CALLING ALL FOOD SCIENTISTS

[lenagogan]

So. I am a big NYTimes food section reader and I came across this super interesting article + recipe today: The Essence of Nearly Anything, Drop by Limpid DropBasically, the premise is: you take food (they say anything from strawberries to baked potatoes with all the fixings to meat), puree it, mix a minute amount of gelatin in and then freeze it.

Comments

[so_hold_on]

this sounds like an awesome question.
try posting it in food_porn ?

[webtar]

My first thought is that the gelatin takes up the liquid, so when it's thawed it won't be all liquid, but more the essence of the food. With my theory, it seems like a thickener that doesn't need to be heated to absorb the liquid would work.
I know someone who would know, so I'll point her here.

[ukulelesusie]

Hey! thats me! Thanks for pointing me, Webtar

[supercarrot]

when i saw "food science", i immediately thought of you too. hehehe.

[kingfissure]

If you try something and get a good result, let us know please and thank you :) I'm interested in seeing if this can be done.

[mostlycrazy]

Has anyone else read Perfume? :P

[illinoisemakerr]

haha, I was thinking the same thing.

[woobeans]

apparently agar agar doesn't melt with reheating/thawing in the same way that gelatin does.

[ukulelesusie]

no, it doesn't its really weird in that the tempurature at which it dissolves is significantly higher than the tempurature at which it sets. Its hard to explain kind of. But the important part here is that the agar won't melt at the refridgerator tempurature- which is what you want. (and also its higher dissolving tempurature is why I said that you should boil it for a while, as agar is hard to get to dissolve.)