These new chef-chemists realize if you that an acidic liquid, mix it with sodium alginate and slowly drop into a bath of calcium chloride solution this will create wonderful little spheres that pop in your mouth like caviar. Chill an agar infused liquid in a silicon tube and now you've got spaghetti.
Mix soy lecithin in sauce and whip it into a light and delicious foam.
Well, all this science is available to you with the Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit.
According to the website, everything you need to get started in spherification, thickeners and foaming agents is in a little tin box.You get the chemicals - agar, sodium alginate, calcium chloride, carrageenan, ascorbic and citric acid, and sodium bicarbonate - plus all the equipment, a syringe, pipettes, silicon tubes, measuring spoons and a non-reactive spoon.
You also get a booklet featuring six Molecular recipes for your new cuisine.
The Think Geeks say. "if you've ever wanted to give Molecular Cuisine a try, here's a perfect start. Once we whet your appetite, though, we can't be held responsible for weight gain, flavor overload, or an obsessive need to measure things down to the microgram."
The kit Includes:
- 20g sodium alginate
- 20g calcium salt
- 20g agar-agar
- 20g carrageenan
- 20g ascorbic acid
- 20g citric acid
- 20g sodium bicarbonate
- 20g soybean lecithin
- 1 20mL syringe
- 2 m of alimentary grade silicone tube
- 2 graduated pipettes
- 1 set of measuring spoons
- 1 bored spoon
- 1 booklet containing 6 molecular cooking recipes
- 1 volume-weight conversion table
Okay, that's the pitch if you want to experiment and have fun with molecular gastronomy.
But honestly, we're not even really sure what "molecular gastronomy" is.
We have decided to buy the kit and treat it as we would a chemistry set.
We expect to learn a few things, have fun, and will probably even enjoy it, perhaps the way we enjoy cotton candy, but not something we'll crave like we do "real" food.
We'll soon see.
