Better cooking through chemistry

Chefs apply molecular gastronomy methods to create delicious dishes

As the creamy sauce swept across my tongue, I couldn't quite believe what I was tasting. I shook my head in disbelief.

It was buttered popcorn, but unlike any buttered popcorn I had ever had.

Beside the buttered popcorn sauce, a swath of rich caramel, a paper-thin wafer of peanut butter and a plump piece of poached lobster filled my bowl. I was eating Lobster Fiddle Faddle. I had to laugh.

The Mint's executive chef Jeremy Clayman and sous chef/pastry chef Eric Foster created this delicious, if disconcerting, experience. They, along with a few other Triangle chefs, are bringing more chemistry techniques into the kitchen, employing what's known as molecular gastronomy to present familiar flavors in unexpected ways.

With tools and chemicals found more often in industrial food laboratories than in restaurant kitchens, these Triangle chefs turn Grey Goose vodka into fluid-filled pearls called "caviar" that burst on a martini drinker's tongue. They poach an egg at a temperature so low that the yolk and the white are the same soft consistency. They turn sesame oil into a powder and sprinkle it alongside sashimi tuna that is served with an "egg yolk" made of mango and ginger juice.

In creating the lobster appetizer, Clayman and Foster sometimes add Ultra-Tex, a maize-based starch used in salad dressings, to thicken the sauce. To the caramel, they add miso paste, a soybean paste common in Japanese cooking, to impart butterscotch flavor. The wafer-thin peanut butter disk is made from peanut butter, fondant, Isomalt -- a sugar substitute made from beets -- and glucose to add some texture.

"It allows a chef to be slightly more creative and artistic because we can learn to manipulate ordinary average ingredients to look how we want them so we can paint a prettier picture," Clayman says.

Plus, it's fun. On a recent day in The Mint's kitchen, Foster is making their take on strawberry shortcake: a honey gelee topped with macerated strawberries, a dollop of mascarpone ice cream, pound cake crumbs, a few freeze-dried strawberries and dots of vanilla syrup. As a finishing touch, they pour liquid nitrogen over the plate, enveloping the dessert in a fog. "That right there sells itself," Foster says. Then he and Clayman start playing around -- spooning liquid nitrogen into their mouths and exhaling the frosty air.

The trend spreads

These Triangle chefs have quietly embraced molecular gastronomy, a trend that is packing such restaurants as Alinea in Chicago, McCrady's in Charleston, wd-50 in New York City, the Fat Duck in London and El Bulli outside Barcelona, Spain. El Bulli, chef Ferran Adria's restaurant, is open only six months a year so that Adria can test recipes during the remainder of the year. A meal there can cost about $350.

Molecular gastronomy fare at those restaurants can be rather abstract food: hot ice cream, avocado foam, foie gras cotton candy, peanut butter and jelly Dippin' Dots, a ravioli that releases a burst of black truffle liquid. Some criticize these scientific abstractions as being unrecognizable as food.

In Raleigh where conservative tastes prevail, local chefs are hesitant about diners' reactions to such cutting-edge cooking methods. They use these techniques in small ways so their audience is not put off by the food.

"We're not trying to weird people out," Clayman says. "It's really subtle what we're doing. People don't even realize that it's avant-garde technique. It's only when I speak to some people that I explain we used a tapioca derivative. Some people are really excited about it. Some people don't get it."