Texture by Design: Nine Ways Cooks Reshape Liquids and Proteins

Thickening raises the viscosity of a liquid with a thickening agent, which is why sauces, soups and puddings gain body without a change in taste. The same class of substances is used in paints, inks and cosmetics, so the kitchen is only one home for the idea.

Curdling is the breaking of an emulsion or colloid into larger parts of differing composition. It is deliberate in making cheese curd and tofu, and unwelcome in a sauce, a cheese fondue or a custard, so the same physics is a goal in one pot and a failure in another.

Homogenization forces the fat in milk into extremely small, evenly spread particles so it no longer rises to the top, using a device called a homogenizer. Primary homogenization builds an emulsion from separate liquids, while secondary homogenization shrinks the droplets in an emulsion that already exists.

A culinary foam is a gelled or stabilized liquid with air suspended in it, a family that includes whipped cream, meringue and mousse. The molecular gastronomy version pairs flavors such as espresso, mushroom, beet or coconut with stabilizers like agar or lecithin, adding a flavor to a plate without adding weight.

Espuma is Spanish for foam. A flavored base is combined with a stabilizing agent into a loose gel and extruded through a canister charged with nitrous oxide, which whips air into it as it is dispensed. The use of gelling agents and pressurized canisters is tied to the molecular gastronomy movement.

Reverse spherification drops a liquid containing calcium salts into a bath of sodium alginate, so a gel membrane forms around a sphere of liquid. Because the calcium stops diffusing inward once the sphere leaves the bath, the center stays liquid, and the spheres can be larger and stored longer than with the standard method.

Transglutaminase is an enzyme that cross-links glutamine and lysine residues on separate proteins, which lets a cook fuse pieces of protein into one, hence the nickname meat glue. Heston Blumenthal is credited with bringing it into fine dining, and Wylie Dufresne used it to bond a dish that was more than ninety-five percent shrimp into a pasta-like form.

Deconstructed cuisine keeps the core ingredients and techniques of an established dish but prepares the components separately, then reassembles them with radical experiments in flavor, texture and ratio. Presentation is stark and minimalist, with correspondingly small portions.

Note by Note cuisine, created by the French chemist Hervé This, builds dishes from pure compounds such as water, ethanol, sucrose, amino acids and lipids instead of animal or plant tissue. This compares the approach to a painter working from primary colors, which is the furthest point on this path from a pot of thickened sauce.