Go to the Recipe: Beet Spheres With Goat Cheese
How long do the spheres typically last while in a holding bath?
Can we use calcium chloride and not calcium lactate gluconate? And how much? Thank you !
I'm curious about this too... Have a dinner party in 3 days and trying to prep as much as possible.
Just made them. Absolutely fabulous!! Great amuse.
I don't have moulds to freeze the beet liquid. Does this recipe work if you were use the reverse spherification method?
Hi, did you ever figure out how long they last? Thanks!
interesting
It would work but not recommended as the flavor is terrible, only suitable with direct spherification because you will rinse it off anyway. But if you still want to use it, 0.5 % by weight.
Does anybody know how long these will last so they can be prepared in advance?
is it possible to plate the sphere on a chilled pate instead of spoon? and why does the sphere need olive oil around after the holding bath? probably to keep it held right? so if i plated it, could i just place it on top of olive oil or does it need to be partially submerged like such above? thank you
yes, how long?
Hi,
I tried this recipe with just the reverse spherification method (not frozen). The liquid gels but does not sink so it is more like a pancake. I did use filtered water rather than distilled? Is this likely to be the culprit (the bath doesnt seem too thick)? or should I add more xantham to make it heavier?
You could plate it any way your like, but it is probably easiest to eat out of a Chinsese soup spoon as CS does as a one bite amuse bouche. The EVOO (and balsamic) is there to mimic a classic beet and goat cheese salad, but you don't have to include it if you don't want.
This is a lovely amuse, and pretty easy to prepare (certainly compared to the "unreal" quail eggs I made last time!). And a fun demo if you perform the spherification step in front of your Thanksgiving Day guests.
1) I didn't have a juicer, so I pureed 4 large red beets in a Vitamix with a couple of added cups of water, and then strained through a standard kitchen strainer. Not very efficient recovery, but that yielded much more than the 300 g of "juice" I needed (maybe a bit dilute, but good enough, and the leftovers made a delicious drink).
2) After I added xanthan and blended with an immersion blender, a lot of little bubbles still remained in the juice even after several hours. I didn't try degassing it in a vacuum chamber. But this didn't seem to affect the final product, so I wouldn't worry about it. I used a 10 mL plastic serological pipet to transfer the juice to the mold
3) I used a young 2-3 year aged "everyday" balsamic vinegar, San Giacomo Agro di Mosto. Next time I might up it to something more intense, since I thought it could be a bit stronger on the balsamic side
4) Since everything on CS is salty, I used 3 instead of 4 g salt. Seemed about right to me.
5) I didn't try holding the spheres in EVOO, but if you prepare this in advance that might be important since even after a few minutes the water rinse started turning red
6) I couldn't find the Humboldt Fog cheese that CS's appeared to use in the video, so I went with the very similar Lake's Edge, from Blue Ledge Farm in VT. The blue mold and ash layers make for very attractive shavings
7) When shaving goat cheese with a mandolin, make sure to put the mandolin and the recepticle into the freezer first, or the cheese shavings will quickly warm and be hard to handle
8) Not having access to any sort of young rosemary tips I used normal rosemary chopped very finely and that seemed to work ok
9) Interestingly, when paired with a 2011 Marcel Lapierre Morgon Cuvée Marcel Lapierre Beaujolais, the balsamic seemed to drop out and it became more beet-forward in flavor.
It should.
How much to use is explained here:
https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-science-of-spherification
How long can keep in holding bath
I've gone through the comments and I noted that the question regarding how long the spehere's will last in the EVOO has never been answered. I understand that there's been changes to site management and that you aren't going back to old quesstions so I'm posing the question again. I just received my Reverse Spherefication kit from the Modernist Panty and purchased a juicer for this, and other, recipies and I'm looking forward to wow'ing my dinner guests with this recipe. Like any dinner party I like to be prepped so knowing how far in advance I can prep the beet sphere's would be extremely helpful.... Thank you.
Hi Nicky, the spheres should hold great in the olive oil for about 3-4 days. While refrigerated. A side tip, you might want to add a little bit of grape-seed oil or canola to keep the olive oil from setting up solid.
Hi! The link to the sphere magic bath seems to be broken (404 error…).do I missed something ? https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sphere-magic-spherification-bath
https://modernistpantry.com/products/perfected-sodium-alginate.html
