KEY POINTS:
In the kitchens of top chefs there's a revolution going on.
The stainless steel work stations of these white-coated culinary masters are morphing into science labs, with oddly named concoctions lining the shelves and space-age gadgets instilled next to traditional wood-fire ovens.
"I've just ordered five litres of liquid nitrogen," says Peter Thornley blithely as he strides through the kitchen of Bracu Restaurant.
Although, like any intrepid Antarctic explorer, he's well-versed on the dangers of succumbing to frostbite in Auckland's Bombay.
Not that diners would be aware of Thornley's clandestine experiments with cryogenic fluids and the Kiwi classic dish pavlova.
On the plate it looks familiar, but at first bite they are flummoxed by the texture whipped up by LN2 (liquid nitrogen) and laced with gorse-flower pollen.
"It bursts and shatters in your mouth. It's an explosion of flavours," says Thornley.
The foodie movement is called molecular gastronomy and although well established in top overseas restaurants, it's only recently appeared on menus in New Zealand.
Chefs call it a play on diners' palates; the literary equivalent of Shakespeare's duelling lovers Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing.
"It's intriguing to watch people eat these dishes," says Thornley.
"It tests the senses, they have to really think about what they're eating."
Last night, Thornley served an orange jelly that tasted like beetroot, and this morning he holds up a poached egg encased in a tomato-flavoured gel.
If the idea of scientific experiments in the kitchen raises alarm bells of dishes laden with synthetic preservatives like sorbates and benzoates, rest assured the Kiwi chefs are using all-natural products.
The pioneers of New Zealand's molecular gastronomy are using such natural additives as flax fibres and cucumber seeds. And the new powdered butter is helping lower the fat content of many dishes.
"There's nothing quirky or witch-doctorish about this food," says Thornley. "It's all natural and just another step in the evolution of cooking. I'm learning something different every day."
Molecular gastronomy is nothing new.
Worldly wise diners may have already marvelled at the sight of lime air, caviar balls, spherical asparagus egg and, possibly, gelatinised cucumbers in bloom.
And they would be familiar with the movement's leading chefs.
Chef Heston Blumenthal from The Fat Duck in England is famed for his foodie conundrums - who else could have imagined bacon-flavoured ice-cream?
The master of all molecular gastronomy though is Ferran Adria, whose Spanish restaurant el Bulli has won (for the third time) The Restaurant Magazine award for Best Restaurant in the World.
He is the master who has the nerve to deconstruct the classic dish of his native land, tortilla espanola - Spanish omelette - and serve it in a sherry glass.
Closer to home, Australian chef Vic Cherikoff, who has a Bachelor of Applied Science, rediscovered some of Australia's wild food resources after joining the University of Sydney's Human Nutrition Unit.
He's now pioneering the development of natural food preservatives.
Back in New Zealand, renowned chef Simon Gault looks every bit the mad scientist in the Euro kitchen, bent over his mixing bowls creating his futuristic Spoons of 2010 dessert; a four-spoon delight starting with one scoop of black truffle ice-cream with fig and marsala, followed by spoonfuls of yoghurt and gorgonzola honey egg, melon apricot tea sphere, and passionate fruit caviar.
To create these little wonders, Gault has used the Texturas range of products, developed by famous sibling chefs Ferran and his brother, Albert Adria, also from el Bulli Restaurant.
"These products make it so much easier to do these complex moves," says Gault, who's recently acquired the rights to sell them in New Zealand. "It's not like I'm reinventing the wheel, but I'm giving it a big nudge."
Techniques like "spherification" (controlled gelification of a liquid to create sphere-shaped objects), he says, are a dream in the kitchen.
To demonstrate, he scoops up a spoonful of yoghurt, adds a few bites of gorgonzola cheese, a smidgen of honey and lowers the entire spoon in Algin, a natural product extracted from brown algae.
What emerges from the bowl is a glistening white pebble.
"You are supposed to eat this progressively," says Gault, holding up a spoonful of black truffle ice-cream. "It's a story of flavours."
Nevertheless, Gault warns, you could go horribly wrong with molecular gastronomy - you have to put a lot of thought into each dish.
Back at Bracu restaurant, pastry chef Brian Campbell, former pastry chef at the French Cafe and sous pastry chef at London's two Michelin star-restaurant, The Square, has created a dessert as complex as a Booker prize-winning novel.
Resting on a bed of chocolate soil are tiny droplets of rose water foam ice, and a deconstructed creme brulee; a wafer-thin sugar encasing the creamy mixture.
And the taste test?
The tiny bulbs of rosewater are sensational and the creme brulee is deeply satisfying.
Thornley, who spent years engineering culinary feats at Te Papa's Icon restaurant and happily shelves sodium elgonate alongside homemade vinegars, is wary of overindulging molecular gastronomy.
"You have to treat these new techniques with respect. If abused, they're not good for your health. I use them as highlights to my dishes."
Aside from the produce in their kitchens, chefs also have an armoury of hardware to indulge their new culinary pursuits.
Both Thornley and Gault use a Paco Jet, a whiz machine which, due to its unique blade rotation, can make ice-cream with 25 per cent less fat than ordinary ice-cream makers.
"We make this basil ice-cream," says Gault, "and you'd swear there was butter it in. But there's absolutely no butter at all."
Gault also has a sous-vide cooker (aptly named Poly Science), which can cook sous-vide style.
The advantage is you can keep in all the moisture.
Molten's Michael Van de Elzen was experimenting with molecular gastronomy seven years ago in London. "It's fantastic thing that chefs are doing it," he says.
But he's not rushing to embrace the new movement to molecular gastronomy.
"I tend to keep away from the soils and froth. It's just not my thing."
He prefers to stay focused on natural products and combinations of flavours. Which explains why he's raving about the latest dehydrated products - freeze-dried mushrooms, rhubarb, lemon rind and plums. The honey-glass biscuits on the lime bomb alaska, he says, are a good example of how technology has progressed.
Van de Elzen takes spray-dried manuka honey powder, sprinkles it on parchment paper and bakes it until just the right consistency to shape into thin wafers.
These biscuits, he says, are impossible to make using liquid manuka honey.
"It's like eating a honeycomb. The taste is sensational."
He also prefers freeze-dried plums over the stewed variety, for their intense flavour and lower sugar content.
It's changing the structure of the fruit without losing the natural properties.
"I can do things with these products which I can't do with the natural product."
But Van de Elzen will always relent to seasonal produce.
"I look forward to when asparagus is in season, but when it turns I take it off the menu straight away."
If the chefs are key movers in molecular gastronomy, they are encouraged by the artisan food producers and suppliers.
Fresh As supplies more than 55 products, including freeze-dried fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices, to professional culinary outlets.
The company's latest powders signal a new era in experimentation: beetroot, green pea, sweetcorn, cherry, passionfruit and kaffir lime leaf.
Great Taste NZ produces the powdered manuka honey and recently joined forces with Forest Herbs to launch Kaituna Farm range of herbs, which sustainably grows Horopito, Kawakawa and Flax Seed (harakeke).
Horopito has been used successfully as a natural preserver in the cosmetics industry and co-owner John Millward says they have great potential for similar use in the culinary world.
"Products like flax and pumpkin fibres can be used in breads or as a crust for fish. It's all about food functionality.
"Products that use ingredients for health and well-being."
Freeze-drying process
The wonder of freeze-drying is that it retains the product's intense colour, flavour and nutrients and there's an almost unlimited shelf life.
So how does it work? Unlike traditional drying methods, where the water is cooked out at up to 200C, freeze-drying takes place below zero temperatures.
Fresh product is first frozen, the temperature is reduced down to approx minus 30C over a cycle ranging from 12 to 36 hours, depending on the product. The temperature is raised to around minus 20C where sublimation occurs (water changes into a gas), the gas is extracted, then the temperature is reduced to room temperature. The product is then packed, nitrogen gas flushed and vacuum sealed in a dehumidified controlled environment.
For the record, there are three methods of drying - freeze-dried, air-dried and spray-dried.
