Sushi?

I don’t know why, but when I first read the recipe for chocolate ribbons in Bakewise the first thought my mind went to was “you could use that to make dessert suishi.” And so I set out to try it. This “sushi” is composed of malleable chocolate, rolled around a filling of coconut rice, mangos, pineapple, and kiwi. I topped it off with mango “caviar” in an attempt to complete the tromp l’oie effect. I have to say, making this was a whole lot of work. I’d never made malleable chocolate before, but it is not the easiest thing to use, specifically rolling it out is challenging, expect to get a good work out. I did think this tasted really good, when you first bite in the fruit and rice hit your mouth, followed by the taste of the chocolate. The recipe here is largely a guide, as these could be filled with almost anything, and a pretty wide variety of fruits would be good. I have cut the recipe for coconut rice in half from what I used, as it made way more than I needed. I would also recommend adding some flaked, sweetened coconut to the rice after it is cooked (or maybe just some coconut extract), as I didn’t think the coconut flavor came through as much as I’d like.

Making the mango caviar was my first experiment with “spherification” – turning liquids into spheres. I used agar agar for this spherification, rather than the more complicated chemicals used for dishes like liquid ravioli. This method has the disadvantage of turning the spheres into solid gel all the way through, but the advantage of using an ingredient that can be found in most health food stores and Asian markets, and doesn’t cost an absurd amount. I have read a number of recipes on this technique, and I’m not sure if you’re supposed to bring the agar agar mixture to a boil or not, I did. One recipe also said to blitz the mixture with an immersion blender, which I didn’t bother with. This was a mistake, as many of the agar agar flakes didn’t dissolve, resulting a weaker gel, and the occasional chunk of agar agar. I will definitely experiment with this technique again. I didn’t bother using a hypodermic needle to make my spheres, I just dripped the juice from a measuring cup. I also tried using a pastry bag, but attempts so squeeze near boiling liquid did not go well.

Coconut Sticky Rice

2 t flavorless oil (canola, vegetable)

1 cup Thai jasmine Rice

1 cup coconut milk

¾ cup water 

¼ tsp salt

1 T brown sugar

1. Use a paper towel to oil the bottom of a medium pot. Combine all ingredients in the pot over medium high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, making sure to scrape the bottom.

2. Once the mixture begins to bubble, stop stirring, turn heat down to low, and cover the pot with a lid. Leave the lid slightly askew so that some steam can escape. Cook 15-20 minutes, until rice has absorbed all of the liquid.

3. Turn off the heat, but leave the pot on the burner and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

4. Remove the rice from the heat, and let cool COMPLETELY. If you want to use the rice soon, you might spread it in a baking pan or put it into the fridge or freezer. It is imperative that the rice be cold when you put it into the sushi, otherwise it will melt through your carefully rolled sushi, and cursing will ensue!

 

Mango Caviar

1 cup mango juice

1 T agar agar flakes* 

1-2 cups very cold (preferably from the freezer), neutral oil (such as vegetable or canola)

*I used flakes, because that is what my store had. The package had the 1 to 1 ratio on it, if you have a different form of agar (such as powder) check your packaging for the appropriate ratio. Otherwise, I have read that you want between 1-2% weight of agar to liquid. A cup of juice should take about 2.5 grams of agar.

1. Pour the cold oil into a shallow dish. You want breadth, not depth, you probably need less than an inch of depth.

2. Combine the mango juice and the agar argar. Blitz the mixture with an immersion blender to break up the agar agar. Put the mixture into a small saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a heavy boil.

3. Pour the mixture into a spouted measuring cup. Drip the mixture into the cold oil. You should see your droplets settle on the surface, then sink and turn into spheres after a few moments. How much you drip will determine the size of your spheres.

4. Make as many spheres as you want. Pour the remaining mango mixture into a ramekin and place in the fridge to set as a nice mango jelly. Use a fork to test if your spheres have set (they should be solid and resist the fork. If they haven’t set, place the pan into the freezer for a few minutes.

The caviar may look flat from the top, but from the side you can see they're really spheres

5. Pour the oil and mango caviar through a fine mesh strainer. Rinse the mango caviar with slow running, cold water, to clean off the remaining oil. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Malleable Chocolate Sushi wrappers

This may make more than you need, I only made one “roll” of sushi so I had a lot leftover

10 oz. semisweet chocolate

1/3 cup + ½ tsp light corn syrup (Bakewise recommends pouring this from a measuring cup that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, so that all of it will come out easily. I scraped it out with a spatula)

1. Melt the chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat. Once the chocolate is melted and smooth, remove from heat.

2. Quickly stir in the corn syrup into the chocolate. At this point you will have a wet, sticky mess. Use your spatula to continuously turn the mixture and fold it over on itself. As the mixture cools and you work it, it will begin to form a dough. Eventually the dough will pull away from the sides, and will no longer be sticky when you touch it (this may take awhile, I would guess it took me ten minutes).

3. Dump the dough onto a clean counter. Flatten the dough out, and fold it over on itself three times. Press it together, flatten it out, and fold it over again. Do this several times. When complete press the dough into about a 6 inch disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

4. This is the challenging part. Remove the dough from the fridge. It will be incredibly hard. Put the dough between two pieces of wax paper and begin rolling it out. Bakewise suggests that if the dough is too hard you should give it 10 seconds in the microwave at 30% power, but I didn’t try this. Once you have the dough rolled out, fold it over on itself, and roll it out again. Keep doing this until the dough begins to become reasonably flexible.

5. Bakewise recommends putting the dough through a pasta maker on its widest setting at this point, which turns out to be a remarkably good idea. Just make sure the pasta maker is completely clean, as the chocolate will pick up any dirt in it. Take about a quarter of the chocolate, and run it through the machine. Fold it back on itself, and run it through again. Do this until the chocolate is very flexible. Unfortunately, for a sushi shape, you cannot use the pasta maker, and will need to return to rolling out the chocolate by hand.

6. On a piece of wax paper, roll out your chocolate. It should be considerably easier to work at this point. However, because any flour or powdered sugar will discolor the chocolate, I didn’t use it. Instead, after every roll or two, pick up the parchment paper, and flip the rolled out chocolate onto your hand, (treat it like a pizza dough, and be careful not to let it fold over on itself), and then flip it back onto the wax paper. This will help the keep from getting the chocolate stuck to the paper. Roll the chocolate into roughly a rectangular shape, and use a pizza cutter to trim off any edges. You will not be able to make the chocolate as thin as seaweed, and wouldn’t want to, but try to aim for 4-5 mm at most. Once the chocolate is rolled out, let it rest for at least 5 minutes before using it to make the sushi (I found this made the chocolate a little less prone to breaking when rolled, good time to get the next piece of chocolate ready.

 

Chocolate sushi

Chocolate sushi “wrappers” (above) 

Cold Coconut rice (Must be completely cooled)  

Thinly sliced sticks of mango, pineapple, and kiwi (or whatever fruit you would prefer)  

Mango caviar 

1. Place a chocolate sushi wrapper on a piece of wax paper, oriented so that the longer direction is perpendicular to you (the photos are not oriented this way) 

2. Spread about ½ cup of rice on the chocolate wrapper, spreading the rice all the way to the edge nearest you leaving about an inch at the far end uncovered. 

3. Place the fruit in a line, about an inch from the nearest edge. 

4. Using the wax paper to help, lift the near end of the sushi, and begin to roll it over on itself. Roll it all the way over, trying to keep the roll tight. Press the chocolate together to seal the roll.

5. Immediately transfer the roll to a plate (be careful to support it under the center when moving), and place in the fridge for 5 minutes to let the chocolate firm up. 

6. When ready to cut, take a very sharp, serrated knife, and run it under hot water. Quickly dry the knife, and use it to slice  the roll into individual sushi. Top each piece of sushi with some mango caviar and serve.

Mango Cream Puffs

This recipe is in a different league from the pastry cream I made last week. The mango pulp gives it a strong mango flavor, which is accented by the cardamom and saffron. It also made much softer custard than the pastry cream I made last week. One thing that’s great about this stuff is that it’s so versatile. I’ve chosen to use it here in almond cream puffs, but you could just as easily use the custard to fill a tart, make éclairs, or do what I did in the bonus recipe at the end of this post.

Mango Pastry Cream (Crème Patisserie)

Makes a lot, but it has many uses

2 ½ cups Alphonso Mango Pulp*
6 large egg yolks
1 ½ cups of sugar divided
12 Tbs corn starch (yes 12)
1 ½ Tbs Cardamom pods, lightly crushed
.25 grams saffron powder
5 Cups milk
1 Tbs vanilla paste

1. Start by reducing the mango pulp. Put it in a medium, heavy bottomed sauce pan and bring it to a simmer. Reduce until it thickens and becomes darker in color. After reduction you should have about 2 cups. Set aside. Note that while this is reducing, the stuff simmers sort of like a mud pit and throws mango pulp everywhere. Either keep a lid on your pot or be prepared to clean mango glue off your oven.

2. Mix the eggs with ¾ of a cup of sugar. Whisk thoroughly to combine. Add the corn starch 1 Tbs at a time. I added it all at once with the sugar, and ended up with egg jelly. This was remedied with an electric mixer, but if you do it 1 Tbs at a time, you might avoid the problem all together. Once everything is mixed, set it aside.

3. Place the cardamom pods in the bottom of a medium, heavy bottomed sauce pan, over medium-high heat, and cook until the pods just begin to brown. Add the milk, the remaining sugar, the saffron, and the vanilla paste. Bring the mixture to a boil, mixing and scraping the bottom of the pot constantly (otherwise the vanilla beans will all get stuck).

4. As soon as the milk mixture begins to boil remove it from the heat. As soon as it has stopped boiling, pour about ¼ of the milk into the eggs, whisking constantly. Then pour the rest of the milk mixture and the eggs into a new pot (this keeps it from thickening too fast). Put the mixture on a burner set to medium heat.

5. Whish the mixture constantly. It will quickly thicken. Keep mixing until the mix begins to bubble. Remove from heat.

6. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and discard all of the solids. Working quickly fold in the reduced mango pulp. Once thoroughly mixed, place plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the custard, and put in the fridge to set for several hours.

*Alphonso Mango Pulp can be found sold in cans at Indian Grocery Stores. It can also be bought here. I used the brand Ratna, which I've heard is supposed to be the best, but I have no corroboration of that.

Almond Pate au Choux

Makes ~45

1 cup water
6 Tbs unsalted butter (3/4 stick)
1 Tbs sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1 tsp almond extract
4 or 5 eggs
Slivered Almonds (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Put butter, sugar, water and salt in a heavy bottomed sauce pan. Bring the mixture to a full boil.

2. Add the flour to the mixture. Immediately remove from heat and mix. Put back on heat and continue mixing until the dough pulls into a ball. And begins to steam.

3. Put the ball in a bowl and let cool for a few minutes. Once the ball of dough has begun to cool, add the eggs one at a time, beating in thoroughly with an electric mixer. The mixture should have the consistency of a thick mayonnaise. If the mixture is too dry, add the fifth egg (I didn’t need to, this is just what other recipes suggested)

4. Using a large, circular piping tip, pipe the dough onto parchment lined baking sheet. Pipe out mounds that are between 1 and 2 Tbs in size, and put them about 2 inches apart on the sheets. Top each bit of dough with a few slivered almonds

5. Bake for 10 minutes at 425. Then rotate the baking sheets and swap the ones on the upper rack for those on the lower rack, reduce the oven temperature to 350 and bake for another 10 minutes, or until puffed and golden. Cut a puff open, it should be hollow and dry inside.

6. These are best served when still puffed and fresh. However, they can be stored in an airtight container, and can be re-crisped by putting them back in the oven at 350 for about 5 minutes.

Assembly

1 mango*
Custard
Choux

1. Cut up the mango into thin strips. To do this I peeled the mango with a peeler, then used a cheese slicer / spatula to make thin strips of mango. For the most part it worked surprisingly well.

2. Cut a cream puff in half, put a spoonful of mango custard into the puff, and top with a slice of fresh mango, then put the top of the puff back on.

*Update: I went back to my Kroger, I think it was an Ataulfo mango, still not 100% sure though. I used an unusual kind of mango I found at my Kroger. The sticker on the mango says “Estrellita” but that doesn’t actually appear to be a type of mango. Whatever kind of mango it was, it had an unusual tartness that was vaguely citrusy, sort of like passion fruit. The skin of the mango was yellow with green, unlike the red and green of mangos I’m used to seeing. The tartness contrasted really well with the sweetness of the mango custard, and I highly recommend it. If anyone knows what kind of mango it might have been, I would appreciate the input.

This recipe is a bonus. I made a whole lot of the mango pastry cream because I knew I could do lot of things with it. I didn’t want to use up a lot of my custard, since I was serving most of it to friends, but this soufflé was a quick way to do something interesting with it. I like my soufflés to be mousse-y in the middle, and so that’s what this makes. If you want something with a more cake feel, you might try adding a little flour to the mix, but I can’t vouch for that. I also never get perfect rise out of my soufflés, fortunately it doesn’t matter, because they taste just as good any way.

Mango Soufflé

Makes 1 soufflé

½ cup mango pastry cream
1 egg white
2 tsp sugar, divided
Butter for lining ramekin.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter the inside of a one cup ramekin. Pour in one tsp of sugar and swirl so the sugar coats the inside of the ramekin. Dump the excess.

2. Using an electric mixer on high begin beating the egg white. Once it gets foamy, add the remaining tsp of sugar. Continue beating until the egg whites reach stiff peaks

3. Whisk ¼ of the egg white into the custard until it is smooth. Fold the remaining egg white into the custard until just combined and there are no more streaks.

4. Level the top of the soufflé. Run the tip of a knife along the edge of the soufflé to aid rising. (Supposedly at this point a soufflé can be covered in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for up to a day, I’ve never tried though). Place ramekin on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes.

5. Eat as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Cardamom Mango Custard

Update: For the Mango-Custard that ended up much more mango-y, try here

I call this cardamom-mango custard because the cardamom ended up being the dominant flavor. The mango nectar I used for mango flavoring wasn’t strong enough to become the dominant taste without making the custard too runny. It still tasted good, but wasn’t quite what I was looking for. This was also my first time trying to make a pastry cream, and it didn’t go exactly as other recipes said it should. When I mixed my tempered eggs back into the milk mixture, the custard solidified within 30 seconds or so. It wasn’t even possible to let it boil for a minute or so. I have a feeling what happened is that while I was tempering the eggs, the pot got too hot. The result wasn’t at all ruinous, and it actually thinned out nicely once the mango nectar was added. All in all this was quite tasty, with lots of subtle flavoring, but just wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I’m going to try again next weekend with some tweaks in the recipe and a more strongly flavored source of mango.

Cardamom-Mango Custard (pastry cream)

Makes ~ 4 ½ cups

4 Tbs cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 package saffron powder (.125 grams)
1 Tbs vanilla paste
3 cups milk
8 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
6 Tbs corn starch
1 cup mango nectar

1. In a medium bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until smooth. Beat in the corn starch. Set aside.

2. Place the crushed cardamom pods in a heavy bottomed sauce pan (DO NOT USE A GLASS OR PYREX SAUCE PAN/POT, YOU WILL BLOW IT UP, TRUST ME) over medium high heat. Cook until the pods are starting to brown. Add the milk, be careful, the milk will start by foaming when it first hits the pan.

3. Add the saffron and the vanilla extract and stir to combine. Heat the mixture until it is just below a boil, and then remove it from the heat.

4. Temper your eggs by pouring about a third of the hot milk mixture into the eggs. Pour the milk in a thin stream and whisk the eggs constantly. Once thoroughly mixed, add the mixture back into the pit with the remaining milk, and put it back over the heat.

5. Stir the mixture constantly, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan. The mixture will quickly begin to thicken. Continue stirring until the entire mixture is thick.

6. Strain the mixture over a large bowl. It might be thick enough that you have to force it through the strainer with your spatula.

7. Fold in the mango juice. The custard should thin considerably. Pour into your serving dishes (glasses or bowls), and place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard, this prevents a film from forming.

8. Refrigerate for several hours, until ready to serve.

As an added experiment, I took most of the custard I had and ran it through an ice cream machine I borrowed from a friend. The result wasn’t bad, but because of the lack of cream (the recipe uses milk instead), it wasn’t quite as rich as ice cream is. I think it was better as a custard instead.

Tropical Fruit Squares

The weather is starting to warm up in Virginia, and so I decided I wanted to make something summery. The result was these tropical fruit bars, which I thought turned out pretty well. I made mango, pineapple, and coconut bars. The recipe I used is based on a recipe for lemon bars I got from Joy of Baking. I found that the topping for these took forever to set, but then realized that I had neglected to put the flour in. It didn’t seem to matter though, as the bars ended up tasting great.

The recipe as I’ve written it here is enough to make one 8x8 pan of bars. If you want to make all three flavors, triple the recipe.

Tropical Fruit Bars

Makes 1 8x8 pan

½ cup (1 stick) Butter, room tempurature
¼ cup powdered sugar + more for dusting
1 cup + 2 Tbs all purpose flour (divided)
1/8 tsp salt

1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup fruit juice (pineapple or mango juice, or coconut milk)
1/3 cup shredded coconut (for coconut bars only, optional)
Food coloring (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8x8 baking pan, or use cooking spray. In a medium bowl cream together the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Add 1 cup of flour and the salt and beat until dough just comes together. Press the dough into the bottom of your greased pan. Bake the crust for 20 minutes, or until it is just beginning to brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on cooling racks

2. While the crust is baking, beat together the eggs and sugar until smooth. Add the fruit juice and stir to combine, then fold in the two remaining tablespoons of flour. If making coconut bars, fold in the coconut. I also used a drop of yellow food coloring in the pineapple bars, and a drop of yellow and a drop of red in the mango.

3. Once the crust is cool, pour the topping over the crust, and put back in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes or until the topping has set (doesn’t jiggle when you shake the pan).

4. Dust lightly with powdered sugar. Cut into bars and enjoy.