Showing posts with label Cooking: Fruit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking: Fruit. Show all posts

Monday, April 04, 2011

Strawberry Tarts

Strawberry Tart, again.
The strawberries were really sweet, and succulent, so I took a giant step (for me), and tried what I've admired in cookbooks for years. A tart, with my own pastry. Pate Sucre, which is a sweet dough, isn't all that easy to make. I've tried it twice now, and I think I'm getting it. The basic ingredients are easy to find, and proportions are straightforward, what's harder is getting it malleable, which takes a lot of cooling, and what is called 'resting.'

1.5 cups wheat flour | 0.5 unsalted butter | 0.25 cup sugar | 1 egg or 1 egg york and little cold water | two pinches of salt make a difference.

Mix the ingredients, (and I'm not yet clear, if the order matters -- some say add the eggs last, some don't), make it into a ball of dough, and wrap in clingfilm, and let 'rest' in the fridge for an hour or longer. I think this makes it is stringy, and malleable because the gluten in the wheat, get activated. (I have to read up more about this. Then roll it out, under cling wrap, some say -- and lay it in a buttered pan. Now, I have muffin pan, so I used that, the first time, worked better than the second, where the pastry was crumbly. But I figured out a work around, just laying a ball of dough in the little muffin well, and working it into the shape. Yes, that worked!

I used an egg wash, one yolk, with a little water, brushed on the surface of the pastry, and put it in the oven, (pre heated) at 350 for 20 mins.

It has of course, a crumbly, buttery shortbread like texture and taste, and is amazing with strawberries, to which i added a reduction. One time, I did add some cream too!
Strawberry Tart

Friday, February 04, 2011

Sorbets: Strawberry & Soursop-Passion

Soursup-Passion & Strawberry Sortbet-iii

I never thought I could made a sorbet at home. It seemed a fancy restaurant item, that washed away flavors between courses, or was served as a light, refreshing end to a long heavy meal. But no, I’ve just started making sorbets at home, and you can make them with no more than a regular fridge, with a freezer :), and a hand held beater – what is some times called a bar mix. Of course, you can upgrade to more sophisticated machines, but no – for some kinds of sorbets at least, you do not have to.
Sorbets don’t have eggs or cream or butter, and as such you can safely say, they are pretty low fat. Which is a nice break if you like them, and have to worry about good fat and bad, I suppose. I’ve just started making sorbets, and in the photo is my third set really – my guide, as is for most desserts is Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques. But I changed things around a bit.
Now, all I’ve tried so far, are fruit puree sorbets, and I think they may be the easiest to do. And they are inexpensive. For the strawberry sorbet, I started with two cups of washed, diced strawberries (Jagro, available from Food City or Keels, any where, I think), 1/3 cup of plain sugar, and little less water. First, boil the sugar and water in a thick bottomed saucepan. Changing the consistency of the sugar, by boiling it, is the first important process that will thicken your sorbet and get the constancy right. Apart from taste, of course, texture is every thing here – the two extremes to avoid, is a popsicle-like ice, and on the other side, a cold syrup. You want a middle ground. So boil the sugar in little less water than its volume. When its boiled for a min or two, not long (boiling sugar syrups is one of the more complicated things in dessert making -- if you keep boiling, many interesting things will happen, but you may go well beyond your sorbet) add the chopped strawberries. Bring to a boil again, and take it off the fire. Puree. Add some lime juice; this should really highlight and intensify the flavor of the fruit you are using. Add more, if the puree is too sweet for you.
Put this in a plastic bowl, or box, just a freezer proof one – regular from anywhere, and set your freezer to max, and pop it in. (To max out your freezer, you may need to set the fridge to min. You may also have a place in your freezer, that is designed for quick freeze. Use that.) In an hour, maybe longer, a crust will form on the top. But it should be still liquid below. Great, take it out and re-puree it, with a hand mixer, if you have one. This is really quite inexpensive, but a huge help. (Otherwise, use the container of your table top blender to begin with.) I always taste it at this point! 
Now, the big secret – add some alcohol. Well, 100 ml would be fine, if you started with two cups. I like vodka because it gives a slightly bitter aftertaste, that leavens the sweetness and tartness of the puree, but not much else of a taste. But of course, I think any thing would do. Process wise, the point here is that alcohol does not freeze at 0˚C. Blending in alcohol will prevent your sorbet from becoming a popsicle. Back in the freezer. It should be all set overnight, and you can puree it one more time. Back in freezer, which you can re-set to normal and it's ready to be eaten at dinner time. This should work with any fruit puree. But it's better to start with a fruit that’s quite tart – strawberries, soursop and passion fruit have all worked well for me. I’ve worked with mango, but you need a not so ripe mango, or it will end up too sweet. Soursop (Annona muricata) is so tart, you can even add store bought passion fruit juice (not cordial!), and it will still be really well balanced at the end.
Soursup-Passion & Strawberry Sortbet-i

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Passion Fruit Mousse

Passion Fruit Mousse

This is really one of favorite desserts, in Sri Lanka, and i try it every where i go. I've blogged about it before but i never thought i'd be able to make this at home. Don't know why, but i thought it would be too complicated and beyond me. So the good news is, its not! Thar it is, right there, and it was quite good also. Here is what i did.

10 Passions fruits (from Colpetty market) were juiced -- i use a simple manual juicer. Then i stained the pulp, and got about 150 ml juice. I saved the seeds, for garnish. This fresh juice can be sweetened a little, and i added some vodka also, cos i heard its against the law not to drink in this country, i may be wrong about this -- :) -- and poured spiked juice into my small cognac glasses, just letting it sit at the bottom. Then i whipped 500 ml cream, that's a little more than i needed for 5, so it should do for six, if its a medium size serving, as in the photo. I used anchor UHT whipping cream (of course, that's all that really works in SL, no doubt options abound in other places!), mixed in cordial, yes you need loads, and then would take kilos of fruit if you don't use this short cut (but the taste was fine, that's the thing about passion fruit, it such a distinctive tang, its hard to kill it)-- sigh, i hate using any thing premade - to taste, until the color turned a light yellow. I then beat the whole thing again, it was stiff enough so that i did not use any gelatin, just put it in a zip lock bag, slit a corner and squeezed it out, into the glasses. It lasted a day in the fridge too. (Lower your regulator to normal, after giving it a burst on high for two hours or so -- other wise the cream will go brittle.) Garnish with seeds, and pour some hot cordial over the whole thing, when you serve it.
I made this for a big dinner, and there were other desserts too -- but this went down well.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Mango Panna Cotta, again!

Mango Panna Cotta (ii)
Yes, again. This time, I did it in the simplest way possible; but plated it differently, from my previous attempts. Simple, because its just cream and mango cordial, mixed (half and half), a heaped teaspoon of dissolved gelatin added, to each cup's worth of mixture. (Fresh fruit reduction gives a more complex flavor, and takes more time). Usually I pour the mix into shot glasses; this time I wanted to 'turn it out,' so emboldened by extra gelatin, I poured the mix into small coffee cups, and after four hours in the frig., I prized out the gelled cream with a knife, tapped the bottoms of the cups, sliding the gel out.
I added a little more cordial, reduced with a little wine, into the bowls, and garnished every thing with sliced fresh mango. Yes, its that easy.
Fay, eating a Mango Panna Cotta
Fay and Kingston joined us for dessert

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Mango Orange Panna Cotta

i guess wanted to go back to orange after red as red strawberries.

i've done coconut panna cotta's before, and blogged about them, but this one is a new variation. its a layer of mango coconut cream jelled on a base of fresh squeezed orange juice, orange liquor and blanched, sliced orange peel.

it needs work:

Deshan and Jehan, who came over to taste it, thought it was okay, with Deshan suggesting I try Grand Marnier instead of Cointreau, since it has, he said, a more 'burnt' taste, which might blend better with the orange peel which after blanching has a slight bitter taste, and a huge citric kick.
Jehan liked the cream top a lot he said, but thought the dish might be inverted. (Mango at the bottom). Well, I think the whole thing should be in orange, that is loose the mango, and the juice should be reduced for a thicker base and more concentrated flavor.
Deshan also liked the idea of a thicker base.

I shall try this again for Monday lunch.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Cours Saleya

I didn't even know it, when I stumbled upon it, just as I crossed the road by the edge of the beach, walked through the arches, and there it was. I was behind on my guidebook, just stumbling around, when I was upon it, Market Street in Nice, Cours Saleya, thought to be the most exciting farmer's market in the whole of the South of France.
Candied Orange Peel, Cours Saleya, Nice
Wow.
Things they had there to look at, photograph, and even dip a paw into! Paw went dip dip.
Candied fruit was my favorite, and I even bought little bags of the orange peel, and ate it before breakfast. They were really quite wonderful, slightly bitter, tangy and very sweet, exploding in the mouth like the colour I've tried to capture in the photograph.
There were lots of herbs from provence, and regular vegetable as well, but also preserved stuff, like sun dried tomatoes. And whole stalls of fish, shrimp, lobster -- the works.

Candied Fruit, (Saleya Market, Nice) Yes, Sun Dried Tomatos! (Cours Saleya, Nice)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Dinner at Elibank

On Thursday, in pursuit food critique, I had a small dinner party - just two people, Jehan and Radhika who thought they might enjoy my cooking, and comment on the new dishes I’ve been working on.

Grilled Prawns

We started with grilled prawns, which I’ve been working on for awhile.
This time, I marinated the prawns in a prawns sauce, that I made with prawn shells and prawns, boiled for 20 mins, then pureed strained, boiled down again, until it halved, then blended, with a little olive oil, quite a lot of chili pieces and Thai fish sauce. I let the prawns sit in the marinate overnight, adding fresh pressed garlic, a tiny bit more oil, and pats of unsalted butter, right before grilling for 6 mins. (1.30 + 4.30, combo1 + grill) I think they were good; I may just declare this dish done!

The main course was pan roasted pork medallions, with a pineapple/wasabi glaze. Now, this is part of my pork roast extravaganza, that has been going on all month and I think just in time for Vesak, it may well have come to an end! Pan roasting the pork, works better in a way that oven roasting the whole cut, even though of course, nicely done dry roast has its own flavor, which is not what pan roasted gets you to. But its so much easier to manage in a way. I marinated the sliced (3/4 inch) pork in salted ( 2 teaspoons to 0.75 l --that's 3 cups) unsweetened pineapple juice over night. Then, I used a cup of the marinade, with a cup of fresh juice, and another of diced pineapples, for the base of the reduction, boiling that down, until the pineapple was soft, then pureeing it, and reducing until thick. That’s 30 odd mins of boring, hot work but this time, I didn’t burn it! Adding wasabi to taste is easy, right at the end, once the pork has been pan roasted in medium heat for about 7 mins., total. Since I use cast iron pans, I just popped it in the oven ( at 5) for about 10 mins also, to giving it that dry roast tinge. May be that worked; but the pork was soft, succulent even, and glaze was done right. My guests suggested that I add a little unmixed wasabi on the side, which I agreed I should have. I should remember next time! The medallions were served over mashed potatoes with pepper, and iceberg lettuce, undressed, scalded spring onion shoots and pineapple slivers. Jehan suggested that the spring onions be slit, some thing Ritu also suggested, some months ago when I made a soup but in the main, both my guests thought the glazed worked well the pork, and was well blended. I had the dish earlier in the day, when I did a trail run, and yes, I was pleased!

For desserts, and yes there was dessert; we had what called a Strawberry Bomb, soon, when its worked out to perfection to be called, Strawberry Orgasm. I’ve been on a strawberry trend for a few weeks now, so no surprises there, I guess. The base of this, is a strawberry vodka jelly, made with sweetened pureed strawberries, reduced to a cup, blended with a 1/3 cup of vodka, and jelled. On top is sweetened whipped cream, Red Man, again, and Strawberries one of which I embedded in the cream, and the others served on a small side dish. This is a dish you have to work on, dipping your strawberries in cream, waiting for zingytangy melt in your mouth vodka jelly below.


Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Strawberry Mousse

made in the ordinary way, with 'red man' cream, which can be got in 1 liter cartons in the supermarkets. its a sweetened cream, which i do not like —but it whips very well. sri lankan, ‘sun grown’ (fresh from jagro) strawberries from radella, pureed, and folded it, with a little bit of geletin.

(i think the trick to a light mousse is to use less than they tell you to; that is if it is a fruit mousse.)

with strawberry vodka liquor and silvers of fruit on top - it was light and good.

Strawberry Mousse

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Strawberries & Curd

I’m back, after a break – for field work in the east, and other random office stuff.
But lots of new dishes are being planned, made and tasted, even as you read this, by the little and not so little critters who live on, and near the bar-counter top, in the Elibank Road apartment.

Today, I had fun with Strawberries.

Well Strawberries and Cream is a well known favorite, right – so I thought to try it with fresh buffalo curd, instead.

I diced 1 cup of strawberries, added ¾ cup of vodka, a pinch of salt and reduced it, until it was thick, adding about 2 table-spoons of sugar, and a few drops of white vinegar while it bubbled. I poured this into the bottom of the wine glasses, then liquidized the curd in a blender, adding that over the strawberry reduction, which was pulpy, since it was not strained, by not googy, and then let it cool in the fridge. After lunch, I topped it off with thinly sliced fresh strawberries dipped in the reduction.
The curd turns out well formed, and divides up the differently textured strawberries with its slightly sour, creamy froth. Yummy poo!

Strawberries & Curd

Update: Published in Spectrum, Feb., 2009:

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Mango Panna Cotta & Liquor.

Mango Panna Cotta (iib)
This is really similar to the Pineapple Coconut Panna Cotta I did a couple of weeks ago; except I used cream (Kotmale), instead of thick coconut milk, so it is more traditional as it were.
The mango substituted for pineapple, and I reduced it in white wine, pureed one half, adding cream and dissolved gelatin to this half, and a little vodka and sugar to the other half.
That’s what I call the liquor, and this goes in the bottom of the shot glass, with some small, dainty pieces of mango, from the reduction. If you don't have little pieces sticking up a tiny bit out of the surface of the liquor, you will have trouble keeping the two layers separate.
That's physics.
You can add a few more bits of mango, if you like – and then pour the creamed puree over it. Let it sit over night in the fridge, and then garnish with more slivers of mango.

Mango Panna Cotta (i)


Eat it when its cool, and savor the creamy mango layer, before swooping down with a eager spoon into the sweet, thick, mango-vodka nectar down bellow.
If only I had a longer tongue...!

And an update: Published in Zero77, Oct., 2007.

Zero77 Column

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Rambuttans in Grape Jelly

Rambuttans in Grape Jelly

I’ve gone rambuttan mad, I admit. Since there are about every where now, I went off on a flight of fancy. I’ve never seen this done anywhere, so I don’t have a guide. Its just off the top of my head, or put another way, I’m off my head.

Stew, in a heavy bottomed pan, one cup grapes, two cups grape juice, one half cup vodka, and as many rambuttans, as you like. When the mixture thickens, remove the now slightly pink rambuttans. And puree the rest, and add a tea spoon of gelatin.
Drop a stewed rambuttan into a shot glass, then add another or two so that the thick white flesh just peeks out, and then pour the hot puree into to the gaps.
Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours, even overnight.
You have work at eating this, sucking the rambuttan, peeling the flesh off with your teeth, and wallowing in a some rambuttan grape jelly, before sucking on the grape flavored rambuttan at the bottom.
Or, arrange them like this.
Rambuttan & Grapes in Jelly

There you are!

Rambuttans


And now featured in lakbima. How about that!

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Pineapple Coconut Panna Cotta

Coconut Pineapple P <span style=

Then I got adventurous, and I’ve been experimenting. I got the idea for coconut panna cotta from Asian Tapas, a beautiful photographed, but not so practical cook book, I got in Malaysia recently. But then, I kind of ran with it a bit, a changed some stuff around.
The basis of panna cotta, in the northern Italian tradition is cream, sugar, milk and gelatin. It doesn’t use egg at all – unlike custards and crème brulees. Good cream is now hard to get in Colombo, so it really pays to switch to coconut milk, which can really be made very thick, if you use the power, like me – 5 tablespoons of power to ½ cup of hot water, made a very thick cream indeed.
Set that aside, and dice your pineapple; I had just three small slices, that were very ripe, and stewed them for a little while with 1/3 cup of vodka, which is clear and tasteless, almost, 2 teaspoons of white sugar, and a pinch of salt. When the vodka is slightly yellow, divide that into two, and pour the first half, into shot glasses, about an inch or so deep. Add the second half to the coconut cream, and puree, until its well blended. Then strain, add a teaspoon of gelatin, melted in a tiny bit of hot water, and mix in the cream, and pour on top of pineapple liquor in the shot glasses. Let that cool, in fridge, and it should set, soon!

Coconut Pineapple Panna Cotta (ii)

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Beef with mango relish.

Beef, with Mango Relish
I’ve been working on the mango part of this for awhile. The first time was with pork, but it wasn’t a success. But this time, the whole dish came together!
The idea in this particular line of meat dishes I’ve been doing is to contrast the rich, chewy meatiness of beef, lamb or pork – with sharp, hot, and slightly sweet fruity taste that makes you end each bite, with soft gasp for more. That’s a tall order, for sure. For one, sharp tastes can over power, and then while the dish may still be tasty, it won’t be memorable – it will end up like every other over sauced South Asian or American Chinese dish you’ve had. So subtly is also important, and since I have a difficult to control sweet tooth, that’s some times hard.
Its also harder with paws, but that’s a whole another thing.
In the pineapple wasabi lamb, the sharp taste works as a glaze, which clings to the outside of the cubes of meat, layering each bite with a hot, sweet tingle and then a full, rich meaty core. In the Beef dish I did today, the tastes are kept separate, and the diner is invited to mix between the two, just we do with a chutney when we eat rice and curry.

For the beef, I started with 500g of cubed beef, which I seasoned with one teaspoon of salt, fresh ground pepper, teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, and two teaspoons of brown sugar. After about an hour, I browned in the beef in a caste iron skillet, deglazed with arrack, added water, to about half away, and let it simmer for two hours.
Then I had a beer.
Later, (obviously – one must never cut anything right after a beer J ). I peeled a sour, that is half ripe, mango, and sliced one half of it length ways, and then mixed one tablespoon of white vinegar, one tablespoon of white sugar, and a teaspoon of red chillie pieces (not power), and reduced in down with the mango. I did this in the microwave one time (3 mins on hi-700w), and another time in a heavy bottomed pan. Basically, you’ve got it get it boiled down, but not burned. Taste for balance. If you like it subtler, keep to the proportions, but add less of every thing.
Once that was almost ready, I stir fried, in the tiny bit of sesame oil, 150g of the well cooked beef, with two teaspoons of black bean sauce. You can do the beef well before hand, and then refrigerate it. It will taste even better the next day!
Then I scalded the sliced leeks, in salted water for a minute, and plated it.

Moving between the succulent, yet lightly flavored beef and the hot, sweet, sour and still meaty mango was marvelous. I've blogged about chillie mango before, and it is as any school child in Sri Lanka knows, some thing to die for, especially when its half ripe.
The leeks gave the whole thing a nice, crunchy punctuation – with of course, a hint, a vague hint, of onion.

Mango + Chillie Lamb Yellow & Green

Monday, May 14, 2007

Mango + Chillie


Mango + Chillie
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.
It wasn't really a sour mango; even though the colour seemed a little pale.
but i added a whole heaped tea spoon of chillie pieces, anyway and a small pinch of salt.
It seems enough for lunch, eating any else for awhile will only spoil the lingering burn of pleasure, deep on my tongue.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Pork, Sour Mango & Bokchoy

This dish isn't well worked out yet. Another work in progress!
The pork loin is marinated in an arrack brine; the sour mango is supposed to be a sweetish relish, and the bokchoy scalded in pork broth.
The texures worked well with each other, but the mango relish was too sour. Needs to be tweaked.

I used my new tall tripod with the magic Canon 50mm/1.4.
No flash.
Looks colourful, so thats nice!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Orange & Brown


Orange & Brown
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.
Yes I’m back to cooking!
I’ve been working on this oxtail stew for a few days now; I season the oxtail, about a kilo, then let it marinate in balsamic vinegar, kitul treacle and minced garlic, adding a tiny bit of olive oil to bind it. Then I brown it, removing it, and bring it a boil in a large heavy pot, with more than a liter of water, skimming off the scum several times, then let it simmer for more than 24 hours. Oxtail can take that, that’s the beauty of the all that work the cow’s tail does over the years! It falls of the bone, almost, but it still holds together. But it melt in your mouth. Once that’s well simmered, reduce it, and let it sit in the fridge; its good for more than a few days.
And then, each day, you can have a bit of it, with a different sauce or glaze. The day before I tried a mango/tamarind/wasabi glaze, which was okay, but I thought it over powered the flavor of the meat.
So today I tried a papaya/white wine sauce and it was terrific!
To make this, I pureed papaya cubes in the blender, adding a little water, and about half bottle of white wine (mine was a random bottle of Pinot Grigio), and then reduced that in a heavy pan, for about 15-20 mins, adding a little salt, and some sugar, just a little to adjust the tartness upwards, right at the end. The reduction gets a little frothy, a little bubbly, like strawberry jam in the middle of a omelet. That’s the consistency of the papaya I guess; so you can’t really thicken it enough to be a glaze.
But that’s okay!
Now spoon it over the stringy, succulently meaty Oxtail stew, and the smooth, soft tang of the papaya, deepened by the wine reduction, blends in wonderfully to the space between the strands of taste.
Or, in other words, I had a good dinner. I wish you the same.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Passion Fruit Mousse


Passion Fruit Mousse
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.
When I was a child, we had some thing we called “pashona.”
That’s passion fruit cordial; very sweet and syrupy for sure plain, but just a fruit drink with water and ices as it was served. But passion fruit has such wonderful taste, as any one whoes tried it fresh knows.
Anyways, in those days, fizzy drinks or pop were rare (coke unheard of) and we had limit of one bottle of green lanka lime or orange barley or cream soda or, from elephant house a day in my home. That seems like a little, but the van would bring 30 bottles for the month, and it had to last. so all you got each day was a small, little tumbler of soda pop.
Pashona was as occasional, and it was a treat.
This is why I love the passion fruit mousse at Gallery Café. Light, tangy, and not too sweet at all.
An adult visit to childhood.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Pineapple Wasabi Lamb


Pineapple Wasabi Lamb
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.
As promised, here is the recipe for the lamb dish I've been working on.

Recipe.
(This is the first pass, please let me know in your comments what's unclear, and what I’ve left out).

Okay things you need:

250g Lamb
Salt, pepper, vinegar, spices, a shallot & garlic.
1 Cup stock (or water)
1 Cup pineapple juice ( a slice of pineapple)
1 or 2 teaspoons of wasabi
½ cup of Arrack or Cognac

Debone, cube, and trim the lamb. (I use the boneless variety you get in those light green 250g frozen packs in Colombo supermarkets; so this is for one pack of 250g)
Season with salt, pepper a thimbleful of vinegar, and even less olive oil, just to bind the salt in. add a few cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick pieces, if you like that, and set aside for at leave a half an hour.
Slice a big Bombay onion, which is a shallot, (kind of, or is it exactly, I'm not sure?) and a few cloves of garlic. Sauté in a heavy skillet, and when the onions are translucent, add the lamb, turning over until nice and brown. Then add about 150ml – 200 ml of stock or water, (I like to add stock, and I follow Barbara Kafka’s stock making method, but it works okay with just water even ((I tried it)– if you are okay with store bought cubes, then that’s cool also but store bought isn't the same as home made, so there) deglaze the pan a little reduce heat, and simmer for about 40 mins may be more or less, covered, until the lamb is real soft.
Okay now it gets a little fancy, we are going to make a glaze. But its not hard, even I can do it!
Take the lamb off the fire, drain it with a fine sieve, and separate out that gravy.
Set the lamb aside, and add an equal potion of pineapple juice, and half a potion of arrack or cognac. {In Sri Lanka, arrack is cheap, and its pretty much the law, that we drink lots it -- that’s a note for foreign readers, as they say in the book trade}.
Okay so if ya have a cup of gravy that’s a cup of pineapple juice and half cup of arrack.

Then you’ve got to boil this down until it is real thick and syrupy. The first 7 mins will be boring, and then it gets thick. This is where it can burn. Be careful. You need a heavy pan, a double boiler, or one of those thick, white plastic thingies I got from Arpico, that you can put in microwave, and let things boil in. (I will add a pic of this soon). Yes!
Even so, watch it -- once the mixture thickens, its going to caramelize, because of the sugar in the pineapple juice, and you don’t want that.
While the mixture is boiling down, pick out the stray spices from the lamb, and any other stray bits of skin or not so nice stuff, that’s visible, and slice your self some tiny silvers of pineapple for garnish.
Then, when the glaze is done, add wasabi, (which is a horseradish paste, often served with sushi; I get mine in a tube, from keels or arpico, it not really expensive at all, because it will last for ever) one teaspoon at time, to the glaze, mixing thoroughly each time.
Now that’s a real teaspoon, which is teeny, morsel like thing. Careful because wasabi is hot, with a unique oh-wow! flavor, but you can’t over do it. Keep tasting until the sweetness of the glaze is balanced by the strength of the wasabi.
This sauce will be just right, when it is what my friend Jennifer calls morrish, which means you always want to have more of it.
Heat the Lamb up one more time and plate, with the glaze spooned over the cubes, just as you serve, garnish with pineapple sticks and a little more wasabi.

Try it out before you go live as it were, and hey, take bow if it works.


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