it went pretty good overall. been wanting to try this out for a while now, and finally got around to it. i decided to do a roast red pepper puree as a garnish/flavor contrast for a cream of zucchini soup.

the soup was shallots and fennel sauteed then i added the zucchini, water and spices and pressure cooked for 1/2 hour. then i pureed it.

the peppers were roasted, skinned, pureed and then i added a bit of salt and a splash of blasamic (heh, looks kinda like blaspemic) vinegar.

the spherification process itself went basically fine, it formed a skin as it was supposed to. the only problem was that the puree was a bit too thick to align itself into nice spheres, so i got blobs instead of spheres. the density also led them to sink instead of floating on the surface as i had envisioned. (to get them to appear on the surface for the pic i had to add a ton of em til they piled up to the surface.)

another problem was that while they looked nice, they were too small and kinda got lost in the soup taste-wise. it wasnt quite the burst of flavor i envisioned. the puree tasted fantastic on its own, but the tiny spheres got lost in the soup. also, my back was killing me from bending over to drip the puree into the alginate bath. sometimes being 6'5" isnt a good thing. (especially in the kitchen...)

im going to try it again tomorrow night, ive still got the leftovers. im thinking to lighten the puree by adding a bit of olive oil to it. that should help em float a bit more since oil is much lighter than water. it should compensate for the dense pepper. also, im going to make them a bit bigger, like maybe 3x as big, so that theyre a bit more noticeable flavor-wise.

nice!

did some of this with fruit juices before, and it can get tricky depending on the substances used. im guessing this is CaCl2 and sodium alginate?
and yeah, i expected a huge burst of flavor but it was really subdued and gets lost in heavier dishes. for the most part, its presentation and unique feel.

try making pasta next, know what i mean?

From the looks of it, it looks very yummy

looks like green pubes

thanks, yeah, i used calcium chloride and sodium alginate (reverse spherification.)

noodlization is also something i want to try out.





thanks!




mmm, yeah, kinda in the pic. not as much in person.





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so i did try it out again, but i never got around to posting about it, so here it is.

i tried again making larger spheres/blobs. i also added some olive oil to try to lighten them so that theyd would float. i think i also added a bit more balsamic vinegar. dont remember at this point, though.

the olive oil was a failure. not only did it not enable them to float better, but it took away from the flavor. left it a bit oily tasting and not as strong a roast pepper flavor. they might have floated slightly better, but not enough to warrant killing the flavor. due to the increased size, you for more of a noticeable flavor, when eating it with the soup, but since it wasnt as nice a flavor it wasnt a good thing. in terms of looks, it looked ok, see below.

im not giving up, yet, though. i still like the look, especially of the smaller ones, and the flavor combination is a good one. i just have to work out the details of how to get it to work the way i want it.




just as bloby as the small ones. maybe even more so...

i mean, if you really want them to float, and really want to get nit-picky with the science-gastronomy thing, its a matter of density and buoyancy, perhaps surface tension, once you figure those out slowly and painfully you'll know what to do

yeah, thats why i was hoping adding some oil would work, its a lower density than water/soup. not enough to counter the dense pepper puree, though.