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Passion Fruit Sorbet


MikeTMD

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I spent this week experimenting with one of my favorites - passion fruit. Passion Fruit Sorbet made from fresh fruit (vs. juice, puree, frozen etc.) has an amazingly creamy texture - closer to that of ice cream, rather than slightly grainy sorbet. Let me say, though - grainy sorbet texture is often quite desirable, especially so if you are using citrus. Passion fruit is different, however.

This week I finally got my hands on "The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern"- an out-of-print book by Claudia Fleming, published by Random House in 2001. Also, my pen pal UlteriorEpicure (http://www.ulteriorepicure.wordpress.com/)provided a great input on the original taste of passion fruit sorbet served at Gramercy Tavern, as well as truly amazing pictures of the said dessert. Finally, the right wide rim plates arrived from Korin (http://www.korin.com/) - I was all set to do what I wanted to do!

Original recipe consists of Coconut Tapioca Soup, Passion Fruit Caramel, Cilantro Syrup, Passion Fruit-Pineapple Sorbet, Coconut Sorbet and Coconut Tulies.

I made my dish before the original recipe was available to me, so it was nice to see the difference in how to approach components of this extraordinary dish.

Original "Tapioca Soup" is made with small and large tapioca, cooked separately with canned coconut milk and whole milk. I used young coconut juice and pulp to make fresh coconut milk, and ended up adding half-and-half after cooking - primarily for nice, off-white, "milky" color ( coconut milk alone looked a bit too "grey" for my liking). Also, I used only small tapioca pearls (as T.Keller suggests for "Oysters and Pearls"), added fresh Mauritius Bourbon Vanilla beans pulp, and completely skipped adding extra sugar - the results were near perfect, nothing to take, nothing to give.

Passion Fruit Caramel was a secondary taste to me. Original recipe is made with light corn syrup and butter - I used glucose and sugar, and made just enough to brush the tulies.

Speaking about tulies - Claudia Fleming suggests coconut tulies in her book. I did not know that, so mine were made without coconut. Aforementioned caramel seem to be enough to create a different layer of taste, however.

Cilantro syrup in the original recipe is simple light corn syrup blended with blanched herbs - it seems like doing that would improve the color of the garnish. I made syrup with rock sugar, cilantro, mint and yuzu - "mono-herbal" taste was a bit too plain for my taste, but omitted blanching the herbs - regretfully, might I add. Blanching supports bright colors - and is a must, in my opinion.

The biggest difference turned out to be the major player - passion fruit sorbet. Chef Fleming uses PF juice and adds pineapple to soften the tartness of PF, as such her sorbet has uniform color and combines two tropical fruits. I am a big proponent of making PF sorbet from fresh fruit pulp, with tasteful and visually pleasing seeds - texture will still be quite homogenous, and the tartness is so clean and crisp - I see no need to soften it all. Noteworthy, fresh PF is expensive in my corners ( Midwestern US) - $2.99/pcs, so using juice or frozen PF may be a reasonable lower cost alternative.

This is what final dish looked like: close-up and table view

gallery_57905_5921_78383.jpg

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The taste of the final dish was outstanding, according to my audience - great play of flavor and textures, refreshing and not overly sweet. Well, I am pleased.

Edited by MikeTMD (log)

"It's not from my kitchen, it's from my heart"

Michael T.

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This was a passion fruit dessert I recently had.. It was wonderful.. What they did here was make an unsweetened passion fruit granita.. They then topped it with a fresh yogurt gelato and had it sitting in a white chocolate sauce...

Has anyone ever purchased a passion fruit and took a big bite into it before discovering its tartness? Its pretty eye opening.. But through the white chocolate and yogurt it gets sweetened.. The clean fruit also cuts through the richness...Also the ice and the cream mixed with the velvety white chocolate sauce.. It was a great play on textures and flavors..

2385407222_5620577885.jpg

Edited by Daniel (log)
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Very nice. Both. Fresh passion fruit is non-existent here. I can get it through our suppliers at work but have to take a much larger quantity than I can reasonably expect to use. So I have to work with puree instead. I miss those seeds sometimes though.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Very nice. Both. Fresh passion fruit is non-existent here. I can get it through our suppliers at work but have to take a much larger quantity than I can reasonably expect to use. So I have to work with puree instead. I miss those seeds sometimes though.

Well, if you get a whole box of PF ( 35-50 pcs. - I believe) - it'd be enough for about two quarts of sorbet, with seeds.

Check:

http://www.farmersmarketonline.com/WhiteDoveFarm.htm

or

http://www.melissas.com/catalog/index.cfm?...&Product_id=475

Edited by MikeTMD (log)

"It's not from my kitchen, it's from my heart"

Michael T.

***************************************

My flickr collection

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OK, I was not quite done with my PF exercises.

This dish is almost an identical copy of PF dessert served at Pierre Gagnaire's Hong Kong restaurant.

Gingersnap Shortbread, Creme Anglaise, PF sorbet, Swedish Pearl Sugar

gallery_57905_5921_7142.jpg

Great combination of flavors - will certainly make again.

"It's not from my kitchen, it's from my heart"

Michael T.

***************************************

My flickr collection

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  • 3 weeks later...

If anyone is interested, I just found that Goya sells Passion Fruit Pulp.. I found a bunch this morning at a Spanish Grocery.. I am making that granita shortly so I will tell you about the quality.

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  • 1 month later...

So, it sound like we have a lot of pro-seed folks here. Do you keep all of the seeds in or strain most of them out? I don't mind a little crunch here and there, but I prefer a mostly smooth experience. Same with kiwi, I'll strain most of the seeds out, leaving only a few for contrast.

I was just straining the seeds out of 5 liters of passion fruit puree (that's what I got after straining, probably 2 liters of seeds in there). Do you leave the seeds in because you like the crunch or b/c they are so expensive you don't want to waste any? Do you strain for some things but not for others? In Bhutan, passion fruit are super cheap, so I can afford to strain - the locals finally figured out that they can sell them to the hotels instead of just feeding them to cows, but it's still only a dollar or two per kg - one of the few delights of cooking here.

Thoughts?

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