everyday experiments with food
Our Christmas meal is naturally something of a feast, with bits of preparation happening over several weeks, starting with the marinating with the fruit for the Christmas cake. It has become a bit of a tradition to produce a menu as follows (printed back to back and folded).
…
Simple and worth repeating.
Poached Pears
Beuree Bosc pears poached whole in 1 litre of water and 750g sugar, one split vanilla bean and one cinnamon stick.
Rosemary and Honey Ice Cream
Recipe at Epicurious. Excellent.
Plus
Glace ginger slices from a packet (Buderim of course)
Fresh ginger sliced, caramelised in a pan with sugar and Sevenhill tokay
Tokay sugar with some extra water to make a syrup
Toasted walnuts
Rosemary sprigs
This dessert is a take on a dish by Ashleigh Bareham on Masterchef 2015. The recipe was online but seems to have been taken down, so I’m glad I saved a copy. Here’s my version.
Passionfruit Semi-freddo
Scoop the pulp from 4 passionfruit and strain the pulp. Keep the liquid.
Whip 250ml cream to soft peaks.
Whisk together 110g caster sugar, 2 eggs plus an egg yolk.
Place in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk until the mixture thickens and doubles in size. (I don’t think I’ve managed to achieve this yet…)
Gently fold the mixture into the cream with the passionfruit juice. Pour into moulds and freeze.
Ashleigh made a chocolate mousse with 110g dark chocolate and 3 e.g. whites. I made a chocolate ganache. It was a bit cold when I tried to serve it so it looks lumpy.
Candied Chilli
Boil 110g sugar and 125ml water. Add i red chilli, finely sliced and cook for 2 minutes. Drain.
I served mine with a disc of grated chocolate (next time I’d use hazelnuts with something), blueberry syrup, fresh passionfruit and blueberries, and pieces of pear caramelised with some sugar and tokay.
Quite tasty. Very sweet. If I could just work out the whisking I’d be happy.
Our blood orange tree is bearing fruit for the second year. Last year we had one orange, but this year we have about 60, although they’re not too large. I love the look, smell and flavour of blood oranges, so we hope to have many years of discovering what we can make with them.
Giorgio Locatelli is my Italian food hero. This sorbet recipe is from his book “Made in Sicily“. Clean, simple and delicious. I’ve described his wonderful magnum opus “Made in Italy” here. Both books are excellent, not only for the recipes but for the local background and stories, and insight into both the produce and restaurant-quality cooking techniques.
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp blood orange juice
Grated zest of 1 orange
1 cup dextrose (we used glucose syrup)
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp caster sugar
Stir 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp orange juice plus orange zest and dextrose/glucose until smooth. Heat in a pan over low heat, stirring, and bring to 40 degrees C. Whisk in sugar and bring to 85 degrees C.
Take off the heat and put into another container. Out it into the fridge to cool down for an hour or so, then whisk in the remaining orange juice.
Cool in the fridge for several hours or in the freezer for a shorter time.
Use an ice-cream maker to churn until the mixture thickens sufficiently.
We served it with fresh strawberries, halve and mixed with sugar. Next time I’ll try adding some brandy, Cointreau or Grand Marnier.
The colour is spectacular and it was a lovely taste combination.
(Locatelli mentions optional sorbet stabiliser, but I have no idea where you get this.)