How to make a jellyish sauce for plate design

Question

I'm looking for a method to make a plate sauce with a jelly consistency. The type of suace you would typically see on a plate in a restaurant, where they place a dallop of sauce on the plate and spread it with a spoon.

I don't want to use mayonnaise as a base, but rather something with a jelly consistency, with preferably little or no flavor, this way I can add flavor to my liking.

I have tried to make a jello using beet juice and a packet of clear unflavored jello, letting it harden and then blending it up in a food processor, but the final product would not smear, it just recongealed despite the blending.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hmmm. this will be tough. Most sauces that are dolloped and smeared are based on heavily reduced vegetable base, or a bean or legume, or a 'mayonnaise' or aioli base.

To get a thick, smearable sauce with jelly or gelatin is tough, as it will want to 'set' to thicken, which will not allow smearing.

There are new thickeners like Xantham Gum and Carageenan that might help. Cook's Illustrated has a nice piece on Xantham Gum and alternate uses here:

Xantham Gum at CI

Answer 2

You have the right idea but the wrong gelling agent. Use agar agar instead of gelatin. You can probably find it in the Asian section of your grocery store. Make the gel and then blend. As agar agar has different sheer thinning properties than gelatin, you'll get the result you're looking.

Here's a recipe for a port fluid gel (along with a lot of background information) and a picture of what you can expect: