How can I make savory meringue?!
How can I make savory meringue?
I would like to make meringue without using sugar. I have tried using corn flour but they almost completely collapsed. I think I need something which will caramelise in a similar way to sugar but which will not taste sweet.
Answers:
OK, it's a mad idea but it's not impossible, but you'll need to understand exactly what it is you're doing chemically or tragic blobs of overworked albumen is all you'll be left with... :-)
Let's start with the really bad news bits, and they're not negotiable:
1. each bash you take at this will cost you 4 eggs absolute minimum, and preferably 8 for greater stability.
2. if your equipment, every darned square millimetre of it, is not so mindnumbingly free of grease and any other contaminant that it's been burnished to within an inch of its life, you will be binning all those eggs each time and every time.
3. don't even think of doing this in humid weather, never mind rainy conditions: you will be binning those eggs like they're going out of fashion, guaranteed, as often as not *after* all the hard work on them's been done. :-(
4. use older eggs, 4-6 days old: they'll be much easier to work.
5. forget the caramelisation: be darned grateful if the remaining sugar keeps your edifice upstanding at all and sing two verses of the Hallelujah chorus *in full*, if you happen to get some colour at all, too. ;-)
The science bit:
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Meringue is egg white beaten to a foam and sugar, which has been dried in a low oven until enough moisture has been removed for the mixture to stabilise. The whisking of the egg whites stretches the albumen proteins; when they're stiif they have been stretched to the maximum of their tensile strength. At that point the sugar's beaten in. The sugar attracts the water in the egg whites to form a syrup which covers the stretched proteins. When the mixture is baked, the water evaporates and the sugar remains as a dry coating on the solidified albumen, fixing it: Meringue.
Now, you want the sugar out. If all of it comes out that will leave you with a 'turtle without its shell' and you can work out how happy the poor turtle will be in that condition.
Compromise: we take out as much sugar as we dare risk, before the whole shebang collapses under its own weight, and then we overwhelm the remaining sugar taste with a fierce savoury flavour -- think "curry" here, for instance -- which has little or no reactive power to affect the egg whites' performance.
The ratio of sugar to albumen in meringue is 2:1 by weight. We'll need to aim for ? : 1 to get as much sweetness out as we dare, without losing the 'lead in pencil' effect of the syrup that needs to form to keep the thing upright in the end. If you dare, try for the ? : 1 from the start: if you've been spotlessly clean you might strike lucky first time round. It could also cost you your first 8 eggs. Otherwise go for ? : 1 instead, first.
This is how, based on the ? ratio:
8 egg whites (notional weight 30g ea.)
60g caster sugar (if you dare, 40g)
? tsp cream of tartar
salt and spice mixture of your choice to mask the remaining sugar and turn savoury. It *must* be dry, i.e. powder.
The acid of the c. of tartar solely serves as a stabiliser, and believe me, you' re going to be needing it. It wil also help preventing overworking the egg whites which, should it happen, will guarantee collapse.
preheat your oven to 110°C / 225°F (switch your fan off!)
Beat the egg whites with the c. of tartar to their maximum volume and stretch -- test on a wire whisk, a pyramid of the beaten whites will and must stand up like a perfect illustration of an ice-cream in a cone, pointy-hat style. You *must* get this right for this is now all that is essentially forming the body of your meringue.
(If you're working by hand exclusively, 4 egg whites max per batch, by machine 8. Overworked albumen looks like cotton wool and the volume will begin to slink if you've 'gone beyond. Bin it, start again.)
Whisk in half the sugar and the salt/spice mask, then fold in the remaining sugar. Metal large bladed spoon, no excuses. Fold in, in as few figures of eight as is humanly possible. Every unnecessary disturbance is your enemy. (If you can't yet fold perfectly as a matter of course, don't even start on this lark. It'll end in plentiful tears.)
Drop the meringue in dessertspoonfuls on to lined baking sheets, setting them wide apart, and bake/dry for 1-1? hours, or until they lift readily fom the parchment.
If you can get this to perform reliably you can start to consider meringue enhanced other dishes. The drying in the oven merely fixes the meringue which is already a tall order given the chemistry we've royally disturbed. Higher temps and shorter baking times in conjunction with other dishes adds more complexity which you can only realistically start playing with once you've got this one nailed.
Good luck and don't shout at me when pearshaped: you're trying to defy baking gospel, pulling a fast one on chemistry. It can be done -- done it. I'm just not remotely convinced it's in any way worth it -- and that's about all that can be said in its favour, which is not much.
I'm probably stark staring mad even to be giving you this, but hey-ho...
Edit: I'm sorry I forgot to say this first off: I sincerely applaud you for trying to think as a genuine pastryman. Without that. I wouldn't have written this at all. Give it some more,,, All the best.
Source(s):
prof. patissier
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I don't know but you go on watch so I can see the answer to this one...
Good question
sew
Its impossible, that is what merenges are made of.
You may need to add some sugar for the caramelisation process, maybe make the quantity of salt slightly higher and perhaps add a savory ingredient like cheese folded in the mixture. Apart from that, I'm at a loss, though will be very interested to find a proper recipe for such. Best of luck with the search :D