Chemistry & Cookbook Adventures: Shrimp Mosaic with Avocado-Melon Salsa

As I've mentioned, I'm playing with meat glue these days, but I can't really explain why I made this dish. I had some shrimp. I had some meat glue. I read a recipe in Ideas in Food where you glue a bunch of shrimp together. Seemed like the universe really wanted me to try it. Who am I to blow against the wind?

Chemistry Adventures: Bacon-Wrapped Scallops with Celery Root Cream

This isn't much of a post, I suppose. I made an awesome celery root cream the other day while learning how to perfectly cook scallops. I also made my first-ever home-cured bacon, using meat glue for the first time in the process. The only natural next step was to glue some bacon to some scallops, cook to perfection, then serve with that sauce...

Cookbook & Chemistry Adventures: Homemade Fresh Bacon

I ordered some transglutaminase (aka Meat Glue) a few weeks back, and started to play with it recently. My first experiment with meat glue was the most boring thing you can imagine: gluing two pieces of meat together to make one (bigger) piece of meat. Nonetheless, it was kind of awesome, and prompted me to make my first ever batch of home-cured bacon.