Thursday, January 29, 2009

My first sphere

Like this trick is so, you know, like totally four years ago! But I had never done a reverse sodium alginate sphere before. It was really easy...really easy.

And now that I've done one, I can work on removing the air bubbles, and seeing how thin, yet stable, I can make the skin. My plan is to make a piñon horchata sphere with cinnamon orange ice for an amuse this weekend for a dinner I'm catering. Nothing like waiting til the last second.
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6 comments:

  1. AmyJanuary 29, 2009 at 11:05 PM

    I had to *cough* google reverse sodium alginate sphere but now that I have a vague idea.....Cool! You really do learn something new every day! (well mostly anyway :P)

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  2. Gfron1January 30, 2009 at 5:11 AM

    This really is an old technique that is IMO no longer cool and never was really an appropriate use in the kitchen. I've had a few and every time they taste fine, but were more of a gimmick than a way of presenting food in a manner that makes it taste better. So what is it? Well, in regular spherification (you'll often hear this called 'caviar'), you take sodium alginate (think seaweed) and put it in a liquid. You then use a syringe to release droplets into a bowl of water with calcium chloride. The droplet hits the water, causing a chemical reaction that forms a skin of gelatin around the ball of liquid...hence caviar. In the reverse process, in this case anyway, you make a liquid with calcium and freeze it. Then you take the frozen sphere, and set in a bath of water with sodium alg, causing the same effect with a larger mass. You then bite into the ball and it bursts with the juices. Again, cool parlor trick, but not necessarily an improvement.

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 31, 2009 at 11:38 AM

    Would adding the calcium chloride into the liquid not impart the strange chemical/salty flavour into the sphericated (is that the right word? Sphericised?)? The one and only time I made the normal version, the sphere had to be soaked in water to get rid of it.

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  4. Tri2CookJanuary 31, 2009 at 4:15 PM

    Fun though, isn't it? I still bust out the alginate and gluconate-lactate now and then. Who cares if the cool kids still do it?

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  5. Gfron1February 1, 2009 at 6:42 AM

    CalumC - yes, and in fact I made them again for a cater and ended up tossing them. I consulted with Tri2Cook who gave me the other options for the additive which I'll be using next time.

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  6. AaronMarch 25, 2009 at 2:09 PM

    Oh, man. I <3 horchata. It is the Super Rad.

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