Workbook

Sweetness, Developed

 

 

Among our recent menu changes is the welcome return of sweet potato, and our vanilla infused sorbet. I think I first became hip to the notion of refined sweet potato desserts from an early appearance by Joachim Splichal in Art Culinaire, almost twenty years ago now (yes, I'm getting old). The key to success is the slow roasting and development of the sweet potato's natural sugars, which need such coaxing; boiling doesn't even come close in ternms of flavor. We roast them whole, and when they've wrinkled and begun to ooze a caramel goodness onto the sheet pan, the sweet potatoes are ready. Peeled, and run through a tamis, the puree is then combined with the vanilla syrup and processed.

 

The new tasting menu dish finds the sweet potato simply paired with a dark chocolate cremeux (Cluizel's 'Los Ancones' estate, which I visited earlier in the year) and a bourbon caramel. I still find myself streamlining, slowly moving away from too many flourishes. I still have the urge to throw something else on this plate, but I think we've captured the essential.

 

Download: Sweet Potato Sorbet-Workbook 19.10.10

 

 

Michigan Banana

 

That sounds like the punch line to a joke, but it’s just one colorful alias among many for a curious fruit. The paw paw also goes by Hoosier banana, poorman's banana, etc. I say curious, because it seems out place, as if it should come from the tropics. Yet this is truly an unique American specimen, its growing range covering the Great Lakes down to the Gulf, and from Texas east to the coast. It tends to thrive in the Midwest; the individual varieties themselves evoke visions of the heartland: Shenandoah, Allegheny, Taytwo, and Pa. Golden. 

 

     

 

Though I hail from Michigan myself, this year brought my first encounter with the paw paw. Visually, it could be mistaken for a small green mango, the size varying from three to six inches in length. On slicing it open, a soft white to yellow flesh is revealed, with a central grouping of hard, brown seeds. The fragrance hits you immediately- notes of banana, mango, and melon all combined. The appearance, texture, and flavor all call to mind the exotic cherimoya, or guanabana- indeed it is a distant relative, the only member of the Annonaceae family that thrives in a temperate climate.

 

     

 

Our first delivery of paw paws would be our only one. The season is ridiculously short, straddling the last weeks of September into the first of October. Due to its fragility and quick ripening, commercial viability is limited. They don’t ship well; each of our samples arrived carefully nestled in foam packaging and bubble-wrap. To preserve what we didn’t eat immediately, I figured the best test was to incorporate them into a sorbet. And without any other guideline to follow, we moved ahead by referencing its tropical cousins.

 

     
 

 

Download: Paw Paw Sorbet- Workbook 23.10.09

 

Keep these in mind when the season rolls in again next year; the best source for fresh paw paws (and more) is Earthy Delights.

 

 

 

Corn

 

It's been fun to see the consulting projects slowly shift toward more collaborative efforts; rather than my dictating every dish and menu change, the pastry point persons onsite are increasingly bringing their own ideas to the table. At the end of the day, it also saves me a little bit work!

On a recent visit to DC in hopes of fully pushing the menu into Spring/Summer, I happily discovered a new pre-dessert already in play, combining corn madeleines and blueberries. We all thought it would be a fine idea to blow it up into a full plated dessert. My contribution came in the form of corn sorbet. We used this a few seasons back paired with chocolate, but it's development goes back even further, to my first Iron Chef battle, nearly five years ago now. Though we didn't use it in the final menu, my co-conspirator/sous chef Heather Carlucci brought the recipe to the table, and I've been tweaking it ever since.

 

Download Corn Sorbet-Workbook 3.5.09

 

From Memory

 

I recently found myself the proud owner of an old bottle of Sauternes. And though this would be something to hold onto for a special occasion, I began to think not just of pairing wines with desserts, but incorporating them as a component.

 

As I sifted through the catalog in my head, I remembered something in a book that I haven't really looked at, well, since it came out. But I vividly recalled a Sauternes gelee with apple and coconut, a trio that for some reason stuck in with me all these years. I set out making a gelee from a sweet wine we pour by the glass and then an apple foam; coconut sorbet is still in our rotation.

The funny thing is, after the fact, while checking the book- Tetsuya Wakuda's- I realized he hadn't included coconut at all. My memory had somehow linked what must have been two different ideas to the same source of inspiration. I admit that I likely forget just as many things as I remember these days, but it still has me stumped as to why I always attached that phantom flavor to his dish.

At any rate, the foam was adapted from an old friend, Patrice Demers up in Montreal. He shared this recipe, some 7 or 8 years ago now, as part of another interesting trio of flavors: apple, yogurt, and butternut squash.

 

Download: Green Apple Foam-Workbook 27.3.09

 

Using Your Noodle

 

This exercise had a dual purpose. For starters, in planning my second class at ICE- Asian Flavors in Contemporary Desserts- I wanted to include central Asia in addition to what we normally perceive as 'Asian' (we usually stop at China and southeast Asia). But I've always been interested in those dishes from other cultures that closely resemble some of our own, too. In this case, it's falooda, which is little more than an ice cream sundae, or perhaps better described as a milkshake with texture. Versions exist from India and Pakistan into Iran and further west, the constant being these vermicelli-like noodles (as far as I can tell, most often made from corn or arrowroot), but also basil seeds and rose.

     

Without adding too much of my own quite yet, I kind of just felt like exploring some of the classic flavor combinations to see what might inspire me further. Building upon our rose sorbet, I wanted to incorporate mango, saffron, jaggery, and pistachio, in addition to the textural play of the noodles and basil seeds. I guess the only thing missing would be cardamom. Nothing earth-shattering in its own context, I guess until you view it through the lens of conventional Western desserts.

     

The noodles themselves have always interested me. I initially assumed they would soften up nicely with just a cold water soak, although they are most often quickly boiled then shocked in ice water. It's also not uncommon to see them broken up and incorporated into an ice ceam or kulfi, though I learned the hard way that they might benefit from a soak in syrup first; mine became crunchy little filaments upon freezing. The basil seeds held up much better when folded into our sorbet. It was also a no-brainer to throw a few strands of dried noodles into the fryer; they puffed up beautifully.

Somewhere among these ingredients or their juxtaposition, there's a dish waiting for me...

Download: Falooda-Workbook 24.3.09

 

Tart(e)

 

 

Seems as though I've been making a lot of special-order apple tarts lately. It's fine. In fact, it's fun. The Tatin sisters were probably seen as pretty innovative in their day, even if their creation was an accident. But it wasn't until recently that it hit me: this would go really well some verjus sorbet...

I've always thought verjus an under-utilized ingredient in pastry; on our current menu, we use it as liquid to hydrate raisins. I first saw a reference to verjus sorbet from Stephen Durfee while at the French Laundry. I want to say that he served it with his poached apple and creme de farine, though in the book its paired with poached peaches.

 

     

I approach my version as I would any other acid; I actually started with a base for lemon sorbet and made a couple of minor adjustments...

Download: Verjus Sorbet-Workbook 18.3.09

 

Admiration

 

I've never met Philippe Conticini, but from a handful of friends who've known him or worked with him, the same words tend to pop up when his name is mentioned: he's a technician, he has an amazing palate, he's sensitive, generous, funny, and perhaps a little crazy. In my opinion, all attributes of a great chef. He's well known, but his influence is also over-looked. He's a bit of a rebel. When he appeared on the cover of Pastry Art and Design, the caption read, "The Man Who Put Salmon in Sorbet."

The New York Times ran an eight-part series about him back in 2000, while he was at the helm of the Petrossian shop in Manhattan (and Paris). Here are a few choice quotes from the first of those articles:

...My palate lies somewhere between savory and sweet. I've never quite been able to separate the two.

I have a little problem, you see. I began as a patissier, and it has indelibly marked my work as a chef. With pastry, I was always the experimental type, inclined to use spices like cumin and pepper to make sweets that would have horrified Lenotre. But once I saw how well they worked, it was liberating. Possibilities suddenly sprang up everywhere.

... I use classic techniques, of course. But when it comes to flavor, I erase all tradition and open my mind to any seasoning.

One thing that I don't think he'll ever get enough credit for is his virtual creation of the trend that saw everyone and their mother putting things in glasses, both savory and sweet. Looking at the dominant plating style today- seemingly spacious and haphazard arrangements- I'm starting to think the concept has again reached its zenith. I'm starting to take a fresh look at Conticini's initial approach of flavors and textures in close proximity, their juxtapositions shifting. His desserts tended to say, "Eat me," rather than, "Look at me." Again, from the New York Times:

One of the early breakthroughs in my creative life came when I discovered the plated dessert. Dessert was no longer a slice of cake or an individual souffle, but a synthesis of flavors and components.

Over the years, however, this concept, too, fell short. The flavors and complexity were all there, but they seemed somehow diffuse. What creates synergy in a dish, as I slowly figured out, is not just the combination of flavors, but how they are combined. And often with a dessert, a plate simply won't do. Because it's flat, it does not allow the components to mingle as they are eaten. And it makes it hard to get the proper range of flavors in each bite.

I played around with different dishes and bowls and finally decided on a glass. In a shallow one, like a martini glass, the flavors are like neighbors in a small community. They bump into one another, they interact and they are concentrated.

It's been awhile now, but I've had the pleasure of tasting his stuff on more than one occasion: just after he took over the famed Peltier shop in Paris, and two meals at the Michelin-starred Petrossian in Paris (where he doubled as pastry chef and chef de cuisine). My copy of his book, Tentations, is well-worn. As a sort of secret admirer, the frustrating thing for me is that he tends to disappear every few years. As best as I can tell, his most recent venue, Exceptions Gourmandes- a tiny shop selling his subtle twists on classic pastry- has closed after little more than a year. And his website is no longer active.

But as I've been thinking about him recently, and about his style and philosophy, I spent an hour or so digging through all of my paper archives to see what I had. In addition to the NYT clips (here's a link where you'll find some, but not all of those 2000-2001 articles), I also have a copy of his Thuries spread from about the same time.

   

   

Browsing the lengthy Thuries piece, which includes a dozen dishes both savory and sweet, you easily get a sense of what he was trying to do presentation-wise. Each recipe, given a fanciful name, reflects a cacophony of components, but combinations that you find yourself wanting to try. His Yablock consisted of apple, carrot, and corn. Chocolate, sesame, cinnamon, mint, licorice, coffee, coconut, and pine nut all comprised his Aracaju. So much of his cooking is simultaneously sophisticated, nostalgic, and audacious. Rather than seeing him as a tortured genius, I always imagined him in the kitchen, laughing.

There have long been things of his I've wanted to try out, so I picked out a few of the most interesting. In the dish he called Angara, tomatoes cooked in reduced sangria co-mingled with citrus confit, mango, pineapple, basil, passion fruit seeds, an olive oil sorbet, and olive tuile. When it comes to olive-based desserts, I've never felt too strongly pro or con, so that seemed a good component to start with. I found the sorbet interesting as well.

The sorbet seemed to defy everything I've come to learn about the science and formulas, but I jumped in anyway. An infusion of lemon and basil went into egg yolks whipped up like a sabayon. A fairly large quantity of nonfat fromage blanc no doubt helped emulsify the addition of the olive oil. The texture is unreal; the resulting flavor is definitely shaped by the fromage blanc, yet you really taste the clean, pure olive oil. In the context of all the other components, it probably made much more sense than on its own.

We adjusted the tuile a bit, using nicoise olives rather than green, and omitting the buckwheat flour. Again, it's an odd bird, but it works. The composition I assembled, albeit not exactly in the Conticini style, consisted of the sorbet and tuile alongside a 'salad' of strawberry, blanched olive, mango, tomato, orange peel, and basil, all 'dressed' in lemon, simple syrup, and olive oil. I also knocked out some quick oven-dried slices of strawberry.

Download: Olive Oil Sorbet (Conticini)-Workbook 17.3.09

Download: Olive Tuile (Conticini)-Workbook 17.3.09

 

   

 

Perhaps slightly more conventional, but no less alluring is his cinnamon mint ice cream. One doesn't see the combination much outside of breath mints and toothpaste. But I like it.

OK, it does sort of taste like toothpaste. But then, I keep finding myself going back for yet another spoonful...

Download: Cinnamon Mint Ice Cream-Workbook 17.3.09

 

Bespoke

 

This project has been germinating for several weeks. We finally picked up momentum, and armed with some more detailed information and opinion, we've begun to sort out this business of stabilizers. Not only have more and more people been talking about it lately, but I've always felt like I was taking a lot for granted by using a commercially blended product. And the basic knowledge of what works and how (and why in a particular synergy) is good to have as it can lead to other things.

The idea was pushed forward when a pastry chef colleague down the street mentioned his dismay at the fact that the most readily available (at least in NYC) commercial sorbet stabilizer contains both whey and gelatin. It has bugged me too, but not enough that it kept me awake at night, that is, until I began to think about it more. It should be a given that our sorbets are, if not dairy free, then at least vegetarian. I promised that I would find the ideal solution for our own knowledge and our conscience.

The first step was to break down the Cremodan stabilizer into its labeled constituents: gelatin, locust bean gum, cellulose gum, guar gum, whey protein concentrate, and dextrose. I have all of these ingredients on the shelf, with the exception of the whey, which I'm trying to get rid of anyway. I wanted to consult a food scientist (who has had a particular interest in ice cream) on what was and wasn't necessary, and what first steps I could take to constructing my own blend.

The advice I got was that the whey powder provided no function whatsoever, and neither did the cellulose gum- carboxyl methyl cellulose or CMC- at least in this application, and when guar and locust bean gums are being used. Hands down, in his opinion, the best single stabilizing ingredient is simple gelatin. It's water-holding abilities, viscosity, mouth feel, and that it melts at body-temperature, all make it ideal. This was awesome, but it deflated my enthusiasm somewhat, as I was hoping to remove gelatin from the equation. His second choice would be locust bean gum alone or in tandem with guar gum. Our dialog on the subject is by no means finished (at least I hope not), but this was a great place to start.

I also wanted to take a look at some other 'handmade' formulas. The one that everybody seems to reference can be found in Francisco Migoya's recent book, Frozen Desserts. Now, I have to confess that I don't own it, and have only skimmed a copy, but I think it's a great resource. The components in his formula mirror that of the Cremodan blend, but at least now we get a sense of their proportions.

The next logical step would be to conduct a simple side-by-side comparison of these four variations: the commercial Cremodan stabilizer, the bespoke blend, gelatin, and finally the LBG/Guar combo. I'll apologize in advance to any real scientists out there; despite our wish to be as accurate as possible, there is certainly some inherent margin of error in our measurements. I also didn't assemble a true control (a sorbet with no stabilizer added), nor did I record every possible variable.

 

   

I chose a basic raspberry sorbet as our test subject. Looking at some general usage guidelines, I chose the percentage of each stabilizer based on their common ranges (even on such a small scale- tenths of grams- it could make a difference) while also trying to hit a fairly rounded measurement. We began with the four identical syrups, all prepared in the same manner. The Cremodan (A) was dosed at 2.25%, the Migoya blend (B) at 2.5%, gelatin (C) at 3%, and finally the gum duo (D) at 2.5%. Once prepared, matured, and cooled, I assumed that these syrups would tell us something before fruit was added and spun. As predicted, the A and B syrups appeared identical- slightly opaque but quite fluid. The gelatin-based syrup was crystal clear, with the texture of a just barely set gel. Syrup D was by far the thickest, with a good deal of elasticity; I immediately determined that the locust bean/guar percentage could be lowered by at least a half of a percentage point, if not more.

     

An equal measurement of each syrup was added to an equal measurement of raspberry puree. Each mixture was spun and then stored in a sub-zero F freezer. And though the anticipation was killing me, I decided to let them sit undisturbed for 48 hours. Only after some degree of storage would we be able to see how the stabilizers do their intended job. The first visual observation would be its volume or overrun. There were no noticeable differences among the group, though I don't know that such a small batch size would give us such clues.

Onto the taste test. I didn't notice any real difference in flavor, with the exception of sorbet D; the slight gumminess did seem to mask the raspberry flavor more than the others. Texturally, D was, of course, the least pleasant as predicted. The gelatin-stabilized sorbet had a more noticeable body and mouth feel than A and B; in terms of texture alone, my friend was right- gelatin won.

The other factor I wanted to look at was it's rate of melting. Here, the results become harder to analyze. The first to begin melting were A and D. After 10 minutes, the order of fastest melting to slowest was D, A, C, and then B. Yet after 20 minutes, the order had changed: B, A, C, followed by D. Taking into account which sorbet had which stabilizer, it made sense that C was among the slowest, yet D didn't contain the gelatin that A and B both had. For kicks, I stuck a thermometer into each fleeting scoop t the 30 minute mark, and surprisingly the temperatures ranged from 50F/10C down to below 40F/4C. I wouldn't think that any of these stabilizers would affect the temperature, and as you can see from the photo below, the scoops sat out within about a foot of each other. I wonder then, why such a broad difference?

     

So what did we learn? That the gelatin and LBG/Guar versions provided noticeably different results compared to the commercial blend and the bespoke attempt at replicating that blend. Yet on the whole, with the exception of an over-dosing in sorbet D, the sorbets were remarkably similar, more so than I would have thought. The verdict? As yet undecided, at least until I run more detailed tests. But I certainly feel just a bit smarter for having put in the effort!

While I didn't faithfully record the resulting data and observations for you, here are the syrup recipes that I started with:

Download: Raspberry Sorbet.Stabilizer Trial-Workbook 7.3.09

 

 

Fluff

    

It's been at least 6 years, maybe 7, since my last visit to Pierre Gagnaire. Among the flight of desserts at the end of that meal, I recall one that was perhaps the first example of a "deconstruction" I had eaten anywhere. It was simple and elegant, unlike the self-concious renditions I would undertake myself in the months that followed: "deconstructed" lemon meringue pie, or apple crisp, or tiramisu. 

In Gagnaire's dish were a mound of poached or roasted pear, a little citrus confit, and a bit of something crunchy, all neatly lined up, but separate. What grabbed me most was the fluff of meringue perched just on the edge of the bowl, urging me to sweep the spoon from one end to the other to catch a taste of each element. If anything, it seemed a vehicle for the meringue itself, the other components being simply garnish.

     

This idea still lingers in my head all these years later. Here I'm pulling together the flavors of pineapple and banana. First, the Italian meringue, followed by caramelized pineapple, a banana citrus sorbet, pineapple puree (or what the kids might call a fluid gel), some crunchy streusel, and finally freeze dried pineapple. I think I'm drifting away from such "blown out" compositions, but it's still fun to plate in that intuitive, abstract expressionist sort of way.

     

The component I most enjoy is the banana-citrus sorbet. I had gotten sick of it for awhile, but I think I'm ready to bring it back.

Download Banana Citrus Sorbet-Workbook 4.3.09

 

Orange You Glad

 

I had heard about Cara Cara oranges for a long time, but I hadn't actually seen nor tasted one until I was in Japan a few years ago. Ever since, I've missed their short season. I added some onto a recent produce order, and I'd better use them before we eat them all.

This spontaneous composition centered on segmented Cara Cara oranges, an orange curd, crushed sablee, dried orange zest, yogurt sorbet, and meringue.

     

 Download: Yogurt Sorbet-Workbook 28.2.09

It's the 'creamsicle' thing again: I'd love to work out a way to do a sort of refined frozen 'push pop'. I don't know that it would necessarily work in the restaurant, but it would be cool...