Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Invisible pizza, transparent chips and chocolate noodles, anyone?
TAKE a peek at Instagram, TikTok or Twitter on any given day and you will find them full of delicious creations and quite a few strange ones. Modern-day chefs, culinary artists and foodies are always looking to put their own spin on things.
One is food enthusiast Michael Ligier, a YouTuber and TikToker who loves cooking up all types of food while diving deep into various types of cuisine, but he also enjoys molecular gastronomy. Molecular gastronomy is defined as “the scientific discipline concerned with the physical and chemical transformations that occur during cooking”.
I was first introduced to Ligier in October last year when his invisible pizza recipe went viral online, and each day he just keeps serving food
that amazes us. Some of his creations:
Invisible pizza
Instead of a traditional pizza base, Ligier used a crystal bread base. The dish immediately attracted the attention of social media users.
He shared this uncommon pizza recipe on his Instagram page with the caption: “Molecular pizza?”
In the clip he says: “Okay, this is pizza, I know it doesn’t look like it, but listen to the crunch.”
Ligier added to the crystal bread base some “buffalo Mozzarella spheres” that have “cheesy goodness”, tomato juice caviar for sweetness, and a topping of fresh basil, green garlic powder and chilli powder.
“We’ve actually turned this kitchen right into a chemistry lab. However, we guarantee you, it surprisingly tastes similar to pizza,” said Ligier.
Transparent potato chips
You don’t have to go to a Michelinstar restaurant to eat bizarrely delicious transparent potato chips. These might look like they can cut your mouth open, but they are, apparently, perfectly decent potato chips.
This chip is stunning. It is seethrough like no other food and according to recipe developers it has the distinct crunch and flavour of a potato chip but in an unexpected space-age form.
Ligier washes the potatoes under cold water and dries them with a paper towel. He then tosses the potatoes with olive oil and seasons them with salt and bakes. For the potato gel, Ligier puts chilled baked potato stock into a pot and whisks in the potato starch.
He continues whisking the starch and stock together and brings it to a boil, forming a gel and removing it from the heat.
Ligier spreads the potato gel on a sheet of paper and dries it in the
oven until fully dry. He then breaks the dried sheet into irregular pieces and fries these potato chips until clear and crisp.
Chocolate noodles
In his latest viral food video, Ligier makes noodles out of chocolate, leaving the internet once again amazed.
He shared the video of making these noodles on his Instagram page, which has garnered more than 2 million views since time of publication.
Ligier takes a plastic tube, a syringe and a precision scale. He melts chocolate with some milk and adds agar powder to it. Then he fills a plastic tube with this chocolate and drops it in boiling water.
Lastly, he takes out the chocolate noodles and shows them to his viewers. He calls it “Chocolate 2.0”.
While some users hailed Ligier for his creativity, others thought the experiment was downright crazy.