Blowing Up Cheese with Nitrous Oxide
氮气泡沫芝士
（转载自美国分子烹饪厨师的博客。英语水平有限，翻译不当之处，请多多指教！）
 
Foams are everywhere in nature, and widely used in industrial processes as well. Inevitably, innovators in the culinary realm, hungry for inspiration, have made foams part of their palette as well.
泡沫状材料于自然界中无处不在，并被广泛的运用于工业生产。烹饪领域中的先行者们，灵感勃发，在菜品制作中，创造出一道道泡沫般佳肴。
 
In nature, lighter-than-air volcanic lava traps bubbles of various sizes as the molten rock cools. Aquatic sponges are shot through with crevices and pockets, which can be squeezed and compressed and then return to their original shape when the pressure is removed.
自然界中，比空气还轻的各种火山灰在冷却过程中变为海底火山岩。水生生物布满了这些火山岩的表面和缝隙。这些生物在压力环境中变形，当压力消失后形态随即恢复原样。
 
Manmade foam insulation, which is extruded from canisters, is at first soft and pliable, then grows in volume to produce a solid foam matrix filling in cracks and crevices with interconnected air bubbles. And sponges are found in almost every kitchen, sitting in the sink alongside piles of soap bubbles: two different types of foam to titillate the chef’s imagination.
人造泡沫绝缘材料在容器中被挤压后变得柔软，体积变大后形成一个由无数个小气泡紧密相连的稳定大气泡。每个厨房水渠中的肥皂泡间隙都有海绵生物的存在。两种不同形态的泡沫状物体充分的激发了厨师的想象力。
 
One of the most commonly made culinary foams is whipped cream. Thousands of tiny air bubbles are trapped in a dairy emulsion to turn something liquid into something soft and thick. Modern whipped cream machines work by pressurizing the cream, by releasing compressed nitrous oxide into a chamber with the cream. The pressurized atmosphere forces the gas to be absorbed by the liquid. Then when it’s sprayed out of the chamber, the gas expands, and the cream grows in volume and changes textures from a liquid to a foam. The density of the structure depends upon how much nitrous you add to the chamber. Once we understand how the machine works, we can adapt it to aerate different ingredients.
最为常见的泡沫状食物是鲜奶油。无数细小的气泡进入液体中，使液体形状得以改变。现代鲜奶油机的工作原理是采用高压氮气罐加压的方法。高压气体迫使液体充分吸收，体积膨胀，从液态变为泡沫状固态。泡沫的密度取决于气罐中氮气的多少。你理解了这种原理后，不同的成分可加入其中。
 
While cream has an inherent structure of fat and protein to hold the foam intact, other ingredients require a little extra support. We wanted to create an aerated Brie cheese. We thought that its richness and smooth flavor would taste delicious lightened up as a foam. Our first experiment went flat: although it had a beautiful aerated texture when we first sprayed it from the can, it slowly collapsed on the plate. In order to create structure in our aerated cheese while still keeping a soft, melting texture, we looked towards agar, which would form a gel at a relatively high temperature, thus ensuring that our bubbles remained trapped in the cheese. The downside to using agar by itself is that it has a hard, rubbery texture and can fall prey to syneresis--expulsion of liquid--over time.
脂肪和蛋白质的结构在鲜奶油中得以完整的保留，而其他成分就得以其他的方式加入其中。我们想创制充入二氧化碳的布里芝士。我们认为品尝这道菜应该有丰富的味觉和滑爽的口感。第一次实验未达到预期效果：用气罐充气后成品有着稳定的结构，但是，保持的时间很短。为了让充气芝士具有优美的纹理和稳定的结构，我们将眼光移向了琼脂。这事一种在相对较高的温度下能够凝结的物质。因此能够确保充气芝士长时间的稳定，但是，琼脂也有一定负面作用，那就是其自身 阅读全文>>