Welcome to the third International Incident Party! This month the theme is NOODLES.
I decided this month to go completely off the beaten track. I wanted my dish to be exclusively about the noodles and nothing else. Today we will be taking a look at food chemistry, or more precisely molecular gastronomy, and even more specifically a hydrocolloid recipe.
What does hydrocolloid mean? A hydrocolloid is defined as a type of mixture in which one substance is dispersed evenly throughout another by means of water. Examples of hydrocolloids agar-agar, carrageenan, gelatin and pectin. Yes your Jell-O dessert is a hydrocolloid. Hydrocolloids are employed in food mainly to influence texture or viscosity, usually to gel or thicken.
Now get out our Methyl Cellulose out and let’s play because this is the hydrocolloid we will use for the recipe. Methyl Cellulose is a thickener and emulsifier that forms a viscous solution or gel. Now here is the really weird and cool part: Methyl Cellulose sets when hot and melts when cold. Bet you did not expect a chemistry class in a food post now did you!
So back to noodle making. We will take a non-solid substance, in this case cream cheese, and mix it with Methyl Cellulose in a water solution to gelify it in the shape of a noodle. How cool is that! On to the recipe….
Cream Cheese Noodles
370 ml cream cheese
160 ml water
1.3 grams Methyl Cellulose
- In a saucepan heat water to 85 C and vigorously whisk in the Methyl Cellulose.
- Add to room temperature cream cheese and stir well to combine.
- Place bowl atop an ice bowl (lots of ice and cold water) and whisk until cream cheese mixture is at 10 C
- Store for 2 hours in refrigerator.
- Transfer to a squeeze bottle or the like.
- Bring to a boil 2 liters of water and let simmer.
- Pipe in cream cheese to make noodles.
- Drain as soon as the noodles have become firm, about 30 seconds.
And……it did not work 🙁 Oh well I guess my first attempt at real molecular gastronomy failed. They keep their shape until you touch them though. And since I have been so busy and I literally finished my first try 30 min before the time this will have to do for the posting. Will definitely try again though!
Out comes a new pan to cook some with plain old regular pasta….served with cream cheese on it lol.
Here is the list of the party goers!
- Penny – Jeroxie (Addictive & Consuming) – Homemade ban mian with minced pork and mushrooms
- Christine – Christine’s Recipes – Spicy Pork Mince and Noodles in Crisp Lettuce Cups
- Mardi – Eat, Live, Travel, Write – Ginger scallion & Butter noodles
- Trix – Tasty Trix – Summer ‘Noodles’ with yellow and green zuchinni with cool basil oil tomato sauce
- Shirley – Enriching your kid – Vermicilli Biryani with Tahini
- Natasha – 5 Star Foodie – Homemade Soba Noodles
- Anges – Off the spork – Handpulled noodles at home
- Joanne – Second Helping
- Cherry – Sweet Cherry Pie – Coconut noodles with honey glazed pork belly
- Tracey – Tangled Noodle
- Evelyne – Cheap Ethnic Eatz – Incidental Noodles
- Ms Baklover – Footscray Food Blog – Zha Jiang Mian
- Casey – Eating, Gardening & Living in Bulgari
- Tamar – Koreanfornian Cooking – Tteokbokki
- Billy – Half-Eaten – Pumpkin Miso Noodles in Shitake Dashi Broth
- Nina – Consumed Food Love – Vietnamese Noodle Salad
- Suresh – 3 hungry tummies – Twice cooked pork with rice noodles
- Anh – A food Lover’s Journey – Taco Soba Noodle
- Lori – Wannabe Gourmand – Nonya Curry Laksa
And also remember to stay tune for next IIP in July!
eating can be considered my hobby he he he. i would really love to visit foods blogs and see some recipes ..~
Oh no, I was all ready to applaud your amazing molecular gastronomy success but the stupid science let you down! I shall nonetheless applaud your fabulous idea. Perhaps you need a science tutor? 😉
Wow Tangled Noodle, thank you for the awesome comment!
This is hands down the most creative effort of the whole Noodles party! What a great, fun AND informative read. Let us know what happens if you try this again! 😎
i like reading food blogs because i am always seeking for new recipes.-‘`
I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat it again…I applaud you for all your challenging efforts. I’m so sorry that the dish didn’t turn out as you would have hoped.
I’m sure you at least got to finalize your moment with a wonderful meal;o)
Ciao for now, Claudia
Wow, thanks so much everyone. Who would have thought a failed recipe would create such positive re enforcements. I have enough cellulose for 100 tries so no worries in other attempts lol
*applause* I don’t think I will ever attempt this! But the idea is really cool!
Simply great idea! I would have loved to have cream cheese noodles. Keep going you
‘ll get there.
Good on you for giving this a go. I hope you give it another go. I would love to see how you go.
What a valiant attempt! Don’t give up – where there is a will there is a way.
Damn, that’s daring! Can’t wait to see how future attempts go! At any rate, it was a great idea!
What a fun experiment doing noodles via molecular gastronomy! I hope you try again and post about it!
Well, I am very impressed that you tried this! What shall you attempt to turn into noodles next??? I cannot wait to see!
Thank you all for your great words of encouragement! Will definitely keep you posted for future tries!
Oh, good on you for trying and having a sense of humor about it all! I will be interested to see future attempts.
I am super impressed at your attempt Evelyne! I will be interested to watch further molecular gastronomy attempts!!
Great job with the noodles. Seems like you are right there. There are no kitchen mistakes, only future successes if you are paying attention. I know you will nail it next time.
Be Well…
Hmmm….nice try. I’m very new to molecular gastronomy and believe there’s so much fun in trying it. You can nail it in next attempt.
I find molecular gastronomy so incredibly hard and mind boggling! Thumbs up for actually attempting it tho. That’s more guts than I will ever have!
I must try this! I am slowly trying to experiment more. This is just up my alley!
Thanks for sharing and please post when you have made some.