Hot Glue

We have worked with fruit glue for some time now. although we have not methodically tested its boundaries. Today we had the opportunity to test its thermal stability. Sure, we've seared melon terrines and broiled zucchini sheets, what we had not tested is how the glue would withstand a bit of sous vide cooking. We glued honeydew melon to compressed papaya. That in itself knocked down a mental barrier, as we thought the papain in the papaya would interfere with the pectin's binding capabilities. There we go thinking again. The enzymes in the papaya did not effect the glue. Once the melon and papaya were bound together, we sealed pieces of it in vacuum bags. We cooked one piece for thirty minutes at 50 degrees Celsius. When we removed the fruit from the water bath and then from its bag, we found the fruit perfectly adhered and warm throughout. From warm we wanted to test hot. We placed the second piece of papaya-melon into water bath at 65 degrees Celsius. We cooked the fruit for an hour at this temperature. After the hour we cut the bag open and tried to pull the fruit apart. It held. We were able to slice the fruit and, in this case, serve it hot.

The application of heat to the glued fruit not only proves useful in its current form, it presents possiblilites for glueing and then cooking root vegetables as sheets and perhaps as planks. Furthermore, as the tested application of heat is new to us, we will certainly trip across a few other ideas like tenderizing radish and zucchini sheets. The recent chill in the air proved to be the perfect spark for us to begin accurately testing the heat stability of fruit glue.