After the Xantham Gum explorations, I decided to start toying with the instant classic technique of making caviar. Everyone either eventually starts playing with ravioli or caviar early on in the process of fooling around with food chemistry, because it’s just so shockingly cool.

Anyway, when I first started working on this, I was still trying to use volume based measurements to work out the magic ratio to make small spherical pellets any liquid. Also, I’d read some brief mentions that reversing the typical formula of sodium alginate plus ingredient into a calcium chloride and water bath yielded better results. (more…)

This blog is going into production a little faster than I had anticipated due to the arrival of a shipment of chemicals and the inevitable playing around in the kitchen that results from having new toys. Nonetheless, I’m starting to have some problems with some of the availability of recipes for doing some of the more out-there future cooking suggested by the molecular gastronomy boosters.

My main problem is a lack of recipes in British measurements, as most of the formulas I’ve found are in metric and, more frustratingly, are articulated in terms of mass rather than volume. So, I set out the other day to see what I could discover using volume rather than mass. (more…)