Get Your Jelly On – Day 9: Under The Sea

mycookinghut October 9, 2011

Since the first day of the Royal Selangor – Get Your Jelly On– 30-day Challenge, not only have I tried to use the 2 most popular gelling agents – gelatine and agar agar. I have been reading and looking for potential product that I could use in this jelly making competition. Then, something came to my attention – gellan gum. Gellan gum is used as a thickener, emulsifier, and stabiliser. It is known for its excellent water-binding properties. It is one of the popular ingredients used in molecular cooking. I got really excited and I bought myself a few of the gelling agents, which I am going to use for the next few recipes!

Today, into the 9th day into the challenge, I want to make a savoury dish, which is called under the sea. I love this phrase because it reminds me the song of the little mermaid. I have used gellan gum as the gelling agent for one reason, it sets really quickly! I would say 30 – 40 minutes or less, depending on the complexity of the dish. I used seafood broth, a cooked prawn, seaweeds and chives for garnishing. Everything is then put into the Royal Selangor Pewter Jelly Mould to take shape. It could be served as a very interesting and pretty starter!

If you are interested to try out my recipes so far and would like to get your hands on the mould, you get could the jelly mould here, proceeds from the sale of the jelly mould go towards the Breast Cancer Welfare Association in aid of their continuous efforts to raise awareness and support for breast cancer.

Under The Sea

Yield: 2 persons

Ingredients:

200ml seafood stock
1.5 tsp gellan gum
some chives chopped
2 cooked prawns
some hydrated seaweed, extra for garnishing
salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Put the seafood stock and gellan gum in a saucepan, stir thoroughly until the gellan gum is dissolved. Bring the stock to the boil. Skim off the foam on the surface.

2. Pour about 40ml of the stock to the jelly mould, sprinkle some chives, add some foam that were skimmed off (which would have been cold and set into jelly form) and let it cool to set. Meanwhile, keep the rest of the stock warm so that it doesn’t set.

3. Once the first layer of the stock is set in the jelly mould, position the prawn upward and pour in the warm stock until the mould is about 80% full. Let cool to set. A few minutes after, when the stock in the mould starts to get a little tacky, use a cocktail pick to insert some seaweed on the vertical position. Then add more seaweed before pouring in more warm stock until the mould is about 95% full. Let cool to set before removing the mould.