Gift Guide 2014: White Christmas Edition

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It’s that time of year: gift-guide season has arrived and there’s no shortage of ideas for cooks—we all love indispensable kitchen tools, after all. In previous years, our gift guides encompassed our favorite equipment and tools, including suggestions for photographers. This year, however, we decided to take some of our favorite seasonal songs literally. We’re having a white Christmas and letting it snow by dedicating our gift guide to the powdery wonderland of Modernist ingredients.

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Modernist chefs adore ingredients that make the culinary impossible possible, by transforming starches into sugars, stabilizing emulsions, gelling liquids, and creating cloud-like foams. Unfortunately, misinformation about Modernist ingredients is abundant, especially online. Because these substances are able to transform foods somewhat magically, they are often misidentified as being the byproducts of misguided science experiments. In reality, most are derived from naturally-occurring ingredients and processes, and many have been in use for decades.

The usefulness of these ingredients has made them staples in many contemporary kitchens. This guide features background information and ingredients (in no particular order of importance) deemed essential to Modernist techniques—it also serves as a foundation of a well-stocked pantry. We think they make fantastic gifts or stocking stuffers for anyone interested in Modernist cuisine, from seasoned professionals to adventurous home cooks. Create gift sets of different ingredients or provide helpful tools like digital scales, rapid caviar makers, or even a label maker, which comes in handy when you have a pantry full of identically-colored spices.

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Gift Guide

1. Xanthan gum is the “sliced bread” of Modernist ingredients. It’s an easy-to-use, tasteless, and flexible additive, made by fermenting bacteria, just like vinegar. It’s an incredibly useful thickener and stabilizer because it is effective under a wide range of viscosities, temperatures, and pH levels. Use it to create salad dressings, sauces, pestos, soups, gelatos and baked goods, including gluten free recipes.

2. Tapioca starch is a traditional thickener made from ground cassava roots. Also known as tapioca flour, it thickens gently, without modifying flavors, making it a great choice for broths, jus, gravy, fruit fillings, and our at-home version of dairy-free gelatos. Additionally, many Modernist chefs make use of modified starches, such as Ultra-Sperse and Ultra-Tex, that are derived from tapioca. These specialty starches are specifically formulated for different thickening tasks and are a great addition to any chef’s arsenal.

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3. Transglutaminase is a family of enzymes that form chemical cross-links between muscle proteins so that they bind to one another. These enzymes are found in animal, plant, and microbial cells and play many roles in many functions, such as blood clotting. Despite the nickname “meat glue,” it is a naturally occurring ingredient commercially manufactured via bacterial fermentation, making it no more or less artificial than yeast-leavened bread, vinegar, or fermented sausage. It can be used to raise the melting point of gelatins and increase overall gel strength; in Modernist cooking, however, it’s most commonly used to glue meats or seafoods together. One brand of transglutaminase, called Activa, comes in various grades, each one optimized for a different use. We use Activa as a binder in our recipes for coarse-ground sausages and to create a show-stopping chessboard of bonded tuna and escolar.

4. Soy lecithin, as the name implies, is derived from soy beans. It’s a naturally occurring phospholipid used to emulsify or create foams. Often found in chocolate, this ingredient is commonly used to make salad dressings and sauces, like our Modernist Vinaigrette or Home Jus Gras.

5-6. Sodium alginate is a natural thickener and hydrocolloid derived from brown algae. It’s an ingredient that is commonly associated with spherification. This technique was made popular (and named) by Ferran Adrià—it is now one of the hallmarks of Modernist cooking. When alginate (a sugar) comes into contact with a calcium ion coagulant, gelling occurs—the secret to spherification is to delay the reaction by creating a gel mixture that cannot set. In the original spherification technique, sodium alginate is used to create a gel mixture that contains no free-floating calcium. When the liquid is dropped into a calcium bath, such as calcium chloride, a shell forms on the surface, enveloping the liquid inside. Spheres of juice add bursts of flavor to drinks and can transform familiar ingredients like olive oil into surprising pops of texture.

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7. Guar gum, of no relation to the band Gwar, is a thickener and stabilizing agent extracted from the seeds of guar beans, which are indigenous to India and Pakistan. This hydrocolloid can thicken both hot and cold liquids, stabilize emulsions and foams, and help prevent syneresis (the tendency of gels to weep liquid). Guar gum is used to create constructed broths and coating sauces as well as cold cream sauces, constructed creams, and ice-cream bases.

8. Agar is derived from seaweed and has been used in Japanese cooking for centuries. It’s a clear, tasteless gelling agent that also works as an effective thickener and stabilizer. Although it’s available at Asian markets, specialty retailers sell agar powders, graded by gelling strength, that perform more consistently. We use agar to create fluid gels, like our Vegetarian Panna Cotta and Onion Fluid Gel. When making foams with a whipping siphon, the addition of a small amount of agar will give thin liquids enough body for foaming.

9. Sodium citrate is the salt of citric acid, which is a natural component of citrus fruits. With a slightly sour taste, it is sometimes used to add flavor (think of club soda), although we most often use it in cheeses as an emulsifier in order to keep droplets of water and fat from separating. A tiny amount will give your favorite cheeses a silky smooth texture when melted, allowing you to develop new spins on cheese-based dishes.

Stitched Panorama

Looking to try out these Modernist ingredients? Our recipe library is full of wonderful options for cooks of all skill levels.

Cooking with Syllables: Carrageenan

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What is Carrageenan?

History

From eggnog and soy milk to infant formulas and toothpaste, carrageenan is found everywhere. The word carrageenan may sound foreign and vaguely exotic, but it’s simply a generic term for a type of sugar extracted from various species of red seaweed. In Modernist cooking, it’s classified as an emulsifier, stabilizer, hydrocolloid (hydrophilic colloid), or gum, all of which function in some way to thicken or clarify ingredients, or to bind moisture. The term carrageenan has been around since at least 1889 and is derived from carrageen, circa 1829, which is a purplish, cartilaginous seaweed colloquially known as “Irish moss,” found off the coasts of North America and Europe. In fact, the seaweed gets its moniker from a small Irish fishing village, Carragheen, where it’s plentiful. Traditionally, the seaweed was boiled in sweetened milk to create a pudding. Simmering the seaweed unlocks the ingredient’s gelling properties. Its use, however, can be traced back even further to at least 400 CE, where it was used as a gelling agent and as an ingredient in homemade cold-and-flu remedies. Industrially, carrageenan is extracted chiefly from the red algae Chondrus crispus (class Rhodophyceae), but it can also be extracted from various species of Gigartina and Eucheuma.

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Function

Inherently vegetarian with no nutritional value, seaweed-based thickeners like carrageenan have new, modern applications. Most commonly, carrageenan can adjust the viscosity of dairy products like cheese, or it can serve as an emulsion stabilizer in salad dressings by keeping your oil and vinegar mixed. In more advanced applications, it will glue meat together, allowing for the creation of hot aspics and other seemingly contradictory foundations. Chemically, carrageenan is classified as a polysaccharide, a type of sugar. Its properties are varied and complex, but its basic function is to thicken and stabilize. It does this by forming large yet flexible matrices that curl around and immobilize molecules. Because of its inherent flexibility, carrageenans can form a variety of gels under a wide range of temperatures, but each type of carrageenan only becomes fully hydrated at a characteristic temperature. Some carrageenans can be hydrated without adding heat, while others must be brought to 85°C / 185°F or higher before saturation occurs, and a few have a hydration temperature that depends on the presence of other ions, the most common of which is calcium. Carrageenan actually comes in five varieties, classified by how much sulfate (SO4) it contains and its solubility in potassium chloride. Named after Greek letters, they are ι (iota), κ (kappa), λ (lambda), ε (epsilon), and μ (mu), however, only the forms iota, kappa, and lambda are used in Modernist cooking. All forms contain roughly 20–40% sulphate, which dictates how firmly (and whether) a gel will set, how the gel freezes and thaws, and how syneresis (the separation of water from its gel, also known as weeping) is affected. As the amount of sulfate increases, the strength of a gel decreases.

Safety

Recently, there has been some speculation over the safety of carrageenan. Carrageenan has been a focus for many mammal studies because of its potential to cause inflammation, ulceration, colitis, polyps, and colorectal tumors. Although such maladies are reported in animal studies, at the time of writing this connection has not been validated in humans because carrageenan’s molecular size and accompanying bonds prevent it from being digested naturally. To understand why carrageenan does not cause morbidity in humans, it’s important to differentiate between carrageenan and its degraded form, poligeenan. Poligeenan is the digested form of carrageenan and consists of molecular fragments small enough to pass from the digestive tract to the circulatory system. It is poligeenan that causes the many illnesses researchers describe in mammals, but current research has shown that the human digestive tract is limited in its ability to break down carrageenan into poligeenan. The primary pathway of human digestion, the alimentary canal, is, despite its placement, considered to be outside the body; a compound is not considered to be in the body until it moves from the digestive tract to the circulatory system. And, in order for any compound to affect human organs, such as the brain, liver, or heart, it must be small enough to cross the intestinal walls. Carrageenan is too large to do so, but poligeenan’s small size can. Not surprisingly, it has been postulated that carrageenan can be fragmented by natural digestive processes, but, to date, this has yet to be demonstrated in humans. In addition to carrageenan’s large size, its inherent bonds pose another challenge to the human digestive tract. Carrageenan is held together by β-glycosidic bonds, which are ubiquitous in the plant world, but most mammals, including humans, lack the proper enzymes to break them.

Recipes and Sourcing

Because of its utility, carrageenan is an ingredient that we use frequently, appearing in many recipes throughout Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Cuisine at Home. Carrageenan is used to create the creamy texture of our Pistachio Gelato and to stabilize our American Cheese Slices. Although you may not be able to find carrageenan on the shelves of neighborhood grocery stores, it’s easy to source online. If you’re ready to start testing this ingredient, try out our Pistachio Gelato recipe or Raspberry Panna Cotta in Modernist Cuisine at Home.

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Gift Guide 2013: Gifts for Modernist Cooks

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Whether you’re purchasing one of our books for a loved one or buying gifts for someone who has already added one of our volumes to their personal library, this year we devoted our gift guide to items that pair perfectly with Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Cuisine at Home. From stocking stuffers to larger gear, we have you covered. We even selected a few ingredients to help you launch your own journey into Modernist cooking.

Modernist Cuisine

Water Bath: This year, give the gift of sous vide. We suggested gifting sous vide setups in previous years with good reason: a water bath is an essential tool for many of the recipes we created for Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Cuisine at Home. While there are ways to improvise, this is the best tool for regularly cooking sous vide or for any cooking task requiring precise temperature control. Water baths are also the perfect way to heat up holiday leftovers. The SousVide Supreme ($329 and up) is sufficient for most home uses, but the PolyScience Sous Vide Professional immersion circulator (Creative series, $399), paired with a polycarbonate tank ($33 for a 10 L tank), provides more uniform heat distribution.

Cook the lamb sous vide for 3 hours.

Blowtorch: From caramelizing crème brûlée to searing sous vide meat, there are many practical (and impractical) reasons to keep a blowtorch handy in the kitchen. A blowtorch is an inexpensive gift (we like the Bernzomatic TS4000 Trigger Start Torch, $34) that’s great for recipes that call for high temperatures unattainable in conventional ovens. It’s also an impressive tool to pull out during holiday gatherings and dinner parties.

Modernist Cuisine™ Gel Noodle and Spherification Kits: 130 pages of Modernist Cuisine are devoted to the science of gels because creating gels is a fundamental technique of Modernist (and even conventional) cooking. The Gel Noodle and Spherification kit ($40 and $50) are a fantastic introduction to the art of creating these magical treats in your kitchen. Each kit comes with some essential tools to get you started as well as enough ingredients to create 20 batches of gelled noodles or spheres. And the kits just happen to be stocking size.

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Borosilicate Flasks and Beakers: Flasks and beakers aren’t necessarily a Modernist must, but these lab tools are incredibly handy to have in the kitchen. If you need to measure volume, beakers and flasks are highly accurate and have greater heat resistance than conventional Pyrex. Plus they double as a very nerd-chic container for cocktails. This SEOH 5-pack of beakers ($14) is a great starter set, but there are many, many options available online.

Modernist Cuisine at Home

Digital Scale: Begin applying more precision to your measurements with a reliable, digital gram scale. These scales are easy to find at cooking stores, and basic models are inexpensive. You should really own two: a general-purpose scale that accurately measures weights from one to 1,000 grams and an even more precise scale accurate to a tenth or hundredth of a gram. A 0.1 g scale is a must-have for measuring hydrocolloid thickening and gelling agents. We recommend the Digital Bench Scale ($49) for extra-large batches and the Extreme‑Precision Digital Ingredient Scale ($27) for its compact portability.

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Thermometer: The pockets of chef jackets have one thing in common: thermometers—and for good reason. Thermometers are indispensable kitchen tools. Small changes in temperature can make all the difference in cooking, so thermometers are essential. A good digital thermometer can even take the place of a fancy sous vide cooker. Our favorite is the Taylor Professional Thermocouple Thermometer ($78), which is extremely accurate and allows you to measure food temperatures in both water baths and ovens. Even an inexpensive instant-read thermometer will give you excellent range and speed, and it’s useful for almost any application.

The Modernist Cuisine™ Special Edition Baking Steel: Andris Lagsdin, a pizza enthusiast who works at a family-owned steel company, was inspired to produce Baking Steels after reading Modernist Cuisine. We worked with Andris to develop the Modernist Cuisine edition, a preseasoned, shatterproof ⅜ in thick steel plate. Based on our own research, we designed it to be an optimal combination of performance and usability. It’s the perfect tool to help create any of the pizzas from Chapter 18 of Modernist Cuisine at Home, and it’s easy to use: simply slide it into a conventional oven for perfect pizzas or place it on top of a burner to use as a griddle. You can even use it as an anti-griddle to make ice cream.

steel 20 degree on white with pizza

Sodium Citrate: If your loved one is a cheese lover, a packet of sodium citrate ($7 for 50 g, $15 for 400 g) is an inexpensive, world-changing gift. Essentially the combination of salt and citric acid from citrus fruits, a tiny bit yields silky smooth Mac and Cheese or wonderfully melty cheese for dips and sandwiches. Appearing in over 20 cheese-based recipes in Modernist Cuisine at Home, sodium citrate is a staple ingredient.

Mac and cheese variations

Revisiting a Halloween favorite: Glowing gummy worms

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By: W. WAYT GIBBS

When I was 10 years old, I took a bet from a fellow sixth grader and, in front of the whole class, choked down a panfried earthworm. Of all the weird foods I’ve eaten—and there have been quite a few—that was by far the creepiest.

With a little advance planning, you can make a treat for this Halloween that gives your guests the willies but actually tastes great. Imagine their reaction when you uncover a serving tray piled high with cookie-crumb “dirt” filled with wiggling gummy night crawlers. Then turn out the light, switch on a black light, and enjoy the gasps as the edible worms emit an eerie blue glow, thanks to a tasty fluorescent liquid that you might already have in your pantry.

These treats are fairly easy to make once you have all the needed supplies. And kids will enjoy helping with the preparation, if you don’t mind spoiling the surprise. To make worm-shaped gummy candies, our research chefs use night crawler fishing-lure molds purchased from a sporting goods store. But other mold shapes will work as well; this time of year, it’s easy to find candy molds for skulls, spiders, rats, eyeballs—whatever sends a shiver down your spine. Shallow molds work best.

Two special ingredients combine to yield that smooth, stretchy, yet tender texture you want in a gummy candy. The first is gelatin, which comes in various strengths measured by a unit called Bloom (after Oscar Bloom, who invented the gelometer, a device that measures jelly strength). The recipe works best with 200 Bloom gelatin, sometimes called gold gelatin. If you can’t find it, you can substitute Knox-brand powdered gelatin, which has a Bloom strength of 225. Just reduce the amount used from 20 grams to 18 grams.

The second unusual ingredient is gum arabic, which is made from the hardened sap of acacia trees. The gum gives the candies a smooth, shiny surface while remaining pliable. It’s fairly pricey stuff, but you only need a little bit. Look for it online in powdered form.

And that secret ingredient that glows under black light? Quinine, which is used to flavor tonic water. This medicinal chemical, originally isolated from the bark of a South American tree, is so highly fluorescent that it sends out about 55 photons of visible blue light for every 100 photons of ultraviolet light (also known as black light) that it absorbs. If you don’t already have a black light, get the kind that uses fluorescent tubes: they emit a wider range of wavelengths than LED lights do and will make the quinine in the candies glow more vibrantly.

To obtain the right texture for these candies, it is crucial to use the correct proportions of ingredients.

Glowing Gummy Worms Recipe

Seven Salad Tips

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With warm weather comes an abundance of produce. Salads are a classic way to create a mélange of flavors and textures by using the best produce of the season. But often times, produce can become soggy, wilted, or just plain boring. Here are some of our favorite tips to brighten up your salads during this or any other season.

1. Start with the dressing: Though it is commonly added last, dressing should be added to your bowl first. This will help evenly coat the salad when you toss it. Add slightly less than you think you will need. You can always drizzle a little extra over the top before serving.

2. Add a little lecithin: Liquid soy lecithin is a great emulsifier, which is why we add it to our vinaigrettes. Try adding about 1-2% (by weight of the oil) lecithin to prevent the dressing from separating. Make sure you use the liquid variety; the powdered kind is a foam stabilizer, not an emulsifier. We sometimes use a pasteurized egg yolk (cooked sous vide) as an emulsifier, but this adds flavor to salad dressings, whereas liquid soy lecithin does not.

3. Extend its life: Fruits and vegetables benefit from heat-shocking. Dipping them in hot water for a minute will increase their shelf life. Nobody likes wilted lettuce and shriveled celery in their salads, so, next time you come home with a bag full of produce, try our tips for extending crispiness.

4. Snip fresh herbs: Herb aromas are most potent right after cutting them, so snip them just before adding them to your salad. That’s right, we said snip. Not only do kitchen scissors make it easier to pluck and chop leaves, you can also snip these items directly into your salad bowl.

5. Think seasonally: While you can find many produce staples at grocery stores year-round, those in their peak season will still be best. In the spring, seek out asparagus, fava beans, peavines, new potatoes, rhubarbs, radishes, baby carrots, tarragons, and borages. In the summer, toss together the likes of tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, bell peppers, avocados, zucchini, stone fruits, melons, chervils, lemon verbenas, and basils. Sweet onions, arugulas, celery root, butter lettuces, apples, pears, figs, thymes, and parsleys are all good finds in the fall. In the winter, watch for spinaches, young chards, beets, citrus fruits, watercresses, winter savories, chives, and legumes.

6. Textural contrast: A salad doesn’t have to be all crisp and crunch. Textural contrast can be one of its great delights. Mix and match different textures, such as creamy (soft cheeses, egg-based dressings), tender (braised beets, cooked potatoes, baby lettuces), chewy (dried fruits, aged cheeses), crispy (lettuces, cucumbers, apple slices), and crunchy (fresh pickles, raw vegetables, sunflower seeds, croutons).

7. Use your hands: As long as you thoroughly wash your hands, there is no reason not to use them to mix salads. You will find that you are better able to coat each salad piece evenly. If you remain squeamish about getting your hands dirty, use disposable gloves.

Composing a Salad Cutaway by Modernist Cuisine

Science helps craft the perfect mac and cheese

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BY SCOTT HEIMENDINGER
Associated Press

Imagine your favorite cheese: perhaps an aged, sharp cheddar, or maybe a blue Gorgonzola or a gentle Monterey Jack. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to use those really good cheeses you love on nachos or as a sauce on macaroni or steamed vegetables?

But if you have ever tried melting high-quality cheeses, you’ve experienced the problem: the cheese separates into a greasy oil slick that no amount of stirring will restore.

One traditional workaround is to make a Mornay sauce, which combines the cheese with a cooked mixture of flour, butter and milk. But a Mornay sauce can end up tasting as much of cooked flour as it does of cheese. The starch in the flour actually masks some of the flavors in the cheese, so the sauce loses its vibrancy.

A clever Canadian-born cheesemaker in Chicago discovered a much better solution around 1912. His name may ring a bell — James L. Kraft.

Kraft found that adding a small amount of sodium phosphate to the cheese as it melted kept it from turning into a clumpy mess of cheese solids swimming in a pool of oil. Kraft patented his invention and used it to make canned, shelf-stable cheese. He sold millions of pounds of the stuff to the American military during World War I. The technique ultimately led to the creation of Velveeta and a whole universe of processed cheese products.

You can apply the very same chemistry, however, to achieve much higher culinary purposes. The chefs in our research kitchen have made mac and cheese with an intense goat gouda and cheddar sauce, for example, and build gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches using cheese slices that melt like the processed stuff, but are made from feta or Stilton.

In place of sodium phosphate, we use sodium citrate, which is easier to find in grocery stores or online. Like sodium phosphate, sodium citrate is an emulsifying salt that helps tie together the two immiscible components of cheese: oil and water.

In solid form, cheese is a stable emulsion. The tiny droplets of dairy fat are suspended in water and held in place by a net of interlinked proteins. When cheese melts, however, that net breaks apart, and the oil and water tend to go their separate ways. Sodium citrate can form attachments to both fat and water molecules, so it holds everything together. The end result is a perfectly smooth, homogeneous sauce. The sauce even can be cut into processed cheese-like slices once it cools.

When making cheese sauce, we add 4 grams of sodium citrate for every 100 grams of finely grated cheese and 93 grams of water or milk. To make cheese slices, we reduce the amount of water to about 30 grams (cold wheat beer works very well, too), pour the melted mixture into a sheet pan, and let it solidify in the refrigerator for about two hours before cutting it into pieces, which then can be wrapped in plastic and frozen.

Because this method of stabilizing melted cheese bypasses all of the flour, butter and milk used in Mornay sauce, the resulting cheese sauce is much richer; a little goes a long way. But the sauce keeps well in the refrigerator and reheats nicely in the microwave, so save any extra and use it to top vegetables, nachos or pasta.

For our Mac and Cheese recipe, click here.

Photo credit: Melissa Lehuta / Modernist Cuisine, LLC

Mastering creamy pureed potatoes, no fat required

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When made just right, mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food: smooth, creamy, warm and filling — not to mention a perfect vehicle for gravy.

But how to get them perfectly smooth and creamy? Too often ridding mashed potatoes of those pesky lumps forces you to overwork the spuds into a gummy, grainy mess. Or you end up adding so much cream and butter that the dairy drowns out the flavor of the potatoes.

If you like your mashed potatoes fluffy, the answer is fairly straightforward. Choose a floury variety of potato, such as Maris Piper or russet, pass the peeled, boiled potatoes through a ricer, then mix in just enough butter and milk or cream to moisten.

But if you’re after a silkier texture — more like what the French call pommes puree — stick with waxy potatoes, such as Yukon gold or fingerlings. You also should try a modernist technique pioneered by food writer Jeffrey Steingarten and refined by the British chef Heston Blumenthal. It adds a step, but it is well worth it.

Steingarten discovered that gently heating the potatoes for a half hour or so in warm water before they are boiled profoundly improves the result. This is because as the potatoes soak in water at about 160 F (70 C), the starch in them gelatinizes, producing a smoother puree on the tongue. The granules that contain the starch also firm up, making it harder to rupture them during mashing.

Recently our research chefs perfected yet another modernist method that yields an amazingly smooth and slightly sweet potato puree, and all without adding any butter, milk or cream. The secret is to deploy a little trick of biochemistry that converts the starch in the potatoes into sugar.

The key to this culinary alchemy is an enzyme known as diastase. Don’t let the fancy name put you off; this ingredient is quite natural (it is derived from malted grain), and you can buy it online or at stores that sell brewing and baking ingredients. The enzyme typically is sold in in a ready-to-use form called diastatic malt powder.

Like other enzymes, diastase is a protein whose complex molecular shape allows it to accelerate chemical transformations with amazing speed and specificity. When you eat a starchy food like bread or potatoes, enzymes in your gut help break down the starch into simpler carbohydrates (such as sugars) that your body can burn or store for energy. By adding diastase to our mashed potatoes, we’re simply getting a jump on the process.

The trickiest part about using diastatic malt powder is measuring the right amount. It’s potent stuff, so you really should measure ingredients by weight. After you have peeled and cubed the potatoes, weigh them. For every 100 grams of potatoes, measure out 1 gram of diastatic malt powder. So 1,100 grams of peeled, cubed potatoes calls for 11 grams of malt powder.

Now fill a pot with water and add 2 grams of sugar and 3 grams of salt for every 100 milliliters of water. Simmer the potato cubes until they are tender, 30 to 40 minutes, then drain. Stir the diastatic malt powder into the potatoes, then pass the mixture through a ricer.

The riced potatoes next get sealed in a zip-close plastic bag, which is set in a pot of hot tap water (about 125 F) for a half hour. The warmth activates the enzyme and starts it gobbling up the potato starch. When the 30 minutes is up, empty the bag into a pot, then heat the puree to at least 167 F (75 C) to halt the enzymatic activity.

That’s it. Even with no butter or cream, the result is sweet and amazingly smooth. If you are avoiding dairy or limiting your intake of fats, this technique may just renew your love affair with the potato.

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Click here for our Dairy-Free Potato Puree recipe made with diastatic malt powder.

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Photo credit: Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine, LLC.

What Is Xanthan Gum?

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Some people are suspicious of ingredients with unfamiliar names, such as xanthan gum. We are frequently asked, “Aren’t your dishes chock-full of chemicals?” Well, yes, but all foods are, including the most natural and organic ones. But nearly all of those chemicals are derived from natural ingredients or processes that have been used for decades.

First discovered by USDA scientists in the 1950s, xanthan gum is fermented by plant-loving bacteria, characterized by sticky cell walls. It is no less natural than vinegar or yeast. We think xanthan gum is one of the best discoveries in food science since yeast.

It is used as a thickener or stabilizer in a wide variety of foods found on grocery store shelves. Many canned or prepared products contain xanthan gum: salad dressings, sauces, soups, and baked goods — particularly those that are gluten-free because xanthan gum can perform some of the same functions as gluten.

Xanthan gum is one of the most useful food additives around; it is effective in a wide range of viscosities, temperatures, and pH levels. It is easy to use, has no taste, and generally works quite well. And it can thicken liquids at extremely low concentrations – as little as 0.1% by weight can yield a thick liquid, and 0.5% by weight can make a thick paste (this is why it is best to weigh out xanthan gum with a digital scale rather than use volumetric measurements). Traditional thickeners like flour typically require far larger amounts to do a similar job. The quantity matters because the more thickener you have as a fraction of the total mixture the more likely it is to impose an undesirable texture and inhibit flavor.

Ready to try xanthan gum? Take a look at our recipe library for recipes for Spinach Pesto, Jus Gras, and Wasabi Cream. Check back later this month, when we’ll be showcasing more recipes from Modernist Cuisine at Home that use xanthan gum.

adapted from Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Cuisine at Home

What Exactly Is Modernist Cuisine?

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As Nathan is fond of saying, Modernist cuisine doesn’t bring science into the kitchen; science has always been in the kitchen. Modernist cuisine takes the ignorance out of the kitchen. Watch the video above to see the latest episode of MDRN KTCHN, in which our Director of Applied Research, Scott Heimendinger, explains the ins and outs of Modernist cuisine.

Your 2013 New Year’s Resolution: Try Modernist Cooking

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Ready to take on Modernist cooking?

Maybe you received Modernist Cuisine or Modernist Cuisine at Home as a holiday gift, or perhaps you’re just curious about what this whole Modernist cooking movement is. We understand that it can be intimidating either way. That’s why we’re here to help. Join us over the next three months to learn about and test-out recipes from our books.

We invite you to make “trying Modernist cuisine” your 2013 New Year’s resolution.

Each week we will publish recipes, slowly gaining in difficulty, along with articles that explain the underlying science. You’ll learn the following:

We hope you’ll take this trek with us. Make sure to register with ModernistCuisine.com and check in with us each week.