Monday 5 September 2016

Dessert hiatus

Perhaps the title only tells a part of my story of not having being able to cook since my move to the states, in part of lack of facilities but also, inspiration. It had been about 7 months before I created this dessert, but as always, it's the environment that matters. This is something I can attest to being in college, which nearly gave me a crisis of my own identity of being a creative person. During my time off and my trip back home, I felt as though I was in a position to create again, and so I did.

This dessert is inspired by one of my favorite combinations of lemon and pistachio, replacing the lemon with yuzu. I got a hold of some fabulous pistachio paste from Eataly, and I knew the time was right. 
A lot of the components arise from things that I have learnt in the past in new forms, like the Pistachio 'Toblerone', this time sans chocolate. Mixed with almonds and palm sugar for texture, the paste is frozen to obtain hardness. The paste was turned into a sable as well and used on the plate as it is. 
Coming to yuzu, some water would have been great to cut down the incoming fat, and hence came into play the ice in the form of long sticks and jellies. The 'base' of the entire custard was a whipped vanilla pana cotta. It's one of the desserts that works in bigger portions, and tasting it instilled in me the fact that I could still create after all this time. 

Whipped pana cotta, pistachio paste, sable and Toblerone, yuzu jelly and ice