiar to us absolutely unrecognizable until you try it.

Such a shock effect for our receptors is achieved by changing the product at the molecular level, which is why this culinary art is actually called “molecular cuisine”. Due to the use of chemical and physical laws of influence in the preparation of such dishes, products lose their usual properties and can acquire completely unnatural combinations. Vacuum, inert gases, oxygen, agar-agar, liquid nitrogen, centrifugation, various chemical reactions, etc. can be used to create molecular dishes.

Textures for molecular cuisine

Molecular cuisine is gaining more and more popularity in Russia. Chefs working in this direction have more and more opportunities to impress restaurant visitors with dishes that are unusual in taste and appearance. Among the main assistants in the preparation of molecular cuisine are various textures, many of which are also used in classical cuisine. For example, the "agar" texture is used to make marshmallows or marmalade.

Textures allow you to change the appearance of a dish and add new properties to help solidify a desired state or shape, whether it's creating spheres, foam, or jelly. Here you can buy textures for molecular cuisine.

Molecular cuisine dishes can have a very different consistency: powder, mousse, foam, soufflé, ice cream, jelly. It has no limits in relation to the components of these dishes, where fish, vegetables, meat, and fruits are used - almost everything.

However, such a fashion trend is not innovative. After all, the Parisian gastronomist-physicist Herve Thies began his physical and chemical experiments on food back in the 80s.

Spherification

One of the most spectacular molecular cuisine techniques introduced to the public by Ferran Adria. Sodium alginate, when diluted in a liquid, becomes a thickener; upon contact with calcium lactate, it acts as a gelling agent. It is in this way that artificial caviar is created with any taste. Imagine a liquid enclosed in the thinnest shell.

Trying it is a pleasure. It turns out such an unexpected explosion of taste. Another way to create an interesting effect when serving a molecular meal is to use dry ice, which is essentially frozen carbon dioxide. If you pour it with a special fragrant substance mixed with water, a very bright smell is released, which brings the taste sensation to a completely different level. Sleight of hand and no fraud, but the trick is very effective.

gelling

Jelly can also be made at home, usually from a bag or using gelatin. What's the catch? Molecular gelatinization is the art of creating ordinary, seemingly at first glance, dishes from unusual products. Mango-flavored egg, arugula spaghetti, honey caviar - such delicacies on a plate will pleasantly surprise you.

Achieve the effect of gelatinization with the help of such additives:

Agar-agar is a natural thickener based on seaweed, very stable, dietary;

Carrageenan is another algae-based thickener that gives the substance a viscosity or jelly-like texture.

emulsification

The most delicate foam from fruit or vegetable juice is the taste itself in its purest form. For the first time, such a technique was introduced in his own restaurant by Ferran Adria, but the basics of cooking espum were known as early as the 17th century.

It is now difficult to surprise with foams from fruits, vegetables and drinks, culinary gurus have gone further. Espuma are made from different types of meat, mushrooms, cocoa and coffee. It turns out a light weightless sauce. An example is Anatoly Komm's dish.

The most delicate mousse from Borodino bread with unrefined butter and salt is able to win the heart of any gourmet. Magic, nothing else! They create an espum effect with the help of an additive - soy lecithin, which is extracted from soybean oil (pre-filtered). It is used for the preparation of glaze, chocolate products, water-oil and air-water emulsions.

thickening

In creative cooking, the thickening technique can achieve incredible results. Sauces are soft and light because they retain a lot of air bubbles. But the real miracles begin when we make cocktails! Imagine pieces of fruit that seem to "float" in your drink and completely defy gravity. For the preparation of alcoholic cocktails, there are also many special effects, mainly to achieve the effect of layers.

Freezing

The essence of the technique is the processing of products with liquid nitrogen. The temperature of this substance is minus 196 degrees Celsius. This makes it possible to instantly freeze a product of any consistency. In addition, liquid nitrogen evaporates instantly, so you can make ice from any sauce, cream or juice right in front of restaurant visitors, which is what many restaurateurs practice in their establishments.

Agnès Marshal was the first to use liquid nitrogen to make ice cream back in 1877. Of his contemporaries, this method of processing products for his menu was introduced by Blumenthal.

Freezing with liquid nitrogen, firstly, saves a lot of time (ice cream, for example, can be cooled to the required temperature in just a few seconds). Secondly, it makes it possible to fully preserve all the properties of products, their color, humidity, vitamin composition.

The sous-vide vacuum cooking technique is an advanced process of cooking food in a water bath. The ingredients are closed in special vacuum bags, in which they are then cooked at a temperature of about 60 degrees Celsius for many hours and sometimes even days. Meat products prepared in this way remain juicy and tender, as well as insanely aromatic. It is good to marinate meat, fruits and vegetables in a vacuum way.

Molecular gastronomy combines physics and chemistry to transform the tastes and textures of the food we eat. What is the result? - A real innovative and high-tech lunch. The term "molecular gastronomy" is commonly used to describe a style of cuisine in which chefs explore different culinary possibilities, borrowing tools and technologies from laboratory sciences and ingredients from the food industry. Formally, the term "molecular gastronomy" refers to the scientific discipline that studies the physical and chemical processes that occur during food preparation.

Molecular gastronomy seeks to explore and explain the chemical causes of the transformation of ingredients, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena.