alinea's tricks

[Harry91]

My friend recently ate at Alinea (Grant Achatz's place) and described a dish he had that was a 'bubble' of mozzarella cheese that had tomato "air" inside. I'm guessing this a play on the classic salad. Any idea's as to how one would create a "Bubble" of mozzarella cheese?

I can imagine a ghetto approach using a hair dryer and a turkey baster, but i'm sure the actual method is much more ingenious.

[ChefJohnny]

He uses an air compressor with something like this on the end of the hose.

- Chef Johnny

[nick.kokonas]

that is incorrect. No air compressor is used.

Mozz. curd is used and shaped. Eventually an ISI cannister is filled with tomato water and the mozz is tightly wrapped around the dispenser. The balloon is inflated carefully and the end is squeezed off.

The "ghetto method" is often not far from the truth -- except that once you have to do 100 per night, more refined methods need to be found.