Pierre Herme

[Patrice]

In the new french Saveur magazine there's an interesting story about Hermé and his wife, who receives guest to lunch: os à la moelle with caviar, macaroni with truffles and carrots and oranges salad with cardamom ice cream!!!

[Margaret Pilgrim]

 In the new french Saveur magazine there's an interesting story about Hermé and his wife, who receives guest to lunch: os à la moelle with caviar, macaroni with truffles and carrots and oranges salad with cardamom ice cream!!!

Patrice, I am interested in knowing about the dessert you describe.  Where is the comma? I am hoping that you are suggesting carrots and organges salad with cardamom ice cream.  That'sinteresting.  

Pilgrim

[Patrice]

Yes Margaret, it's a carrots and oranges salad with cardamom ice cream.  He serve the dessert in a Martini glass.  The carrots are cooked in a cinnamon sirup.  This desserts, like others from Hermé can be taste at Korova, where his wife also serves as consultant for the main menu.

[Bux]

Interesting point. I had already assumed dessert was carrots and oranges with the cardomom ice cream. Maybe that's because I had a dessert with carrots that Patrice made last week. At any rate, carrots seemed a perfectly logical dessert ingredient after Patrice's successful use. Come to think of it, Philippe Conticini prepared a dessert with carrots at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris last fall and that was also quite successful.

One of the simplest successful uses of a vegetable for dessert was a piece of fennel stalk poached in syrup and served with home made vanilla ice cream. That was at Eric Frechon some years back in Paris. He's chef at the Bristol now.

[cabrales]

I sampled the Tourte d'artichauts et legumes confits, sorbet aux amandes ameres (Artichoke torte and confit vegetables, bitter almond sorbet) at Grand Vefour. An excellent dessert, consisting of three components. First, a torte combining slightly sweet artichoke with a creme brulee like material on an unusual bottom piece. Second, confit cross-sections of celery that had candied elements and offered a refreshing taste. Finally, an appealing almond sorbet.  

Have members sampled a vegetable-based dessert at Guerard Besson (sic)?  I vaguely recollect description of it, although I have not dined at the restaurant.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

From Bux:

One of the simplest successful uses of a vegetable for dessert was a piece of fennel stalk poached in

syrup and served with home made vanilla ice cream. That was at Eric Frechon some years back in Paris.  He's chef at the Bristol now.

In the same general time period as Frechon's eponymous restaurant, we enjoyed fennel confit (fennel stalks poached in a syrup containing whole star anise, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, black peppercorns) served with a very tart citron sorbet, showered with basil chiffonade.  It was a wonderful combination, and visually delightful with all of the "woody" whole spices and brilliant basil.  This was at Clos du Gourmets on Avenue Rapp.  

Another veggie dessert I liked a lot was La Bamboche's mille-feuille with a sweet tomato filling as well as creme layer, again visually stunning as well as delicious.

[Patrice]

What do you think of Passard's famous Tomate Confite aux Douze Saveurs?

[cabrales]

Patrice -- While that is a revelatory dessert, it was not included because a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. See "Chef of the Century" under "General".

[cabrales]

There is a new type of Pierre Herme desserts called "Les Emotions", which are presented in a clear glass container about the length of one's thumb. (The containers are kept by the customer, even with take-out purchases.) The three flavors (euros 7.80 each) are:

(1) "Depayse" (haricots rouges assaisonnes au gingembre et cirton vert, creme au the vert, pamplemousse au miel citronee) ("Disoriented" -- Red bean seasoned with ginger and green lemon; green tea cream; grapefruit with a lemon honey) -- An appealing creation. The red beans at the bottom of the glass, whose inclusion may have been inspired by their use in Japanese desserts but feel so "French", are tied together with a little bit of jus (unclear source) and with the transmuted, strangely and wonderfully pronounced flavor of green lemon.  The ginger was suppressed, and aided the green lemon. Then, a thin layer of a cake-like material with a sweet aftertaste. Above that, a fatter layer of white grapefruit sections, which added nice acidity despite their combination with the sugar elements of element. Another thin layer of the same cake-like material. For me, the best part of the dessert was the luscious green tea cream forming the top layer. Overall, interesting and a complex combination that worked. Note I do not generally like complex cuisine, but this dessert worked.

It also contained humor (at least to me) because of the utilization of many ingredients common to Japanese desserts, but in a manner that was distinctly non-Japanese.  (Note Herme sold patisseries in Japan even before his first Paris patisserie shop.)

(2) "Etonne" (biscuit et tuile a la noix de coco, gelee de fruits exotiques et epices, ananas, kiwi, fraises, groseilles, mangue, creme de noix de coco) ("Surprised" -- Thin biscuit of coconut; gelee of exotic fruits and spices; pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, currants, mango and cream of coconut) -- Not sampled.

(3) "Exalte" (gelee de tomate, fraises au citron confit au sucre et au sel, creme a l'huile d'olive et vanille) ("Excited" -- gelee of tomatoes, strawberries with confit lemon and sugar and salt, cream of olive oil and vanilla) -- The two thin layers of cake-like material again separated three principal other ingredients. On the bottom, a tomato gelee that was very expressive of crushed tomatoes and that was not sweetened except for the natural juices of the tomatoes. It was attractive to me that Herme had not found it necesary to modify the taste of the tomatoes. The middle section consisted of the strawberries -- the sugar and salt additions were relatively subtle. The salt was not noticeable, except that it muted the strawberry taste in a nice way.  Finally, the cream of olive oil and vanilla was almost like regular vanilla-flavored cream. On top of the glass, as decoration was a half strawberry and a beautiful piece of dried tomato skin.  This dessert was nice, but, apart from the tomato layer at the bottom, resembled many strawberry desserts I have sampled.  Nonetheless, the tomato and strawberry combination worked well, with the tomatoes adding very muted saltiness/sweetness, as well as juiciness (from the interior sections and the seeds).

I finished my sampling with a single macaron of caramel and fleur de sel. I liked it as much as I remembered.

[Steve Klc]

Let's not disallow Patrice's inclusion of the tomato here: while being a fruit, it is commonly perceived, albeit erroneously, as a vegetable and is similarly strange and uncommon a dessert ingredient as anything else mentioned, like carrots and fennel, for instance.

Since this thread morphs from Herme chocolate to desserts of others, and we include an example of Herme's use of tomato, all should feel free to weigh in about the Passard tomato in this context.

[magnolia]

I liked Passard's dessert - I thought it was light and refreshing and unusual.

But I am almost certain the reason it is so famous is down to the presentation - and the amount of flourish and tableside work involved is really disproportionate to the 'pay-off'.

By way of comparison, the cappucino'd egg that he serves in its shell - prepared in the kitchen - is far more complex and involved a dish - and it shows (I've seen the recipe and it would make me tear my hair out)...whereas the tomato is basically a roasted tomato poached in orange juice and a bunch of spices.

On a related note, I was turned on to savoury ice creams after having olive oil ice cream at La Trouvaille with the UK egullet gang. I have tried making it at home myself, and it tastes good on the same day, it doesn't freeze well (I guess unsurprisingly, the olive oil separates from the custard when the two get too cold). Anyone have suggestions for savoury ice creams they have made themselves?

And...on a separate note, I always thought a citron vert was a lime; is a green lemon something different?

[Steve Klc]

Magnolia-- with respect to the olive oil ice cream issue--it depends on the recipe--some can be stored for a few days just fine with proper use of stabilizers or emulsifiers or a base of fromage blanc.  You just have to a) have a really cold freezer and b) understand how to use stabilizers.  (Many professionals do not.) The best olive oil ice creams and sorbets, though, based on Adria's and Conticini's recipes, are spun a la minute in a Pacojet--which you can't duplicate at home, unfortunately, without the Pacojet.  So if you have $3,000 (US) lying around and get a Pacojet, you're all set.

[Patrice]

Cabrales: I included Passard's dessert, because I think that even if tomato is a fruit, it more often use in non-dessert preparation as a vegetable.  I think Maximin was one of the first chef to use vegetable and, also tomatoes... in desserts.  Passard was the one who really popularized it. These day, vegetables in desserts are becoming more and more popular.

Personnaly, I found Passard's dessert quite interesting. But, Magnolia is right, I don't think, all this tableside work is necessary.

Magnolia- Passard alsob makes a savory mustard ice cream that he serves with a gaspacho!

You are also right with your olive oil ice cream. When you use an important amount of fat in an ice cream ( peanut butter, oil, cheese) you can have some problems, the fat often solidify before the others components of the ice cream.

[Patrice]

With a Pacojet, Conticini's recipe works very well. I used it in a five servive special olive oil tasting menu at the restaurant.

[Steve Klc]

Thanks Patrice--something else that can be problematic are white chocolate ice creams--due to the fat content. It's not an easy ice cream to do well.

[cabrales]

Ouff -- Visited the Korova shop of Pierre Herme after lunch, because I wanted to. I tried the "Tarte fraise aux loukoums" (strawberry tart with loukoums?)  (pate sablee, creme au citron vert et basilic, fraises et morceaux de loukoums a l'eau de rose et legere croute de sucre; selon la saison, cette tarte est decline avec des framboises) (pate sablee, cream of green lemon and basil, strawberies and pieces of loukoums? with a rose water an a light sugar crust; according to the season, this tart can include rasberries).

An appealing patisserie item as well. Sitting inside the tart was some custard-like cream, on top of which were placed halves of small strawberries, overlapping each other in a ring. Inside the ring were three pieces of rectangular gelee of loukoums (?), which had a certain resin-like taste and are difficult to describe (the gelee was relatively dense).  Then, a very thin baby-to-medium pink disc of sugar, on top of which were a half-strawberry and another gelee of loukoums. I liked this item as well. Note I dislike dark chocolate desserts, and thus have a tendency to like egg- or fruit-based desserts.

Together with the Les Emotions glass items previously described, this and something called C Bon make up the Spring-Summer Collection 2002 of Pierre Herme. Here's the official description of the C Bon (indicated to be available only from June to August) -- biscuit 'financier

', creme aux abricots, peches poelees, groseilles ('Financier' biscuit, apricot cream, pan-fried peaches, currants).  

As for the previously-mentioned tomato dessert, I personally choose not to discuss it in the context of vegetable desserts because one of the main points behind the utilization of the tomato was to highlight that it is a fruit and not a vegetable. Of course, as Steve Klc mentioned, others might be interested in a discussion of it in this context.

[cabrales]

I forgot to mention that one of the team members at Korova indicated Pierre Herme is Alsatian. I saw the Kugelhopf Brioche-like item that I had seen in Strasbourg at Herme's, and asked the question as a result.

[Bux]

I would think that the inclusion or absence of sugar would affect the texture of ice creams and other frozen fat preparations.

I was at Arpege much earlier and not as adventurous as I have been since dining at El Bulli. I passed on the tomato dessert, but had the avocado souffle for dessert. As I recall it was baked in the shell of half an avocado. It was very nice, but when it arrived, I thought I should have gone for the tomato. It may well have been the lack of tableside fuss that entered my mind at the time.

Since this thread morphs from Herme chocolate to desserts of others, and we include an example of Herme's use of tomato, all should feel free to weigh in about the Passard tomato in this context.

I am inclined to agree that these threads should maintain the vigor of a really dynamic conversation without enforced structure, but I hope we get our search engine back in working order soon.  

tied together with a little bit of jus (unclear source)

I am reminded that it in the not so distant past when I knew less about food than I do now, I was often quite able to deconstruct a dish. Nowadays, I'm likely to find unfamilar ingredients as well as familiar ingredients used in a way that renders them unrecognizable. Pierre Herme's "Les Emotions" sound incredible. Cabrales, I am indebted for your report and the descriptions. In speaking of the glass container, what do you mean by "about the length of one's thumb?" Is that height or direction parallel to the table and what is the shape of the glass? Is it a cylinder like a drinking glass?

[Patrice]

Thank Cabrales for this report of Hermé's dessert.  I'm really a Hermé's fan, but I don't have the chance to taste his work very often.  

Loukoums are from Orient, they are kind of jelly ( a little bit like pâte de fruit) flavoured with rose water, nuts, vanilla.

[Steve Klc]

Respectfully cabrales, how is that different from a chef choosing to candy, poach or sweeten any strict vegetable but use them in a dessert application? why the construct?  surely it's an artificial one at best.

there are ingredients, combinations of ingredients, combinations of combinations of ingredients, and all can be combined, cooked, stacked, arranged, highlighted--or not--at the whim of a chef or pastry chef.  why, for you, does a stated or inferred intent behind a creation mitigate how the experience of that dish is perceived or discussed?

aren't the real issues a) the merging and commingling of ingredients not commonly or historically used in a dessert application and or b) the possible surprise, unity and flow such use of savory ingredients--be they vegetable or fruit--provides to an overall experience?

when Conticini cooks his "carrots and coriander" for his justly celebrated Yablock dessert he is highlighting the inherent fruitiness and sweetness of the carrots--would you exclude that as well?  To my way of thinking, what purpose would that serve except clouding an important analysis?

does final form play a role in your decision--whereas Passard's tomato retains a form and Conticini's carrots are julienned and but one component of a larger, complex constructed dish? if Passard's tomato was prepared with the same intent and treatment--but then chopped up and used as a salad layer in a larger constructed dessert or in Margaret's mille feuille example--would that be ok to include?

(A larger issue is "What does it matter what a chef says?" The final assessment and appreciation of any dish doesn't actually have to rely on this at all.  The proof is on the plate or in the glass.  It works or it doesn't.  Going deeper to stated intent can help clarify--but cabrales, how does your use of this intent clarify? I say this with all seriousness and respect--because how you analyze is important and interesting to me--why keep the Passard tomato separate? Here, I can't help but feel you're compartmentalizing for no good or valid reason. A tomato is only a fruit botanically.)  

For instance--to my way of thinking chefs and pastry chefs using pumpkin, squash, flower blossoms, rose hips, all those strange fruits and vegetables Charlie Trotter uses to trick up the significance of his books, weird melons, avocados, plaintains--are using seemingly strange ingredients in interesting and uncharacteristic ways just as in the examples we've already discussed.   Peppercorns would actually be "fruit" if we stick rigidly to classification.  Maybe I'm being too global and inclusive, I don't know.

I'm still interested how some of these desserts work after a meal at Korova rather than tasted in isolation there.  Pastry shop pastries are one thing, restaurant-style desserts and pastries another. Like Bux, I'm very grateful to you and interested in your details of presentation cabrales--I'm getting the sense Herme is aiming to regain a bit of media attention and playing a little "catch up" to Conticini in a few areas.

[cabrales]

Ispeaking of the glass container, what do you mean by "about the length of one's thumb?" Is that height or direction parallel to the table and what is the shape of the glass? Is it a cylinder like a drinking glass?

Bux -- Apologies for the lack of clarity. The round cylindrical, "normal stubby drinking glass"-type glass container had a height that was about the length of my thumb. It was a fatty looking glass container, but not really that different from a water glass at certain establishments (and was circular in shape if one looked at it from the top).

I have secured a copy of the Herme listing of patisseries. The "Les Signatures" patissieries listed are:

(1) La cerise sur le gateau (Cherries on cake) -- biscuit dacquoise aux noisettes croquantes, praline feuilette, fines feuilles de chocolat au lait, ganache et chantilly chocolat au lait)

(2) Tarte au cafe (Coffee tart) -- pate sablee, biscuit au cafe, ganache au cafe melange PH.

(3) 200 feuilles (this is trademarked name) (2000 leaves; a play off millefeuilles, which, as members know, means 1000 leaves literally) -- pate feuilletee caramelisee, praline feuillete, creme mousseline praline

(4) Ispahan -- previously described

(5) Carrement chocolate -- previously described

(6) Tarte chocolate (Chocolate tart) -- pate scure, biscuit chocolat, ganache chocolat, nougatine au grue de cacao, poivre et fleur de sel (Note interesting use of fleur de sel and pepper in this tart, which I have not yet tasted)

(7) Montebello -- biscuit dacqoise aux pistaches, creme mousseline pistache, fraises fraiches ou framboises suivant la saison.

(8) Envie (translated, "Desire") -- biscuit dacquoise aux amandes grillees, compote de cassis, creme vanille parfumee a la violette, decor de fruits rouges (this sounds marvellous; note I have not yet tasted it)

(9) Millefeuille aux fruits rouges et menthe fraiche (Millefeuille with red fruits and fresh mint) -- pate feuilletee, compote de fruits rouges, biscuit aux amandes, creme a la menthe fraiche)

If members wish to have any (or all) of the above translated, please let me know.  

Steve Klc -- Many thanks for your thoughtful post. I'll consider your questions over the next little while.  

I sought to purchase Herme chocolates at Korova. Unlike other occasions on which I had visited, no chocolates were available today. Not much information was provided on the reasons why.

:confused:

[Bux]

Bux -- Apologies for the lack of clarity. The round cylindrical, "normal stubby drinking glass"-type glass container had a height that was about the length of my thumb. It was a fatty looking glass container, but not really that different from a water glass at certain establishments (and was circular in shape if one looked at it from the top).

I'm still interested in the height of the glass in relationship to its diameter. I guess part of this is to understand how the ingredients sit in the glass. Are they stacked as in parfait (or what I think of when I hear that word as dessert) one on top of each other or do they mingle more or less side by side? Would one be likely to taste the ingredients in series or in combination(s). I am reminded of Conticinis interest in having the eater dig down to taste everything at once, but I'm also reminded of how difficult I found it to eat Contincini's savory teasers in his degustation menu when served in tall glasses.

[Steve Klc]

Bux--I wonder if this is what gentlemen and ladies of a certain generation called a rocks glass?

[cabrales]

I'm still interested in the hieght of the glass in relationship to its diameter. I guess part of this is to understand how the ingredients sit in the glass. Are they stacked as in parfait (or what I think of when I hear that word as dessert) one on top of each other or do they mingle more or less side by side? Would one be likely to taste the ingredients in series or in combination(s). I am reminded of Conticinis interest in having the eater dig down to taste everything at once, but I'm also reminded of how difficult I found it to eat Contincini's savory teasers in his degustation menu when served in tall glasses.

Bux & Steve Klc -- The height of the glass was more than its diameter, by about 50%. The layers were quite distinct, because each of the three principal areas appeared to be separated by a thin layer of a slightly sweek cake-like item. (This cake-like item was easy to dig through, though, because it was so thin and so light). I both "dug in" towards the bottom and sampled each layer on its own. My impression is that "digging in" is at least part of the experience arguably intended?  

[Steve Klc]

Cabrales--undoubtedly "digging in" is part of the intent and how you eat a dessert part of your experience. Could you speak to the temperature of these desserts in containers? Were they served straight out of a refrigerated case--indicating that they'd been prepared in advance, possibly even off-site?  The creams you mentioned were soft, squishy, smooth or firm or gelatinous, as with a "bavarian" which contains gelatin?

You also mentioned that you usually dislike complex cuisine--and in this case you appreciated Herme's complex combinations of flavors and ingredients.  Another layer of complexity would be more contrasts of warm/cold and crunchy/crisp elements. These seem more like parfaits composed ahead of time.  For  Korova restaurant patrons--did you get the sense these creations would be assembled a la minute--and then perhaps have greater contrasts of temperature and texture?  Or are they getting the glass right out of the takeout case?