If you’ve been around this blog for a while then you know that I love to take cooking classes in foreign countries. I made good on this in A Coruña with a molecular gastronomy course! This workshop at Pencil & Fork was less about preparing a specific type of cuisine and more about the science behind foams, spherification, infusions, etc. Basically changing the structure of food in surprising and fun ways.
Our group was small, just 5 people, and the instructor, David, was good about translating directions and specifics into English when I needed clarification. We prepared the following items:
Prawns with citrus foam – prawns were precooked, we just had to peel them and the foam had a good texture and seemed easy to make.
Potato salad wheat cups with balsamic caviar and spaghetti – this one was fun! Soy sauce and balsamic vinegar transformed into little ‘caviar’ spheres and long spaghetti strands.
Toasted bread slices with textured tomato juice and olive oil powder – the tomato juice was fresh grated tomato and olive oil (dash of salt) whipped together and aerated for a smooth texture. The olive oil powder was a surprise, looks like little flakes of yellow and then you get this intense olive flavor when you bite into it.
Yogurt drizzles (reverse spherification) – probably the coolest chemistry transformation of the class. Plain yogurt is poured out of a rounded teaspoon into a solution and the outside forms a very thin skin that keeps the rounded shape (hopefully)! I definitely want to try this one at home.
Carbonated grapes – grapes cut in half and pressurized with CO2 to make them “sparkling.” An upgrade from just plain frozen grapes for sure.
Panna cotta with kappa carrageenan and sugared raspberries – the least interesting to me but still a fun experiment to see how the seaweed gel thickens in place of an animal-derived tool like gelatin.
Overall, I loved the small class size and the enthusiasm of our instructor. This place offers a whole variety of classes and experiences and I would recommend taking a class here.
