Lecithin, Transglutaminase, and Powders Oh My!

This is a general call to all food geeks and home chemists out there. I found a shop that sells some cool food additives that sound like fun. Unfortunately they seem to be going for the wholesale angle and sell stuff by the kilogram… and who needs 1 kilo of apricot powder?

Here’s what I propose, if all interested parties can agree on a couple additives, I’ll place an order and split it amongst the interested parties. We can figure out all the details later, but here are some of the things they carry along with some info on what you can do with them:

Lecithin – this stuff you can actually get a health food stores, but it’s much more expensive and often comes in capsule form. It’s naturally found in soybeans and egg yolk and is what makes them such good emulsifiers (makes oil and water mix). You could use this make egg-less mayonnaise, olive oil ice cream, and fruit butters. But that’s not all it’s good for. It’s also a stabilizer, which is how restaurants make “foams”. It can also be added to baked goods to strengthen gluten bonds which help breads rise better, and in cakes and cookies it prevents moisture loss.

Transglutaminase – a.k.a. meat glue, essentially bonds proteins together, so you can take smaller cuts of meat like short ribs and bond them together into a roast, or turn pureed seafood into noodles without adding anything else. At some level, this the idea of being able to take turf and surf quite literally and making a shrimp and beef steak seems kind of unnatural and disturbing, but the inner-geek in me is totally fascinated. One thought I had was to make a boneless cylindrical chicken roast that has breast meat in the middle surrounded by thigh meat, all wrapped in a layer skin.

Fruit and Vegetable Powders – These are basically fruits and veggies that have been freeze dried then pulverized into a powder. They come in these flavors: apple, apricot, banana, blackberry, cherry, lemon, lime, mango, orange, passion fruit, pineapple, pomegranate, raspberry, strawberry, mint, beet, carrot, spinach & sweet potato. I’d imagine they’d make great additions to sauces, pasta, cakes, smoothies or even sprinkled on top as a condiment. I was thinking apricot or passionfruit…

Anyhow if this sounds like something you want in on, send me an email or leave a comment below along with what you’d be interested in.

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