Food and Wine

Crispness is one of the most desirable textural characteristics of breaded fried foods. Consumers often judge the quality of breaded fried foods based on the perceived crispness of the product. Furthermore, today�s consumers are showing increasing concern over fat intake. As a result, there is great interest in being able to enhance the crispness and reduce the fat uptake in breaded fried foods without sacrificing other quality attributes. To achieve these goals, modifications to both frying equipment and product formulation have been explored in this study.

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A hydrocolloid can simply be defined as a substance that forms a gel in contact with water. Such substances include both polysaccharides and proteins which are capable of one or more of the following: thickening and gelling aqueous solutions, stabilizing foams, emulsions and dispersions and preventing crystallization of saturated water or sugar solutions.

In the recent years there has been a tremendous interest in molecular gastronomy. Part of this interest has been directed towards the “new” hydrocolloids. The term “new” includes hydrocolloids such as xanthan which is a result of relatively recent research, but also hydrocolloids such as agar which has been unknown in western cooking, but used in Asia for decades. One fortunate consequence of the increased interest in molecular gastronomy and hydrocolloids is that hydrocolloids that were previously only available to the food industry have become available in small quantities at a reasonable price. A less fortunate consequence however is that many have come to regard molecular gastronomy as synonymous with the use of hydrocolloids to prepare foams and spheres. I should therefore emphasize that molecular gastronomy is not limited to the use of hydrocolloids and that it is not the intention of this collection of recipes to define molecular gastronomy.