8 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:From the website -
Calx Mugartiz is ideal to "petrify" or "fossilise" fruits and vegetables containing Pectin. Calx is used at Andoni Luis Aduriz’s restaurant Mugaritz to make its "concentrated apples". Make a bath with 2% Calx and bathe the fruits or vegetables for approximately 3 hours. After this you can either bake the ingredient to crate the fossil effect or poach to create the petrified, aged appearance. The shell or skin may vary depending on how the fruit or vegetable has been cooked, soft or dry to rough. The mineral calcium is obtained by calcimine pure limestone at temperatures of 900-1200 ° C.
When I worked at one restaurant we used this technique to "fossilize" pumpkin. It basically, as stated above, creates a coating on the outside of the product that appears as a shell. With the pumpkin, we almost had a pumpkin custard internally, and hard shell outside. We had also added sugar into the bath in order to add a caramel layer as well. Then we roasted it in a wood oven an served it with bourbon whip cream and smoked cotton candy.
