Other uses for gelatin

[Jenise]

The other day I needed to take a dish to a New Years Day party, so I diced a slab of store bought duck liver and truffle pate and put it in a pile with a diced gelatin I'd made out of apple juice and fresh chopped chives and dill. The combination is beautiful to look at and reduces the fattiness both visually and on the palate of pate alone, plus it also makes it possible for people to serve themselves without creating a grotesque mess on the platter of the type that makes party food look like hazardous waste after just five customers (and why I never serve dips to large crowds.)

Working with the gelatin somehow jogged the memory of the Cooks Illustrated meat loaf recipe in which the writer decided that the ultimate was achieved by adding 1/4 tsp of gelatin to the loaf to coagulate and therefore hold in more of moisture.

I remember reading it and thinking that's what bread crumbs are for. I also wondered how 1/4 tsp could really be enough. But then, I never use gelatin to do anything except make cold gelatins. Did anyone who read the same article try that? Does anyone else use gelatin in warm preps? And further, could one use powdered gelatin in a sauce to approximate a demi glace kind of mouthfeel?

The idea of using gelatin in meatloaf or anything other than something served cold is news to me. The only time I ever used gelatin was to make a chocolate mousse. Did the gelatin replace the breadcrumbs in the meatloaf, or is it in addition?

[Jenise]

Linda, the gelatin was in addition to the breadcrumbs.

Thank God Stuart's a vegetarian. Otherwise, I'd cringe at thinking of what he'd post on the creative uses of gelatin. And I'm not talking about eating the stuff.....



Mike

Most of the cases where I encounter gelatin in dishes is from oriental preparations such as red-cooked chicken, which gets both gelatin from the chicken bones and cartilege, and pectin from the onions. But these are extracted as the dish cooks. I don't think I've ever prepared anything where gelatin was added.

But yes, for your glace' preparations such as the way a lot of pates and mousses are served, one could use gelatin to keep the stuff glued together, perhaps replacing some of the fat. But these are inherently high-calorie dishes, and that is part of their glory. Low-fat pate or meat loaf is IMO a contradiction in terms.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

such as the way a lot of pates and mousses are served, one could use gelatin

Sure, cold stuff--do that all the time. What I'd never considered was adding gelatin to augment/increase the viscosity of hot foods. I don't think it was meant to lower fat. For that, IIRC, the Cooks article recommended setting the loaf on a rack so that it didn't sit in its drippings. Somehow, that never struck me as a problem that needed correcting.

I recently tried Michel Richard's recipe for Spuddies (tater tots) from his new and oddly named book, Happy in the Kitchen. Great book BTW. Anyway, he sprinkles dry gelatin on grated potatoes that are then baked in the oven for 5 minutes to melt the gelatin. The potatoes are then cooled then further processed into the tots. They were outstanding!

He has a page where he talks about using dry gelatin as a binding agent -"...an ingredient without taste that melts away in the cooking process" and lists several recipes for its use in the index.

Next time you are in a book store, check it out.
Cheers.
Kim