Aged Balsamic Pearls

Name: Aged Balsamic Pearls
Yield: Approximately 300 pearls
Ingredients: 300 g Aged balsamic vinegar, 12 to 25 year preferred; 180 g Filtered water; 20 g White grape must, optional, for sweetness and body; 2 g Fine sea salt; 2.5 g Sodium alginate; 1 L Filtered water; 5 g Calcium lactate; 250 g Aged balsamic vinegar; 100 g Filtered water; 10 g Extra virgin olive oil

Aged balsamic set into pearls in a calcium bath and stored in their own liquid.

Spherification for the pantry rather than for the moment: the pearls are made, rinsed and stored in a balsamic liquid so they keep their flavour instead of leaching it into water.

Approximately 300 pearls

Cook this

Rest the blended mixture for at least an hour, and overnight if you can. Pearls made from a mixture full of air bubbles come out full of air bubbles.
Chef Paul Dukai

Ingredients

The pearl mixture

Aged balsamic vinegar, 12 to 25 year preferred300 g
Filtered water180 g
White grape must, optional, for sweetness and body20 g
Fine sea salt2 g
Sodium alginate2.5 g

The calcium bath

Filtered water1 L
Calcium lactate5 g

The storage liquid

Aged balsamic vinegar250 g
Filtered water100 g
Extra virgin olive oil10 g

Method

Blend all the pearl ingredients for about a minute, then let the mixture rest for at least an hour, or overnight, so the air bubbles dissipate.
Dissolve the calcium lactate in the water for the bath.
Drop the balsamic mixture into the bath and leave for 45 to 60 seconds.
Rinse twice in clean cold water.
Transfer to sterilised jars and cover completely with the storage liquid.

Chef’s notes

For more uniform pearls, add 0.1 to 0.2 percent xanthan gum to the balsamic mixture before blending: it suspends the solids.
Always store them in a flavoured liquid and never in plain water, which pulls the taste out of them.
They sit well with burrata and heirloom tomatoes, beef carpaccio, vitello tonnato, duck breast, parmesan foam, charcoal sourdough with cultured butter, and vanilla panna cotta with strawberries.

Keeping

Keep refrigerated at 2 to 4°C, completely covered by the balsamic storage liquid, in sterilised jars. The source records best quality at 3 to 4 weeks, often good condition at 2 to 3 months refrigerated and handled hygienically, and up to 6 months frozen with a slightly softer texture after thawing, and notes that the limiting factor is usually texture rather than spoilage. DUKAI storage guidance: treat the first month as the reliable window and the longer figures as the source's own quality observation rather than a safety guarantee. Use clean utensils, and discard any jar that is cloudy, smells wrong or has pearls that have collapsed.

Last refined · September 2026