Strawberry Tarts

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!

Chocolate Coated Meringue, with Ganache & Cream

It worked! I'm very excited. I made my own meringues. No, I would not say it is as easy as making chocolate coating -- but it worked. The main point, which I took my one failed attempt to get, is to use twice (2x) the weight of  sugar to eggwhites. I crushed the sugar in a mixer starting with regular sugar, weighed my eggs whites after separating and straining them, and then added the sugar slowly, after beating them to peaks. Bake at 120-100 C, for 80-90 mins. Make the chocolate coating as before, dip the meringues in, set aside, add some hot cream into the left over chocolate for the ganache, pour into the ramkin, place the coated meringue in, and then pour a little cream around. 10 mins in the fridge sets it all.

Its just chocolate indulgence, but the crumble of the meringue makes it special.

Please do ask if you have questions about making this at home. Or make suggestions. I did try the Kandos cooking chocolate ( as suggested in a comment)-- and I think I didn't get the really fancy one yet -- but the regular Kandos cooking, isn't really better than the Ritzbury, in my opinion.

Chocolate Coated Meringues or Kisses

Yes, I've dipped my paw in chocolate. I am so pleased! Another first for my little food blog -- since I've never made any thing chocolate before. How did that happen? Well, I've read about it, and it seemed complicated, so I left it to the experts. But its not -- well, some thing may be, but just coating some thing with a googy layer of chocolate, and then letting it set -- well, its almost easier than eating the said thing, I tell you.
The kisses in the picture are supermarket ones (Edmunds, many in a bag! all gone now (:) -- the coating is home made. To do it, you get cooking chocolate (available every where -- I used Ritzbury caterer's superfine (Rs.250 for 400g) here, but Kandos has one also) and you melt it. You can melt it in a bowl over hot water, and I you need a pyrex bowl for this -- but you are also do it the microwave, 1 min at a time 2-3 times at half power, and its melted. My. Then just dip the little critter in -- and it sets. So easy. Gives awhole another dimension of texture, soft, bitter, sweet to the soft, airy crunch of the kiss. And when it all mixes up in your mouth, the chocolate coats each granule. Marvelous.


My sense is that there will be a lot more chocolate in my halflife now.

Sorbets: Strawberry & Soursop-Passion

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.

for another sorbet recipe, see:

Wild Blackberry Sorbet With Garden Mint & Lavender

Kithul Cashewnut Creams

My half life has been quiet for some time, but not going hungry. Much has been cooked, tested and eaten. Yes paws have been tried at new dishes, new directions and techniques. All will be revealed slowly, and some teasers have been trickling through our tight security.

But here is some thing official that is new; simple and yet elegant I hope.

In my mind it is a triangulation of three deserts: a traditional French crème brule, made of refined unflavored sugar, milk and eggs, a wattalappan – that great Sri Lankan favorite of the Id, a coconut cream palm sugar flan, and then pani caju, the palm sugar peanut brittle you ate outside school as a child. If those desserts, all classics in their traditions, were three corners of a triangle, my kithul cashew cream would be at the center. Its basically cream and roasted cashew nuts in equal quantities (volume wise) blended very fine, with enough kithul haruku (palm sugar/jaggery – you can use kithul treacle also) for the right sweetness on your tongue. Don’t make it too sweet. If your religion and politics allow, please do add some old arrack. It makes it much better. But just 20 ml, to the liter. Pour this mixture into a small bowl, ramekins if you have those, and put in your fringe. Just before serving, sprinkle chopped nuts, grated jaggery, and a few drops of arrack and grill for a couple of minutes. For some reason, this tastes divine. My dinner guests have raved over this for days. I don’t know, it’s a simple thing.

May be its all triangles all the way down.

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.

Mango Panna Cotta, again!

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 and Kingston joined us for dessert

Happy New Year!

Kithul Creams: Published in Print!

The March issue of Spectrum: A Review of the Social Landscape is out; and another achcharu column is in print! This time, it is Kithul Creams, which I blogged about, a while back...

Malinda Seneviratne edits Spectrum

Lunch at Blanco's (Khan Market, Delhi)

Nivi, Adithya and their son Niru took me out to lunch at this lovely restaurant in Delhi, after the conference. Since I was all done with work as such, and it was the weekend to boot, we started with drinks. I had my favorite vodka martini, but nivi's drink looked tempting also :).


then we had appetizers.
in india, my friends never order the mains with the appetizers. they eat what comes, wait, decide if they want more appetizers, and then if they want more drinks, and then order the entree. its like my school friends here in colombo, when they have bites before dinner. but then they like to go to another place for dinner. i like the delhi system, you don't have to move, after you sit down. :)
the appetizers here were great. the asparagus and wasabi mash wraps were a subtle, yet tangy treat, and the shrimp and pork wraps (a new combo for me), with hot sweet sauce went down very well.



note to self: i should try asparagus wraps at home!



my main dish was grilled salmon, with orange sauce. it was very nice, but not as prefect at the appetizers; mainly the orange sauce being slightly too sweet, and not that citrussy. I prefer the orange reductions I've been working on, that mix sweet, citrus and bitter in a balanced way. But still it was a treat to have salmon.



Then in helpless over indulgence, I had the triple chocolate mousse for dessert. I think it hard to make softer mousse, and have them keep, but I do I prefer this. I must work on chocolate mousses, and see what I can do.




what a lovely lunch it was!

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.

Mango Orange Panna Cotta

Mango Orange Panna Cotta
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.

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.

Strawberry Ginger Creams

Strawberry Ginger Creams
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.

i've been working on different iterations of strawberries and cream. once with curd, then a straightforward mousse, another time a jelly and cream, i called a bomb, and then the ultimate layering of reduction, panna cotta and cream, which had to be called strawberry orgasm.

this one is yet a little different, because i grated fresh ginger into the reduction. boiled it way down, added a little more ginger paste, then did a bottom layer with fresh strawberry slivers, sweet vermouth (a new idea) and the reduction. then i squirted cream on top and stuffed in more fresh strawberry slivers. i needed more, didn't have enough.

its a new taste for sure. if the ginger cooks, its reminds me of what we call 'christmas cake' in sri lanka. fruity and spicy, sota, but deep in its sweetness. if the ginger doesn't boil in the reduction, its a sharper inflection.

the play between the soft comfort of the cream, and tartness of the strawberries, is of course the basis of all of this - and in this dish, its the layer that draws you in.

Dutch Pancakes

My last taste of food in Netherlands was a special delicacy, which I've had several times before. Some consider it, quintessentially dutch.

In fact, one time in Amsterdam, during an anthropology conference, I asked our hosts what typical, traditional dutch 'food' would be, and they couldn't agree. Usually, after a conference, if there are visitors involved, Dutch scholars take you to an Indonesian place -- since this was a colonial possession, its becomes the domesticated exotic, like Indian food in England. But when I insisted that Indonesian be left out -- what every one agreed in the end was that pancakes were typically Dutch! Now there are many verities of pancakes to be had, but what's very common in so many cafe, are these small round ones, served with butter and sugar. Yes, its beyond sinful.

One thing to notice about these little disks, is how thick they are. Very soft centered. They are not crepes at all; which is what we had as 'pancakes' growing up in Sri Lanka -- which is also English, I would think. Going back to the Netherlands and having pancakes made me remember again my surprise at the American variety when I first had it years ago, and realized afresh that they must have been Dutch inspired for sure. Neuiw Amsterdam; New York.

An Afternoon in Haarlem

Johannes Vermeer's The Little Street, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which is on the left, was on my mind after I had looked at it at the museum. So when I spent the afternoon of my last day in the Netherlands in Haarlem, which is 15 mins away from Amsterdam by train, and I stopped outside an ice cream palour, I remembered it. I resisted the icecreams, considered asking the girl behind the counter for a portait, decided the light was against me and then settled on this photograph of elder and younger, mother and son perhaps, eating fresh bought ices in the sun. There is perhaps some thing Dutch about this, a simple quiet street or it is just an illusion, but I enjoyed the momentary comparision between a great master's eye, and my own messing around.

Enlarge it, by clicking on it, and see it large on flickr -- there lots of interesting details.

Lunch in Amsterdam

A few days ago, I had a lovely lunch at Amsterdam restaurant made possible by a colleague here, Markha. Since I had told her I was keen on food, she went into a lot of trouble to find a place in the Netherlands ‘which takes cooking seriously,’ – as she put it. There are good restaurants here, but also, its true a lot of mediocre ones. De Kas, founded by a Michelin star chef, is an exceptional place, which grows the many vegetables and greens, used in its dishes in an in a old municipal green house, right in the city. In every dish I had there, the greens were so fresh you could smell each one, just would if you were walking in a green house. That was remarkable sensation.

We had the fixed menu, there is only one -- for lunch a least, but it did not leave one wanting more.

there were three starters -- with the roasted fennel bulb, wrapped in ham, and the succulent roasted lobster claws, with the faint bitter after taste with a fleshy sweet sour beetroot accompaniments being quite exceptional its the subtle balance of their flavors. I'm resolved to try this, wrapping and roasting, with banddakka or green beens.

The main course was baked plaice, with a saffron cream sauce that highlighted the deep, mellow taste of the carefully cooked fish.

Marinated Strawberries were central to the trifle inspired dessert, that was topped with a yoghurt ice cream.

If you've been following my blog, you know I've been a little strawberry obsessed, recently. What I got from this De Kas dessert is how well delicate strawberries took to a subtle marinate. I'm going to try that at home.
But it didn't beat what I think of as two of my specials, strawberry curd and strawberry orgasm.

Strawberry Orgasm

Her head was back, blonde hair fluttering in the breeze that swept in from the sea, high above the roads and trees, over the little dotted lights of his city, banishing the heat from the balcony and the bed room. She sat on the metal box of the air conditioner that was fixed to the concrete of the balcony; smoke drifted softly from her open mouth, and the cigarette glowed in her fingers.

Krishna walked to her, nude as she was, and pressing his thigh to her shoulder blade, his hand dropping to her hair, asked “Hungry, my dear?”

“Not any more,” she said, with an amused tangle in her voice, head turning up, cheeks creamy, touched with pink.

“I’m ravenous. I don’t think I ate much dinner.”

“Oh!? And what about the crab?” she was laughing now.

“I was so focused on showing you how to eat it right, and that I just barely ate one.” He nodded, stopping from saying more.

“So that was a demo one then?”

“The crab or the eating?” He kept his voice light, but now it was getting harder to do that.
She got up and kissed him, full and on his mouth. He tasted the arid, acid taste of used tobacco on her lips.

“I’m going to have dessert. Its in the fridge; I made it yesterday.”

“Oooh. What is it?”

“It’s a strawberry cream thing. I call it strawberry orgasm.” He’d called it that, way back when, after he had first made it after experimenting for weeks, and got it right, because he had thought it was cute at the time, and it had just rolled off the tip of his tonge, when he was cooking for friends, and laughing with them, but now he felt embarrassed as he said it.
His eyes dropped.

It was later, when she had shared his one, and scraped the delicate glass clean with the tiny spoon, that she asked with a sigh, “So how do you make that?”

He started off, glad for the simple question. “You wash your strawberries, and then slice them up really thin. Drop a forkful at the bottom of each shot glass, and then reduce about one, well one and half, cups of strawberries with a cup of vodka.”

She listened, still and quiet. Out side, the breeze dropped, and he could hear the roar of the sea, deep and strong and bitter.

“Add a little icing sugar as it thickens, and when it does, strain it, it should be very thick, but you can reduce it a little more in the micro wave…” He waved at the silver box on the black granite counter, as if to say, ‘there it is’ - like it mattered. “And when it is syrupy, add a little more vodka, mix it though and pour into the shot glasses, so that the strawberry slivers are just covered.

“You did all that? I should write this down.” Her voice trailed off.

“Yes, it’s a bit of work. Then you take the pulpy strawberry mess, that didn’t strain through, and you puree it, as fine as you can, straining it with a coarse mesh thingy again, at the end, not a fine one that is - and then I like to add cream or coconut milk, and gell it, like a panna cotta, over the vodka syrup at the bottom.”

“Wow,” she said. “Yeah, those layers are really some thing.”

“Then when its set, a few hours later – or the next day, add fresh whipped cream, and more slivers of strawberries on top.

“It was soo good!” she said, but already he wasn’t listening.

In the distance, but louder every moment, he could hear Siddha’s voice, high, lilting, lips red with strawberry syrup, saying after he had made it for her and Iqbal, of course, for the very first time,“It's tasty Krishna, but next time, you should put more sugar, no?– and don’t call it this funny name. How can I make it and tell?”

Iqbal had roared with laughter. “Just make it and tell darling!” He guffawed on, slapping Siddha’s back like she was a guy.

Excerpted from the unwritten chapter,
“Strawberries After Crab,” from my novel (in progress)
Plains Like a Calm Sea.
Publisher inquires are welcome.

Kithul Ginger Creams

A couple of weeks ago, I started working on pots of cream. That's basically 1 cup milk, sugar and 4 egg yolks and 1 white -- if you follow the classic french recipe.
( A small cream pot, has less than one egg in it, so its not that horrendous if you are on a low egg diet, really -- but it is egg yolk!)
Previously I substituted kitul treacle for sugar, and that was quite good --

but with this batch I got more ambitious. I boiled down a cup of brandy, with 2/3 cup of kitul treacle to sharpen the flavor, with lot of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced (1.5 inches of a slim root), until it was a 2/3 cup or so.
(I'm still working on these propotions, so I'm putting them down as set in cream, yet.)
Then I baked the creams, let them cool in the fridge.
Then finally I added some of kitul encrusted ginger stalks on the top, with grated kitul jaggery topping, which I grilled before serving.
The ginger stalks are chewy, the super sweet crust balanced by its sharp, slightly bitter taste, and then when your spoon dives into the cream, the ginger tastes softer in that rich, sweet, yet mellow base, recalling the initial sharpness.

I think, when I get this just right, I will consider it a small milestone.

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.

Kithul Creams

These little dishes are based on what's called 'small pots of cream' in French cooking, except of course, I used kithul treacle instead of sugar, and grated kithul jaggery as a topping, with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream to set it all off.
(recipe note: 1 cup of milk, 3 yolks, no whites, 1/3 cup of treacle, 6 mins@ 360)

its was quite good, but I'm still working on this variation.

Update: This recipe and photograph was published in print, in Spectrum: A Review of the Social Landscape, (March 2009).