Pectin NH

Pectine NH

What it is

Amidation gives a low-methoxyl pectin a set that undoes itself: treated with ammonia, part of its acid groups become amides, and the gel that results can be melted and reset again and again. Every mirror glaze depends on that, since a glaze is poured hot at 30 to 35 °C over a frozen entremet and must have been remelted from a batch made days earlier.

In the kitchen

Mix it with five times its weight in sugar before it touches the purée or it clumps instantly, then boil the whole thing a good minute so it hydrates. Count 8 to 12 g per kilo of fruit for an insert firm enough to cut, and remember it needs calcium — a purée with none, or one loaded with citrate, stays slack.

Goes with

Raspberry Apricot Dark chocolate Passion fruit Blackcurrant White sugar Glucose syrup

Also used with

Malic acid

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