Versatile Christmas Trifle

With my last few days here and little time on my hands, my dear friend somehow managed to convince me to do an event at the cafe she was helping set up. What was supposed to be a dessert night got compressed to a demo for a nice fancy trifle, and I think everybody was really happy to say the least. My first demo an a nice, cozy full house, that too for a cafe opening! If you're ever in Chandigarh, make sure to visit Chapter 7 and attend one of their events!

I'll briefly cover what I covered at the demo here as well.

Ingredients are the real heroes- it is absolutely worth investing a bit more for say, fresh in place of frozen strawberries, because you'll never yield the same level of juiciness and result with the two. Ditch your regular chocolate and opt for coverture- if you live in the tropics, your country might be a producer. You get the hint, right? My favorite so far is Balinese cacao.

Remember, you create the dish and lead what direction it goes in. What you have in your heart will manifest in your food, so I will say what my colleague once told me- make with love.

This trifle is very versatile- you can swap the strawberries for any seasonal fruit (cherries and stone fruit are good choices) and you can proceed likewise for their frozen counterparts as well. The frozen strawberries recreate the feeling of an ice cream in conjunction with the cream, without all the hard work and having to own an ice cream machine (I genuinely feel clever on this one). You can even leave out the spices to make it more suitable to summer or just take the essence of the dish and make it your own. Let this trifle mark a new beginning to yet another amazing year, and a new chapter in my life!

Christmas trifle with gingerbread spice, strawberries and chocolate

Served 6 with some extra crisps to snack on

Spice mix

1 t cloves

1 T cinnamon

1/3 t nutmeg

1 green cardamom, only seeds

1/4 t fennel seeds

1/2 t powder of roasted coriander seeds

3 wings of star anise

1/3 of a small bay leaf

Dash of pepper

Grind in pestle and mortar. Reserve.

Gingerbread spice and cocoa shortcrust pastry (12 portions)

130g flour

47g sugar

10g cocoa powder

90g butter

25g egg yolk

1/2 t of minced fresh ginger

1 1/3 t spice mix

A nice pinch of salt

1. Cream butter and sugar till very light.

2. Add the cold egg yolk and ginger and cream till well emulsified.

3. Sift in the dry ingredients along with the spice and combine. Do not overmix.

4. Shape into a square and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for 30min.

5. Roll out to 3mm approx. thickness and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C till baked. (Approx 10 mins).

6. Once cool, break into shards.

Chocolate mousse (6 portions)

65g 53% coverture dark chocolate

1 egg yolk

60g cream

40g milk

10g sugar

90g whipped rich cream

1. Make an anglaise by combining the cream, sugar, egg yolk and milk and heating it gently. Cook till it costs the back of a wooden spoon.

2. Add the chocolate callets to the hot anglaise and mix with a whisk.

3. Cool to room temperature and fold in the whipped cream.

For the strawberry compote: (6 portions)

220g strawberries

80g Kinnow juice

8g minced candied orange rind

Sugar, to taste

1. Halve the strawberries and sprinkle some sugar on them.

2. Add the rind and the juice and cook on high heat till the strawberries as softened. Cool.

Frozen strawberries (6 portions)

7-8 Strawberries

1. Slice the strawberries thinly lengthways and lay out on a non stick mat. Freeze.

Whipped Vanilla Cream

100g rich whipped cream

1/4th vanilla bean

1. Scrape seeds from the vanilla bean and mix with whipped cream.

To serve

Pistachios, chopped

Pipe a generous portion of the mousse with a slightly less generous portion of the vanilla cream. Spoon on some strawberries from the compote followed by a  liberal sprinkle of pistachios. Place a shard of the gingerbread shortcrust and place frozen strawberry segments to finish, about a full strawberry's worth.

Share for more happiness tis season!

The plated trifle: Gingerbread chocolate shortcrust, Frozen strawberries, Strawberry compote, Vanilla whipped cream, Chocolate mousse and pistachios. Both pictures by Taher Hussain

Coriander Lentil Praline with Lemon Myrtille

On my recent trip (not so recent anymore) to the southern part of India, we visited Hyderabad in a bid to explore the zenith of Indian food- particularly the biryani. Bound to run into new ingredients, I was not disappointed in that department.

Forget fennel seeds and mukhwas post Indian lunch, greet Sukhmukh (or dhania daal; literally meaning coriander lentil). Served toasted, it has a nice refreshing flavour of coriander seed. Paired with the crunchiness of the lentil, I now see why it's such a popular 'aftermint'.

This ingredient made me look back at my days at pastry school and reminded me of this coriander hazelnut praline we did. Still one of my favourite bars after all these years. Deriving inspiration, it only felt right to turn this Sukhmukh into a praline. I did not let the lack of fat in the lentil be a problem; turns out, olive oil complements the flavour well given there is a day or two's worth of a maturation period.

Paired with a dark chocolate lemon myrtille ganache to further bring out the acidic notes if coriander, it added a change in texture as well. I somehow felt that white chocolate for the shell went best with it, bridging the two components with its milky notes and high fat content.

Fresh raspberries with potato and coconut

Some time back, I read in a chef's whose name I can't recall interview that for his last meal's dessert, he'd have whipped cream and raspberries. I found it truly intriguing, as I was so accustomed to creating and eating complex dishes, that it dawned on me- I was sidelining the quality of the ingredients.

I more or less haven't used commercial fruit purees and frozen fruit since.

And so as soon as I got my hands on fresh raspberries, I couldn't stop thinking about a nice, raspberry ice cream from my days back in Australia. Since most of my dishes are intended to be exploratory in nature, it was paired with house made coconut milk (you need to ditch those commercial cans for this real thing right here) and I feel that because I associate coconut with tropics and lightness, it boosted the dish in terms of freshness even more.

Filling some raspberries with a salted caramel made with coconut water, palm sugar and a bit of cream, I left the remainder of the coconut cream to 'sediment'- the film of coconut cream floats on top, forming a nice, concentrated and flavour packed disk.

Now I can’t possibly forget the cream, can I? As per usual, I whipped some house-harvested clotted cream and seasoned it with lemon myrtille. To add a variation of crunch to the dish, I added 3 components. It may seem contradictory to what I mentioned earlier, but another thing I’ve learnt over time is that in the end, what truly matters is how tasty and fulfilling the dish is. Juxtaposing this to a lot of other traditional dishes like a halo-halo, where lots of different components mumbling with each other is the highlight, one’s dish can go either way. What holds true in both is cases is respecting you ingredients.

Coming back to crunch- I made a raspberry ice disk from clear raspberry water, and added the element of potato. As it turns out, potatoes go surprisingly well with raspberries. Some fried potato chips and a potato tuile on the dish and it’s good to go.