Molecular Gastronomy

Elbow

I was browsing amazon earlier and came across this kit:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Molecular-gastronomy-kit-Cuisine-R-%C3%89VOLUTION/dp/B0049P7294/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322062785&sr=8-2

Has anyone ever tried one of these kits (or something similar)? or even attempted a bit of Molecular Gastronomy by getting the necessary powers etc.

swarbrick1979

I have one of these kits and i must say its easy to do, the dvd shows exactly how to make the recipes and the kids love it too! got mine from purplespaghetti

oldrnwisr

Elbow wrote: »

I was browsing amazon earlier and came across this kit:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Molecular-gastronomy-kit-Cuisine-R-%C3%89VOLUTION/dp/B0049P7294/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322062785&sr=8-2

Has anyone ever tried one of these kits (or something similar)? or even attempted a bit of Molecular Gastronomy by getting the necessary powers etc.

I have tried both the Texturas kit from El Bulli and the Starterpro kit.

The first problem with the kits is that they are a little bit limited in scope, allowing you to try the recipes that come with the kits but not much else. The amounts of each powder can be very small depending on the kit.

Secondly, three of the five powders in the Cuisine Revolution kit can be picked up in any supermarket/healthstore with out too much bother, namely agar, lecithin and xanthan gum. The only ingredients that are hard to source are the calcium lactate and the sodium alginate whose sole purpose is spherification, which is a nice trick, but there is only so much beetroot caviar (or whatever) you can make before you get bored.

Thirdly, none of the kits contain the ingredients that end of being useful on a day-to-day basis for molecular gastronomy, such as gellan, malic acid, sodium citrate, citric acid, maltodextrin etc.

Finally, for what you get in the box, it ain't cheap, so you might want to consider what you want to do with the ingredients before you buy.


Personally, I would recommend downloading this free molecular gastronomy recipe book and looking at the possibilities with each ingredient.

Texture - A hydrocolloid recipe collection

You can then buy whatever individual ingredients you want to experiment with here:

MSK - Food Ingredients

Also, if you want to try some proper dishes with some molecular gastronomy thrown in, try the GB Chefs app for iPad.

Macho Fantastico

For those of us who aren't going to cook like this anytime soon, for whatever reason , does anyone know any restaurants in Dublin that offer molecular gastronomy to try it out?

oldrnwisr

Macho Fantastico wrote: »

For those of us who aren't going to cook like this anytime soon, for whatever reason , does anyone know any restaurants in Dublin that offer molecular gastronomy to try it out?

Not meaning to evade the question, but it depends on how you define molecular gastronomy.

While there aren't any restaurants in Ireland that use molecular gastronomy in the way that The Fat Duck or El Celler de Can Roca do, there are a few who have at least adopted some techniques from molecular gastronomy like L'Ecrivain and The Cliff House Hotel.
However, I would guess there are very few restaurants now who have not been influenced by modernist cuisine/molecular gastronomy to some degree.

Elbow

@oldrnwisr i was thinking that would be the case with the quantities in the kits alright,

Think i'm gonna buy the individual ingredients and get creative!

Macho Fantastico

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Not meaning to evade the question, but it depends on how you define molecular gastronomy.

While there aren't any restaurants in Ireland that use molecular gastronomy in the way that The Fat Duck or El Celler de Can Roca do, there are a few who have at least adopted some techniques from molecular gastronomy like L'Ecrivain and The Cliff House Hotel.
However, I would guess there are very few restaurants now who have not been influenced by modernist cuisine/molecular gastronomy to some degree.

Ah I guessed as much, thanks anyway oldrnwisr!

Minder

oldrnwisr wrote: »

While there aren't any restaurants in Ireland that use molecular gastronomy in the way that The Fat Duck or El Celler de Can Roca do, there are a few who have at least adopted some techniques from molecular gastronomy like L'Ecrivain and The Cliff House Hotel

I made the mistake of buying the Cliff House Hotel cookbook. Extremely frustrating in that a lot of the recipes should use molecular gastronomy or modernist cuisine techniques but they are not given. There are pictures aplenty - inset pictures of spherification of liquids, fish cooked sous vide or with transglutaminase to glue fillets together - all dishes from the restaurant and barely a single reference to the actual techniques used to cook the dishes in the restaurant.

Okay, you may say, who wants a lot of technique from a restaurant kitchen for a domestic cook who doesn't have the equipment or the chemicals at home? Fine - don't present the pictures from the restaurant in the cookbook! I feel ripped off :mad:

oldrnwisr

Minder wrote: »

I made the mistake of buying the Cliff House Hotel cookbook. Extremely frustrating in that a lot of the recipes should use molecular gastronomy or modernist cuisine techniques but they are not given. There are pictures aplenty - inset pictures of spherification of liquids, fish cooked sous vide or with transglutaminase to glue fillets together - all dishes from the restaurant and barely a single reference to the actual techniques used to cook the dishes in the restaurant.

Okay, you may say, who wants a lot of technique from a restaurant kitchen for a domestic cook who doesn't have the equipment or the chemicals at home? Fine - don't present the pictures from the restaurant in the cookbook! I feel ripped off :mad:

I think you'll find that that is the case with a lot of the fine dining restaurant cookbooks. There are a number of reasons why this is done but mainly it is because the home economists and such who edit these books try to ensure that the home cook will be able to make a reasonable approximation of the restaurant dish at home. The notable exception to this is The Fat Duck Cookbook which has disclaimers about attempting the dishes. Some of the dishes on the menus of two and three star Michelin restaurants have recipes which might be 12 or 15 pages long. Reproducing the entire menu accurately in a cookbook would leave you with something you couldn't even lift off the shelf.

Like I've said, though The Fat Duck Cookbook is a pretty accurate representation of the restaurant dishes and some people have gone about taking on the recipes:

The Big Fat Undertaking

Minder

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I think you'll find that that is the case with a lot of the fine dining restaurant cookbooks.

I disagree. I have a lot of fine dining cookbooks among a large collection of cookbooks. Many of them don't use modernist techniques in the first place. A lot of contemporary cookbooks adequately describe the processes involved, be it low temperature cooking, or the use of chemicals in a dish. What I object to with the Cliff House is the obvious reference to these techniques in the pictures but not in the recipes. Here is a lovely photograph of what you could have in the restaurant, good luck reproducing it with the instructions given in the cookbook.

Some of it is so obvious. There is a beautiful picture on page 71 of a Heritage Tomato Collection. All manner of tomatoes in different guises - grilled, dried, made into jelly, sorbet, cured and dried. Not a single instruction of how to prepare any element.

Oysters with guinness - picture includes a meringue. Side note says "Photo shows dish with oyster meringue as served at the cliff house". No recipe for the meringue.

Hake with cherries recipe on page 116. this comes with a yoghurt sphere. Full page picture with plate arrangement. Inset picture of spherified yoghurt.
Recipe says spoon yoghurt on the side. Spherification of yoghurt is a 6 line recipe at best. What was wrong with including it?

oldrnwisr

Minder wrote: »

I disagree. I have a lot of fine dining cookbooks among a large collection of cookbooks. Many of them don't use modernist techniques in the first place. A lot of contemporary cookbooks adequately describe the processes involved, be it low temperature cooking, or the use of chemicals in a dish. What I object to with the Cliff House is the obvious reference to these techniques in the pictures but not in the recipes. Here is a lovely photograph of what you could have in the restaurant, good luck reproducing it with the instructions given in the cookbook.

Maybe I should have been clearer in my previous post. What I meant to say was that if you buy a fine dining restaurant cookbook particularly from a restaurant which uses molecular gastronomy, you shouldn't expect to be able to reproduce the restaurant dish at home. I've talked to chefs who've worked in 3 michelin star restaurants and they have said that what the cookbook says is different to what actually happens in the restaurant. I've made, for example, the Rillettes aux deux saumon from The French Laundry and it isn't remotely comparable to the actual dish in the restaurant. It bears noting that with a restaurant like Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, you have a brigade of 39 chefs preparing dishes with recipes 12-15 pages long. That's just not something you're ever going to be able to replicate at home.

Minder

You didn't need to elaborate. I appreciate that there are brigades of kitchen staff in some of the best restaurants. I also appreciate the work of good chefs and excellent home economists who turn restaurant recipes into working recipes that can be made at home. There are good cookbooks and bad cookbooks - the Cliff House Hotel is not a good cookbook.

swarbrick1979

Well i must say you guys all make some very good and valid points and downloads such as the Cybercolloids book is fantastic information HOWEVER I think to get back to the origional question that begun the thread which was asking about the kits in particular the Molecule-R, there is no better kit on the market for the home chef to experiment with these techniques as all the tools, additives and almost more important the DVD! ofcourse they are going to be more expensive than buying bulk and researching the recipes and techniques etc but for a beginner? this has to be the best product on the market without a doubt.

Minder

Also check out the Texturas range available at www.infusions4chefs.co.uk

I don't know how the prices compare, but Infusions also sell large 400g and 600g canisters as well as the starter kits. They also stock the lyo-sabores range of freeze dried ingredients. ElBullitaller have produced two dvds with 84 recipes on the first and 63 recipes on the second dvd.

epicurist

Minder wrote: »

You didn't need to elaborate. I appreciate that there are brigades of kitchen staff in some of the best restaurants. I also appreciate the work of good chefs and excellent home economists who turn restaurant recipes into working recipes that can be made at home. There are good cookbooks and bad cookbooks - the Cliff House Hotel is not a good cookbook.

Dear Minder

Thank you for the feedback on The Cliff House Hotel Cookbook.
It is obviously unfortunate that you are disappointed and feel ripped off.
I take your points on board, put would like to make a few comments
This Book was produced in 2008 and published in 2009, the book was published with the idea that guests of the hotel could bring the book home as a souvenir and as a reference, this is also the reason that the recipes are written in a matter that it would not be too complicated, at that time it had no place to detail out the techniques, Concepts or the “molecular” work methods, as this was seen as over complicating it.
To be honest , yes it could have been nice to put in the recipe for the yoghurt sfherification ( take 1 litre off luke warm water and blend with 5 gr Algin, strain and cool, as yoghurt has a high calcium content you can drop a scoop of yoghurt in the algin bath and a direct Spherification occur, remove and rinse in water, serve……….) but for the above reasons it did not happen.
Same counts for the Oyster and Guinness, the meringue is very simple (150 ml oysterjuice, 100 ml mineral water, 1 egg white, 2.2 gr Gelatine, - soak gelatine, heat oyster liquid and solve gelatine, add the mineral water and cool, whisk through the egg white, put in small isi canister and charge with 2 No2 cartridges, refrigerate for at least 4 hours, shake and pipe it out)
The Tomato collection is very straight forward and does not involve any difficult techniques, a guide line was given and we left it at that.
Further the book does have a few interesting chapters were we explain a few things in more detail, like on page 176- sorbets and ice cream…… but that was afterwards already for some of the feedback I received a bridge to far, so opinions for why you buy this book are different for everybody.
Also I would like to point out that we never used transglutaminase in this kitchen, also the recipes in the book are written down with a sincere mind of transparancy.
To come to a conclusion I happily send you a copy of the The Cliff House Hotel Cookbook number 2, this will be published in October 2012 and will Have all what you suggested and commented on, there will be no compromise in the recipes and they will be as the House Restaurant uses them on a Daily bases, this book is different from the first as it will only focus on Fine Dining and everything what comes with that.
I hope you can appreciate my reply, if you could be so kind to send me an email to me personally, I can then make sure that you will receive the promised book
Kind Regards
Martijn Kajuiter
mkajuiter@thecliffhousehotel.com