‘Molecular Mixology’ is a phrase that flies around quite a lot today amongst the elite mixologists. The phrase is derived from the term Molecular Gastronomy, as promoted by the likes of Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck and Ferran Adri of El Bulli. If you have seen any of Heston’s shows on television you’ll know going molecular usually involves a little science in order to present or serve a dish of food in a way that is both unique and often challenging to the customer.

In my mind both molecular gastronomy and mixology can follow either (or both) of two paths:

• Irreversibly fusing together flavours or ingredients by means of gelling, whipping or binding. Often by matching contrasting flavours to create new and remarkable taste experiences.
• Presenting or exhibiting a dish or drink in an extraordinary way, exploring textures and sensory perception. A hot dish could be cold, a cold dish hot. Perhaps a flavour is simply suggested by an aroma or a normally solid dish might be served as a foam, gel, jus, mist, caviar etc. etc.

Back to drinks. The most common practices in molecular mixology are caviars, foams and jellys.

This post is going to look at caviar’s, discussing how they can be used, why you would want to use them and how to make them. I don’t claim to be an expert on MM and in fact, this post is as much a documentation of the mistakes that I have made whilst trying to make caviar, than a one-stop guide on the best practises.

First off, let’s get the obvious out of the way: It ain’t caviar! Caviar is processed roe (ovaries) of salmon and sturgeon.The stuff I’m making has never seen a fish, but it certainly behaves a lot like caviar, both in looks, texture and feel in the mouth. Here comes the science…

The caviar is made by dissolving sodium alginate (NaC₆H₇O₆) into a liquid solution. The alginate will make up around 1% of the total volume of your liquid so only a tiny amount is required, but it’s affect on the liquid is quite obvious. Sodium alginate is a gum that acts as a gelling agent and emulsifier.  Immersing droplets of the alginate solution in a sodium calcinate bath causes a skin to form around the droplet, known as rapid gelation by electrostatic cross-linking.

What this means to us is that we can quickly and easily make tiny liquid filled balls from virtually any flavoured liquid. These can be used (in terms of drinks) as an accompaniment to a cocktail, a garnish, part of a food/drink pairing, or even part of the drink itself ie. Blackcurrant caviar floating in a Kir Royale.

The following is my guide on how to make caviar balls. My guide makes Grapefruit and Punt E Mes caviar and Sloe & Bramble caviar. Depending on sugar content and viscosity, other liquids may require the recipe to be altered.

You will need:

• Something to make the caviar from. This could be a fruit juice, spirit, liqueur, jam, vegetable, spice, herb infusion or any combination of them.
• Sodium Alginate powder
• Sodium Calcinate
• Water
• Sugar
• Syringe
• Long mixing glass
• Strainers x 2

Step 1.

Prepping the liquid for the Alginate. This part really depends on what your base liquid is. For my Grapfruit and Punt E Mes I added 12.5ml of Punt E Mes and 25g sugar to 200ml fresh pink grapefruit juice. For the Sloe and Bramble Jam I simply dissolved a desert spoon of it into 100ml hot water.

The process will strip a lot of the flavour away from whatever it is you’re caviarising (new word), so think about reducing it down as much as possible and possibly adding sugar to open it up.

Step 2.

The next part is dissolving the sodium alginate into the grapefruit juice. This process takes around 10mins of beating the liquid with a whisk (I found an electric whisk to be a bit too violent!) whilst slowly adding the alginate powder. Unfortunately the alginate has a tendancy to stick to the sides of your vessel or to the whisk, but it’s pretty important that you get as much of it dissolved as possible so that you achieve the thickness required.

After beating I allowed the solution to sit for a while and thicken even more. Whilst I waited I dissolved 3g of sodium calcinate into 300ml cold water, this was going to be my bath to set the balls in. I poured the bath water(!) into a boston glass, which happens to be the perfect size as it holds plenty of water and has some length, allowing the balls to fall a little way before settling.

Step 3.

The alginate solution is slightly more viscous than honey and I’m ready to go, ideally I would leave it to settle for up to 24 hours in order to remove all the little bubbles, but I’m no where near patient enough for that!

Once the syringe is full you can begin steadily secreting little droplets into the calcium bath. I used a julep strainer to catch the balls of caviar, but you could just use a small deep sieve. If the balls aren’t forming well it could be because you didn’t add enough alginate, the consistency of the alginate solution needs to be just right.

I dropped in two 50ml syringes of solution for each batch (about 50 caviar balls). They then need 5-10mins to form a decent skin, before they can be removed and washed. On my first attempt I only left the balls in the calcinate solution for about a minute, they were very weak and turned to mushy jelly quite quickly. One tip that I would offer is to periodically give the strainer (or sieve) a wiggle to get the balls moving, this way you ensure even surface contact with the bath water.

Step 4.

After around 8 minutes you need to remove the strainer shake off any excess liquid. Try handling one of the balls to see how thick the skin is, if left for too long the balls will simply form into hard gelatenous lumps. Ideally a squeeze should cause the ball to crack open and secrete the juice from within.

Transfer the balls to your other strainer and immerse the balls in cold fresh water. This process simply washes off any excess sodium calcinate, which both cleans the caviar of the salty taste and stops the hardening reaction.

You now have caviar. In the next part I will look into how the caviar can now be used in a cocktail.

5,603 post views