Fruit caviar

by Nick Vagnoni, Posted Mar 23rd 2006 @ 12:31PM

In my roundup of yesterday's New York Times food section, I somehow overlooked an interesting article about restaurants that are serving fruit in caviar form. As with much of the mad science cooking coming out of restaurants like WD-50 and Alinea, creating caviar-like pearls of food can be traced back to El Bulli's Ferran Adriá. Basically, the caviar is made by combining some sort of fruit base with sodium alginate, a gelling agent, and sodium citrate, an anticoagulant. The thickened fruit mixture is then dribbled into a solution of water and calcium chloride, a common preservative. Pictured here is WD-50's cocoa caviar with beet and tangerine ravioli. Ah, science.

[Photo: Joyce Dopkeen, NYT]

Filed Under: Science, Trends, Newspapers, Chefs & Restaurants, Restaurants
Tags: caviar, fruit, new york times, wd-50