Citrus Membranes vs The Almighty Pectinex Ultra SPL

That is phenomenal. I recently got some Pectinex but haven't tried it out yet. The salad is gorgeous..

@Brian_Douglas, after messing around for ~1 hour photographing I was finally happy with a shot, I busted out the tweezers and everything for this dish haha. I just bought a huge 3x3 piece of white glass so I could do some cool shots that kind of have the food on an endless plate if you will - I got the idea from the madison eleven park cookbook (which is awesome) and everyone should buy if they haven't

The salad surprisingly tasted just as good as it look. I was lucky enough to live in Sicily for a couple of weeks on a farm and they made a simple citrus fennel salad and now its a good to for me, the flavors meld perfectly and really enhance each other...

Oh but this is why I got the Pectinex, for Dave Arnold's fries which I am planning on trying this weekend if I can make the time: http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/05/12/the-quest-for-french-fry-supremacy-2-blanching-armageddon/

Also I never have fried hazelnuts before, I just thought they would add a nice textural element (and they did) but those things are freaking delcious - like popcorn on steroids

That pectinex is pretty amazing stuff. You should try it on the peels as well, the white pith will rub right off and you are left with pure zest which is a wonderful thing to candy or julienne for garnish.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

That salad looks absolutely delicious; well done!

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Gorgeous!

grant

@Chris

Cant wait to hear if the solution still has life in it. I could see it being used several times.

Exciting!

Solution Update, I did a second round of enzyme treating and the solution worked just as well. The solution has turned a rosy orange color from the blood oranges but it remains working, I have a tangelo in the solution (the 3rd fruit) I have done and its seems to be breaking down at the same rate.

This is what I anticipated originally because as anyone who has taken introductory biochemistry, one of my college favorites, knows enzymes being biological catalysts by definition do NOT get used up in the reaction process...

If I had access to a centrifuge I would try to re-clarify the solution of the pectin and hemicell junk that is floating around and see if the enzymes would remain at a high level in the bottle in order to recycle it.

In the warehouse of my work (I currently work at a pharmaceutical company) there is a sweet Hettich Rotina 42S centrifuge sitting on one of the shelves and its apparently been there for over a year. I have been talking with one of the BME engineering to see if they would be willing to sell it, so if I get a hold of it any time soon and have a chance to post on enzyme recycling through basic spin-clarification I will let everyone know the results.

grant

That is great to hear!

Chris_Young_80640

Yep, biochem 101. Enzymes are proteins (sometime with other functional groups attached) that catalyze biochemical reactions. They don't get used up, but they can degrade over time, be denatured under unfavorable conditions (high/low pHs, temperature extremes, etc), be inhibited by adding a substrate that binds them permanently, or they can exhaust necessary cofactors that help them work.

Would there be much interest in a short series of lectures, technique demos, and recipes that use some widely available modernist enzymes?

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris - college and chemistry classes were a long time ago! I'd love to learn/know more ...

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Any opportunity to expand ye olde braine would be embraced.

I'd love to see some more applications from a food perspective.

I am obsessed with enzymes, they are beautiful in so many way. I remembering loving when my professor broke down how chymotrypsin and trypsin worked in the stomach to cleave positively charged amino acids.

@Chris, this is the only article I could find about pectinases and relevant cofactors. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2415742/ Do you know if/which cofactors, coenzymes, prosthetic groups pectinases need to remain functional? And I think you make a great point about nature degradation over time due to changes in environment like temp and pH.

Also any info on cooking with enzymes would be well received, at least from me. I can't get enough of them

@Chris - Yes please!

Chris_Young_80640

@chris_koller — actually I'm not all that up on pectinase, and Pectinex is actually a cocktail of enzymes. I'm looking into this. Our first priority is to get some more sous vide content out, and then we're going to do something with spherification, but enzymes are on my list to do now.

Here's the data sheet for Pectinex Ultra SP-L

And here's another, has some different info on it but basically the same as above.

Would there be much interest in a short series of lectures, technique demos, and recipes that use some widely available modernist enzymes?

HELL YES there is interest in learning about this stuff!!!!!!

@chris_koller — actually I'm not all that up on pectinase, and Pectinex is actually a cocktail of enzymes. I'm looking into this. Our first priority is to get some more sous vide content out, and then we're going to do something with spherification, but enzymes are on my list to do now.

I think it would be nice to have a "shopping list" that we could, if so inclined, use to have some basic chemicals on hand. This way, we could jump right in and try our hand at whatever is being demo'd immediately, when it is fresh in our head.

On another note, I wonder if using pectinex before preparing a citrus for marmalade would be a good thing? I ate some Meyer lemon marmalade at Norma's (New York City) that I have been trying to emulate. It was totally lacking in bitterness but extremely intense in the Meyer Lemon flavor without being cloyingly sweet. Moreover, at the same time, the rind was thick and candied, as if they had taken the rind, glace'd it first and then made the condiment. After reading this, I am thinking that maybe they just soaked the rind in pectinex before preping the marmalade?

They probably blanched it a ton like in the most recent chefsteps video to get rid of the bitterness. I hit meyer lemons a few months back with this stuff and the skin was super thin and flexible because it literally took off every ounce of pith from them. They were delicious but would have made a pretty terrible textured marmalade IMO since they lacked that spongy type bite your describing.

What kind of shelf life does Pectinex have?

It's best to keep it refrigerated, the stuff I got from modernist pantry said 6 months in the fridge after opening I think. It comes in pretty small bottles though.

Hmm. What I have is not pectinex which apparently comes only through modernist pantry. I have pectinase liquid pectic enzyme which I got via amazon. I don't know what this is, but I'm going to give it a try on some oranges and see what happens. It appears to be homebrew product for clarification of wine and cider. If not, I'll have to supreme my oranges the old fashioned way.

Chris_Young_80640

I would treat it the same. It's very likely the same stuff, which is a cocktail of enzymes including pectinase. Nearly all of these products are produced by Novozyme, and then small companies repackage at a smaller scale and distribute.

Thanks @Chris, That's what I did. I've got a test batch in the fridge right now @ 0.5% of the total weight. I'll report back how it turned out.

Thanks @Chris, That's what I did. I've got a test batch in the fridge right now @ 0.5% of the total weight. I'll report back how it turned out.

How did it go?

It worked. The supremes turned out perfect, though I think they lost a little flavor intensity, particularly on the surface. The peel basically turned to mush. I probably should have pulled them sooner, they were actually much further along than they looked. (I let them go about 60 hours in the fridge). All in all though, it worked pretty well. I need to continue playing with it now.

Enzymes Solution update, I have 'run' three more trials. The 3rd and 4th overall still yielded great results despite me having to fight to get the membranes off a bit more than the other on the 4th trial (this was a grapefruit so a different fruit obviously offers a confounding variable), my latest trial was just another orange and I think the enzyme was history at this point, not much break down and overall low yield, well-cut supremes would have been nicer. the fifth trial however was ~14days after the original blood oranges went in, I was adding water to cover the segments after each new trial (low % enzyme in soln, and as @Chris mentioned previously cofactors and other necessary molecules will eventually be used up). Anyway I would definitely use a Pectinex Ultra spl solution more than once; however don't plan on getting the same quality of supremes after three total baths.

I want to post photos but my computer (possibly the site) is being testy, once I get it figured out I will surely let you all see the results.