DE CONSTRUCTED LEMON TART WITH NUTTY ICE CREAM...ANYONE?

Foodie that I am , I enjoy cooking and learning new recipes and more so now with my latest prized possession aka the KitchenAid stand mixer and its various attachments I asked my friend Sharad Dewan to teach me a recipe with some molecular gastronomy twist in it. Sharad happens to be the Area Director – Food Production at The Park Kolkata and the famed ‘Flurys’ falls under his cooking umbrella…hence he made for the perfect choice to teach me this yummy recipe.

 

Chef Sharad Dewan

Before we come to the recipe let me tell you that Molecular gastronomy is scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking. But it is also used to describe a new style of cooking that emerged in the late 1990s. Chefs explore new possibilities in the kitchen by embracing science, research, technological advances in equipment and experimenting with various natural gums and hydrocolloids produced by the commercial food processing industry. Equipment is as interesting as “centrifuges” to create a sphere out of juice or “cryovac machine” for vacuum sealing food in plastic. The science behind “liquid nitrogen” chills your ice-cream very quickly and so on. This allows a chef to create food which can evoke all senses of a customer which leaves him in awe and amazement…anyways don’t worry the recipe Sharad shared with me is not so complicated as it sounds; as a matter of fact he made it rather easy for me explaining how I could just churn this out easily with my various KitchenAid accessories….

Here goes the recipe….

DE CONSTRUCTED LEMON TART WITH NUTTY ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS

FOR LEMON CURD

Egg yolk: 10 no ; Sugar :100 Gms ; Butter :100 Gms; Lemon Juice : 2 tea spoon; Lemon jest : 1 pinch

FOR TART SHELL:

Flour:  100gms; Butter: 2 table spoon; Sugar:  20 Gms; Eggs: 1 no; Salt: 1 small pinch

FOR ICE CREAM

Dry ice (food grade): 1kg crushed fine; Cream: 100 ml; Egg yolk:  2 no; Assorted nuts chopped:  50 Gms; Chocó chips: 10 Gms; Sugar: 20 Gms

METHOD

To prepare the ice cream, Cook the cream, the egg yolk and sugar on a double boiler, till the cream is thick and has a coating consistency, (Check that it coats the back of a spoon)

Remove it off the flame and let it cool.  Add the nuts and the Chocó chips.

Put the mixture in the Kitchen Aid and start putting the crushed dry ice powder. Use the whisk attachment. (The dry ice block can be crushed using Kitchen Aid Blender, and then strained through a strainer) to make a powder.

Churn the mixture; in Kitchen Aid as the dry ice evaporates the ice cream is set instantly.

Save the ice cream in a vacuum container and store in freezer.

To prepare the Lemon curd:

Whisk in the Butter, sugar, and in a kitchen aid bowl keep it on a double boiler under the kitchen aid bowl. Slowly add the beaten egg yolks and continuously whisk, till the egg yolks are cooked.

Or  cook in a double boiler on a flame and then transfer the mixture in Kitchen Aid stand mixer and keep mixing with the whisk attachment in slow speed, Continuous whisking cools the mixture and the mixture slowly transforms to a creamy mixture , Save the mixture in refrigerator.

To Pre pare the Tart:

Mix in the flour, and the butter till flaky, in the Kitchen Aid stand mixer(Use the dough mixture attachment) add in the sugar , salt and the whole eggs and keep on mixing till a dough is formed.

Rest the dough for at least 1 hr. in refrigerator.

Take it out of the refrigerator, and let it rest at room temperature for another 15 min, roll the dough to a thin sheet and Bake it in a baking pan (Temperature of the oven to be 180 degree Celsius for 10 min)

Take it off the oven and let it cool.

Assembling

Break the tart shell into crumbles, and put it in a Brandy Balloon, spoon the lemon curd with a Table spoon and place it inside the Brandy Balloon.

Scoop out the ice cream and serve it on the side.