That, for you, is the world of molecular gastronomy, a new wave of cooking that is finding followers in a handful of India’s top chefs. Where food is deconstructed, stretched and prodded with the help of chemical compounds till it assumes new dimensions. Where familiar ingredients can be turned into jellies, foams, purées and powders. Where you make crabmeat-flavoured ice cream, or taste beef and chicken in the same slab of steak, thanks to a thing called meat glue. Where you can make caviar without salmon roe.
Yes, sirree. A month ago, the day’s special at the Smoke House Grill in Delhi was beetroot caviar. A day before, the restaurant’s senior sous chef Mayank Tiwari cruised down to a chemist shop in Daryaganj and bought capsules of different chemicals along with a handful of syringes. At his kitchen, Tiwari blended together portions of beetroot extracts and sulphur dioxide and slowly poured out droplets of the thick blend into a bowlful of cold calcium chloride. As the trickle of purple puree entered the bath, it broke into a shower of globules. Filtered and rinsed in water, beetroot caviar was ready to eat.

There are several variants of this wonder—blueberry, carrot, basil—being cooked up in kitchens in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. Tuck in a spoonful and the globules will burst into flavours.
Along with fresh vegetables, chefs are stocking up capsules of aligate, agar agar, nitrous oxide and polysorbet to pull off these culinary stunts and trapping familiar flavours into jellies, powders and foams. “The molecular gastronomy theory applies science to cooking while trying to create new food textures and sensations. Which is why every spoonful brims over with flavour,” says Chef Dewan.
At the heart of this technique is showmanship—at its most outré. “Surprise is extremely important in this form of cooking. Wouldn’t you be flummoxed when you order orange juice and what comes to your table is an orange globule?” says chef Sujan Mukherjee of Taj Bengal, Kolkata.

If you are looking for shock value, you can’t beat Chef Brainard Colaco of Mocha Coffee and Conversations, who invites you to try out a soon-to-be-introduced menu at Mocha, Bandra, of cheesecake and pie drinks and fruit caviars. While you are at it, you can even chomp the menu—only if you reserve the chef’s table in advance. “A concise menu will be written with edible ink on a thin pastry-like base. If you pick up a carbonated mushroom soup as a starter, you break that portion of the menu and eat it with the soup. As the meal proceeds, you keep eating more of the menu. And with dessert, you finish eating the entire menu card,” says Chef Colaco. With help from a food technologist, Colaco has also transformed traditional Indian sweets. So, you suck in a powdered gulab jamun through a straw and pipe out a smooth jelly-like rabri from a syringe; the flavours are true to the original.
While the best of food, traditional or modern, appeals to all five senses, molecular gastronomy is an aesthete’s delight, seducing you with colours, textures and drama—without changing the taste.

Look at the chicken consommé that Chef Dewan has made for us. The original dish is a watery chicken broth with various vegetables and flavouring. The chef serves us a dollop of soft, creamy white garnished with the green of the spring onion, nothing like the watery soup you expect. What bursts in your mouth is an eruption of flavours. The reassuring taste of chicken blended with the creaminess of the egg white.
Despite the rather intimidating array of syringes and pipettes involved, molecular gastronomy does not thrust chemicals down your throat. “The chemicals used are plant extracts like citras, lechite and algin and are safe,” says Chef Bakshish Dean of The Park, Delhi, who has been researching the subject for six years.
The technique involves high precision. Unsuccessful attempts don’t end up in explosions but do manage to spoil the texture and look permanently. While handling liquid nitrogen, used as a refrigerant, chefs must be extra-careful. The substance, after all, boils at 195.9°C, when it’s so cold that it can freeze your hands within a few seconds.

In some ways, the hypermanipulated food of molecular gastronomy is a logical culmination of the use of processed cereals like shredded wheat and cornflakes that started in 19th century—an emphasis on flavours and convenience rather than fresh ingredients. In the 1990s, it became a cult thanks to the efforts of Chef Ferran Adria and his revolutionary cooking. “As a student of science, the concept of molecular gastronomy fascinated me. I had heard a lot about the famous Spanish chef Ferran Adria and his restaurant El Bulli where exotic molecular gastronomy specialties like Parmesan ice-cream and barnacles and tea foam jostle for your attention,” says Chef Mukherjee.

In India, Karol Bagh in Delhi and Crawford Market in Mumbai are the chefs’ best bet for the chemicals. “PCB Creations in Gurgaon imports plant extracts that are prepared by Ferran Andria of El Bulli in Spain. However, there is no proper training institute in India and we send out chefs to Singapore for hands-on experience in molecular cooking,” says Chef Dean. The pioneer of this technique in the country is Aurus in Mumbai, where chefs are trained at the CIA (that’s the Culinary Institute of America) in Napa Valley.
Chefs haven’t yet turned good old butter chicken into golden-brown globules but a few innovations are on. At Fire, The Park Delhi’s Indian diner, the dessert menu has Masala Chai Panacotta, a pudding flavoured with tea, and topped with cardamom caviar. Indian flavours disguised in a very French-looking dessert.

Another branch of this technique is molecular mixology, which pulls off similar gimmicks in cocktails. At the 2007 Belvedere Cocktail competition, the winning concoction was a blend of mint and melon stirred by a South-east Asian master mixologist, and felt like smoking a cigar. Rick’s at the Taj Mahal hotel maintains a list of molecular cocktails for the adventurous. On offer are two pearls and two foams. “When we introduced these cocktails, the response was mixed. Then we started showcasing the technique and the bartender stirred the molecular cocktail in front of the guest. Preparing a single cocktail takes a good half-hour but people enjoyed the process and their drink,” offers Sachin Hasan, a bartender at Rick’s. His favourite is Kir Royale that offers champagne topped with a foam of black current.

Molecular cooking explores the physicochemical aspects of food— temperature, texture and physical structure. But isn’t that what cooking is all about? The art of changing flavours of ingredients to create something new has been a part of Indian culinary tradition for ages, feels Chef Dewan. Take the royal Lucknowi dessert of lahsuni kheer, a creamy concoction made with garlic. “One of my senior chefs showed me how to do away with the pungent smell of garlic. It was pretty scientific. He treated garlic with a specified number of water and flower washes. The essence of the flowers helped mask garlic’s smell. What is this if not molecular gastronomy?” he asks.

Though the technique was immensely popular in the West in the ’90s, it is antithetical to “return-to-roots” movements like Slow Food and organic cooking that are gaining ground in a world wary of climate change. Angela Hartnett, Britain’s celebrity chef, is one of the critics. “Molecular gastronomy might have generated enough curiosity among diners in the last five years but I always insist on sourcing food ingredients from a farmhouse than a laboratory. Presentation should be kept to the minimum,’’ she said during a visit to India last year.
Like Hartnett, many others insist that molecular gastronomy is a temporary trend, for the rich and those in constant search of novelty. “The trend is picking up but will be restricted to high-end diners and hotels as this genre of cooking is expensive and time-taking,” says popular Noida-based food consultant Manu Mohindra.
Till it fizzles out, let the chefs cook up some spicy science.