Month: March 2025

by Jason Ball Overview The giant puffball mushroom (Calvatia gigantean) has a lot of culinary potential. What makes giant puffball mushrooms so remarkably satisfying goes beyond their impressive size. These unique fungi contain all 9 essential amino acids that our bodies can’t produce on their own, creating a complete protein profile that helps promote lasting satiety. The rich umami compounds naturally present in puffballs trigger our body’s satisfaction signals, helping to curb food cravings more effectively than many other ingredients. When your body receives these essential building blocks, it sends signals of fullness and contentment that can help reduce the urge to snack between meals. One of our most surprising and successful techniques involved rubbing pieces of puffball with shio-koji, compressing them and curing them like meat. The result was a potent ‘cheesy’ umami bomb (to be used sparingly). We developed some dishes to explore the applications of this curious, … Read more

by Edith Salminen Overview Nordic people love fermented milks, with an average intake per person of 100g a day. We have in the Nordic region a distinctive subfamily of fermented milk and cream products sometimes referred to in English as the “ropy milks of Scandinavia”. These ropy milks are rather similar in flavour and acidity, but differ in consistency and mouthfeel. The Finnish one is called viili and it is a traditional fermented milk product involving lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that enjoy ambient temperatures between 17 and 22 °c, as well as a surface mould which makes the product unique in taste, aroma and appearance compared to all other Nordic fermented milks. The mould growing on the surface is Geotrichum candidum (the same mould which plays a crucial role in the development of certain cheeses). It feeds on the cream and forms a tasty, slightly fuzzy upper layer. The slimy … Read more