I guess Summer is over, insofar as the passing of Labor Day is concerned. Though perhaps the season was generally a little more laid back, we were certainly very busy straight through. But in between events and travel, not to mention the several weeks of vacation set aside for everyone else in the kitchen, I finally managed to sneak out for a couple of weeks myself. It felt like a marathon sprint to that last service before leaving; I think I spent the first day or two afterward in a near catatonic state. It's refreshing to take in the city and just relax for a few days, but we were determined to get out of town if only for a short road trip. Heading north into Maine, then leisurely back down the coast through Massachusetts and Rhode Island, we had no real agenda other than to chill out by the sea, and few culinary-minded ambitions beyond fried clams and the obligatory lobster roll. Ironically, and not necessarily by design, we ended up sampling a fair amount of blueberry pie as well. The best of the bunch was in a fairly humble shack in an out of the way corner of Cape Ann. Perhaps it tasted best because we ate it at a rickety picnic table overlooking a quiet cove, watching a lone lobsterman setting his traps.
Even on vacation, I do have to confess to having done some work, but I arrived back in the kitchen this past Tuesday feeling fairly re-charged. We'll soon be in the thick of it, and I likely won't have two consecutive days off again until Christmas. By mid-August, I had already begun thinking about Fall menus, even before I had a chance to fully realize all that the Summer season was still offering. And due to the lead time required by most media, I also found myself with the assignment of brainstorming Valentine's Day pitches, a full six months advance. It all makes me want to hold on to the season just a little longer.
By coincidence, our chef had ordered a few quarts of the fleeting native Maine blueberry crop while I was away. My first day back, with those New England pies still on my mind, I dispatched the crew in the spontaneous creation of a new pre-dessert. And as I must have eaten a bushel's worth of local corn in recent weeks, blueberries and corn would be the theme. First we dealt with the corn, blended into a simple maple-sweetened panna cotta; upon further reflection I think some more interesting textures and forms could come from setting the "custard" with carrageenan rather than gelatin. And these tiny blueberries, because of their high skin-to-flesh ratio can take a bit more heat than conventional berries before they break down into mush, so I gave them a quick toss in a soft-ball sugar syrup, along with a shard of cinnamon. The sugar sets just enough to coat the berries, allowing for small clusters to be formed, while still warming them through enough to soften them. A further textural play comes with a few "crispy" freeze dried blueberries, topping the custard along with the clusters. As a final garnish my mind immediately went to a corn tuile inspired by Heston Blumenthal some years ago, where freeze dried corn is finely ground then mixed with egg white and milk. But having done a thorough inventory before leaving on vacation, I recalled a stash of microwave popcorn; ground in a coffee grinder and mixed in equal proportion with the usual neutral caramel base, we threw together a fragile popcorn "tuile"to complete the dessert.
Even under the best of circumstances, things do slip away. At some point, I was planning menu items and a blog post based on stone fruits, but neither materialized while the fruits were at their peak. I usually bring in some amazing Frog Hollow peaches every summer, and though we tinkered a bit, most of those juicy specimens were eaten by me and the staff. At least in the Northeast, we're still happily within the tail end of plums, apricots, and peaches. This time last year, we were running one of my favorite desserts, an Asian interpretation of roasted apricots, paired with black sesame, cherry, shiso, and soy. It was destined for our upcoming book, but was eventually cut due to space. Revisiting it a year later, I've simplified and cleaned up the presentation to create a new version of the dish.
The roasted apricot morphed into a simple apricot sorbet. The former dessert also included a black sesame panna cotta, which I kept, this time in a different form. Though rarely found outside of Japanese markets, I encourage seeking out a prepared black sesame paste, similar to white sesame tahini. We blend the paste into our dairy base thoroughly, but I like the "accidental" settling and speckling of the random solid particles of sesame that appear when the base is unmolded. What was a cherry granite is now a cherry gelee: brandied cherry juice flamed of alcohol and combined with a touch of syrup. The shiso and soy caramel remain, with the new addition of a maltodextrin-black sesame powder.
We're only a week out from this year's International Chef's Congress here in New York. While I'm officially involved, giving a hands-on demonstration and sitting on a panel discussion about chefs who blog (along with Andrea Strong, Traci Des Jardins, and the folks at Ideas in Food), I'm looking forward to actually taking in the rest of the three day event, which I sadly have been unable to in years past. See you there!
Download Black-Sesame-Apricot-Cherry.pdf
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