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.

A Visit to Bentota Beach

Bentota Beach Hotel (BBH), now managed by John Keels, is one of Bawa's oldest hotels, designed as the first wave resort hotels were built in Sri Lanka, with international tourism in mind in the mid 1970s. When I visited recently with my mother, and stayed over night, I was reminded of what were to become classic Bawa signature elements, in his later buildings; resorts -- like Lighthouse Hotel and Kandalama, but also, the new Parliament. But not so much of Lunuganga, which is a thing unto itself.
The combination of water, rock (natural and sculptured) and foliage in the buildings and landscape that Bawa works with, draws inspiration from ancient and medieval Sri Lankan royal or pleasure gardens, but retains the undulations of the land, that I can not recall in ancient gardens. Perhaps that's derived from the Italian gardens that the Bawa brothers spent time in during a European sojourn.


(rock fringed pool)-------------------------- (water court yard; foliage islands)

As in the 7th floor pool in Kandalama, the main swimming pool at BBH, blends in with a large natural rock formation, recalling rock pools on the upper surface of Sigiriya. The Water courtyard recalls built stone pools, like the kuttam pokuna, but the foliage islands within are an innovation; at a stretch, one can imagine the parliament complex, as an elaboration of this water courtyard.
Another fascinating element in BBH, which I had not really appreciated before, is its mirroring of the old colonial forts that dot the southwest of Lanka. Lighthouse is of course the most complete elaboration of this; but the interior halls ways and some exterior windows in BBH, are clear echos of battlements.
Then of course I come to the food!
It was, unfortunately buffets all around, and as these things go, there was variety and quantity, but not really top end quality.But the mousses were wonderful; a big hand to the pastry chef, there, who ever he is. The strawberry mousse which I had after dinner the first night, was rich, spicy in a subtle way, with stewed strawberries mixed in. I've dabbled in strawberry desserts myself, and this was a fine one.
The Kiwi mousse was beautiful, but the star of the show was the passion fruit mousse that was tangy but also super creamy and light, topped with a delightful and pretty glaze. It was better than the same dish at Gallery Cafe, which I've blogged about before. It was a fitting highlight to a short trip south.

Orange Mousse

I've been working with oranges :).
this time, i tried an orange mousse -- trying to simplify the rather complex way its usually done. I didn't use any eggs at all, I think that does work.
I beat half a cup of whipping cream (now available from anchor, 125 ml@Rs. 160, which I think is very good value), and folded in 1/4 cup of orange cordial, 1/8 cup (that 30 ml, very little) of Grand Mainer, which has been added to the kitchen cabinet following a suggestion of Deshan's (hey, thanks!), and a teaspoon of gelatin, dissolved in two tablespoons of water. Yes that was it.



At the bottom of the serving glass, (I picked small cognac glasses -- but shot glasses might have better), I added more of the cordial/liquor mixture, and fresh pieces of orange, sliced up thin. Spooned in the beaten cream. Garnished the top with more fresh orange, and refrigerated it.

The mousse held up with out egg, I thought -- so that was fine, but the cream layer was too deep for my taste; it should be shallower, with another layer on top. But working through the very lightly flavored, and lightly textured cream was a pleasure, to reach the sharp, sweet liqour bellow.

I shall try this again, some time, I hope. Adding blanched peel, which I have described elsewhere would be great, I think.

Fish and Tomato Nosauce

This is a dish in progress again. That’s a lot of stuff in progress, but it doesn’t mean its all heading for a big hurrah. Ha, ha.

Well there the main experimental part of this dish is to try to use mousses to transform/supliment flavors that we Sri Lankans, know well – so that they are recalled but not repeated in a dish. Is that a mouthful? Hopefully it’s a tasty one.

When I was a child, growing up in Colombo, we always had issahara kame (dinner eaten in the front of the house/ anglicized food) for dinner (which I guess is/was kind of common, among the middle classes) – and my sister and I would always fight over the tomato sauce. It was MD, cos that was the only one there was, I think, and you had to jam the bottle top in the door, tighten carefully, just in case you crushed the neck, holding the bottle with a kitchen towel before you got it open, and then of course, it would not want to pour out, until it was beaten soundly on its hard glass bottom, for a long time. But it was good, and we would finish our ration of a bottle a week, our mother had us on – well, for she said, its not really food, and you shouldn’t have too much of it – some times by mid week. Oh! Well, I dunno about every one else, I still love tomato sauce. Now that MD just a brand, and there are tons more, they have a ‘traditional’ line. Which is the old fashioned stuff, for people like me, who were raised in the tasty cusp of colonialism and socialism.

In this dish, which like I said before, is part of an effort to recall taste with out repeating it (Why? Why not just repeat? Well, for some thing different, is all!) I use tomato mousse to replace MD tomato sauce. The main dish is grilled seer, with garlic and olive oil, with a sweet sour tomato onion garish, with a side of pickled cumber. That much is straightforward, the tomato mousse is new. I have been working through mousses recently, with straightforward ones in the bag now. But my tomato mouse is complicate cos its got invoke the right taste, with out well, mirroring it. I opted to use tomato paste (that’s very pure, usually, taste wise, just tomatoes and salt) and chili pieces, almost in a 2:1 ratio, but it could have been hotter. I also added ½ teaspoon of geletine to ½ tablespoon of hotwater mixed well, into the paste. It was fine, taste wise, folded into cream that already sweetened (I couldn’t get the other one), but the graininess was annoying. Next time, I will try it with chili power and finally, break down and simply use a sauce.

The rest of the dish was simple; I will post a how-to on the grilled fish stuff later.

PS: In the evening, I re did the tomato mousse; with some left over sauce, tomato paste and chili powder. about a 1/3 each, and added a little less cream, about another 1/3 may be little more. Kept the geletine at the same level. It was stunning, absolutely stunning.

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.