Fabio

I did look through the hydrocolloid recipe collection but couldn't find anything similar. I'll order some Methocell to experiment with and see what happens. My wife, being a pragmatic retired biochemist told me that since we're visiting Lisbon again in about a month, I should stop by Belcanto and simply ask how they make the solid tomato foam...

It was like stiff dry cake powder, to quote your text. At room temperature so perhaps the word I should have used was "dissolved" in my mouth.

The pacojet "snow" would be frozen, and the one I had at Belcanto was not. It was definitely dry. Also, note the drizzling of olive oil on top that didn't melt the snow. The saga goes on...

Last year I had dinner at Belcanto in Lisbon and one of the dishes featured a "tomato water snow" or "tomato water cloud" (translated from the original Portuguese: "Nuvem/neve de agua de tomate") that I'm trying to replicate without success. Imagine a thick and solid foam of tomato water that immediately liquefies when you put in your mouth. The cloud was atop smoked fish and olive oil was drizzled over it. I whipped a mixture of tomato water and albumin powder (2 tsp albumin, 2tbsp tomato water) along with a pinch of cream of tartar, getting to the stiff peaks point after some effort. Trying to dehidrate the foam even as low as 150F didn't work; the foam collapsed. I then tried the savory meringue approach with some sugar and salt. The result was indeed a meringue that tasted like tomato but completely different from what I had at Belcanto. What am I missing? I've attached a photo of the dish so you can see what the cloud looks like. Thanks!