Home Made "Caviar"
2007-11-04
Chris Shenton

El Bulli uses alginates to make "Spherical Olives" which have egg-yolk
like shells and liquid centers.  At Farrah Olivia I had "Wasabi
Pearls" that were different, more solid all th way through; Chef Morou
Outtara mentioned he used agar (or was it gelatin?) and cold olive oil.

I don't have alginates in our kitchen yet but did have agar and gelatin so I
made fake caviar.  I kept adding gelatin, remixing and adjusting temperatures
until it worked; next time I'll just all all the gelatin up front as below.

2	C	Fish Stock (unsalted, no fennel or other distracting flavors)
2 1/2	tsp	Salt (this might be a little much, try 2 tsp next time)
6	tsp	Gelatin powder (2 packets)
12	gram	Squid Ink powder (for color, could use food dyes instead)
1	C	Oil, light and with minimal flavor

Add Salt to Fish Stock and reduce to 1/3 Cup.
Remove about half, cool to body temperature, add gelatin, stir to combine;
add gelatin-stock back to main stock, stir well.

The color at this point was an anemic, unappetising tan/peach so I added squid
ink and stirred well.  My ink came in tiny sachets of a condensed powder,
4 gram each; you could use dyes to make other fishy colors like orange and red.

I used a stick blender to combine the ingredients but it incorporated air
which caused the drops to float rather than sink in the next step.  I
subsequently let the stock-gel set, then liquefied in a water bath and this
seems to have removed the air so the drops would sink.

Place Oil in a tall slender glass: you want to provide height so the stock-gel
has longer time to cool before hitting bottom; if they hit bottom too early
they will set with a more pancake shape.  Place the glass in an ice water bath
to maintain a temperature about 35-40 degrees F. 

Hold stock-gel container in warm water bath at a temperature just high enough
so it doesn't set; mine was about 85 degrees F.   

When at temperature, suck some of the stock-gel into a syringe, hold it high
above the oil glass and gently press the plunger to release drop after drop
into the oil.  Move your syringe so that drops do not land on top of each
other or they'll combine into too-large drops.  The drops should fall through
the surface of the oil and slowly sink to the bottom. In their descent they
should cool enough to congeal into perfect spheres at the bottom of the
glass. 

Pour sphere oil through a fine skimmer (a more coarse sieve might damage the
spheres), then jiggle the skimmer to remove as much oil as possible.  Transfer
to chilled caviar bowls: I used a cone-shaped bowl in another bowl of crushed
ice; if the "caviar" warms up too much it will revert to a semi-liquid, ruined.

Serve with pumpernickel bread, sour cream, chives, etc.  And vodka :-)