Molecular gastronomy is the method of working with science and chemistry to get ready food stuff. It can be a contemporary movement of cooking that normally variations the physical makeup of delicacies by using ultra creativity to appear up with wholly new and often summary dishes and flavors. I a short while ago experienced the prospect to enjoy a Thai fusion meal exactly where a molecular gastronomy chef cooked up a sequence of fusion Thai dishes for us to sample. Our food, which was served in courses dish by dish, was a resourceful modern day choose on Thai cuisine.
We commenced off with a tom yum shrimp cocktail. Now as you probably know, tom yum shrimp is just one of Thailand’s most famed soups, but serving it as a cocktail beverage, laced with alcoholic beverages, is a absolutely unique twist to the dish (now drink). Just like a usual bowl of tom yum soup, the cocktail was whole of lime juice, but which is where by the similarities ended. The cocktail provided a splash of gin, soup inventory, and for the shrimp, alternatively than becoming added to the cocktail, it was grilled on a bamboo skewer and utilised as the mixing adhere for the beverage. The chef instructed us to give the drink a whirling stir with the shrimp skewer, eat the shrimp in a single bite, and then sip down the cocktail as we delighted. Although it in truth reminded me of any Thai tom yum soup, it was so contrastingly different at the exact same time.
After the cocktail, we experienced foie gras pink curry. The foie gras, currently being common of French delicacies, though the curry flavors and spices were being affected from Thai food. This was a fusion Thai dish, this means components ended up absolutely not usual of standard Thai foodstuff but a merger of two distinct cuisines. The creamy foie gras paired with the spicy flavors of typical Thai meals, and a beautiful hint of basil, made the dish prosperous and soften in your mouth. Yet again, it was an strategy and mingling of flavors that I experienced never seasoned in advance of, and it was incredibly delightful.
To spherical out the major courses we then experienced inexperienced curry. But alternatively of staying served temperature incredibly hot as a regular Thai curry, the chef determined to fully improve the make-up of the dish by serving it frozen. After the blend of environmentally friendly curry was cooked with coconut milk and diminished so the flavors were being condensed, it was then flash frozen into a thin bowl like framework. The inexperienced curry had to be eaten swiftly to keep the modern day molecular composition, so it would still be frozen solid when having. The outcome was extremely interesting nevertheless once more. When I closed my eyes, I tasted all the ordinary components of a Thai environmentally friendly curry, still there was a slight crunch from the frozenness, and the creamy chilly sensation was much more very similar to a creamsicle than a plate of eco-friendly curry and rice. It sort of reminded me of ingesting an Indian kulfi, an ice cream that’s built with thick product and flavored with cardamom, but in its place of product it was coconut milk and as a substitute of cardamom it was the variety of spices in the inexperienced curry paste that established the desirable flavor.
At last for dessert we ended factors with mango sticky rice, which is a single of Thailand’s most nicely identified and loved sweets. But while a standard mango sticky rice is a pile of sweet coconut sticky rice paired with a slab of correctly ripened mango, this was a foamy dessert that looked like a pile of soap suds. In this example of Thai molecular gastronomy, the chef wholly changed the actual physical composition and visual appeal when retaining a amazingly comparable taste. Every chunk of the light bubbles developed a mango and highly effective rice flavor in my mouth.
Whilst I would not want to take in Thai food that is been altered molecularly way too generally, it was a seriously enjoyment treat. I was impressed at both the creativity, the specific cooking, and the thought behind the display screen of all the dishes. Also, it was unbelievable how the dishes looked unquestionably absolutely nothing like they typically do, but right after tasting them, I could undoubtedly detect the dish it represented or was encouraged by.