Thursday, November 24, 2016

Substitutions by Macronutrients / Vegan croissants and eggwash

Summary: 
  • Soy milk 3x concentrated (ex: 3 cups heated on the stove until 1 cup remains) is an effective, glossy and great-looking vegan eggwash
  • Croissants made with peanut butter rather than butter can produce laminations, but taste a bit savory, more like peanut bread than a croissant, due to sodium content.
  • Future directions for peanut butter-based laminated dough may be as kouign amanns, where the extra caramelized sugar on the outside may balance the peanut butter savoriness
Peanut butter-based croissants
As you may have guessed from some of my previous posts, I enjoy experimenting with laminated doughs, and particularly with croissants.  Similar to the last post of scallion pancake croissants, which used a butter-sesame oil mixture to laminate dough layers, I wanted to investigate if butter could be substituted entirely in a croissant recipe.

Left: ~9 tbsp of peanut butter used to laminate normal croissant dough. Center: Triangles cut from laminated dough. Right: Resting and proofing peanut butter-based croissants


I believe I have seen recipes that make vegan croissants using vegan butter-mimicking products, but I was curious if there were any possible substitutes that could lend some more character and flavor to the finished product.  To investigate this, I did my usual macronutrient-based analysis - comparing substitute ingredient fat, protein, carbohydrate, and water content to the original ingredient.  I found that butter and peanut butter had similar macronutrient content (peanut butter: 50% fat, 18.75% carbohydrate, 25% protein, 6.25% water by weight, butter: 84.5% fat, 0% carbohydrate, 0.7% protein, 14.8% water) in the two macronutrients that likely mattered the most, fat and water content, since protein and carb content of butter is negligible.  A direct substitution led to an interesting baked good - the dough handled similar to croissant dough, and had visible laminations, however, the taste was very savory, rough, and bread-like, and the layer separation was quite small.  The lower fat content of peanut butter could result in less tenderizing of the flour.  The higher protein content likely resulted in a somewhat dryer product, and the lower water content may have resulted in less lift.  Small adjustments in each may be necessary in future iterations (adding a few tablespoons of water or oil).  Additionally, I neglected the sodium content of each ingredient - typically I make croissants with unsalted butter, with 11 mg of sodium per 100g while peanut butter has ~30mg of sodium per 100g.  As a result, the final product was not over-salty, but definitely a savory-type bread.  By dusting the surface with sugar, the flavor was more balanced, suggesting that peanut butter-laminated doughs may be more useful for something like a kouign amann.

Finished product, with the center croissants using the vegan eggwash substitute described below

Layers visible in croissant cross-section

Since peanut butter is a vegan product, I thought I should investigate whether I could use a similar approach to identify effective vegan eggwash substitutes.  After some brief googling, I did not find many satisfactory images, but a few suggestions of ingredients to consider.  In the graph below, you can see the conditions I decided to test:



Again, I saw that the largest components of eggwashes by mass are water and fat, so I chose a concentration factor for soymilk and unsweetened almond milk that would result in similar water and fat content.

From left to right: untreated, soy milk, 3x concentrated soy milk, unsweetened almond milk, 10x concentrated almond milk on scraps of peanut butter croissants before (left) and after (right) baking at 425 F for 18-25 minutes

As you can see, the concentrated soymilk created a very nice finish on the baked goods in the above image as well as the croissants seen further above.  The high sugar content may contribute to higher browning than even in the regular eggwash, and the protein content appears to have given a nice glossy finish.  Despite having similar protein content, the concentrated almond milk did not perform well - this could be because manufacturers are often allowed to round nutrient contents below 1g up, so the actual macronutrient content may be much lower.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Game-changing products: Sun Noodle's ramen kits!

Hey all, it's been a while, again! I've been busy finishing up my last few publications and writing up my PhD thesis, but now finally have the time to post some of the exciting cooking projects I've done recently.

Tan tan ramen with pork belly, soft boiled egg, wood ear mushrooms and fishcake made with Sun Noodle ramen kits
Over the past few months, I've noticed more and more interesting food products in stores and such that I think either demonstrate a lot of creativity on the company's part or have the potential to really change how we cook at home.  I think I will post about these such products from time to time in posts under the umbrella of "game-changing products".

One such product is Sun Noodle's ramen kits.  I first read about these on Serious Eats, and was (semi-)shocked to learn that many of the great ramen places I've been to around NYC use noodles from this company.  I also wasn't too surprised because from my own experience attempting to make hand-pulled noodles, I was skeptical that so many restaurants would be capable of consistently making noodles of such great texture and thinness.  I did also notice that many ramen joints' noodles were suspiciously similar in appearance and texture.  

Sun Noodle ramen kits
What are they?
Ramen kits each contain two servings: two bundles of fresh (not dry) noodles and two small pouches of soup base.  So far, I have found 6 products, ranked from my personal favorite to least favorite in preference:
  1. Tan Tan Ramen - a mildly spicy and sesame-tasting soup base, with thicker ramen noodles
  2. Tonkotsu Ramen - a very close second, the soup base is rich, white, cloudy, and rich with pork flavor although not very gelatinous, and comes with the thinnest ramen noodles.
  3. Shoyu Ramen (not pictured) - a lighter more standard broth, with thicker ramen nodles
  4. Kaedama - not actually a kit, just packets of noodles with no soup base
  5. Miso Ramen - the first time I had this the broth tasted strongly of carrots and somewhat artificial, although subsequent kits I've had have tasted fine and on-par with the shoyu broth.  Comes with thicker ramen noodles Based on the ingredients, this is the only vegan-friendly kit.
  6. Hiyashi Chuka - meant to be served as a cold ramen dish, this was by far the worst.  I believe the soup base contains high fructose corn syrup, and it tastes like it.  The noodles are the thicker variety
How do they work?
To prepare these kits, you first open the soup base packet into a bowl, and add about 1 cup of warm or hot water.  Then, boil about 2-4 cups water and add in the noodles for the recommended time, typically no more than 2 minutes (for firmer texture I typically subtract 30 seconds or so).  Immediately drain the noodles and add them to the soup base.  Top your ramen with any desired extras.

Why are these game-changing?
A problem with conveniently available ramen is that it comes at two extremes: either as packaged instant ramen, or in restaurants.  Naturally, the price and quality are what you would expect at each extreme, with ramen like Maruchan running at around 50 cents or less a package, and restaurants charging $15-30 for a bowl.  In terms of quality, instant ramen don't quite have restaurant quality ramen noodle texture, and we all know what the broth tastes like.  Sun noodle ramen kits, however, are disruptive to both of these fields.  Each kit costs about $4, with the same noodles as those used in restaurants.  I can easily say that the ramen kits' broths are on-par or better than the average ramen restaurant I've been to.  The finished product is waaaay more satisfying than instant ramen, has no preservatives added, and is prepared with the same amount of effort and time.  They store in the freezer easily, making them just as convenient to have on-hand as instant ramen.  Lastly, they are versatile, and can be jazzed up with whatever you have around the kitchen.  For instance..
I was on a ribs-kick for a while.  Left: hoisin-glazed pork ribs, Right: bbq beef short ribs
With some spare short ribs or even the scraps from butchering a rack of pork ribs, you can make a pretty solid bowl of ramen

Sun Noodle tan tan ramen with beef short ribs


Sun Noodle Kaedama with leftover rib scraps, sesame tare and pork rib bone broth

I hope that's inspired you all to go out and try making some quality ramen at home! I've found the kits at some Whole Foods and at most H-marts in multiple states, with a list of stores here.