Friday, April 6, 2012

Recipe: Lettuce gel (Ultrasperse)

The occasion for me making this originally was an amuse-bouche based on prawn cocktails - I served a grilled prawn with lettuce gel, sour cream pearls and a cocktail sauce flavoured cornmeal chicharron (two recipes you now already have).  Lettuce gel is a great introduction to the gelling product Ultrasperse, to see how easy it is to use.  The advantage in this case of Ultrasperse over an agar based gel is the fact that it doesn't need any heat to be activated, so the gel keeps all the nice green of the lettuce juice and its natural fresh flavour.  Ultrasperse is often added using a blender, but I didn't want the risk of the blender's heat affecting the colour, so I mixed it all with a whisk - just start with a portion of the lettuce juice and once you have a thick, homogenous mix, you can loosen it up with the rest of the juice.  Ultrasperse doesn't gell up hard, so it's also very easy to add it in slowly and stop when you are happy with the viscosity.  The mix is seasoned somewhat - in modern cuisine, if you want to win a customer over with a different texture, the flavour needs to be bang on or your efforts are lost.  

You will need:

1C / 250 ml       lettuce juice - romaine, iceberg, butter - your choice - probably a couple heads
0.04oz / 16g      Ultrasperse
to taste              ascorbic acid (or lemon juice)
to taste              salt
to taste              sugar (icing sugar will dissolve best)
a juicer

Method:

 - wash the lettuce, then juice it until you have enough - drink any extra, it's healthy
 - measure out the Ultrasperse into a bowl
 - slowly whisk in the juice, keeping the mix from forming lumps
 - season with acid, salt and sugar until it's perfect
 - use a spoon or squeeze bottle to apply to plates or item itself

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