The Errant Æsthete

Chefs are using science not only to better understand their cooking, but also to create new ways of cooking, according to a piece today in the NY Times. Elsewhere, chefs have played with lasers and liquid nitrogen. Restaurant kitchens are sometimes outfitted with equipment adapted from scientific laboratories. And then there are hydrocolloids that come in white bottles like chemicals. … “Ten years ago, or maybe a little more than that, no chef in a serious restaurant would be caught dead using these ingredients.”

ABOVE: WD-50’s French onion soup is like no other. The Gruyère cheese is grated, baked, then blended with milk and propylene glycol alginate, a thickener and stabilizer made from seaweed. After being shaped into half-spheres and frozen, it is put into a pectin bath. The pectin reacts with calcium in the cheese and milk, forming a shell, while the inside is gooey liquid cheese. “Essentially it’s a ravioli,” Mr. Dufresne said. “It’s the essence of French onion soup, just reimagined.”

Nouvelle Chimie