So today was a good day. Lots of work on recipe development for a dinner in UK. One of the courses I wanted to do was a scallop dish. I thought of using some tried and true flavour pairings for it – saffron, coconut, squid ink, and shallots. Now, All I had to do was to find the method of delivery. The first thought worked quite well, caramelized shallot puree then mixed with squid ink. You can taste both flavours and it looks great!
The coconut milk and saffron infusion was the one where I was doing a lot more exploring. I first thought of making it a sauce, using some lambda carrageenan. Lambda has perhaps the best melt-in-your-mouth texture out of all the carrageenans. Problem is it melts too quickly. A yogurt looking coconut and saffron infusion all of a sudden turns into a big yellow puddle on a hot plate. So I thought of iota. Almost as rich in texture, but slightly higher melting point. The initial appearance didn’t blow me away. Then I thought what the heck, might as well try putting it in an isi. WOW. Did that ever turn out for the best. It produces an extremely stable foam, but when you eat it, its very quick to dissolve. This is how a foam should be. No one should feel like they are about to swallow a mouthful of air. And it should be a foam, not a pile of large bubbles.
With that said, here’s the end result. No crazy equipment used this time. Just some old techniques mixed with some modern ingredients. Plating still needs work, though, I kinda like it’s minimalist appearance.
TorontoFoodLab 
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