Tri-2-cook has announced the foods to pair in the twelfth round of “They go really well together” (or TGRWT for short): apricot and chanterelle. More information on how to participate can be found in the announcement post. If the ingredients are out of season where you live, remember that you can use ingredients that are dried, canned or preserved. The heating and/or air exposure can of course alter the flavor composition, but it’s still worth giving it a try.

Regarding the chemistry behind this flavor pairing I’ve found the following. Based on quantitative measurements Greger and Schieberle identified 18 compounds with odor activity values (OAVs) greater than 1 in apricot (Prunus armeniaca). I have not been able to locate any studies of chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) with OAV values, but there are a couple of articles which list volatile compounds. Comparing these lists with the OAV data for apricots there is not much overlap. The only compounds which had an OAV > 1 in apricots and were also found in chanterelle are 1-octen-3-one (OAV in apricot = 55) and hexanal (OAV in apricot = 15) shown in the figure below.

It’s interesting to note that OAV studies often come with certain surprises regarding flavor compounds. As Greger and Schieberle point out in their abstract:

certain lactones, often associated with an apricot aroma note, such as gamma-undecalactone, gamma-nonalactone, and delta-decalactone, showed very low OAVs (<5) (...) Omission experiments indicated that previously unknown constituents of apricots, such as (E,Z)-2,6-nonadienal or (Z)-1,5-octadien-3-one, are key contributors to the apricot aroma.

Some compounds that are present at higher concentrations are less important because they have a high odor threshold, whereas other compounds which are present in minute quantities play important roles because we can detect them at very low concentrations. Once again this shows how important it is to use OAV values when looking for flavor pairings!

It’s time for the TGRWT #11 round-up. I apologize for the small break since TGRWT #10, but now we’re definitely back. Many exciting recipes this time – and great photos too! Not all were a great success judging by the comments though. But several give their concoctions a thumbs up and a “will definitely cook again” verdict.

As we have seen earlier, the challenge of these pairings is getting the balance right. Several have felt the numbening effect of cloves. This is due to eugenol, the main component of clove oil, which acts as a local anasthetic (and surprisingly celery also has sufficient levels of eugenol to cause numbening in some individuals!).

If you missed the deadline and are still working on a blog post – please let me know and I’ll update this post. And if you’re ready for a new challenge be sure to check out what we’re up to in TGRWT #12 which has already been announced!

Pork-banana-clove
by Tri-2-cook
Verdict: I liked the banana and clove as a flavor pairing and thought it worked really well with the pork (…) I was happy with the result and I’ll definitely do it again.

Banana and cloves Pisang Goreng
by Mededelingen van Land en Tuinbouw
Verdict: Yummy! A bite of the soft bananas with a little lump of clove brings out a very rich taste. The aftermath, when the flavour comes back through the nose, is wonderful.

Banana Mousse and Clove Caviar
by A Chef’s Journal

Banana Clove Truffles
by Hungry soul kitchen
Verdict: These were overly sweet (…) white chocolate, banana, and clove go well together, just don’t let one overpower. Banana and clove itself is excellent and I will experiment with these two a lot more.

Banana-Soufflee with cloves
by Lamiacucina
Verdict: When tasting I would have guessed cinnamon as a spice. Cloves go very well with banana.

Banana and clove milkshake
by Fooducation
Verdict: (…) banana milk shake is on the brink to being insipid. The cloves made a difference, adding another note to the drink. Conclusion: I find the banana-clove combination to be successful.

BFBWWTFDIDWTLOB Biskit
by aka R’acquel
Verdict: “Interesting” – and nothing more, but definitely – “interesting”.

Viper’s Bile Green Curry Paste
by aka R’acquel
Verdict: (…) experienced a mild high after this meal – fairly resonant to the sensation of drinking kava.

Banana cake with cloves
by Grydeskeen
Verdict: When eating the clove-injected banacake the first impressions was like a spice cake, where the texture was like a bananacake. You could feel the banana in the mouth, but only hints of the taste was there. The taste then evolved into more regular cloves taste, and the aftertaste was a slightly bitter cloves taste, which lasted for hours.

Ginger-Glass bowl of banana mousse with cloves biscuits and lemongrass jelly
by Alessio Fangano
Verdict: The biscuits results fragrant (…) cloves appear as a back taste that spikes when biting over a shard releasing a sensation of freshness. (…) The foam exhales an equilibrated scent of rose water and banana (…) the recipe works quite well though the cloves biscuits need some further development.

Arretjes Banoffee Pie with cloves and pecan nuts
by Kokrobin (recipe)
Verdict: You’d think there was too much going on, but it wasn’t that bad. I think it really worked. Well, for my mouth, not my hips.

Banana Clove Canolli
from Blogquat
Verdict: The banana was subtle, yet lingering and deep. The clove, on the other hand, was at first over powered by the white chocolate, but then remained the lasting taste in my mouth.

Banana Martini with Clove “Olives”
by Blogquat
Verdict: (…) the vodka made my head numb and the clove made my tongue numb. This could be a dangerous drink!

Banana breads with cloves
by The bite size
Verdict: Cloves and banana is a match! Actually, I think bananas go very well with all these “autumn/winter” spices such as cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, pepper, anis, vanilla etc.

Banana chutney
by Kookjegek
Verdict: I liked the sweetness of the banana & red onion together with the distinct flavor of the clove. Although I used a tablespoon, which in my opinion is a lot, it worked for me as a combination.

Pork tenderloin with banana and cloves
by Khymos
Verdict: I enjoy the combination of sweet and salty tastes in the banana sauce. I goes very well together with the pork.

(no picture)
Banana Clove Yoghurt Shake
by M
Verdict: Not bad but I could not detect the taste of clove.

40-second banana cake
by Mex Mix
Verdict: Just out of the microwave the cake appeared almost salty and with a lot of cheese aroma. It wasn’t the taste I was looking for. Colder however, the sweetness came out and it was just what I had in mind. (…) The purée tasted quite good, with the aroma of the cloves really coming forward and marrying itself with the banana.

Dehydrated banana with clove
by Cooking Sideways
Verdict: I was surprised how much flavour got into the bananas, considering I had only stuck the cloves in moments before drying. (…) A really good snack to eat on its own, probably not a strong enough all round taste for most culinary uses though.

Banana and cloves bavarian cream pie
by Koken met Frank
Verdict: At first glance the cloves tasted too strong. But the freshness of the lemon and the softness of the cinnamon flattened this penetrating taste and became in harmony with the cloves. Only the first bite of the pie was of strange taste, the latter bits were amazing, the cloves struggled to be the strongest tasting component, but the cream and milk kind of covered your tasting buds a bit such that the combination of all the flavors got to its best extend.

I received the following contribution for TGRWT #11 from Alessio Fangano, and since he doesn’t have a blog I post his contribution here in extenso. Enjoy!

Photo: Alessio Fangano

Ginger-Glass bowl of banana mousse with cloves biscuits and lemongrass jelly
All the ingredients are meant for 4 servings.

Cloves Biscuits
1 egg yolk
25g flour
3 tea spoons of groundnut oil
4g whole cloves
Fleur de sel
Groundnut oil to fry

Ground cloves, flour and oil in a mixer. The cloves do not need to be completely pulverized; the little shards will provide sparks of taste when bitten.

In a bowl fold in the flour mixture and the egg yolk (add little bit of water if needed). Knead a bit the dough before rolling it in a thin foil (2-3 mm).

Cut in rectangular strips approximately 7×1 cm, sprinkle on top 3-4 grains of fleur de sel on each strip and let dry for 3h before frying in hot oil.

Ginger Crisp cup
150g egg white
75g fresh ginger peeled
150g water

Peel the ginger, cut it in small pieces and ground very finely in a mixer adding water. Strain the liquid pressing the pulp trough a fine sieve. Add the liquid to the egg white with a teaspoon of the grinded pulp. Mix the whole properly.

Pour some of the mixture on a small no-stick skillet to a thickness of around 2mm. Put on the fire on low heat to let the water evaporate. It does not have to boil.

When the border will be dried out and some part of the interior will start to (ca 30 min), lift the film out of the skillet and place over the back of a bowl you will use as mold. Place a second cup over it to keep the film in shape and put into the oven at 120C for another 30min. After 10-15min take away the upper cup leaving the back of the crisp cup exposed. If at the end of the 30 min the crisp is too clear looking, just unmold it and put it in the oven for another 5-10min keeping an eye on it.

Proceeds this way for the rest of the mixture.

These crisps may be kept for a couple of days in a dry place.

Lemongrass Jelly
40g fresh lemongrass
1 teaspoons lemon zest
170g water
0.17g agar (1%)
Green food color

Put water and the lemongrass thinly chopped in a pot. With the lid on, heat it over low fire to around 70C. Let infuse for 2h away from heat. Filter the liquid with a sieve pressing the liquid out of the lemongrass. Add few drops of the colorant to the infusion to obtain a fresh mint green.

Heat few spoons of the liquid with the lemon zest and add the agar powder. Boil for 2-3 minutes. Away from heat mix in the rest of the liquid and pour in a mould. The resulting jelly will need to be cut in cubes, so use a flat shallow container. Refrigerate until set before cutting.

Chilies Consommé
25g water
2 small green Indian chilies
0.05g agar (0.1%)

Grind the chilies and the water in a blender. Heat up the liquid, add the agar powder and boil for 3 minutes. Put the liquid in a mold (glass for instance) and freeze overnight. Place the resulting iced-gel over a sieve and let the liquid drip on a bowl.

Banana Mousse
150g Ripe Banana
4 teaspoons rose water
1-2 teaspoon(s) chilies consommé
0.7g (0.5%) methylcellulose
1-2 pinch(s) curcuma (optional)

Disperse the methylcellulose in some warm water. Let it hydrate overnight. Purée the banana in a blender. Transfer in a bowl and flavor with the rose water and chilies consommé. If you wish, you can add a bit of curcuma to make the whole looking more yellowish-golden. Mix in the methylcellulose and foam with an immersion blender.

Keep in mind that the banana will darken over time so prepare the mousse shortly before serving.

Presentation
Pour the banana mousse in the ginger crisp bowl. Put over a white serving plate with the cloves biscuits and jelly cubes. Spread over the banana mousse drops of cloves oil made blending cloves with groundnuts oil.

Taste Sensations
The biscuits results fragrant, the salt underlining their consistency. In them cloves appear as a back taste that spikes when biting over a shard releasing a sensation of freshness.

The foam exhales an equilibrated scent of rose water and banana. The sweet banana taste is followed by the rose aroma and the hit of the chili spiciness. The sweetness and sticky consistency of the banana complements quite well the balsamic nature of cloves in the biscuits.

The crisp’s ginger taste fuses very well with the banana foam leaving a whole mouth sensation of light spiciness.

The lemongrass jelly helps cleaning the mouth, leaving a fresh sensation that adds up to the left over spiciness from the crisp.

In the complex, the recipe works quite well though the cloves biscuits need some further development.

I’m a big fan of using bananas in savory dishes, so for TGRWT #11 I decided to make:

Pork tenderloin with banana & clove sauce
450 g pork tenderloin
2 bananas, sliced
10-15 cloves (less if you use ground cloves)
black pepper, ground
cooking oil of choice
1-2 T crème fraîche

Pack meat in plastic bags with a little oil, banana slices, cloves and pepper. Suck out air and seal. Sous vide* for 60 min or more at 60 °C. Leave meat to rest while making sauce: purée bananas with some cloves and crème fraîche using an immersion blender. Add ground pepper and salt to taste (use powdered meat stock if desired). Keep sauce warm in a water bath. Sear the tenderloin slices on both sides. Serve with rice and glaced carrots.

* Can one use “sous vide” as a verb, just as to google has become a verb?

Verdict: I enjoy the combination of sweet and salty tastes in the banana sauce. I goes very well together with the pork. The meat was perfect throughout with a pale pink color (quite difficult to reproduce this color correctly when processing the picture…). The sauce was quite thick and should be served in moderation since it’s quite sweet.

I actually prepared 4 different packs of meat for the sous vide. Meat with and without bananas and/or cloves. What I found out was that the meat didn’t really take up much of the banana flavor, so I could just as well have put the banans and the cloves for the sauce in a separate bag which would have allowed me to leave the meat in the water while I was making the sauce.

I used “freezing” bags which are thicker and sucked out the air with a vacuum cleaner

Brazilian chiles in oil (very nice with Moqueca!)

Oils and fats are long molecules which are mainly non-polar and hence the opposite of water which is a polar molecule. Ethanol which has both a polar and a non-polar end falls in between oil and water. I’ve covered extractions using water and ethanol previously. That water and oil are opposites is easily observed by the fact that they don’t mix, and because of it’s lower density oil floats on top of water. This property allows us to easily separate water and oil.

Volatile molecules – the molecules that we detect by their smell – are mainly non-polar and therefore soluble in oil. This is one reason why foods with fat often have a different and often better flavor compared with their fat-free counterparts (fat of course also influences mouth feel etc.). Everytime you cook with oil it will actually help extract aroma (or smell flavorants) from the food ingredients and deliver these to your nose.

There are several oil extracts used in the kitchen, and the nice thing about them is that the oil extracts aromas and then protects them from the air. This is good as it prevents oxidation of the aroma molecules, but in some extreme cases bad because the anaerobic conditions may promote growth of botulinum spores – more on that in the last paragraph. When the flavored oil is added to a dish you get can immediately perceive the aroma. If the oil is tasted pure it serves as a carrier for the aroma giving a small explosion in the mouth (or nose to be more precise…). Some examples I can think of where the oil plays an important role in extracting and delivering aromas are: pesto, tapenade, mayonaise, aioli, curry paste (and all other spice pastes), chili oil and truffle oil to mention a few. Notice that in most of these the source of the aromas is still present in the oil.
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There’s a new weekly cooking show you shouldn’t miss. It’s about cooking and science, or “Kamikaze cookery” to be more precise. And there’s a good dash of humor as well which doesn’t hurt. The first episode out is on how to cook that perfect steak (it’s embedded below, but on their site you can watch it at a better resolution). I’ve covered the topic before in my post on DIY sous-vide, but their video is much more entertaining They use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the air and a blow torch for the Maillard reaction! There is also a blog accompanying the videos. Hereby recommended!

It’s a pleasure for me to announce a new round of “They go really well together” or TGRWT for short. For those not familiar with the concept of flavor pairing: the idea is that if two foods have one or more volatile compounds in common, chances are good that they might taste well together. In TGRWT #11 the foods to pair are banana and cloves. This is a pairing that (once again I should say) can be taken both in a sweet and a savory direction.

This is how you can participate in TGRWT #11:

1. Prepare a dish that combines banana and cloves. You can either use an existing recipe or come up with your own.
2. Take a picture of the dish and write an entry in your blog by November 1st with TGRWT #11 in the title. Readers will be particularily interested in how the flavour pairing worked out, so make an attempt at describing the taste and aroma and whether you liked it or not.
3. A round-up will be posted here (with pictures). Please send an email to webmaster_at_khymos_dot_org with the following details: Your name, URL of blog, URL of the TGRWT #11 post and a picture for your entry in the round-up. If you don’t have a blog, email me your name, location, recipe and a brief description of how it worked out and I’ll be glad to include it in the final round-up.

Looking back at the first 10 rounds of TGRWT a quick count shows that more than 100 dishes have been prepared and documented in numerous food blogs. This is quite impressive considering that all of them are “new” dishes and that many have required a substantial amount of preparation and testing. You can find links to the round-ups of all the previous TGRWT events in the right sidebar on the main page of the Khymos blog. Admittedly, not all concoctions worked out very well, but there are many exciting recipes where even the cooks themselves were surprised by the flavor pairing.

I certainly hope this food blogging event can continue to inspire new creations in the kitchen and look forward to receiving your contributions. As usual – since different blogs have different groups of readers – I’m grateful if you help me spread the word of TGRWT #11.

Now this is yet another book I’m looking forward to this fall – I’ve got quite a list now!. Shirley O’Corriher, best known for her book CookWise (not to mention her video “Shirley O. Corriher’s Kitchen Secrets Revealed” and TV appearance in case you live in the US), has been working on this book for a while (NYT article from 2004, free registration requried). Finally it is due to appear in October! The title BakeWise suggests it has the same structure as CookWise. The good thing about CookWise is that the food science theory is applied directly to recipes. In addition it has nice tables on what-went-wrong and what-to-do-about-it. In fact it’s a problem solving manual for the kitchen.

According to the publisher BakeWise “reads like a mystery novel as we follow sleuth Shirley while she solves everything from why cakes and muffins can be dry to génoise deflation and why the cookie crumbles”. And they continue:

Restaurant chefs and culinary students know her from their grease-splattered copies of CookWise, an encyclopedic work that has saved them from many a cooking disaster. With numerous “At-a-Glance” charts, BakeWise gives busy people information for quick problem solving. BakeWise also includes Shirley’s “What This Recipe Shows” in every recipe. This section is science and culinary information that can apply to hundreds of recipes, not just the one in which it appears.

Bernard Lahousse, director of CREAX foods, creator of the Foodpairing website (which I’ve blogged about previously) and blogger behind Food for design invites to an international food pairing seminar in Belgium on January 5th, 2009. The concept of the event is that participating companies (sponsors) each have chosen a food ingredient. The flavor profile of the foods is analyzed at the University of Leuven and based on this data a list of pairings is suggested based on the database underlying the Foodpairing website which currently includes 360 food products. These lists are then given to 11 invited chefs who are given the task of inventing new dishes based on the pairings. These dishes will be presented at the event, accompanied by a wine which will also be selected based on flavor analysis. Hoping for more than 1000 visiting food professionals this might be the largest molecular gastronomy inspired event so far in history

In addition to presentations of the new dishes there will be keynotes by Peter Barham (professor at the U. of Bristol, author of The Science of Cooking) and Heston Blumenthal (founder of The Fat Duck, author of The Big Fat Duck Cookbook). The program also includes masterclasses by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page (authors of Culinary Artistry, What to Drink with What You Eat and The Flavor Bible) on food pairing based on historical and contemporary recipes, and by Lorenzo Cerretani (professor at U. of Bologna) who will talk about food pairing and olive oil.

So if you have an interest in food pairing and can afford the trip and the registration fee of €245 (which includes a seminar book with all the recipes) this is certainly an event you wouldn’t want to miss! Luckily, for those who will not be able to participate, the recipes and food pairings from the event will be published on the Foodpairing website.

As a sidenote I should mention that the “They go really well together” (TGRWT) blogging event has let bloggers and foodies explore various food pairings in 10 rounds which has resulted in about 100 different dishes in total. Links to the round-ups can be found on the right sidebar on the front page of the Khymos blog. And – drumroll please – the next round of TGRWT will soon be announced, so stay tuned!

Those interested in the scientific considerations behind flavor pairings can find more info on this in previous posts. The topic however is controversial as the comments to this posts shows.

Ever thought about how pretzels and salt sticks get their nice brown color?

The products of the Maillard reaction provide tastes, smells and colors that are much desired and lend their charachteristics to a variety of foods. In this post I will focus on the factors that influence how fast the Maillard reaction proceeds. And more specifically I’ll give examples on how the Maillard reaction can be speeded up. This is not about fast food, nor is it about saving time. It’s more about controlling the browning reaction by speeding it up or slowing it down in order to get a desired end result.

The Maillard reaction is, to put it simple, a reaction between an amino acid and a sugar (there’s more on the chemistry at the end of the post). To speed it up you can do one or more of the following:
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In the seemingly endless series of new books related to molecular gastronomy appearing this fall I just found out that Hervé This and Pierre Gagnaire also have a book due in October: “Cooking – The Quintessential Art”. The book is part of the California Studies in Food and Culture series which features interdisciplinary texts and has been characterized as “an intellectual exercise wholly removed from food-entertainment television”. The book is divided in five parts with the following titles which give further clues to the style of the book: The Beautiful Is the Good, Classical Ideas of Beauty, Beauty in the Middle Ages, Artistic Creativity Unbound, and The Present and Future of Cooking.

The book opens with the question “How can we reasonably judge a meal?”, signifying that this is not a cook book. According to the publisher:

This explores an astonishing variety of topics and elaborates a revolutionary method for judging the art of cooking. Many of the ideas he introduces in this culinary romance are illustrated by dishes created by Pierre Gagnaire, whose engaging commentaries provide rare insights into the creative inspiration of one of the world’s foremost chefs. The result is an enthralling, sophisticated, freewheeling dinner party of a book that also makes a powerful case for openness and change in the way we think about food.

We have a small garden with a single tree. It’s a sweet cherry tree and this year must have been one of the best ever. In May it was overthrown with flowers. Last year I made some jam which came out OK, but the drawback with sweet cherries is that their taste doesn’t really compare with that of sour cherries. They’re good to eat, but not as good for cooking and jam as their sour cousins. The summer last year was quite wet and cold which could explain the fad taste, but this year however has been quite hot and the cherries grew darker and sweeter as summer proceeded.

I decided to give cherry jam another try. To improve the flavor even further, I was pondering on adding spices. My mom has previously added cloves and cinnamon to plums when making jam. The first place I looked was under cherries in the book “Culinary artistry”. Among the numerous suggestions for flavor pairings it was black pepper and lemon that caught my attention. Who would have thought? I made a small test batch and was quite pleased by the “bite” provided by pepper so I proceeded with a full batch. I used a pre-mixed gelling sugar from Danisco sugar (which contained sugar, pectin, a preservative and an acid), but you could use whatever pectin you have at hand. Just follow the instructions on the pack (more on the science further down).

Having added pepper and a little of the sugar to get an idea of how it would turn out, it almost felt as if ginger was already there so I added a little more to accentuate that. The other spices were added to round everything off. The pepper taste is quite noticeable if you eat the jam by itself, but on buttered bread or toast it’s really nice. I also suggest that you try it with different semi-soft and hard cheeses such as Emmentaler, Jarlsberg, Prästost, Parmesan or Pecorino. My wife thinks it’s a little to much pepper, but for me it’s just perfect. In German this jam would be known as a Herrenmarmelade (a gentleman’s jam). If you’re not very fond of pepper however it’s a good idea to start with half the amount of pepper.

Spicy cherry jam with pepper
3.7 kg depitted sweet cherries
7.0 g black pepper, ground
0.8 g cloves, ground
0.7 g ginger, ground
1.3 g anis seeds, ground
0.8 g star anis, ground
zest and juice from 1/2 lemon
2.2 kg gelling sugar (with pectin and preservative)

Place enough jars in a cold oven and heat to 120-130 °C to sterilize them (this is more convenient than in boiling water). Depit cherries (conveniently done with a cherry stoner) and cut in four (helps you discover those stones that eluded the cherry stoner). Add spices and bring to boil. Remove any remaining pits that float up to the surface. Pureé with immersion blender (hopefully you will not hear the sound of cherry pits being crushed at this stage). Add gelling sugar. Let boil and skim of foam. Fill the hot jars immediately. And remember – as all chemists know – hot glass looks just like cold glass! Use a canning funnel to avoid spilling jam on the sealing surface of the jars. Leave to cool for 10-15 minutes and then screw on lids. I usually wipe the inside of the lids with 40-60% alcohol and then screw them on tightly before the alcohol has evaporated. There’s more at the end regarding the procedure for closing the jars.

This way of canning is very convenient and the jam will keep for several years in closed jars if kept in a cool, dark and dry place. This is due to the high sugar concentration (sugar binds water, and unless water is available, molds won’t grow), the low pH and – if added – the presence of preservatives. A more tedious way is to sterilize the jars after filling by boiling in water. This is no doubt the best way to sterilize the jars, but for jams with a high sugar content and a low pH it’s a little overkill. The National Center for Home Food Preservation in the US has more information about this (but notice that there are different traditions – I wonder if there is a divide between Europe and North America?). There are also many books about this and good place to start would be the “Ball Blue Book of Preserving”, better known as BBB among home canners. If you chose this method you should probably use a little more pectin as the additional heating at low pH will degrade some of the pectin making the jam more runny.

Using black pepper in a jam worked really well so I googled this and found Clotilde’s recipe for a strawberry jam with pepper and peppermint. She got it from Christine Ferber, author of “Mes confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber” which has recipes organized according to season. As mint was also mentioned as a good flavor pairing for cherries in “Culinary artistry” I thought I’d give pepper and peppermint a try.

Cherry jam with pepper and peppermint
2.2 kg depitted sweet cherries
1.3 kg sugar
2.4 g fresh peppermint leaves
2.8 g black pepper, ground
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
1 pack of Certo fruit pectin*

Depit cherries and cut in four. Add pepper and peppermint and bring to boil. Remove any remaining pits that float up to the surface. Pureé with immersion blender. Add pectin and stir until dissolved. Add sugar. Let boil and skim off foam. Sterilize and fill jars as in the previous recipe.

[ * The Certo pack weighs 70 g and contains sugar (for easier dispersion of the pectin), citrus pectin, citric acid to get the right pH for gelling and a preservative (ascorbic acid). ]

This jam was dominated by peppermint and the pepper could barely be noticed. I found it very refreshing and there is a surprise element as the red color does not suggest the presence of peppermint. Apart from the obvious use as a bread spread, I can imagine that this jam would be very nice with roasted meat, especially lamb, reindeer, elk and perhaps also wild game.

Having experimented with different spices and peppermint, my wife asked me to also make a batch of plain cherry jam which I happily did. But next year I would like to try making cherry jam with red wine!

As you can imagine, I couldn’t do all this without offering the chemistry behind some thoughts. Pectin chemistry is quite complicated though and there are several types available (low methoxyl, high methoxyl and amidated – so far I’ve only included the two first in “Texture – A hydrocolloid recipe collection”). Commercial packs of pectin for home use do normally not specify which type of pectin they contain, but I assume that it is the high methoxyl which gels in the presence of sugar and at low pH (as opposed to the low methoxyl which requires calcium ions to gel). The easiest is probably to follow the instructions that come with the pack you chose. Always add pectin before you add sugar (unless you premix them). The reason for this is that the gelling of high methoxyl pectins is promoted by sugar. If you add sugar before pectin, it will be very diffult to get the pectin properly dispersed and dissolved (it can be done with an immersion blender though – I’ve tried that once). Ready to use pectin is often pre-mixed with an acid to get the pH below 3.5 which promotes gelling. Citric acid is often used, and plain lemon juice will also do the job. Lowering the pH is especially important when using ripe or over ripe fruit as these can be less acidic and also contain less pectin if we are talking about pectin containing fruit. After the pectin and sugar have been added, the jam shouldn’t boil for more than a couple of minutes as pectin is not very heat stable.

There are also a couple of claims found in jam recipes which I have been wondering about:

Skimming: Almost all recipes I have seen for jams call for rapid skimming of the foam which formes when the jam mixture boils. One explanation I’ve seen is that this is done to prevent growth of mold, as these apparently grow more easily in the foam. There are certainly airborn molds, but the bubbles in the foam come from the jam as it boils, so it’s been very hot and presumably sterilized. So I’m simply wondering if the whole skimming is about esthetics – which is is still a good enough reason to me (but then I wish the recipes could state that!).

Turning jars upside-down: One thing that has puzzled me for a time is why recipes recommend that the jars should be turned upside-down. I’ve googled and checked several books and have come up with a couple of explanations (but most recipes only state that it should or shouldn’t (!) be done, without giving any reason). The fun thing is that the suggested time for how long the jars should remain turned upside-down varies from 2 minutes to several hours when the jam is cool and has set.

• One site claims it is done to prevent larger pieces of fruit from settling to the bottom. This does make sense, and in that case there is no reason to do it if the fruit has been puréed.
• A blogpost commenter suggests that turning the jars upside-down for 5 minutes makes sure the inside of the lid gets sterilized too. The temperature of the jam at this time is probably somewhere around 95 °C, so it does seem reasonable that it might kill some molds residing on the lid. I’d give this a thumbs up. Any microbiologist who could confirm this?
• Personally I have speculated whether turning the jars upside-down would allow water (or jam to be precise) to be drawn into the seal by capillary action and that this helps to make a perfect seal, but several sites emphasize that this should not be done to prevent the seal from being broken (these sites assume that a canner has been used – i.e. sterilizing the filled jars with lids in boiling water for 5 to 10 min). I’m not sure, but I wonder if there is a difference here between screw caps and glass lids with rubber bands?
• A last reason to turn jars upside down would be to prevent the water evaporating from the hot jam to condensate on the lid. If the jars are left to cool upside-down for 10-15 minutes, but turned back before the jam sets this will prevent water to condense on the lid and drip back to the surface of the jam. This water could potentially mean better conditions for growth of molds. This theory is also supported by the suggestion found in old cookbooks where the jars are left to cool completely without lids to let the surface dry and form a skin, and then covered with a filter paper dipped in alcohol before tying them up with pergament paper and string.

The conclusion so far regarding turning the jars upside-down can be summed up as follows. You should chose of the three methods:

• Cover with lid immediately and turn upside-down until cool enough to handle (~40-50 °C). Then return to upright position. This will prevent condensation of water on the lid, it might help create a better seal and it could possibly knock out some molds on the lid. The jam however will most likely not have set yet.
• As above, with the only difference that you leave the jars upside-down until cool and set. This means that the air pocket will not be below the lid but at the bottom of the glass when turned back to the upright position.
• Allow the jam too cool without lids until a skin has formed and the jars are cool enough to handle. This prevents condensation of water on the lid. Wipe the inside of the lids with the highest percentage alcohol available (but do NOT use denatured alcohol!) – typically it would be 40% or 60% – and screw on the lid before the alcohol evaporates. The skin formed will be less suceptible to growth of mold because there is less water present and because of the presence of alcohol.

Finally it’s time to round up my ten tips for moleceular gastronomy with the shortest of them all:

10. Have fun!

I sincerely believe that whatever you do, you do it better if you enjoy it. This isn’t a very scientific statement, but I’m sure there are bunches of scientific papers proving this, and my excuse is that I wouldn’t know where to start searching for them (perhaps anyone can help?)

If you had fun preparing the food it’s definitely going to taste better when you eat it. And if you enjoy the company of good friends it’s going to taste even better (as pointed out by Hervé This previously). In his elaboration of what molecular gastronomy is (or should be), Hervé This emphasizes that the social phenomena linked to cooking and eating are among the topics that should be studied scientifically. In the first post summing up the 10 tips I mentioned the research done at Grythyttan in Sweden which has resulted in the “Five Aspects Meal Model” which captures a little of this. And I also stated that

average food eaten together with good friends while you’re sitting on a terrace with the sun setting in the ocean will taste superior to excellent food served on plastic plates and eaten alone in a room with mess all over the place

Perhaps this is what Paul Bocuse was touching upon as well when he was interviewed by a local newspaper in Stavanger where the Bocuse d’Or Europe final recently was held. Being questioned about what his greatest culinary experiences were he answered (my translation):

- I’ve travelled a lot and been lucky to taste delicacies from many different countries, but nothing compares to simple dishes were the pot is placed in front of you on the table and where you have the opportunity to help yourself several times until the food gets cold.

Hey – I’d be happy to invite him over for dinner. He sounds like an easy guest to please

One of my intentions with the “10 tips” series has been to move the focus a little bit away from what too many have come to associate with molecular gastronomy – foam, alginate spheres and cooking with liquid nitrogen to mention a few. For me it has been a great oppurtunity to research a number of topics and I’m very thankful for all the feedback from readers! And in case it sounds as if I’m going to quit blogging I can let you know that the number of drafts for future blog posts is steadily increasing… So many interesting topics, so little time … But I’ll try to finish some of them soon.

Not only do I have fun cooking – blogging is also great fun! Here’s my blog as viewed on an OLPC (shown in tablet mode) obtained through the G1G1 program. Notice the screen which in the picture shown operates in a reflective, high-resolution black and white mode that is sunlight readable!

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There is a summary of the “10 tips for practical molecular gastronomy” posts. The collection of books (favorite, molecular gastronomy, aroma/taste, reference/technique, food chemistry) and links (people/chefs/blogs, webresources, institutions, articles and audio/video) at khymos.org might also be of interest.

There is really no end to all the exciting books that will appear this fall! I just learnt from the molecular gastronomy mailing list that the book “A Day at el Bulli” by Ferran Adrià, Juli Soler and Albert Adrià will appear in October. The publisher let’s us know that the book

documents all the activities and processes that make up just one day of service with stunning colour and black and white photography of the kitchens, staff, creative workshop, dishes, the restaurant itself and its striking surroundings near the town of Roses, north east of Barcelona

The fact that a 600 page book covers a single day at el Bulli says a lot about how much thought they put into their cooking

A number of books related to molecular gastronomy and food science will appear this fall – I’ve previously mentioned the Fat Duck and Alinea cookbooks. But there is more, much more! This time I would like to draw the attention to two books on sous vide which are due to appear in October. And notice how nice the titles compliment each other – one is under pressure, the other one under vacuum!

Thomas Keller, known from the French Laundry, Bouchon and per se, has written the book “Under Pressure – Cooking Sous Vide” (the Under Pressure title was also used by NY Times in a 2005 feature article on sous vide). According to the publisher, Keller and his chefs de cuisine have blazed the trail to perfection through years of trial and error and they show the way in this collection of never-before-published recipes from his landmark restaurants.

The book “Sous-Vide Garen im Vakuum” (Sous vide cooking under vacuum) by Viktor Stampfer (known from the Ritz-Carlton in Dubai) has received much less attention, but certainly deserves to mentioned. The title is in German, but do not despair – it seems to be a bilingual edition with German and English text (can anyone confirm this?), but so far it’s only available for preorder from the German Amazon. According to the publisher the book gives an introduction to the equipment used including sealing devices and recommended temperatures for cooking together with numerous recipes.

These are not the first books to appear on sous vide – enthusiasts have probably obtained one or more of the books by Roca, Farber, Ghazala, Leadbetter, Choain/Noël and Calmejane/Barrier – but I’m quite sure that the new books will complement these very nicely, and they will certainly be more available as several of the others have unavailable for some time.