One of our recent favorites pairs fresh cherries with pistachio. Like so many summer fruits, I find the more minimal the treatment, the better the results will be. Here, the cherries are merely halved and kissed with a pinch of sugar and a pass with the blowtorch.
The pistachio enters as a block of an airy parfait into which we've inserted a cylinder of our old friend, caramelized white chocolate. Rounding out the composition are cubes of pistachio pain de genes, lemon cream and confit, and chopped caramelized pistachio nuts.
As with almost all of our mousse preparations, this parfait begins with our low-sugar pate a bombe. We initially had problems adding this directly to our pistachio paste (we use the Fabri product, sweet enough on its own to flavor the parfait without additional sugar). The mixture would inevitably sieze or contain innumerable un-incorporated lumps. The solution was to first produce a more stable emulsion with cream; this is great on its own as well, either as a plating component or even as a bonbon filling.
It also seemed logical to dissolve our gelatin in the warm pate a bombe mixture before whipping, but the final volume was reduced, and in the event it whipped too long and too cool, it would also sieze in the folding process. We simply try to keep all the components at or just above room temperature- the pate a bombe, pistachio base, and whipped cream- to avoid those little nuggets of gelatin from forming while mixing into the base.
Download: Pistachio Cream-Workbook 25.7.09
Download: Pistachio Parfait-Workbook 25.7.09
Nice one Chef! Glad you've been busy but it's good to see you back.
Posted by: LarryP | July 25, 2009 at 12:39 PM
must have been busy. welcome back.
Posted by: ron mendoza | July 25, 2009 at 09:26 PM
Welcome back Chef,
I have had to watch a lot of baseball in your absence. Glad to have something worth reading again!
Posted by: Kevin A | August 01, 2009 at 11:56 PM