A recent order to the Spice House (www.thespicehouse.com) had me excited.  Not only did they have some smoked paprika and powdered sumac (good on top of humus), they also had odds and ends for molecular gastronomy.   In case you don’t know what that means, it’s the hoity-toity way of saying doing a little chemistry with your food to create unusual effects.  Candy making is molecular gastronomy based around sugar and it’s behavior at certain temperatures.

One of the most notable effects from this “rockstar” chef movement is Spherification.   I’ll warn you that I’m no expert and definitely not a historian on this manner.  In fact, apart from seeing it done on Iron Chef now and then, I’ve only been served spheres in a restaurant one time and it was not even that memorable.

But I wanted to give it a try — so I bought some stuff for making balls (er….spheres).

Spice House offers excellent small-sized bottles for spherification.

As I mentioned earlier, Spice House offers small-sized amounts of Calcium Salt and Sodium Alginate.  Quantities sized right to get started, and the ingredients are food grade (so not from some scary chemistry shop where they may be tainted with ferric chloride, cyanides and other nasty not-so-edible chemicals).

Why write a post about my balls?

My stuff showed up just in time for some weekend play — but now what?   I trolled the web, but couldn’t find any straightforward explanations or recipes.  How much do I mix in?  How do I make the drops?  What are some basic tell tale signs.   Give me some range of expectations a la Good Eats so that I can tune in my spheres and get this process working.

I gave up on the internets and started playing and making my own notes.  What follows are my experiences from a weekend day of playing around with little alginate balls.

The Process

I didn’t make that much of a matrix, as I was basically trying to dial it in (and my 9 month old can only handle being ignored for so long).   The great part, though, is that I was able to use things that are readily available to any home cook.  Oh, and I took lots of notes of both the successes and the failures.

The Solutions

To make spheres, you drop one solution into the other.  Typically, the flavored ingredient is mixed with Sodium Alginate and dropped into a solution of Calcium Salt.  Through some chemical magic, drops turn into little spheres with a harder outer coating and a soft liquid gel like inside.  Properly done, the little spheres pop in your mouth like caviar and release tastiness on your palette.

Ca:Salt Solution

The Calcium Salt solution is easy to make up.  In my case, I just used room temperature tap water (our tap water is tasty good) and whisked in a small amount of Ca to dissolve.

Sodium Alginate Solution

The sodium alginate solution is a little more tricky.   For this set of experiments, I made spheres using sweet tea (thanks, Steph).  I figured it was a good basic starting point, as it is failrly neutral in acidity and we plenty of it to work with.

The problem with the alginate lies in actually mixing it together (emulsifying).   I first tried room temperature sweet tea and a whisk.   This just made clumps, which don’t work and are not good eats.

The answer: I popped the clumpy mixture into the microwave for 30 seconds and took it just shy of a boil — voila, the sodium alginate clumps broke apart and a whisk finished the job.    The resulitng liquid was fairly bubble free and slightly thicker (think maple syrup).

Another method of emulsification that I have read about and tried is to use a hand stick blender.  This is an aggressive approach and definintely worked at emulsifying the liquid.  However, it also seemed to incorporate lots of bubles and it loosened up the liquid considerably.  Using the hand blender, I needed more alginate per liquid volume in order to achieve the desired thickness.  Also count on a period of rest (or hook up your shop vac and a home made bell jar) to de-air your mixture.

The Dropping methods

Everywhere I looked online people used various tools to create the drops that create the little spheres.  You can use a toothpick or a spoon or a syringe.   As I worked with the various methods, I quickly developed opinions — which I will share with you below:

Toothpick

Good for initial testing of your solutions to see if they will sphereize.   Terrible for creating large amounts of balls — 1 ball every 5 seconds is pretty maddening.   Also ends up creating somewhat inconsistent ball sizes, depending on how much the solution clings to the toothpick.

Spoon

Very uncontrolled.  Pretty much useless for creating spheres.   You can create noodles and spermy looking shapes, however.

Here are the 3 dropping tools I attempted to use. A small eye-dropper type bottle on the left, a more expensive version on the right and a syringe front and center.

Syringe

Maybe I had a low quality syringe, or too small a syringe.  I had a devil of a time creating consistent drop after drop.  Instead, the syringe would clog now and then and I would end up spraying out some alginate solution into a rats-nest in the calcium salt.   Taking in a little air into the syringe helped a little bit with constant pressure against the alginate solution.  Either way, I was not fond of the syringe method.    The best use of the syringe was to cleanly fill up the dropper bottles.

Dropper Bottle

After getting frustrated with the syringe, I tried 2 different dropper bottles.  Both of these worked many times better than the syringe.  They created consistent sized drops and did so very very quickly.  The second dropper bottle was able to create 100′s of droplets in a minute!   A good dropper bottle is easy to fill and the nozzle won’t clog with alginate.   Too tight a nozzle and and the alginate eventually gums up the orifice and you can’t make spheres anymore.      In the end, I used a syringe to cleanly fill a dropper bottle and unleash a batch of droplets into the calcium salt solution.

Example dropper bottles that I tried:

• (dropper bottle in picture on right) VWR International:  16354-400   $80 for qty 12
• Low density VWR International 46300-592 or larger (46300-594 is 8oz),  $33 for qty 25

The other nice thing about the dropper bottles, is you can cap them and store your alginate solution for up-to-the-minute use.   One important note about spheres is to not keep them sitting around too long. After about 30 mintues or so they eventually go “stale” and harden up into solid balls — not nearly as texturally interesting as caviar-like spheres.

More Detailed Notes And Quantities

Alginate solution on the left and calcium salt solution on the right -- we're ready to make some balls.

Below are my notes on the solutions and mixes and results.  After trying to weigh out the ingredients on a precision scale, I gave up — how many of us actually have scales in our kitchen accurate enough to measure fractions of an ounce (or just a couple of grams).  In this case, volumetric measurement is going to be more reliable and more available to the standard home cook.

Sodium Alginate Solutions

Sodium Alginate was added to the room temperature sweet tea, but since it faield to dissolve, the mixture was heated in the microwave for 30s – 1 min (just shy of boiling) and whisked to emulsify.

Solution                  Sweet Tea                   Sodium Alginate

A                                   1 oz                                1/8 tsp

B                                   2 oz                                1/8 tsp

C                                   2 oz                                3/16 tsp

D                                  3 oz                                 1/4 tsp

Calcium Salt Solutions

Calcium Salt was added to cool tap water and dissolved with a whisk.

Solution                       Water                            Calcium Salt

1                                  8 oz                                 1/2 tsp

2                                  4 oz                                  1/2 tsp

3                                  8 oz                                  1/4 tsp

Results and Notes

In the following section, we’ll refer to the solutions above.   Obviously, “A1″ means sodium alginate solution “A” dropped into calcium salt solution “1″

Red food coloring and simple syrup make these early spheres visually pop off the plate.

A1 Observations

• Time in Solutions:
  • Drops 1 minute in solution were a little soft, but hardened up a little after sitting.
  • 3 minutes in solution was perfect
  • 4 minutes in solution was a little too hard
• Solution Notes:
  • Use a little less alginate, the “A” solution was noticeably thicker — almost mayonaisse.
  • Probably could use some more calcium salt since it took so long in solution
  • There was not an excessive salt flavor from the calcium.
• Syringe Notes:
  • I used the syringe + louver, and got about 3mm drops, but the syringe kept clogging
  • Once I got some air in the syringe behind the alginate solution and it helped with consistency.
• After 30 minutes of standing by, the spheres were still edible

B2 Observations

• Solutions Notes:
  • The Calcium saltwater was quite strong
  • Not enough alginate to form a ball
  • Very strong resigual Ca:Salt on spheres….must be rinsed well
• Drop does not really penetrate surface of the water to make a sphere…instead it sits on surface and additional drops glom on.

A mound of perfectly popping prismatic sweet tea spheres sits on a white plate. Super tasty and sweet!

C2 Observations

• This combination worked pretty well.
• Some balls were solid however, way more than A1 — this is not as appetizing
• Solution Notes
  • Required less soak time than A1
  • The #2 salt solution definitely needs a good rinse.
• Dropper Notes:
  • Used the dropper bottle (“methonal bottle”)   VWR International:  16354-400
  • This was great for a consistent drop size, although if the alginate solution gets too thick it can sometimes clog.
  • Used the syringe to cleanly fill the dropper bottle.   This worked really well.

D3 Observations

• Time in Solutions:
  • After 1 minute in the Ca:Salt solution, the spheres were nice and delicate with a good outer layer and  a snap when you bite into them.  Perfect mix for our sweet tea spheres.
• Solution Notes:
  • Alginate needed to heat or brought to boil for faster/easier emulsification
• The drops enter the water almost toroid shaped but did sphereize.
• Dropper Notes:
  • Tried a different dropper bottle (like a visene eye-dropper). Although a little more difficult to fill, it did NOT clog.  It also generated dozens of spheres quickly — just squeeze.
• Stayed good for 5 minutes (easily) after pulled out and rinsed and dried.

Other Notes and Findings

Drying

Drying these little buggers is in itself an art.   I tried a couple of ways, but by far the easiest was to spread them out on a paper towel in a single layer and cover with a paper towel and slowly roll the balls between the two layers.   The other method is to creeate a “sling” out of a few paper towels and kind of toss the balls around inside the sling.

Spheres, balls, everywhere. Watch out -- these guys know how to roll!

Balls Everywhere

Expect to find and lose balls everywhere.  Once loose, they roll….and because of their size and transparent quality, they can be extremely difficult to find.

Serving

Serve as a presenation note on the side.   I’ve served in leiue of sauce on top of fish (think parsley puree spheres with a good touch of salt as a high note on top of salmon).    Concentrated flavors and colors work well.

Tastes for Serving

For saucing or as a side note, think big bold flavors.  The spheres are small and you want them to pop and release bundles of joy.   I made a nice parsley sauce which, when over-salted, produced a wonderful topping for fist.   Blueberry juice is a little weak, but blueberry preserves thinned with water carries a good punch of flavor.

Other Hints

Mix up your alginate and drop all of your balls at once into the Ca:Salt.  Insead of trying to fish spheres out of the Ca:Salt, just pour the entire Ca:Salt solution out and into a strainer.

3oz of alginate solution is a LOT of spheres.   Easily enough as a side note on plates for 4 people.

I tried using a scale to measure ingredients, but this proved frustrating, as most scales simply cannot handle small fractions of an ounce (or gram) quantitiies accurately.

Debugging

If the drops sit on top and do not sphereize, then there is a likelihood that you don’ thave enough soldium alginate.   If, after a minute, the balls are still too fragile, up the calcium salt solution.

Next Steps

So what next?

Well, I’ve made some great spheres using a celery salty sauce and put this on broiled salmon – but I used the hand stick blender to emulsify the alginate and it took far more alginate than expected.   So clearly, there are some variables at play.   Perhaps I need to buy a pH meter and do some work with acidity and quantity other variables.

The metric that seems key, but is the hardest to quantitatively measure, is the viscosity of the alginate solution.  This is definitely a case where having some experience regarding what to expect and mixing it by eye may be easier.

BACKGROUND

I enjoy cooking. There are times I like to wing it, and times I like to pick the most complicated recipe I can find and make it work out. I routinely try out new recipes — for the most part following them rigorously the first time and taking notes so that I can adjust them a second time. I use many different sources for recipes and inspiration — dozens of cookbooks, magazines, clippings, and of course the entire Web.

In fact, this last weekend, I cooked a whole mess of food for several nights in a row. Working with multiple new recipes, I became aware that some were easier to follow than others. Even though I had studied these recipes the night before and had anticipated some problems, the problems came up anyway when I started juggling dish preparation for multiple dishes.

BEGIN RANT

Properly formatting recipes is clearly a challenging endeavor. Challenging, because I figure that >75% of recipes fail to assist the cook due to a lack of intelligent formatting. So, let’s look at a subset of that challenge — the list of ingredients.

First off, there are a few key philosophies that (could/should) guide the list of ingredients:

• Prep Order: While important, I will argue that dish preparation order should not be the only metric used for defining the order of the ingredients list. While ingredient order matching dish prep order is the generally accepted philosophy in 90%+ of the recipes out there, I have still this most basic of recipe-ingredient-order-philosophies violated for no apparent reason.

• mise en place: (link) is a great way to assemble a recipe, and removes the hard link between ingredient order and dish prep order. One could imagine a mise en place ingredient order recipe where similarly prepped ingredients are grouped together (kind of like GTD). Guess what? I have yet to come across a recipe where mise en place guides the list of ingredients. [See the zesting example below] That said, mise en place as seen on cooking shows is not always practical for the home cook. Not all of us have dishwashers or counter space to put out dozens of small prep bowls with a teaspoon here and a tablespoon there. I’m also not fond of leaving out temperature sensitive ingredients for lengths of time.

• Efficient mise en place: Recipes should consider the number of dishes consumed (more dishes = more wasted water in cleanup anyway) and can often do this by a simple re-ordering of ingredients. By placing dry ingredients (that can be mixed) together and wet ingredients in a group, you can significantly cut down on bowl usage.For example, I often take mise en place one step further — to what I call “efficient mise en place“. One can significantly reduce the number of prep-bowls by combining all the chopped veggies into one bowl. I typically do this in “reverse order” of expected use. An example would be a saute — the onions hit long before the mushroooms, so I’ll chop the ‘shrooms first and put them at the bottom with the onions at the top. That way I can scoop off “layers” as the dish progresses.A similar trick works really well with herbs that report at the end of the cooking process. Why give each one a separate bowl when all you are going to do is dump them in at once at the very end of the process anyway?

• Sub-Grouping: The most helpful and often overlooked philosophy is creating sub-groups of ingredients. The best recipes take the additional line-space and appropriately break apart groups of ingredients. The worst recipes attempt to save space by putting the marinade right up against the sauce, leaving it up to the cook to figure out whether the sugar reports to the sauce or the marinade. Another terrible idea is when recipes save space by “splitting” ingredients (more on that later).

SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF RECIPE INGREDIENT ISSUES

Now for some fun….. here are some ways in which recipes really chap my hide.

• Clearly note which ingredients need additional/unusal time to sit/drain/thaw/roast/pickle/etc. This should be listed in the first lines of the recipe or spelled out clearly in the ingredients list. For instance “1 block tofu, drained for 4 hours” would be nice to see in an ingredients list, as an undrained block of tofu behaves quite differently. Likewise, “2 lbs of cucumbers, salted and drained for 30 minutes” is nice to know up front. I recently came across a recipe where the draining process was not stated until halfway through the assembly process, which is a little late to be telling me such things. On a positive example: since home ovens often take 30+ minutes to stabilize at a given temperature, note how just about every single baking recipe has you pre-heat the oven as the very first step in the whole process.

• Always place the zest before the juice. This one because it is so bloody simple, but seems to consistently be trumped by the recipe-order-depicts-ingredient-order instead of using a more common sense mise en place order. Have you ever tried to zest an already juiced lemon or lime? Brutal, huh? Whether you use a microplane, a grater or a zester, you really want to zest before juicing. So, why on earth would you put the zest after the juice? Typically, it is because the zest appears AFTER the juice in the process. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone back and zested yet-another lime because the juiced ones are already down the garbage disposal.

• Splitting ingredients to save a line is lazy. You ever see “2 cups plus 3 teaspoons” and wonder what that means? It took me a LOT of cooking to figure that one out. Even worse is when a recipe like that starts with a “Combine the sugar, butter, etc in a bowl….”. So you dump your 2 cups plus 3 teaspoons in a bowl only to find a few paragraphs later “sprinkle remaining 3 teaspoons of sugar over the top….”.Here’s a hint to recipe designers out there, stop splitting ingredient quantities and do 2 separate line items instead. Bread recipes are notorious for this (they tend to start with numerous cups of flour, but you can guarantee the process breaks this ingredient apart along the way). The only reason bread recipes get away with this is that the list of ingredients and instruction set length is typically very short, so the problem is under the pain threshold.Another reason that splitting ingredients is silly: “2 cups plus 3 teaspoons” is a split among entirely different measuring devices.

  For this type of split, you will have to have out your cup measure and your teaspoon measure (or eyeball it). Why not just suck-it-up and have 2 line items in the ingredients list. Heck, if I have to wash an additional kitchen item for your recipe, do me the respect of giving me that additional line item for clarity!

  The only argument (besides laziness and space savings) for splitting ingredients is to provide the cook with a combined total needed for the recipe. However, since most cooks have to create an overall combined total across multiple recipes in order to create a shopping list, rolling up totals for the cook simply creates additional work in the kitchen to save a few seconds in the shopping time. This extra work during prep time is not welcome.

• Do not randomly alternate between solids and liquids. First of all, this makes it difficult to run an efficient mise en place. Second, have you ever tried grabbing 3 tablespoons of flour after chopping some vegetables — that’s right, you have to wash then really really dry your hands. For efficiency, I also prefer to measure out all my dry ingredients first before proceeding to the wet ingredients, and then finally proceeding to the sticky/goopy ingredients. Done in the appropriate order, you can re-use the same cup measure throughout an entire recipe. Done incorrectly, you could require 3 or 4 cup measures (and if you have a kitchen with 3 or 4 cup measures of the same size available to you, you probably are not reading this rant anyway). In the end, inappropriately alternating between wet and dry ingredients simply adds additional prep and cleanup time — both are unwelcome in my kitchen.

• Add demarcation lines or titles between major subsets of ingredients. I cannot stress this one enough! Making a meat dish the other day, the marinade ingredients flowed right into the sauce ingredients. WTF!? I had to go back and forth between the instructions and the ingredients a couple of times to figure out where one part of the recipe stopped and the other began.Taken further, if recipe designers break ingredients into subsets, you can have one simple instruction that says “Combine all the sauce ingredients in a medium saucepan….”. This is far easier to parse on-the-fly than “Combine sugar, water, butter, vanilla extract and dark rum into a medium saucepan.” Reduced workload — definitely welcome in my kitchen.

SUMMARY

Well, that’s about it for now…… I’m sure I will add more. I will probably also start up a little section called “Red’s Recipe Rescue” at some point. My Red’s Recipe Rescue section will take recipes that I have found (that clearly FAIL) and give guidance on how to fix them so that they come out correctly. (Case in point, the Columbian FAIL Creme Brulee, or the Coconut FAIL Cake with Minted Whipped Cream……. both need a little Red’s Recipe Rescue……..somewhere down the road).