So, this is my first post in a while as I was trying to get through the holidays before taking on a pretty elaborate prep period for this dish. Now that Thanksgiving and Christmas are over I finally had a free Saturday to spend pretty much all day in the kitchen. There were a lot of steps to this dish, but honestly none of them were that involved so this dish was a lot more intimidating on paper than it was in real life.
First up was cooking the freeze dried corn. This included freeze dried corn (naturally), cocoa butter powder, sugar and salt.
The mixture was placed under vacuum and cooked sous vide for 45 minutes at 194 degrees.
One of the base liquids for this dish was a corn husk stock. Water and corn husks simmered over medium heat for about 20 minutes.
This is the completed stock.
Next I made the licorice syrup for the tapioca pearls. The syrup included, peppercorns, star anise, water, sherry vinegar, licorice powder, molasses and sugar.
The whole mixture simmered together for about 10 minutes and then sat at room temperature for about 20 minutes.
This was the start of the corn pudding, this included corn juice, salt and sugar. The corn juice was made by taking frozen corn and hot water and blending them together until smooth and then straining out any remaining pulp. I didn't get pictures of it but from here the mixture was simmered together and placed in a siphon to aereate the mixture and then frozen until ready to serve.
Now it was time to finish the tapioca pearls. This was the corn stock, sugar, tapioca pearls and the licorice syrup. I simmered the whole mixture until the tapioca was translucent and soft which took about 90 minutes.
One of the garnishes was dehydrated limes. I peeled the lime and tossed it with a little of sugar.
The lime went into a 170 degree ove for about an hour and a half.
Another garnishe was a coconut corn rock. This includes the cooked freeze dried corn, coconut milk powder, citric acid palm sugar and lime zest. The coconut milk powder is an amazing emusifier and it holds even the strangest items together into a styrofoam type consistency.
So I had to go to the store this morning to get a few ingredients to do this meal and when I was putting together the list I saw that I needed mango so I was scared that I might have to skip this part because finding mangoes at Meijer that are ready to use the same day is nearly impossible. Luckily for me it worked out this time and here we go, mango, citric acid and sugar. I julliened the mango and then tossed with the citric acid and sugar and set them aside until I was ready to plate.
This was another base liquid that needed to sit for a while before being used to make a garnish. This is sugar, water, salt, star anise and saffron.
Time for the star of the show and still one of my least favorite items to deal with, Coconuts.
I split the coconut to get the water out. The water was mixed with sugar and salt to make the coconut ice. Once the mixture was combined I put it in the freezer until it got to a sorbet consistency.
I juiced the coconut in the same way I juiced the corn earlier. I then mixed the coconut juice with sugar and salt and then placed it into another siphon to aerate and then it went into the freezer until service.
The saffron mixture I made earlier was used to cook the egg yolk used for the egg strand garnish.
Now it was time for the final plate. This is all the ingredients needed.
The final plate. This was not a typical Thai dish by any means, but was a very classic Alinea style take on desert. Cold, sweet, crunchy, all sorts of different textures.
