Adding to the Toolbox

[by Mike]

A few years ago I started making a Good Eats inspired cranberry granita whenever November rolled around. This quick, easy dessert is great to have around not only for its convenience but for its luxurious mouthfeel. The large, pectin-infused ice crystals melt slowly and coat the tongue with the tart cranberries flavors cut by the sweetness of the sugar and brightness of the lime zest. As recommended on the show, the granita also makes a damned fine cocktail. Once the crystals melt they provide a complex cranberry flavor far exceeding that of any cranberry juice, not to mention the added body and texture.

But is there a compromise between the two service options? Tequila and Cointreau would play excellently with the flavors in the granita, but adding the spirits directly to the crystals would only accelerate the inevitable melting. I needed a way to contain the spirits, keeping them separated from the granita until service. A technique from the oft maligned molecular gastronomy offered a possibility; armed with some sodium alginate and calcium lactate samples from Jeff of Cooking For Geeks I started playing with spherification.

A derivative of seaweed, alginate doesn't do much more than thicken liquids. When the alginate solution comes in contact with the calcium lactate, however, the thickening is dramatically enhanced. Submerged in a calcium lactate solution, a weak alginate solution would form a thin skin around a liquid core. Made weak enough, the delicate skin is just strong enough to contain the liquid until popped in the mouth.

That's the theory, anyways. Use too much alginate and the liquid becomes too thick and the skin too tough, rendering the final pearls awkwardly chewy. Recipes trawled from the internet lack any consistency, so the final ratios had to be left to experimentation. Even with working proportions, forming the spheres themselves is nontrivial. Creating small caviar isn't too hard, but larger pearls takes some clever technique. The delicate membranes then require careful handling, lest they burst prematurely.

It took a few iterations, but I eventually settled into a successful recipe and developed sufficient technique that I could consistently produce large, fragile pearls well suited for the granita. I was using an old bottle of cheap blue curacao for testing, and the bright, contrasting color proved useful for illustrative purposes. Any real application would likely feature translucent pearls hiding within the red crystals.

alembic

[by john]

even though i lived in the sf bay area for 4 years (3 of which with a car), i left much of the region criminally unexplored. i'm trying to right that - at least a little - this week, and the first stop was the haight, a cultural mecca for hippies and architecture buffs alike. to think the closest i had come to the district previously was running bay to breakers...

alembic, a cocktail bar smack in the middle of haight street, has been getting a lot of attention. rather than make a beeline for it, though, me and my guy slurped down a humongous bowl of noodles at the citrus club (above) before heading in. (delayed gratification mixed with alcohol poisoning prevention, in noodle form.) great noodles, fresh tofu, and heaping amounts of tom yum paste. simple and filling.

we found two seats waiting for us across the street at alembic. their verbose, jocular menu featured about eight classic drinks (sazerac, pisco sour, ward eight, bee's knees...) and the same number of originals. their bottle display is gorgeous - long shelves three bottles deep with no repeats (or so it seemed from my vantage). and they didn't push the weird liqueurs to the back.

my guy started off with a gilded lily: gin, yellow chartreuse, orange flower water, bubbly, and freakin' gold dust as garnish. the surface of the drink was shiny, awesome. the nose was all chartreuse, but the gin definitely took over for the taste. a little two dimensional, in my opinion, but he claimed it was merciful on his tongue and tasted full of courage, heh.

i had a vow of silence: rye, benedictine, bitters, and two barspoons of creme de griotte, a cherry brandy. a fine manhattanesque drink.

my ex-roomie joined us for a couple more rounds, including a pisco sour and one of alembic's molecular mixology creations: still life with apples. bourbon, maple syrup, and a smoked apple cider foam in a double shot glass with a sprig of thyme. we noted that the thyme was rather superfluous, not adding to the sensory experience like, say, the mint in a julep does.

i went off-piste for my final cocktail, asking for something herbal. ended up with a cognac + cynar + orange bitters + lambrusco, a red sparkling italian wine. cool combo, but i think the last ingredient smothered everything (that can be the problem with 'floats'). it did taste like a carbonated sangria, though - mmmm, spain.

i was not blown away by alembic by any means, which may be a function of high expectations. i should mention one cardinal sin: they poured almost every drink into fairly big (6 ounces?) coupes, which made the 3 ounce cocktails look miniscule. but in all, i was impressed with the level of craft, as well as their neighborhoody feel.

(citrus club.)