Chez Atelier Melissa Coppel

In October, I had the amazing opportunity to take a class with Chef Melissa Coppel (incredibly talented and you MUST check her insta out here). Before I tell you about my journey, I want to give a massive shoutout to THE Ohio State University for making this possible- OSU has some great programs (esp. Food Science, and if you're someone who's even remotely interested.. please reach out!)

My day 1 in Vegas started with me grabbing some of the nicest grease I've had in a long time... mind you, it was 12am and the last time I ate was lunch at eastern time. I'd love some Inn and Out, but Burger Kind isn't half bad in Vegas.

Before I even talk about the class, I just want to give a shoutout for all the amazing lunched we had. Here's mole, made right in Chef Melissa's home. It reminded me of food from my childhood, and I swear I had the biggest grin after that meal.

And now for the important bit- the class. Chef Melissa's way of teaching is very interesting, in that everyone in the class gets a chance to see everything which I love- a lot of schools traditionally delegate or make multiple batches, but I do like her strategy of getting to learn each formula from her. It was more of a quality over quantity kind of deal. She also cares a lot about the quality of the product and excellence in execution, which explains why her product always looks and tastes top notch. With such sensitive and labor-intensive products like this, the margin or error goes up- and I kind of realized why being a chocolatier is perhaps one of the professions where you couldn't possibly excel without passion. She not only has a wealth of knowledge about chocolate, but also running a business while being a great mum. One of the things that really sets her apart is how much she cares about her students and empowering women, which I love. 

An added perk of the class was getting to meet Gabriel Riva, master of several trades and jack of none- we got to try some of his gelato during the class, and I still have dreams about it on occasion. Something common between the two that I observed that even though their execution was flawless, they paid great attention to the quality and characteristics of their raw materials. 

Passionfruit and sesame mochi gelato

tahiti vanilla with toasted pecans and caramel toffee

Here's literally the coolest cross section picture on the internet:

Cross section of all them delicious shiny bonbons

Parmesan

citrus curd, lime marshmallow, and a hazelnut base. my official favorite of the lot

The adult version of ice cream floats

I got my hands on some nice whisky while I was headed back home for a vacation last year. With a tendency for excessive shopping at airports, I ended up with more than just that. Among all the mess was a coconut ash chocolate bar. My pre-conceived notion of coconut ash being bitter was anything but right.

It had been a long time since I had had a good chocolate-caramel combo- one of my favorite chocolate components was almost a sorbet-like chocolate ice cream (or an ice cream with a much lower fat content). Pairing it with some (obviously salty) caramel, I gave it a twist with black lava salt which went well with the coconut ash chocolate ice cream.

In some ways, this is an adaptation of a chocolate, salty caramel and yuzu dessert that was the signature of a place I staged at. With my mind set of simpler desserts, I decided to turn it into a whisky sour float- take the citrus our and turn it into a granita. Not only does it add the the "rocks" for the whisky, it added an extra texture for the pallete.

The dessert is served with the components stacked and a shot of whisky (I used black label in this instance) poured into the bowl at the table.

Coconut ash and chocolate ice cream, black lava salt caramel. yuzu granita and a shot of whisky

Summer was here/ Mangoes from the Backyard

A couple of months ago, I visited home after a solid 7 months- the longest I've ever been away. One of the things I missed he most was the mangoes from the tree in my backyard (now 13 years strong!). My mum had left out a bucket of those bad boys to ripen up, and before I knew I was inspired to manipulate it into shapes and flavours that reminded me of my childhood.

Rice pudding has been replicated in various forms all over the world, but mostly known as kheer in the northern part of India. The south uses special rice paste flakes to make theirs, so I decided to pair that with mango ice cream instead of kheer. Known as ada payasam, the rice is a bit more chewy and jelly like and swells up a lot more than rice, so essentially comes out to be a chunkier rice pud.

I added some mango carpaccio for the sake of having more mango in there. Not sure why starch on starch works so well, but I have been infamous in the past for absolutely loading dishes with starch. Also explains my mild obsession for potatoes.

mango, ada payasam and mango ice cream

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

Summer trials from last year

Roughly a year ago, when I was still really into the food service side of the industry, I developed this dish for a trial. Possibly for a dessert night that never went through (I will be back someday however). 

The very exotic combination of coconut and pineapple never fails to please especially in weather like India's, making it an appealing choice for a dessert. Trying to use mostly locally sourced ingredients, cashew nuts were used for some extra crunch and some basil to give it a little kick of freshness. 

It takes be right back to the days when coming up with a dessert was easier than ever, antithetical to my days now. However, I've noticed my approach to food change drastically as I familiarize myself with the production side of the industry, and I do feel like I've made the right decision taking up food science. In time, I should be able to translate this better in dessert, the reason I joined this industry to begin with. 

Coconut custard and cake, pineapple granita and caviar, basil, vanilla cream, cashew praline. 

Yuzu and Mushrooms

During one of my stages, I encountered one of the restaurants making mushroom crumble. At the time, the very idea of any mushroom in dessert was very appalling perhaps; as someone who did not like mushrooms at that point, I certainly became a convert. The taste of earthly, thin and crisp shiitake to complement the toastiness of the crumble aided by milk powder, the gluten free crumble quickly became one of my favorite things at the restaurant. Fast forward a year, I'm served a yuzu creme brulee, so mildly scented yet packed with the flavor I love so much.

Me being the person that I am could only do what I think of when thinks click- put them in a bonbon.

Pureeing a tiny batch of creme brulee, I piped them in white chocolate shells that I dusted with raspberry powder for an extra kick- and color. A more regularly shaped mould would have been more ideal for temperamental bonbons like this, since I could have simply put in a white chocolate mushroom crumble insert and capped them off. That would have been much better than struggling another way, like I did with these.

Kinako Chocolate and Truffle

Kinako tuile and ice cream, warm chocolate mousse, butterscotch and summer truffles

I guess an apology is in order for not posting anything for almost 6 weeks! With a massive number of papers due and finals, it isn't a surprise that I got carried away. 

Learning from the kinako chocolates I made a while back (seriously, its been a while, but an idea worth checking out) it made a lot of sense to combine another deep, earthy ingredient into the equation- summer truffles. The slightly warm chocolate mousse has always been comforting to the heart; here the truffles season this warm, airy yet rich base to coat the mouth.

The kinako this time takes the form of an ice cream. This is in part a derivate of the chocolate mouse with potato skin ice cream that I found worked so well together, texturally and in terms of flavor, which led me to believe that it would sit well with a warm "mousse" in this case. I remember craving butterscotch when I was formulating this dessert- some sort of 'caramelized' milk has, in my opinion, always added more complexity to the dish when chocolate is included.

Perhaps the most common combination with chocolate in pastry shops this days has got to be feulletine- thin french crepe shards, delicious and crispy. In this particular case, my 'feulettine' piece was composed majorly of kinako powder, adding flavor along with texture.

The overall perception of the dish was perhaps that somewhat familiar flavors on somewhat familiar textures works really well. This particular set of textures seems like a great base for other combinations to experiment with, especially if they're sort of new and out there. I've found things slightly harder to accept if there isn't an easily recognizable component in the dish, regardless of how well it may work objectively.
 

Truffle Butterbings

Summer Truffle, Salted Caramel and Balinese Ganache Butterbings

It's been a while since I moved to the States, and this was the last thing I made back in my country. Thinking about them still warms my icy, black heart.

Butterbings are (unsurprisingly) a fairly new thing in Australia, but not too out of the way in their concept. Usually a filling/ buttercream sandwiched between 2 brownie cookies, they're fairly heavy but totally worth the 5k run after. The success of these beauties relies on getting the cookies as dense as brownies and slightly crusty on the outside, never forgoing their fudginess.

Fortunately for me, I had some summer truffles in brine that I could not resist shaving on top of what seems to be my favorite combination in the world- salted caramel, ganache and brownies. Balinese chocolate definitely makes it all the more special for me with its distinct regional flavors.

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.

Yogurt and fruit compotes

At this time, I couldn't be happier about creating a backlog- I've been so caught up that I haven't even had the time to buy butter! (it's much easier with ingredients available for sudden bursts of creativity).

Around the time I started setting my own yogurt, there came through a mellow sweetness of the curd that I hadn't tasted in years. A part of my childhood, I would skim the little cream that would set on the top..

The real reason I was reminded of quality yogurt was actually during a plane trip from Sydney to Melbourne- the best frikkin yogurt. Roy and Ruby's I believe- boysenberry compote to be precise. I remember it being quite like magic, still slightly sleepy in the wee hours of morning.

I really don't know how to attain a texture like their's, but I'd say I'm quite satisfied with mine.

The key ingredient for yogurt is time- lots of it. At least 12 hours or so. The other thing to bear in mind is the inoculation temperature- the milk should feel slightly warm. Remember to monitor the quantity of your starter, and keep it in a closed environment wrapped with cloths. The lower the external temperature, the slower the yogurt will set.

Ideally, you would then rest it till cold before hanging it for greek yogurt. In this particular dessert, I simply whipped the greek yogurt by hand.

What to do with he whey you ask?
Ice, of course! With the help of some xanthan gum, I made some yogurt whey bubbles and froze them, They lighten the dessert effectively.

For my fruit compote, I used some rhubarb and strawberries, perfumed with vanilla and kefir lime leaf. To further enhance the element of fruit- some freeze dried mandarins, raspberries and strawberries that also bring some crunch with them.

I've never managed to make desserts with such little sugar; but that poses the question- aren't most breakfasts desserts?

whipped greek yogurt, rhubarb and strawberry compote, frozen yogurt bubbles and freeze dried fruit

Stringy cheese in dessert

The first time I hear of kunefe, u couldn't imagine eating cheese that was stringy for dessert. How could you possibly dunk sugar syrup on it and make it taste out of this world?

The proof lies in the pudding quite literally. Kunefe, a traditional dessert from turkey/ Middle East, is made with cheese baked into kataifi and soaked in sugar syrup served hot. 

I had neither kataifi or their traditional cheese. 

I'm Indian. My middle name is improvising. 

I got a hold of some locally produced mozzarella and made a semolina crumble in the style of an Indian halwa. The adults in particular loved the dessert because of this- taking then straight back to the 'kadah'. The kunefe wasn't made traditionally though; I used a ratio of creme caramel base and mozzarella cheese. 

I'm well aware that cheese and figs go well together, and anything brown butter is always welcome. I had some fresh sage on my hands and so happened sage and brown butter ice cream. The fig was caramelised with a bit of kluwak, a really delicious Balinese spice. 

An idea that only came along well in my head turned out to be more than I expected. Cheese does make everything tasty after all. 

Kunefe with semolina crumble, caramelised fig with kluwak, sage brown butter ice cream. 

labneh labneh labneeeh

Ever since my family switched to commercial yogurt, I've almost forgotten what the home made one tastes like. Sure, its almost got a cheese like set, but it usually all I can perceive is th tartness fro the yogurt that should last 2 weeks (sad, real sad yogurt).

As it turns out labneh is a super thick yogurt- well beyond the greek. When done right, for me it happens to be a bit reminiscent of cultured cream. Technically, it should make a nice gelato- which it did, especially by using invert sugar, which prevented a lot of technical flaws to otherwise occur. 

Yogurt, providing the white of the canvas, was ready to take on a shade of lime leaf. Just like vanilla makes almost everything better and cohesive, the lime leaf added another dimension.  

With room for acidity to be present, I felt sea buckthorn could be played with here. Turns the Himalayan region grows these really delicious berries, which ended up in a sorbet.

I wanted to avoid using any wheat based products for crunch, but couldn't quite figure out what it would be until I tried the dist with some freeze dried raspberries, which tasted like the best raspberry I've had in years.  

I still wanted an egg yolk in there. It works well in dishes with a sharp zing (the sorbet and raspberries) giving a little extra heaviness for the other components to relieve. An egg yolk custard, tocino de cielo is made with just the yolks, sugar and water. Bearing that in mind, I poached the egg yolk in a lime leaf syrup instead- enough for the outside film to become custard like and manageable, and the inside runny. It worked out pretty well, though I felt that the sugar syrup would need to be much thicker. 

Labneh and lime leaf gelato, freeze dried raspberries and basil, ''tocino del cielo'', sea buckthorn sorbet 

Microgreens make a light dessert

I'm not sure what to write today. It's just one of those days perhaps- when you sleep/ stay up through the night trying to crack a dessert idea, settling to put your big girl pants on and JUST DO IT! (Cc Shia lebeouf)

My recent trip to a market in New Delhi landed me some elusive produce- inclusive of passionfruit, sage, and some nice micro greens. I was really hoping to do something simple yet surprising,  but this was to be churned out in under an hour  (I have to study math first thing in the morning usually, this was some respite). In a way, it turned out to be special in its own right- a part of it felt almost salad like, against the very existence of dessert with all the freshness and acidity in there. The mousse pulls it back to the ground.

As per usual, I was very keen on skipping chocolate to bridge together Beetroot micro greens to the yuzu and chestnut mousse; coffee and kinako seemed like my best shot (which it turned out to be, was).

During one of the weddings this year, I was served some passionfruit with black salt. It was hands down the best thing I ate all week, especially with its lesson in simplicity. Sensing the need for cold, I took my sakte passionfruit and froze it- resulting in a nice and crunchy ice disk. The black salt really makes an impact.

On a side note: enoki mushrooms are the vegetarian meat noodles of this world.

Yuzu and Chestnut Mousse, Frozen Passionfruit with black salt, Beetroot Microgreens, Kinako and Coffee crumble

The many forms of soy

I remember reading about kinako a while back- on how the Japanese used it as a powder and sprinkled it on things like icing sugar. Turned out, it was actually roasted soy bean powder, and considering it couldn't be too hard, I gave it a go. This is my first dessert with this beautiful product with only a single word in my vocabulary to describe the taste- toasty.

Now that it has cooled down significantly enough to temper chocolate, it was time to return to doing chocolate bars while I could. after rosting the whole soybeans, I soaked the in some water overnight and blended them into a pste. This paste was turned into what was a ganache that revealed the tangents coffee, chocolate and roasted soy shared.

Now that I was using soy, why not use miso for salt? With no cream to make a traditional caramel, I made a butterscotch candy instead, adding the miso and vanilla before leaving it out to set and cool.

The taste of kinako like I said before, had a little nudge of coffee. I've seen chefs use ground coffee beans but they've never really worked for me- it tastes too much like grit in cream. Up until late... when I accidentally landed on just then right coffee grind, with a crunch rather than 'sand'. Mixed with a little palm sugar to not let the bitterness of the coffee be overwhelming for the Indian palette,

Side note: chocolate and coffee are pretty acidic, so I ditched the idea of a galgal pate de fruit. This could be your  cheat day protein bars perhaps...

Kinako Ganache, Miso Vanilla Butterscotch Caramels, Coffee and Palm Sugar

Fry your brekkie

Just that rhubarb foam deserves a dish of its own.

Fried ice cream has been on my list to try since I ate it (so a few years). The first when I heard of it, it felt so against the entire premise of ice cream! Met with my childish concerns of 'how on earth can it not melt' in conjunction with my limited knowledge of food, I was in awe of this creation. Up until very recently, when I learnt that it's only fried for about 10-15 seconds- that too protected by some other dry ingredients like bread crumbs or cake, which helps the ice cream to maintain a decent temperature while creating a stable outer coat for it.

I, though wanted to skip this coat, knew it wasn't possible for one other reason- the tempura would not really cling to the ice cream. It would fry off more or less, exposing the poor ice cream to melt away in sadness. (cc- ice cream and sadness). So, how do you turn a dessert into a not so healthy breakfast? With oats, of course! Which went well with a really nice tempura.

I paired rhubarb with a coffee and toasted rye ice cream, but the idea of the dish stems from the foam. The making of the rhubarb sorbet revealed that perhaps some fruits simple do make better sorbets than others- because of the massive contribution of solids from using the entire fruit, making the mixture more viscous. The rhubarb was stewed till it completely lost shape, blended to get a foam base sufficiently thick. I always season rhubarb with vanilla, without fail; I can't quite describe what it does, but in a way it brings these hidden flavours in the rhubarb in a complementary manner, just like adding a certain amount of sugar to yuzu does. With a texture that great, the siphon seemed a nice idea, though not without hesitation- the siphon can really aerate batters, and at times it can be almost like bubbles, a texture I wasn't after. Honestly, I was surprised with this one. I cannot begin to describe how happy the mouthfeel of the foam made me feel.

I wanted a last go at rhubarb and chocolate with raspberry, but wanted the dish to be very central to the ice cream and the foam. I decided to a nice tuile keeping in line with the thin crunch of the tempura, with some cocoa nibs tossed in raspberry powder and licorice for an extra kick of flavour.

Toasted Rye and Balinese Coffee fried ice cream, Oats, Chocolate Tuile, Rhubarb Foam, Licorice Nibs and Lyo Raspberry

The happiness within

Okay is okay- churros and friends

I apologise. The title is misleading. It's just that friends sounded better than friend.
So my childhood friend is in town and wanted something fruity and... Cool I guess.
With not much time (literally half a day) I pulled out my secret stash of inspiration. These 'a la minute' (or should I say a la jour) are usually not complex to understand. Stemming from a insufficiently provocative idea, these light and fluffy churros were an excellent vehicle to test out some new things- commercial yogurt and a hot Phirni espuma.
A little bit of yuzu in the pomegranate gel did wonders in elevating the flavour. I simply froze some pomegranate seeds for an instant granita. Such a simple thing I've ignored all my life!
I guess at times, simpler things are okay by me.

Grapefruit yogurt sherbet, hot phirni espuma, pomegranate yuzu gel, frozen pomegranate seeds, churros

Bye Summer/ Why my socks are strange

I'm finally back from the hiatus? Not sure if a couple of weeks classifies as one; creativity is a demanding process at the least. The past few weeks have been somewhat transitional. Abstaining from creating this period has given me a sense of clarity- what my food is about and where it's headed next. I've almost always been around fancy, fine, food. But I'm going to be a hypocrite and say that this isn't it for me. The from where I stand, it's not sustainable. But most importantly, the result never seems to be worth the time. What is to a dessert with a jillion components? It never posed itself as dramatic- like a simple lemon tart perhaps. Minimalizing juxtaposition mars the beauty of the dish.  I guess it's safe to say that even though we search for balance in a dish, components usually need to present themselves in extremes and be slightly off. An apple tart slightly acidic, fudges a tad too sweet an chewy are in 'balance' by not being completely neutralising. And that, is a facet I'm keen on exploring. Summer's almost over in my country (technically Autumn has started but leaves don't fall at 32 degrees) and I wanted that one last zing of the season. Lemon sorbets. It's been stuck in my mind for months, however, I was keen on waiting for galgals (a really nice big Indian citrus) to be back in season. Just because I'm trying to be a minimalist doesn't mean that passes as a complete dessert for me. I added some blood limes (!!!) to the sorbet after churning. Assuming that the freezing point was higher than the sorbet itself, the blood like vessels would freeze, giving bits of ice and flavour bursts to the sorbet.  Cream. First thing in my mind and my only stop. I made a little panna cotta set with cocoa butter and flavoured with a little yuzu juice. I was keen on skipping the gelatin just for trials sake. I didn't want white chocolate, mostly because I've been trying to avoid it in my dishes. However, chocolate has become such an indispensable part of the pastry kitchen, I gave up to cocoa butter. I genuinely wanted to stop at a cream, but stepped a bit further with some passion fruit and barley water. I didn't think barley water would really work as it is texturally. And so came about the 'faux passion fruit'. I'm still as amazed when I see chia seeds 'set' liquids. Them along with some freeze dried passionfruit et voila, une fruit de la passion!  I also promised on my facebook to address why I wear different socks on each foot. It started out of laziness when I was young- I could never find the other half of the pair of socks! Time constraints made me give up- I would eventually struggle looking for socks. A couple of years down the line- I entered the food industry, and with white coats and black pants days, everything seemed far too monochrome and organized. I guess theres a little whim in things being slightly off- somehow, wearing socks that were bright and different throughout the day made me happy. Anytime I wanted respite from a tone, I could just look down...

Brownie and Crispy Chicken Skin

While contemplating what to pick for my final project for a course on the science of food that I'm doing, I narrowed it down to 2 bites- macarons and brownies. Macarons, regardless of how much I love them, are far too sweet, and so I'm left wondering, how can the inherent chewy character be retained without being cloying sweet? Brownies, though had a lot of parameters to play with, would have given an extremely subjective viewpoint on the ideal texture;

I started with a 'desi' chicken- a brownish bird with black patches with slightly darker meat. The flavor it had to offer was significantly better than the generic chicken I get everywhere, except the skin turned ridiculously rubbery on cooking. Ridiculous rubbery as in you could smack it for days  and you'd have no success (exaggeration). I still cant get over the wings that I cooked in the skin; the skin was so tough that the meat was 'trapped' in it. On a side note, I gutted the chicken too. Great excuse to learn some biology I say.

Harnessing flavors off the desi chicken, I made a nice rich stock, rested it overnight and reduced it the next day for the caramel. I've never completely understood resting things overnight, except that they enunciate the flavors and make them more integral.

I decided to stick to the apparently generic chicken for the crispy skin. Some of it was baked till crisp, a part was fried in rendered chicken fat and the remainder was poached in some milk and yogurt till soft and then fried off. The baked skin gave the lightest texture of the three, although the poached and fried skin had a distinct flavor from its poaching liquid. I mixed it up with some dehydrated brownie bits and made a little croustilliant out of it.

The remaining brownie was added to the ganache. Now its a nice trick to add some bakes and blit them in if you're running low on chocolate- they provide a lot of structure for the ganache and its a nice change of texture too occasionally.

It certainly isn't the perfect sort of brownie that I had in mind when I started this because it isn't really a brownie anymore; its a chocolate bar. The hiatus from my bonbons is over (I hear summer saying goodbye in the distance mostly).

A bar of Chicken Skin (baked, fried in its own fat and poached and fried) with dried brownie bits, cocoa nibs, Brownie Inaya Ganache and a salted caramel of reduced chicken stock