Molecular: Passion Fruit Caviar

Those ones are’t spherefication (alginate & cia, à la Ferran Adrià), yet. Because I didn’t find a good price (means = cheap) in the local market. And importation is out of imagination, import duties are insane. =p

Some people dislike the called “Molecular Gastronomy” or “Molecular Cooking”, but my inner crazy scientist joy everything about it! :D It’s so amazing! I would say chemistry is love, but I don’t want be slapped.

Well, for my caviar I used agar (a kind of complex carbohydrate)! I saw it on you tube, made by chef Xavier Pauly in the video: Billes d’agar-agar.

It’s really simple and easy. Just take any flavored liquid (mango juice, beet, tomato, etc) and mix very well with agar, heat until boil.

Dropped (with syringe or squeeze bottle) into oil (olive, soy, corn,…) to cold down a little, because agar mixture is solid in room temperature (30ºC/86ºF). In cold water doesn’t work. So, few seconds later remove the “caviar” and you can wash in water. That’s it! The agar quantity is about 1,5-2%. It means for each 100mL you need 1,5-2g agar. You can use more if want sit quickly.

As I said before, agar is a type for carbohydrate (in other words: sugar) with gelatinous property, but it isn’t gelatin. Obtained from some species of red algae, while gelatin extracted from bones cattle and basically is protein.