Your family will be impressed with these little droplets of balsamic vinegar resembling caviar…

This is another fun experiment to make in your kitchen with agar-agar…and I can assure you that the whole process is easy and entertaining as I have used similar method to make Honey Caviar which you can find here.

You just need to make sure that you have all the “apparatus” and you are ready to go. These little ”caviar” can be kept in the refrigerator for a while since they a mainly made with vinegar. This recipe was mostly based on this one.

I have used these “caviar” in all kind of salad and even with strawberries…

Ingredients:

Caviar

• 100 g balsamic vinegar
• 1.5 g agar-agar, depending of the quality (1.5%)
• Oil Bath
• Approximately 1 to 1 ½ cup of oil, such as corn, canola or olive oil.

Method:

Place the oil in a glass container and in the freezer for approximately 30 minutes. The taller and skinnier the glass the better, as you want the droplets of the balsamic vinegar with agar-agar turning into gel before reaching the bottom of the glass.

Place the balsamic vinegar in a small pan and sprinkle agar-agar on it. Bring the mix to boil by stirring constantly until all the agar-agar is well dissolved.

Remove the balsamic vinegar/agar-agar mixture from the heat and let it cool down to approximately 55C (130F).

Remove the cold oil from the freezer and place the glass jar in an ice water bath.

Fill a syringe or counter drop with the hot/warm balsamic vinegar mixture and expel, drop by drop into the cold oil. As the droplets of balsamic vinegar/agar-agar hit the cold oil it will solidify and fall to the bottom of the glass jar.

With the help of a slotted spoon, carefully remove the “caviar” and gently rinse with water.

Drain well and store in the airtight container in the refrigerator.

If you had fun with this molecular gastronomy recipe you might want to take a look at Raindrop Cake or Honey Caviar recipes.

Did you know that agar-agar exhibits hysteresis? Meaning that agar-agar has different melting and solidifying temperature, melting at approximately 85 Celsius degree (185F ) and solidifying at 32-40 Celsius degree (90-104F). Due this property agar-agar is stable as gel and widely used in cooking such as in fruit preserve, ice cream, custard, pudding, soups and many others.

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How can a dessert made of almost 99.8% of water be so trendy? The answer…it is all in its texture…

When I first saw these raindrop cake (which in my opinion it is not a cake per say, cake in my view should contain flour or its substitutes) I was fascinated by its shape and the notion of its pureness…upon reading the ingredients, I immediately could imagine its textures as I had worked with agar-agar, both in the kitchen and in the lab. The trick is to have the right ratio of water and agar-agar to achieve a very soft almost running gel. A little extra of agar-agar the “cake” will turn into a flavorless jelly, a little “too little” and the “cake” will not hold its shape. Therefore the amount of agar-agar is very critical.

After searching through the internet I found that the ratio of agar-agar to water varied from 0.25% to 3% meaning that in 1 cup (250ml) of water the amount of agar-agar varied from 0.625g to 7.5g…yes, you read it right…so here is where my “experiments” started…

I started with the percentage that I used to use when working in the microbiology lab, 1.5%…then went down drastically since it gave me a jelly ball so hard that I could almost throw on the floor and it would bounce back. I taper down to 0.5%, then to 0.25% (not bad) but wanted to push lower and went to 0.1% which the gel barely set…finally decided to add a bit more and went for 0.2%. Yes, it did work! My notes reminded me of my lab notebook with all the calculations since I was varying the amount of water as well. As a result of all these “experiments” I just can tell you that you have to do your own “experiment” since the consistency will depend entirely on the quality of the agar-agar you use. The nice thing is that you are literally playing with water…

When I presented raindrop cake to my husband he loved it…the “cake” melt almost instantly in your mouth, the combination of the slightly sweet, rosy aroma just give you a clean, pure, light and refreshing feeling…something that it is hard to describe, somehow stir your senses…very hard to explain…now I kind of understand the hype over this particular dessert. With this said, I think that the most important thing besides achieving the correct texture the taste should match its “clean” look…then everything comes is harmony…magical!

Instrument and Ingredients:

• Scale, a good one
• Water (I used filter)
• Agar-agar
• Sugar (optional)
• Flavoring component, I added rosewater in this particular one, and in the future I plan to add orange blossom water, cucumber infused water, mint infused water, strawberry infused water…and my list goes on and on…

Method:

Weigh the agar-agar and place in a small pot. Add a little water until the agar-agar is totally moist. Heat the remaining water and pour over the agar-agar.

Place the water with agar-agar in the low-medium heat. Stir constantly until all the agar-agar is dissolved. Add sugar and the flavoring.

Pour into the mold and let it refrigerate for 1 hour.

Unmold the “cake” and serve with something sweet such a maple syrup, simple syrup…

I added rosewater on the agar-agar mixture once it was all dissolved and ready to be pour into the molds. Just before serving I grated a bit of pistachio (to give some color contrast) and drizzled simple syrup made with organic crystal sugar.

I hope you enjoy this fun recipe using molecular gastronomy technique…for more recipes like this please check on Honey Caviar or Coconut Panna Cotta with Mango Sphere recipes

Did you know that agar-agar was discovered in Japan? Agar-agar is a derivative from seaweed and has no calories, no sugar, no carbohydrates, no fat, and packed with fiber. Agar-agar if vegetarian and a great substitute for gelatin.

Thank you for visiting Color Your Recipes…have a colorful week!

This is a fun recipe using molecular gastronomy method to make little bead of honey. The main ingredients beside honey is agar-agar, which is from seaweed.

Playing with “molecular gastronomy” again…this time I used agar-agar, which is a vegetarian version of gelatin.

Apparently this can be done using gelatin if you have difficulty  finding agar-agar. I have the feeling that if gelatin is used the texture might be more chewy…something that I will try to make in the future since I love chewy texture.

I must admit that I was reluctant to use agar-agar, because the image of bacteria growing in petri dishes always come to my mind when talking about agar-agar; all this due to years and years of working in microbiology lab…I literally had to block these images from my mind when I started to make this honey caviars.

This recipe is much easier than the Spherical Yogurt; most of the ingredients are commonly found in the kitchen, with the exception of the agar-agar which can be substituted with gelatin.

These little honey caviar or pearls can be used with anything that you want to serve with honey, like cheese, yogurt, cake and the list goes on and on. Besides, they look very “cute”.

Before I go on to the recipe, I just received over the weekend the new issue of Desserts Magazine, and the current issue is available free to non-members, so if you would like to browse the magazine please check the link here…

One more thing before I share the recipe, this method is called “Gelification” and is based on a recipe featured in Cookistry.

Ingredients:

1g of agar-agar
3 tablespoons of water
6 tablespoons of honey
¾ to 1 cup of canola oil or any other unflavorful cooking oil
Water and ice

Method:

Place the vegetable oil in the refrigerator.

Mix the agar-agar with the water and place in low heat. Slowly add the honey, stirring constantly until the agar-agar is totally dissolved. It might take a while and needs boiling. You will know when there are no more particles in the liquid.

Let the agar-agar/honey mixture cool until start to thicken a little. If you leave it too long a big gel will form.

In the meantime, remove the oil from the refrigerator and place in an ice bath, so the oil is kept icy cold.

Using a dropper drawn the agar-agar/honey mixture and drip in the cold oil. As soon as the droplets of honey fall into the oil you will see little pearls forming and slowly falling to the bottom of the oil bowl. Let the caviars sit for a while in the oil so they turn firm.

Gently with a slotted spoon or small strainer scoop the caviars out of the oil and rinse in cold water to remove the oil. Drain well and the honey caviars are ready for you to add to anything you wish.

I served the honey caviars with plain yogurt…so good!

If you enjoy this “molecular recipe”, you might want to check on the Spherical Yogurt.

Did you know that gelatin is made from collagen from animal bones and skin while agar-agar is made from seaweed? Agar-agar is very popular in Asian cuisine and are sold as powder or translucent strands.

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