Recipes
Manhattan creams with citrus caramel
Of all the magical chapters that make up Diana Henry’s wonderful book How to Eat a Peach - a combined food memoir, travelogue and cookery book, ‘Missing New York’ is the most evocative, making you immediately want to jump on a plane and spend a few days following in her footsteps.
But the subsequent menu is wonderful too, not least the ‘Manhattan creams with citrus caramel’ which she describes as ‘possibly the best pudding in the book’. (I like her use of that word rather than dessert)
Over to Diana . . .
“Oh, there are so many puddings that say ‘New York’! I struggled over the choice, juggling brownies, roast apple and bourbon ice cream, upside down pear and cranberry tarts… but in the end I settled on this. It has the flavours of a Manhattan – bourbon, sweet vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters – captured in a pannacotta. You can use oranges or blood oranges instead of grapefruit, if you prefer.
This is possibly the best pudding in the book… not counting ice creams, of course. Make it often: it’s classic, useful and able to take all sorts of different adornments. It works well with roast peaches, apricots and pears, poached plums, or caramelized slices of apples, though use orange rather than grapefruit juice for the caramel if you want to serve it with any of these fruits.
serves 4
for the cream
3 gelatine leaves (about 6g/¼oz)
150ml (5fl oz) whole milk
300ml (½ pint) double cream
80g (2¾oz) caster sugar
squeeze of lemon juice
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon
bourbon
1 tablespoon sweet white
vermouth
good dash of Angostura bitters
1 large red grapefruit
for the citrus caramel
200ml (7fl oz) pink grapefruit
juice
3 tablespoons lemon juice
100g (3½oz) caster sugar
You will need 4 metal moulds, each with a capacity of 125ml (4fl oz).
Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for about 10 minutes; they will soften. Pour the milk and cream into a heavy-based saucepan with the sugar and place over a low heat, stirring a little to help the sugar dissolve. Remove from the heat and leave to cool until hand-warm.
Lift the gelatine leaves from the water and squeeze out excess liquid. Stir into the milk and cream mixture. The mixture should not be hot: if it’s too hot it will affect the gelatine ’s setting properties; if it is too cold, on the other hand, the gelatine won’t dissolve. Add the lemon juice, bourbon, vermouth and bitters. Pour into the metal moulds and leave to cool, then set in a small roasting tin (this just makes things easier), cover with cling film and chill to set for about 4–6 hours.
For the citrus caramel, mix the grapefruit and lemon juices together. Put the sugar in a heavy-based saucepan with 5 tablespoons of water. Set over a medium heat and cook, gently tipping the pan every so often, until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat to high and cook until caramelized: you will know by the smell and colour, but be careful not to take it too far (it goes from caramelized to burnt very quickly). You need to tip the pan as the sugar caramelizes around the edges, to spread the caramelization. Quickly add the citrus juices, standing well back (the caramel will bubble and spit). Stir and boil for about 2 minutes, then remove from the heat. Leave to cool completely.
Trim the top and bottom of the grapefruit (it will now have a base on which to sit). Working from top to bottom and turning the grapefruit round as you go, remove the peel and pith (use a small sharp knife) in broad strips. Slide a small knife with a fine blade between the flesh and membrane and ease each segment out. Keep the segments as neat as possible. You should end up with 12 neat segments, 3 for each person.
To serve, dip the base of each mould into just-boiled water for a few seconds, then invert on to a plate, give the cream a shake and allow it to slip out. Spoon some of the citrus caramel around each cream and add the grapefruit segments.
What to drink: I’m honestly not sure you need a wine with this given the booze in the cream. Added to that the sweetness of the accompanying caramel will strip the flavour out of most dessert wines. A Canadian ice wine or very sweet young Trockenbeerenauslese riesling served very cold might possibly do it.
Book credit: How to Eat a Peach by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley, £25 (www.octopusbooks.co.uk)
Imagery credit: Laura Edwards
Pasta with mushrooms, kosho and toasted parmesan rind
This recipe is from a new book called Wasted by chef Conor Spacey which is published by the Irish publisher Blasta Books as part of a charmingly illustrated series of single subject books
I made a couple of changes to the ingredients and method when I road tested it but absolutely loved the recipe. (Maximumrespect to Conor for coming up with the best ever way to use parmesan rinds which is basically catnip for humans
Conor writes: It’s definitely not traditional, but I love to use kosho, a Japanese condiment (see recipe below) with pasta. Mushrooms and the crispy parmesan rind give it an extra umami boost.
CONOR SPACEY’S PASTA WITH MUSHROOMS, KOSHO & TOASTED PARMESAN RINDSERVES
20g parmesan rind
240g shop-bought fresh pasta - spaghetti is perfect for this. (I used 150g dried bucatini which was what I happened to have in the cupboard)
40g butter
a splash of rapeseed oil
160g mixed fresh mushrooms, thickly sliced
3 tsp kosho (see below)
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ handful of fresh coriander, chopped
Preheat your grill. Put the parmesan rinds on a baking tray, skin side up, and put the tray under your grill. Keep a close eye on them and wait until they start to bubble and colour, then remove them straightaway. Put them on a chopping board. Using a sharp knife, chop the rinds into small cubes.
Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions but reduce the cooking time by 2 minutes to keep it al dente. When the pasta is cooked, keep a mugful of the cooking water from the pot before straining the pasta.
Put the pot that you used to cook the pasta back on the hob on a medium heat. Add the butter and a splash of rapeseed oil. When the butter has melted, add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes, until they begin to soften. Stir in the kosho and the mugful of pasta water (I didn’t use that much - about 4 tbsp I’d guess) then add the drained pasta, stirring to make sure the pasta is all coated in the sauce.
Check the seasoning – the kosho is quite salty and spicy so I don’t add any salt throughout the cooking process, but you may like to season it to taste with salt and pepper.
To serve, divide the pasta between two wide, shallow bowls. Top with the toasted Parmesan rinds and chopped fresh coriander (I added the coriander to the mushrooms when I added the pasta)
KOSHO (see also my note below)
Kosho is a Japanese seasoning with a umami explosion. The word ‘kosho’ means ‘pepper’ in Japanese, referring to the chilli pepper it’s made with. Traditionally it’s made using yuzu, a citrus fruit found in East Asia that’s hard to get here, so I swap it out for lemons, limes or grapefruit. Once you make this and have it in your fridge, you’ll become addicted to it. Kosho is a great way to cut through the richness of many dishes, from meat to noodles and everything in between
To make kosho, halve 6 red chillies lengthways and remove the seeds. Cut them into chunks, put them in a blender or food processer and pulse until they are finely chopped. Zest the citrus fruit you need to use up (either 4 lemons, 3 oranges or 1 grapefruit) and add it to the blender or food processor. Pulse until it’s well mixed with the chillies, then add 16g flaky sea salt and pulse again until it forms a paste.
This is ready to use straightaway, but I like to put it into an airtight jar and leave it at room temperature for one week to slightly ferment and take on more flavour. Store the kosho in a sealed jar in your fridge, where it will keep for up to three months.
It’s not entirely clear from the illustration whether you should pare or grate the zest. Most recipes suggest equal quantities of chillies and citrus zest. I made about half the quantity suggested - 40g of each - and used a grapefruit, 3 limes and 5 limes so maybe paring it would be more economical though it would be harder to break down the citrus peel. Experiment anyway - it’s delicious. Oh, and my chillies were large ones not birds eye chillies which I think would be too hot!)
From WASTED by Conor Spacey (Blasta Books, £13) Illustrations: Nicky Hooper
What to drink: the pasta sauce is quite punchy and citrussy so am not sure it needs more citrus. A dry white wine like a Picpoul de Pinet or a pinot grigio would work best if you wanted a glass of wine though I drank a kombucha with it which was excellent.
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