Scientific Cooking Bizops

Sodium Citrate

Daily Freeman:

Milk, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, transglutaminase, sodium citrate…

It may not sound like the last grocery list you wrote, but the growing appeal of so-called modernist cooking — a science-tastic take on haute cuisine — has more home cooks adding laboratory-worthy ingredients and gizmos to their shopping. And that, of course, has spawned a mini-niche of online companies selling everything you need to play culinary alchemist at home.

At least a half-dozen companies now sell once-elusive ingredients like sodium citrate to emulsify cheeses into creamy sauces, “popping sugar” that explodes in your mouth, and “meat glue” — transglutaminase — to create dishes like tilapia spaghetti (that is, “spaghetti” made from tilapia). Alongside traditional equipment like cookie sheets and hand mixers, you can purchase pipettes to create “caviar” from various liquids or smoke torches that infuse smoke flavor into dishes without heating them up.

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