Which Molecular Cooking Ingredients as a Base at home?

Personally I would suggest you to start with agar, xanthan, gelatin, sodium citrate, N-Zorbit and carageenan. Unless you have specific interests like alginate/calcium lactate for spherification, diastatic malt powder and glutten for baking, curing salts for charcuterie etc. Or simply look at a few recipe that you want to try and start with that. Good luck!

mike.minasian

I built my collection organically. When there was a recipe I wanted to try, I simply got what I needed, 5 or 6 recipes later, and I'm pretty well stocked.

Manfred_18311

@Marijan for Souse vide look into the Vac Star, or just check here:

http://forum.chefsteps.com/discussion/2065/75-non-stirred-sous-vide-bath-vonshef-8l#latest

grandpa.yum

I recommend a similar method to what Michael said; it's the best way to build up a stock. In addition when I ordered I would get a small amount of something I was intrigued in to play around with and see if it was worthwhile. It's going to seriously depend on what your interests are though.

The reason I tend to buy most of it at the same time is that usually (Especially for small quantities!) The shipping can become more expensive than the ingredient itself... Also I prefer not to wait a couple of weeks between each recipe!

FrankM_3301

What? ...no love for transglutaminase? Get some meat glue...stick chicken skin to any other protein. Deep fry....Yum!

Semi-kidding aside....I have subscribed to @Michael Minasian's method...perhaps adding an ingredient or two that I want to play with in each order.

Another way to approach it is by technique. Want to play with fluid gels? Order ingredients to see the varying effects...build up a collection, see what you like. Specification? ....you get the picture.

Good suggestion! I love transglutaminase but it's expensive, harder to find in small quantity and has a shorter shelf life but that's also something fun to play with.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Stored properly, I haven't found any issue with shelf-life. I had a package last nearly 8 months (i eventually used it all, it never went bad) by storing air tight in the freezer.

I don't have problem either after two years but I keep it in the freezer under vacuum. It's just that I didn't see it as a first ingredient.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I totally think it's a good first ingredient because it doesn't require any other ingredients to be successful. If you want to make spheres you have to buy a number of ingredients, if you just buy agar or gellan you may have some fun but you will likely need to get some xanthan to go with it and then maybe some SHMP or sodium citrate if you run into acidic ingredients. TG has some wow factor, only requires protein and a little imagination.

Thanks a lot for all these comments. However does someone knows a good website where they also ship the ingredients to Switzerland? While living in Geneva its quiet tough to find them here. Furthermore I bought a Sous Vide Machine from VAC STar they are pritty good. Does someone knows a good brand for thermometers?

www.modernistpantry.com, http://www.le-sanctuaire.com/index.html, www.molecularrecipes.com/ are all US based and ship world wide (as I understand it). http://www.molecule-r.com/ is based in Canada and will ship world wide.
http://www.sosa.cat/ is in spain and would probably ship to switzerland.
Others as as well and I have purchased from all except sosa and received good service and products from everyone. My "go-to" is modernistpantry.com. VERY fast, professional and the smaller quantities allow me to experiment before I get bigger quantities of anything.

Check their prices because they can be a bit expensive for some products but http://www.modernistpantry.com/ ship almost anywhere.

com-chefsteps

Xanthan, transglutaminase and AVOID the spherification stuff.

It's beyond me why every modernist demos on the web shows off the non-user-friendly one-trick-pony, spherification, of the modernist world.

robert.c.brown15

I asked this same question a few months ago and while I bought agar-agar, xanthan gum, meat glue, gelatin, and a few other things. I really enjoy and use the xanthan gum the most though. I haven't gotten around to even using the agar and gelatin sheets.

For instance, I made a mushroom sauce the other week and it was just a little too thin for me so I added a tiny amount of xanthan (didn't bother weighing the sauce, just kinda sprinkled some in, but that can be dangerous!) and it thickened it up perfectly, but not so much that you could tell it was "artificially" thickened. I got that reduced texture without needing to reduce.

So if I had to get one thing, I guess it would be Xanthan. Then buy things as you go for specific recipes you want to do and soon you will have plenty. You will never need to use the entire ingredient for a recipe so you will have plenty left over for other uses.

MarijanI wuld recommend http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/ for all your thermometers. They sship internationally (may also have distributors so worth checking into). For ingredients, although I would tend to agree with many here starting with agar and Xanthan etc, it would be helpful if you had a list of recipes or techniques you wanted to try first. From there pick the ingredients needed in quantities that allow for errors.

Dear All,

Thanks a gain for the great bargain of answers, however I still look for a sous vide vacuum needle with heat resistant wire?

Couls someone please help? I could not find any...

Best

Marijan

I assume you are looking for use with sous vide? http://www.thermoworks.com/products/handheld/TW8060.html#ProbeTab is one and you need only purchase foam tape to help seal.

Hi,

Not only I would love to use the one also for the oven.

You can use that one for both.

Dear Todd,

I look also for something with only 1mm needle thickness

That would be their miniature needle probe http://www.thermoworks.com/products/probe/tc_penetration.html Scroll down the page to find it. It may also be helpful to email and/or skype with them. I've always received excellent service from them and they would likely get you the answers you need immediately. With my correspondence and speaking with them, they never tried to sell me anything I did not want and I started very small/cheap.

Again thanks a lot!!!

Much appreciated

BEst

Marijan

JasonWirth_68226

+1 for xantham gum because anything can be sauced and xantham gum helps you make sauces from practically anything six ways from Sunday. You can sauce meats, fruits, ice cream, salads... the list goes on. And you can sauce them in a way that doesn't split or separate.

ttpoker

@Todd Shewman said "I assume you are looking for use with sous vide?http://www.thermoworks.com/products/handheld/TW8060.html#ProbeTab is one and you need only purchase foam tape to help seal."

I agree that is an outstanding probe, but I disagree with his advice on the foam tape. Its my experience that foam tape is more of a nuisance than a help, the only time I need a probe while cooking sous vide is when I am working with proteins. A tender protein that requires a short cook like a steak can be safely packaged in a ziplock, which is much more convenient that vacuum sealing and then piercing the bag with a needle probe to check the core temperature. If however the protein requires a long cook time like brisket or short ribs then the temperature will not need to be monitored, the core temp has been reach hours (or days) before the cooking will be finished. There is nothing more annoying than a leaky bag which ruins your meal, so I suggest sticking with oven safe zip-locks instead of vacuum sealed bags anytime you need to monitor the temp while cooking sousvide. Avoid the nusance of foam tape if you can!

@inthe cards gives some great tips and I would tend to agree. Where we respectfully diverge a bit is I personally still vacuum seal my chicken breasts, steaks and such and especially for things like Chicken Roulade (See use of probe here http://vimeo.com/6649202). That said, I also use fish sauce on my steaks (and thus vacuum seal) l and prefer my chicken seasoned with lemons and don't have allot of disfigurement if I place the products in the bag carefully. Fish, Ziploc for the most part. The comments above will however, make me take mental note next time. After all ziplocs are much easier to handle than vacuum sealing and I could save those bags for pickling more stuff. :-)

Brendan_Lee_56950

lets not forget that he has to do things like that for data logging/haccp plans most likely and the wrapping in plastic wrap before the vacuum seal is going to mitigate a lot of the misshapen complaints.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Todd, that dish looked great! I think I would have preferred that the skin get crisped up ... Do you think that the sauce drizzled over before cooking was the truffle jus? i wonder how much the truffles cost for just the one portion, yikes!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Also, thanks for reminding me about the plastic wrap technique for preserving shape ...

reck.harm

Greisinger are pretty good. Not exactly cheap though.