For this month’s TGRWT I wanted to make a cauliflower cream and serve it with something crispy. Considering the fact that cocoa and parmesan are also a good match I googled for parmesan crisps and found a nice recipe for “frico” – Italian parmesan crisps. The cauliflower cream was invented in the process of making it.

Cocoa frico
40 g parmesan, grated
2 t cocoa

Mix parmesan and cocoa. Divide into six portions on a parchment paper (use cake rings with a diameter of approx 9 cm). Bake for 4 min at 175 °C. Leave to cool. If made to thick, the fricos will be chewy rather than crispy.

Grate parmesan and mix with cocoa.

Transfer to parchment paper.

After baking the fricos look like this – let them cool for a couple of minutes before handle them.

If you want to make “baskets”, invert them over a wine cork or something similar.

Cauliflower cream
1/2 cauliflower, in slices
2.5 dL water
1.5 dL sour cream
2 t salt
1 t xanthan

Cut cauliflower in pieces and spread on aluminum foil. Bake for 40 min at 175 °C. Add water to cauliflower and pureé with immersion blender until smooth. Add sour cream, salt and xanthan and blend. Pass through a fine sieve and transfer to a 1/2 L whipper and charge with nitrous oxide. Note: To use up this portion of cauliflower cream makes you’ll have to make 20-30 cocoa fricos!

Caramelized cauliflower with nicely browned edges.

To serve, place frico on plate, fill with cauliflower cream and sprinkle with pepper.

The baskets were a little to large to grab, and impractical to eat with a knife and a fork. The flat half-moon pictured at the top of this post was easier to eat just using the fingers.

Verdict: A nice appetizer! Fricos have a strong parmesan flavour with a hint of cocoa. Aromas blend well, but the dish could need some kind of freshness added to it – Any suggestions?

Recipes for Bluberry martini jelly shots (top right), B-52 jelly shots (bottom right), Prosecco gelée (middle left) and Gin and Tonic gelée (middle) are given below.

Just wanted to point you to a beautiful picture gallery of edible cocktails accompanying an article by Betty Hallock at LA Times, “Cocktails you can eat”.

The recipes (shortened and converted to metric units by me) are as follows:

Blueberry martini jelly shots
300 mL vodka (blueberry flavored)
60 mL simple syrup
25 g gelatin (6.9%)
35 fresh blueberries

Mix vodka and syrup in small saucepan. Add gelatin and leave for 5-10 min until soft. Gently heat saucepan and stir until gelatin dissolves (approx. 10 min). Strain to remove any undissolved gelatin. Place bluberry in cocktail mold and pour vodka mixture into each mold. Cool until set. Makes about 35 cocktails of 15 mL each. (Adapted from Bar Nineteen 12)

Prosecco gelée
1 length of a vanilla bean
140 g sugar
15 g gelatin sheets, bloomed (3.1%)
340 mL Prosecco (or other white wine)

Scrape seeds from vanilla bean and mix thoroughly with sugar. Mix water and sugar in saucepan and heat over high heat until syrup almost comes to a boil. Remove from heat and bloomed gelatin and stir until it dissolves. Add wine and stir gently. Pour into 20 x 20 cm pan lined with plastic wrap and cool until set. Cut into squares, turn upside down to display settled vanilla beans and serve. (Adapted from Craft pastry chef Catherine Schimenti)

B-52 jelly shots
170 mL Kahlúa
170 mL Baileys
170 mL Grand Marnier
24 g gelatin sheets (4.7%)

Place each liqueur in separate bowls and add 8 g gelatin to each. Cover and leave until gelatin has softened. Pour Kahlúa/gelatin into a saucepan and heat over low heat until gelatin dissolves. Strain to remove any remaining solids. Pour liquid into a 10 x 20 cm pan lined with plastic wrap. Cool for about one hour. Repeat with Baileys, and then with Grand Marnier, pouring the newly prepared liqueur on top of the set liqueur in the mold. Cut into pieces and serve. (Adapted from Bar Nineteen 12)

Gin and tonic gelée
170 mL gin
10 g gelatin (2.2%)
280 mL tonic water
finely grated zest of 4 to 5 limes
1 T citric acid
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 T powdered sugar

Let the gelatin soften in gin for 5-10 min. Heat over low heat and stir until gelatin has dissolved. Pour in tonic water carefully (to avoid it from bubbling over), swirl the contents to obtain a homogeneous mixture and immediatly pour contents into 40 mL molds. Cool. To serve, unmold the gelée and sprinkle each cocktail with lime zest and a little of the premixed citric acid, baking soda and powdered sugar. Serve immediately. (Adapted from Providence pastry chef Adrian Vasquez) For reference, you might want to compare this recipe with Eben Freeman’s Jellied G&T.

You might notice that the amount of gelatin varies over a pretty large range from 2.2-6.9%. This is also well above the typical concentration found in jellies (0.6-1%). A possible reason for the large range would be that alcohol interferes with the setting of gelatin, and a quick plot of gelatin vs. alcohol content suggests that this might be the case.

But as you can see from the B-52 jelly shots, the same concentration of gelatin is used for Baileys (17% alcohol), Kahlúa (26.5% alcohol) and Grand Marnier (40% alcohol), so there should be some room for variation here (I doubt that the resulting variation in texture was actually intended in this recipe). So if we round off, the linear regression yields the following correlation between gelatin and alcohol:

% gelatin to add = (% alcohol in final mix x 0.1) + 2

One thing that surprises me is that none of the recipes call for gellan? This hydrocolloid is said to have superior flavor release properties as it is more prone to break once you chew it. From what I know, it should work fine with alcoholic beverages. Has anyone tried this yet?

Popular science magazine has an amusing article on “The future of food” which portrays Dave Arnold, apparently the “man behind the curtain of today’s hottest movement in cooking”. I don’t buy all of this, but he’s no doubt had a central role in bringing lab equipment into the kitchens of North American chefs and teaching them a little science. You might also want to check out their gallery of kitchen gadgets. Some of my favorites include (click the pictures to lanuch the picture gallery at PopSci magazine):

For the Pros: The Whipper. Adds a touch of air to every bite.

Within reach of the dedicated amateur chef, indispensible for the professional chef: a whipper which you can charge with either carbon dioxide (for instance to make carbonated fruit) or dinitrogen oxide (too make foams/espumas or simply whipped cream).

For the Pros: The Sealer and Circulator. Cooks in a bag to lock in juiciness.

Sous vide cooking is perhaps one of the most fascinating examples of science inspired cooking. The picture shows a vacuum sealer and a thermostated water bath circulator. If this is too expensive, check out my post on a simple and easy DIY sous vide.

For the Pros: The New Spice Rack. Chemicals the experimental home chef shouldn’t be without.

Last but not least: the different chemicals which become more and more available. I’ve put together a collection of hydrocolloid recipes which will help you get started using these fascinating chemicals. If you have troubles getting hold of these, my list of suppliers might help you.

Of course I’d like to put my hands on a Pacojet, an Antigriddle or a Gastrovac as well, but for a home kitchen, this gets too exotic and far too expensive. But – the most surprising gadget was the vacuum meat tumbler from Reveo. Just like the extremely expensive Gastrovac, this little machine can be used for vacuum impregnation of meat and other foods (or at least this is something I assume from the description). IMHO vacuum impregnation is the most important feature of the Gastrovac – far more important than the heating capabilities. Perhaps someone owning a Reveo could report back?

For the Home: Meat, Your Maker. This vacuum tumbler cuts marinating time by hours, first extracting air to expand the meat’s fibers and then spinning it so that every area is exposed to your sauce of choice. Probably doesn’t beat a good long soak, but perfect for when barbecue inspiration suddenly strikes.—Abby Seiff

But I was very dissapointed that my all-time favorite kitchen gadget didn’t make it into the gallery: a simple thermometer. As I have stated in one of my tips for practical molecular gastronomy, this is probably the single tool that can improve your cooking the most.

Get ready for the next round of TGRWT! The seventh round is hosted by Papin at Flavor alchemy who chose to pair caramlized cauliflower and cocoa. An easy way to caramelize cauliflower is to cut it in 2 cm thick slices (many of them will fall apart – that’s OK) and bake them at 200 °C for approx. 30 min. You can sprinkle the pieces with olive oil and salt, but this is not absolutely necessary.

It is a truly delicious combination, and I’ve published a simplified recipe for caramelized cauliflower and cocoa jelly, based on a recipe published by Heston Blumenthal. What is fascinating about the combination is that after I’ve tasted the two together, caramelized cauliflower on it’s own reminds me of cocoa.

For an extra boost of inspiration, visit Inge’s round-up of TGRWT #6 (part 1, part 2) which featured many delicious combinations of apple and lavender.

Slightly off topic (but with links to both food and science): At this time of the year it’s time for the IgNoble prizes – the entertaining cousins of the more serious Noble prizes! And once again several of them are awarded to food related research (in the broad sense that is):

NUTRITION: Brian Wansink of Cornell University, for exploring the seemingly boundless appetites of human beings, by secretly feeding them with a self-refilling, bottomless bowl of soup. REFERENCE: “Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake,” Brian Wansink, James E. Painter and Jill North, Obesity Research, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2005, pp. 93-100. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, Brian Wansink, Bantom Books, 2006, ISBN 0553804340.

CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin — vanilla fragrance and flavoring — from cow dung. REFERENCE: “Novel Production Method for Plant Polyphenol from Livestock Excrement Using Subcritical Water Reaction,” Mayu Yamamoto, International Medical Center of Japan. PRESS NOTE: Toscanini’s Ice Cream, the finest ice cream shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created a new ice cream flavor in honor of Mayu Yamamoto, and introduced it at the Ig Nobel ceremony. The flavor is called “Yum-a-Moto Vanilla Twist.”

MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects.” REFERENCE: “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects,” Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer, British Medical Journal, December 23, 2006, vol. 333, pp. 1285-7.

In case you wondered – this is in fact real research which has been published in scientific journals. The IgNoble slogan reads “First it makes you LAUGH, then it makes you THINK”. Enjoy!