Parmesan Spaghetti and Syringes

Today's cooking adventure involves parmesan cheese (yum), agar agar, syringes, and plastic tubing from Home Depot.  Here's the recipe:http://www.molecularrecipes.com/gelification/parmesan-spaghetto/

The "executive summary" for this recipe is that you reduce the parmesan cheese into just the whey, and then you gelatinize that with agar agar, and while it is hot, inject it with a syringe into some plastic tubing.  You cool that tube full of parmesan in an ice bath for 3 minutes, and then you use a syringe full of air to pump it out of the tube, forming a stunning white noodle.

Here is a video showing the method with arugula instead of parmesan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt34q4TVFyY

I have made the arugula spaghetti, and it was ok, but the parmesan spaghetti is much better.

The new adventure for me in this recipe was taking parmesan cheese and separating out the whey.  The recipe describes exactly how to do it, and it worked great.

There was a massive amount of parmesan "paste" left in the cheesecloth, and I am much too frugal to throw that away, but I can't figure out what to do with it, so for now, it sits in my refrigerator.

The whey and the fat separated after 12 hours in the refrigerator just like the recipe said, and it was easy to spoon the fat off.

The recipe called for 300 g of whey, and I only got 288 g of whey out of my cheese, so I just used agar agar in the same proportion as the recipe, and everything came out fine.

For the tubing, I bought the tubing at Home Depot (recommended here: http://www.molecularrecipes.com/gelification/agar-agar-spaghetti/)  I bought 10 feet, and cut it into 5 foot lengths, but I wish I had bought 20 feet and cut it into 5 foot lengths.  It is a race against time to get the parmesan gel into the tubes before it starts to get hard, and 4 tubes would have worked better.  Some recipes say to leave the tubes 10 feet long, but that is a lot of air to drive through there with a little syringe -- 5 feet worked great for me.  (and who needs a 10 foot noodle anyway?)

The final product turned out perfectly, more than enough for an appetizer or side for 4 people.  The texture is a lot like a soba noodle, but with the taste of pure parmesan, really good.

The recipe said they could be served hot or cold, but i put them in the microwave on high for 5 seconds and they started to melt.  So, either low power on the microwave, or maybe put them in warm (but not hot) water to warm them up.

The serving suggestion from the recipe was: "Serve on a plate sprinkled with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, grate lemon zest on top and carefully add a few drops on the plate of olive oil and balsamic reduction".    Sounds good to me.

Serving it with this would be good too: http://www.molecularrecipes.com/gelification/balsamic-vinegar-pearls/

Next adventure: Dry Caramel with Sea Salt, or my "continuing battle with Tapioca Maltodextrin"

ISOMALT-a-go-go

Always searching for new MG (molecular gastronomy) recipes, and so I googled upon this one: http://herbivoracious.com/2008/01/fun-with-isomal.html

Now that I have a goal, first to get some isomalt.  Didn't find any locally, so I used amazon.com.  (if anyone knows of somewhere in Phoenix to get some isomalt, let me know.)  What is isomalt?  It is a sugar-substitute that won't cause tooth decay (there are some other features, but that's the one I remembered.)

Followed the recipe, and it went pretty well.  Lessons learned:  My ginormous commercial stove always cooks things too quickly, so I probably over-cooked my isomalt by a little bit.  Don't think it affected flavor, but it gave it a light brown tinge.

The recipe called for a coffee grinder to take the cooled isomalt and make it back into a powder, but my little food processor did just fine, though it was violently loud and scared the pupster.  (My neurotic dog who does not like any noise.)

It made a lovely white powder, and I used a ring mold to try to make a lovely circle on the silpat.  That was wishful thinking, because unless I layered the isomalt perfectly evenly, it is not going to form a perfect circle in the oven.

I didn't have the snappy assortment of spices shown in the original recipe, so I did two combos:  mustard seed+chili powder+pepper, and mushroom salt+sesame seeds.

The recipe says to wait a few seconds before peeling them off the silpat -- unless you are in a freezer, that is not long enough -- you will see them start to harden around the edges, took a few minutes for me -- that's when you can peel them off.

Texture-wise, they are kind of like a thin peanut brittle.  Thinner layer of isomat powder on the silpat  works best for the best texture.  Tastewise -- just a hint of sweetness, and I liked the salt+sesame combo best, but I am crazy for salt, so possibly not the best judge.

So what would I do with this to actually make it part of a meal?  Possibly an interesting stand-alone appetizer, or perhaps on top of a salad, who knows.

The Alinea cookbook has a lot of recipes with isomalt, and there are also many videos on YouTube that show fun things to do with isomalt.

What the heck?

So here's the deal.  I like food.  I like science.  Then I discovered "Molecular Gastronomy".  Began to attempt some of these recipes.  Some turned out well.  Some turned out not so well.  Some friends think it's cool.  Some friends think I am crazy.

This will be the space where I document the journey.

Coming soon:  Fun with Isomalt, and making parmesan spaghetti (and my first time making whey!)