7.2.12

Prune, Blue Cheese, Preserved Meyer Lemon


While working with the blue cheese, I thought I felt something "pruney" about it.   I happened to have a jar of prune juice  waiting for use.

I mixed 250 grams prune juice with a 100 gram simple syrup and 8 grams of methylcellulose (F450).  One of methylcelluloses' neat tricks is that you can make heat stable foams out of them, which I did.  You simply whip as you would if you were making a meringue.

I then dehydrated piped puffs of MC-prune juice mixture until they were crispy.

To incorporate the blue cheese, I used the left over Carrageenan mixture  from the toasted walnut oil experiment (see previous pictures).  One of kappa carrageenan's neat properties is that it will release its liquid when agitated (syneresis).  So, I blended my left over blue cheese custard, pressed through a chinois twice, and and filled the prune juice puffs with a smooth "blue cheese pudding"

To add another dimension I broke into one of my jars of preserved meyer lemons and sliced a piece thinly.

You get a burst of intense salty-citrus flavor right off the bat.  This seems to come from nowhere, as though it burst through out of nothingness.  Then, crispy crunching and sweetness from the prune, which disappears very quickly.  This disappearing act is one of the nice features of the methylcellulose "meringues." And slowly mingling and then shining through is the piquancy and saltiness of the blue cheese.

A nice experience, and sure to be refined in the future.  Any ideas?

2 comments:

  1. this sounds totally fascinating. What does the carrageenan do?

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  2. Carrageenan is a gelling agent (think gelatin). As a gelling agent, it can be used to thicken liquids or form hard or soft, elastic or brittle gels (so it more formally is called a hydrocolloid). It can also be used to create emulsions (mixtures of fatty and watery liquids), or to make ice cream smooth and creamy rather than gritty when it freezes (check out the ingredients on ice cream, yogurt, maybe some salad dressings, and so on). There are three types of carrageenan, and I haven't even mentioned what happens when you mix it with other hydrocolloids :)

    Unlike gelatin, which is made of proteins, carrageenan is is composed of carbohydrates derived from seaweed (more like another gelling agent: agar-agar). Hence, it is (or should be) popular among vegetarians and vegans.

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