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Mugaritz CalX - anyone know what it is?


weedy

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27 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

Limestone.

 

Yes it is.

 

Referred to as 'hydrated lime' in a couple of recipes here.

Leslie Craven, aka "lesliec"
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Would pickling lime be a substitute?

So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money. But when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness."

So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

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5 hours ago, weedy said:

a 10x price difference.

 


Yeah, it sometimes pays to look around when it comes to this stuff. Some things can only be found in non-industrial size packaging through the more expensive companies aimed at the modernist market but some things can be found as the same thing under a different name for far less money. And be careful how much you buy unless you're confident this is your thing. I have pounds of modernist ingredient stuff that I bought in a flurry of excitement while learning a lot of the tricks and techniques that are now just sitting in their jars and packages doing nothing. Once I learned how to do the stuff, I found I wasn't actually using it in real world applications very often. Every now and then I have an idea I want to try and something comes off the shelf.

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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11 hours ago, adey73 said:

What exactly is the function of that ingredient in these recipes?

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.

 

 

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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.

Edited by nonkeyman (log)
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4 hours ago, nonkeyman said:

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.

 

That sounds like fun. I know I've got some pickling lime around here for changing the pH in fermentation. A nice sweet squash maybe. 

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So apparently it's the calcium in the CaOH that is responsible for the effect. Alex and Aki at Ideas in Food use a different source of calcium for the same effect mentioned here

 

Working on the Concentrated Apple and the Pumpkin Bonbons - just blew the apples apart with too much heat - they were simmering so nicely - I couldn't have just let them do it!

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10 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

So apparently it's the calcium in the CaOH that is responsible for the effect. Alex and Aki at Ideas in Food use a different source of calcium for the same effect mentioned here

 

Working on the Concentrated Apple and the Pumpkin Bonbons - just blew the apples apart with too much heat - they were simmering so nicely - I couldn't have just let them do it!


I remember that Ideas in Food post now that you brought it up. I'd kinda skimmed over it at the time and not thought much more about it. I'm liking the idea that you can use calcium lactate or lactate-gluconate instead of lime or calcium chloride. It's been a while since I was working with those ingredients but I'll never forget the nasty bitter taste of calcium chloride and I don't generally have lime on hand. I do however have a fairly large supply of lactate-gluconate sitting around doing nothing...

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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"I do however have a fairly large supply of lactate-gluconate sitting around doing nothing..."

 

As one is wont to do.xD

 

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

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IMG_3674.jpg

 

Here's the butternut squash - 3 hours in a 2% solution of Calcium hydroxide - rinsed well - 2 hours simmered in a sugar syrup - heated up and served with salt. As you can see little squares just aren't in my repertoire. 

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After trying to shape square dough for bread the other day, I have a soft spot in my heart for anyone who is square-challenged.   Geometry is so overrated just ask mother nature.  

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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4 hours ago, gfweb said:

@Kerry Beal Is the result worth the (modest) effort? How'd they taste?

I'd say it is. I wonder if the squash soaked for a shorter time might give a thinner 'skin' which I think I would enjoy a bit more. They tasted like a intense version of the original - a very squashy squash and a very appley apple. 

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