What happens when you deep-fry water?

This is potentially very dangerous.

First of all, why would you want to fry water? Instead, there are numerous other things we’d like to fry: among them samosas, fries, fritters, eggs… But the point is it can be done. As in water can be fried, and eaten. What does it taste like? Wait, we are getting ahead of ourselves. The man who did it — deep fried water, that is — is Jonathan Marcus. Marcus thought of frying water for The San Francisco Stupid Sh** Nobody Needs And Terrible Ideas Hackathon earlier this month. Marcus employed the technique of frozen reverse spherification, in which you submerge a liquid with calcium content in a bath of sodium alginate.

Do not attempt without proper safety precautions.

What you get at the end of it all is water trapped inside a gel membrane. Marcus then breaded the globes — he made about twelve of them for the hackathon — with panko crumbs, flour and egg, and fried them in peanut oil. On his YouTube page, Marcus warns: “This is potentially very dangerous. If water leaks out while the sphere is frying in hot oil, it may explode sending scalding oil everywhere. Do not attempt without proper safety precautions. Do not consume until cooled down or you may get burned. Also they don’t taste particularly good. You have been warned.” If it doesn’t taste good, why do it? Well, that’s not the point, right? You deep-fry water, because, in a way, you can.

Watch how Marcus deep-fried water below