iSi Whip

Any inspiration? I haven't used mine much, but I read about doing quick pickles from Modernist Cuisine. I am playing around with whipped cream, but that is rather banal. I did think of doing an aged balsamic whipped cream -- until I saw my wife's face after I described it.

So for those who use the whip, what do you do?

karring

 

I've started by playing with flavored whipped cream. Zest orange or lemon, pulse w sugar in food processor till everybody fine, whip it. A fun one was with some leftover ice cream base. 1 part base to 3ish parts cream, that was not banal.

Have savory foams and espumas (cause I like the name) on my radar.

Some infusions have piqued my interest but not sure if they wouldn't be better done in the chamber sealer.

Keep the thread going.

 

Haven't been using mine much. I've used it with flavoured whipped cream. Did the chocolate mousse which is water based and the microwave chocolate cake. But I don't use it regularly.

Would really like to see ideas to get to use it more.

 

I like to use it for foams/ sauces. One of my favorites is a bone marrow foam. I also make a green chili foam, which is fun because people don't expect a foam to be spicy. I also like to use it to lighten sauces like curry sauce. It makes the sauce less heavy, which works well for delicate seafood.

 

At the hotel we did a pretty bitchin' horseradish foam that went on the Beef Carpaccio. We also did a Yuzu/Sudachi Espuma that went with the tuna crudo. It had hearts of palm, canteloupe, micro cilantro, pink peppercorn and a citrus/ginger vinaigrette.
Just make sure to shear in a stabilizer like xanthan gum.

 

Sorry for the late response after starting this thread. I can't believe how much effort it takes to keep a 1 and 3-year-old in check. My little boy climbs on everything while my three year old cries about everything. Anyhow…

I did purchase another size of iSi whip that I found on sale with 24 cartridges to boot, and I also got the injector set for the whip too. After some of your ideas, I started poking around the inter webs and found some interesting stuff.

Some form of horseradish foam like kynfenerd's is up on deck as well as a green chilly foam. I'm also going to play with carbonating some fruit. Watermelon and grapes are pretty easy it seems, but I also my try blueberries or cranberries. Maybe infuse it with some grappa or other alcohol first.

k.

 

Injector set? what's that?

Hmmmm....can you carbonate compressed fruit?

 

From what I understand, carbonating fruit works best on fruit with a high water content (grapes, cranberries, watermelon, etc).

As for the injector needles, they can be used for a variety of things. The most obvious is filling pastries, but you can also use it for injecting meat, marinating etc. I must admit that the first thing that came to my mind was injecting some butter under the skin of a chicken or turkey for roasting.

Right now I am trying to buy some CO2 cartridges cheap. The cream cartridges are NO2 and some recipes recommend the CO2 over the nitro.

k.

 

Thanks Drinky...look forward to some pics!

 

With that said, I wonder how it would work with some compressed watermelon.

k.

 

I just bought 160 soda chargers from Katom.

k.

 

Yeah, compressing it would increase the water content per unit volume...seems like it would make the carbonation more apparent at least.

 

Well, you have a chamber vac, do you have a whip?

k.

 

No whip. Haven't been too inclined to get one. Been waiting for someone <ahem> to inspire me with it.

 

Well, I am definitely getting inspired. I signed up for a ChefSteps course for the siphon that I saw recommended on one of the iSi whip websites. It is $39 and seems like it will be interesting.

https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/whipping-siphons/landing#/

The ChefSteps videos seem to be pretty well made in general, and there is a lot of free stuff on their site. I thought this interview with Chris Young of Modernist Cuisine to be interesting for a foam idiot like me.



And this charred oak alcohol infusion technique is very tempting and easy.

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pressure-infusion-with-charred-oak

The whole site seems to be a good resource and they have a forum for questions too. I was looking for fizzy fruit info on the forum, and ran into this explanation for something that I was wondering: Why discharge the air with the first charger when making carbonated fruit?

"You clear the siphon with a charger to replace as much of the air in the siphon with whatever gas is contained in your chargers. This is important in things like carbonating fruit, for example, because the amount of the CO2 that dissolves in the fruit is proportional to the pressure of the CO2 in the whipping siphon (Henry's Law). Having air present in the whipping siphon reduces the partial pressure of the CO2 (Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures) in the siphon and thus results in fruit that's less fizzy than that prepared with a siphon that is cleared with a CO2 charger."

You can't get a more complete answer than that I guess.

Anyhow, I am sure the monster threads at eGullet are probably more helpful overall AND if one has the time to read hundreds of thread pages, but for now this will whet my appetite. I'm not going to go all foam geek, but I am starting to realize that this shiny swiss can, can do some interesting things. Charred alcohol for me, and this sponge cake for the kids

Now I got to order some xanthan gum.

k.

 

I've generally had a good impression of the content from those guys as well...with some of their knife content being the main--and totally predictable--exception. Will be interested to hear about the class. Can't watch this video from my laptop, but I'll check it out later.

 

You can get xanthum gum at whole foods.

I like this thread. I have never made a foam before.

 

Yeah, I should see what Whole Foods has to offer.

I was also looking at Modernist Pantry online, and they have an amazing selection. Right now I am just going through the recipes in the the ChefSteps course and some others things I might want to try, and focusing on those ingredients: xanthan gum, lambda carrageenan, sucrose esters, guar gum -- stuff like that. I don't have a whole lot of use for much of it, so I am trying to limit my hydrocolloid pantry to just the stuff I might need or want to try.

k.

 

Xani gum can do some interesting things. I'm not wild about its texture, it gets a bit snotty for me. I like gelatin the best for partially setting liquids, but xanthan does have the advantage of mixing in by shear, so you can use raw juices as the base, nice for the summer.

 

I think I am going to go with the perfected xani gum from Modernist Pantry. It might not fix the snotty texture, but it seems as if they have made some improvements to ensure it mixes well.

http://www.modernistpantry.com/perfected-xanthan-gum.html

With that said, when considering gelatin, is there any reason to go for beef over fish gelatin -- or vice versa?

k.