Sometimes, when we cook we want our food to hold a certain shape, especially if we are cooking for a particular theme or event. If you are preparing a dish that is intended to be eaten in its entirety, it’s not very practical to have a wooden stick or none edible string in it as people will have the uncomfortable task of eating around it. This is where edible string comes in. With these 5 suggestions, you can use food as string and sew your dish together in a way that your guests can still eat the whole dish.
Sausage Casing
My personal favorite item to use as edible string is sausage casing. Sausage casing is made from animal intestines which are incredibly durable and will not lose their shape when exposed to heat or moisture. This makes them perfect for making string, all you have to do is slice off strips of the casing so it is the right size for your recipe.
Sausage casing can be bought from the butchers or on Amazon
Celery
Not every dish pairs well with animal intestines. Vegetarian dishes for example require a different solution.
Celery makes a great alternative. Celery peels like a cheese string into string like strips. It is also surprisingly durable and just like string it is very flexible and easy to work with.
Candy laces
When making a sweet dish candy laces are the best option. In terms of taste and aesthetic candy laces are unmatched.
Their only downfall is that don’t perform well when heated so you can only use them for dishes that are eaten cold
Meat Glue
Meat glue has to be quite low down on this list because it has a niche use case. Meat glue, also known as transglutaminase, is a food addative used to bind small pieces of meat and fish, or other protein based ingriedients. It works by breaking down the protein molecules in the food and then re-forming them into a cohesive mass, so it won’t work on food that is not protein rich like meat is.
If you are wanting to put together a dish that only contains meat, this is the best option as rather than just sew the meat together you can fuse it together as if it all came from the same animal.
Leeks
Last on this list, for a general option to use when other options are not available to you, we have leeks. Leeks have the right structure for making edible string as they are long and thin. They also don’t disintergrate when heated or soaked in water. WIth that said they are not as think and easy to manipulate as the other options, nor are they are sturdy.
Conclusion
There you go! 5 different edible string options. You can now choose the best one for you dependant on the type of dish you are trying to make.