Aloe Vera and Grapefruit Jelly...With Pearls!

I actually made two desserts today. On this lazy Sunday, a day of supposed rest. Yes, I did. What brought it about was well, the failure of one of these two desserts when I had made it a few days ago. To get away from the frustration, someone suggested that maybe I should try making something foolproof (thanks, Tasty Trix), something that couldn't fail even if I was making it while sleepwalking. Anyway, today's first dessert, a cake actually, worked out just fine. It also tasted magical. Except.... I was still thinking about the other dessert that got away!

So in the waning light of the day, I decided to give it another go. It was to be my third attempt at making the dastardly Aloe Vera and Pink Grapefruit Cream Jelly, using agar agar as a base to work with. Just everyday ingredients... Hmmm, I better let you know that we have pots of aloe vera plants growing outside our home, so for me, they're 'everyday'. Also, I had brought home an armload of pink grapefruits the other day, most of which I've utilized, bar one. I was down to my last grapefruit and the situation was getting desperate!

At home, we mostly use aloe vera as part of our beauty ritual - think home spa. I often slather the slimy (it's waaay slimier than okra) aloe vera sap all over my face before I go to bed. I can honestly tell you that it's rather unpleasant handling all that messy slime! But I know I'll be rewarded for my efforts when I reach 82 and have only one wrinkle to my name... uhh, perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

Don't forget to get rid of the thorns first! Oh... did I already mention slimy? 

I guess most people are familiar with aloe vera as a health supplement in the form of juices, powder or tablets. Not many realize that fresh aloe vera can be eaten too, it's refreshing with yogurt or as part of a dessert. Once the hard skin is removed and the flesh is boiled, aloe has the texture of cooked plums or grapes, although without any of the flavoring. On its own, it tastes of nothing really so it's important to add a flavor to it, such as lime or sugar. I decided here to go with kaffir lime leaves and it turned out to be a rather excellent choice.

So in my mind, I saw this beautifully layered dessert - thin slices of grapefruit flesh sandwiched in between the translucent aloe vera and pinkish hue of the grapefruit cream and topped with caramelized palm sugar. Except it turned out like this, total disaster!

I only had one grapefruit left, so it was time to rework the dessert. Got rid of the palm sugar and grapefruit slivers, and finally... it all came together! I must mention that in the midst of my despair the other day, I had the good fortune to come across Ms. Salty Seattle's experimentation in her CSI-like kitchen to produce little agar spheres, so since I was working with agar, I thought, why not try it out? To my utter amazement, the simple act of injecting warm agar blobs into frozen oil really worked to produce (in this case) glistening, pink grapefruit pearls encased in agar. Except mine weren't shaped so roundedly, more like little pebbles rather than gems.

The four layers

In the end, I had made enough pink spheres to sprinkle on all my serving portions. I would've loved to make more of these so they can form the topmost layer but 1. the sun was setting and I had to take photos quickly, 2. the oil was melting fast and there was no time to refreeze it before dark, and 3. I got tired of playing so decided to simply pour the grapefruit-agar mixture on top of the dessert to make the final layer. I won't go into the mechanics of producing the spheres here, but if you're really interested, you can head over to Linda's blog now and learn something new.

Holy Moly, it worked!

It was worth failing a couple of times just so I could end up with this very pretty, almost ethereal dessert. The aloe vera gives a refreshing crunch, the kaffir lime and grapefruit flavors pack a mean citrusy punch, while the mellow cream serves to balance the acidity and pull the dessert together. Sweet...

Oh, and what of that foolproof dessert? Another post, another day, my friends.

Aloe Vera and Pink Grapefruit Cream Jelly

Agar agar (base solution)

1 packet (7g) agar agar powder

200g caster sugar

500ml water

Dissolve sugar and agar in water and bring to the boil. Remove from heat andvuse this solution as the base for other layers.

Aloe Vera Layer

2 large aloe vera leaves, peeled and cubed

4 kaffir lime leaves, crushed

150ml water

( + 150ml base agar solution)

Boil aloe vera and kaffir leaves on medium high heat for 5 minutes. Fish out and discard leaves. Add the base agar solution.

Cream Layer

150ml double cream

(+ 250ml base agar solution)

Gently whisk the cream with the base agar solution until well combined. Take 150ml of this mixture to make the Grapefruit Cream Layer (below)

Grapefruit Juice Layer

100ml grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed

150ml extra water

(+ 150ml base agar solution)

Strain grapefruit juice, retain the fleshy bits for the Grapefruit Cream Layer (below). Add water and base agar solution to the grapefruit juice.

Grapefruit Cream Layer

150ml of Cream Layer mixture

Grapefruit flesh that has been strained (above)

Whisk together until well combined.

(Note: If I had more grapefruit, I would've added the juice as well)

Assembly:

Spoon the layers carefully into the serving dish in this order:

1. Aloe Vera Layer

2. Grapefruit Cream Layer

3. Cream Layer

4. Grapefruit Juice Layer

5. Grapefruit Spheres (optional)

Make sure you leave each layer to set for a few minutes in the freezer before spooning the next layer on top of it. Keep the agar base solution/mixtures warm while waiting to be layered to prevent the agar from setting and clumping.

International Incident Party: Somewhere Over The Rainbow...

It seemed that I blinked and it's already December. Time to celebrate our greatest moments over the year but more importantly, time for another International Incident Party! Penny of Jeroxie.com as our lovely host has wisely pronounced 'Colour' a.k.a. 'Color' as the theme of this month's party. What better way to see the year out than with a big bang, an explosion of culinary colors? 

In the six months since I've embarked on this blogging journey (I'm a mere baby in the blogosphere!), my kitchen has seen its fair share of rainbow-like dishes gracing its countertop and table. I certainly like to play with the most vibrant colors naturally available - reds, greens, yellows - but there is one oddity and that is my predilection for purple and pink. Strange really, because I'm not terribly feminine in outlook or appearance (in fact, I often imagine myself as a tattoed-up Jesse James with boobies and a black leather apron, real baad, oh yeah!). All this time, my poor brain may possibly be rebelling against this constant desire to be a biker-foodie chick, resulting in recipes that manifest themselves as the girliest-looking concoctions, as you can witness below:  

1. Purple Somen Noodles in Capsicum Bowl

2. Amazing Technicolor Gratin

3. Red Dragonfruit Granita

4. Cashew Crusted Dragonfruit Hearts and Matcha Cheesecake

5. Nectarine, Pistachio and Grape Jelly

6. Tamarind Pasta with Muscovado Chilli Sauce

7. Green Tea Rolls with Purple Sweet Potato Filling

8. Fruity Il Gianfornaio

Anyway, back to this party. I was so excited to showcase more colors in my food that I ended up preparing a three-course meal bursting with flavors and vibrancy. I suggest you put your sunglasses on now as it's going to get crazy-bright in here ;-).

Appetizer: Colorific Salad-in-a-Sushi 

A refeshing, colorful salad presented in sushi form! Slivers of red cabbage, cucumber, carrot, beetroot, yellow pepper and mango are encased in fried egg-sheets, which are again rolled within nori sheets. If you can roll sushi, you can definitely roll these. They're slightly larger versions of regular sushi but they look like pyschedelic babes on a plate! My heart hurt to have to eat these, but hey, someone's got to do it...

Main course: Mother-in-Law's Tongue Pasta (Lingua di Suocera)

I've been intrigued with these unbelievably stunning noodles for a while but when I googled it up, there was no information on how to actually make it. For now, it seems that the secret recipe and technique for producing this pasta will remain with the Marella family in Puglia, Italy who makes these by hand! Never one to give up, I bravely attempted my own version of Lingua di Suocera. However let me just put on record that my real-life mother-in-law's tongue was not the inspiration for this creation (in fact, I'd be worried if hers took on these hues!).

I experimented with 6 colors derived from carrot (orange), spinach (green), black sesame (black), blueberry jam! (blue), turmeric powder (yellow) and cocoa powder (brown), and left one plain. It was pretty tedious work lining up the linguine-sized noodles lengthwise against one another before rolling them flat to seal - and of course, they never do in the exact way you want them to - then trimming off the edges to form a wide, flat, stripey, colorful noodle.

It was a warm afternoon when I made this, and after painstakingly crafting a whole set of just 5 noodles, I gave up and  jumped into the pool with the kids. The rest of the linguine was not wasted though, they were heaped together and cooked into a gorgeous multicolored pasta dish that my young housemates devoured after their swim. Luckily, I remembered to take a snapshot before it was all gone!

But here's the real star of the party, my version of Mother-in-Law's Tongue pasta accompanied by red cabbage, garlic and coriander (cilantro) sauteed in butter. Those Italians have totally got it sussed out, they know exactly what it takes to make food that take your breath away. 

  

 

Hmm, I could stare at this the whole day.... if only I wasn't so hungry.

Dessert: Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Agar

This purplelicious layered agar is flavored with purple and orange sweet potatoes and coconut milk, two ingredients that go extremely well together. The topmost layer contains thin strands of purple sweet potatoes (achieved using a mandoline) encased in sweetened clear agar. For the opaque sweet potato layers, the potatoes are first steamed and then blended with hot agar liquid to form a puree. Despite its carb contents, this pretty layered dessert makes for a delicious and surprisingly light finisher!

I had fun creating these dishes, it felt as if the rainbow had somehow shone its way into my kitchen and inspired me to look closer at its spectrum for ways to brighten up the plain old plate. Now before you come here looking for that pot of gold, check out what colorful goodies the other participants came up with by clicking on the thumbnails below. 

In the interest of maintaining a fun and light International Incident Party atmosphere, all recipes featured here will be posted separately in the coming few days. We wouldn't want to derive yawns resulting from a long-drawn out post now, do we? Haha, no we so wouldn't.

Don't forget to put some (natural) color in your lives and on your plates. Thanks for reading, and yes, you can take those sunglasses off now!

Poetry Thursday #6 - Dragonfruit, Chocolate & Cream Dessert

 Poetry Thursday #6:

Today, I am sharing with you Haiku, the Japanese poetic form of 17 syllables in three lines. These are created with a food theme and there really are only 17 syllables, I counted! 

If you love someone
Hold the sugar and flour,
Try kisses instead.
      Joan Ifland Johnson

Tender artichoke
Reveals its succulent heart
to prying fingers.
     Georgia Terrell

Pop open pea pods
Set free some plump round voyeurs --
Peeping toms in green.
     Jane Butkin Roth

Mole chocolate
Melting spicy -- ancient kiss,
Mayan reminisce.
      Erica Hernandez

Symbol of teachers
The repellent of doctors,
The red fruit of sin.
      Roatha Chap

Food for the body
So tempting to the spirit.
The table is set.
       Tom Farrar

Flavor symphony
Best shared with friends and lovers,
Touching tongues and hearts.
        Charlene Turner

Boyfriends and brownies,
Two things that never last long.
I eat them both up.
       Nancy Sarnoff

Grab salsa and cheese
In queso emergency.
Come on, light my fire.
      David Henry

I smell your garden
Simmering in my soup bowl.
I taste your passion.
      L.Z.Martini

No, this is not molecular gastronomy, so stay, don't be scared.  This is just agar.

It's just that I felt like creating something pretty so I tinkered in the kitchen for a while and made these sweet red globs of red dragonfruit agar. Don't you love the fruit's natural fuschia pink color? Mmm...so do I. Sometimes inspiration hits while sitting doodling in the kitchen, tired after making sure everything's shining and in its place (ready for the next culinary upheaval). Amazing what a wilting brain can come up with, really.

Agar-agar, usually abbreviated as agar, is a gelatinous substance derived from a variety of seaweed vegetation.  It is normally sold in health food stores/Asian stores in both flake and powder varieties, and can be used in a variety of dairy-free and vegan recipes as a stabilizing and thickening agent for custards, puddings, sauces and even vegetarian marshmallows. Since agar is derived from plant material, it has the advantage of being vegetarian, unlike gelatin derived from animal sources.

Although pretty, these red globs alone does not a complete dessert make. So I whipped out the chocolate and double cream, mixed them with the agar liquid, and layered the two flavors. The dragonfruit agar rounds are then interspersed with the chocolate agar. My original idea was to have the red glob suspended halfway between the cream and chocolate layers, but the bottom layer had gelled too fast and I didn't have time to sink the dragonfruit pieces in it! Note to self:  next time I attempt this, be more organized and work quickly.

If you've never handled agar powder before, let me assure you working with it is child's play (except that it's not, because of the heat involved). Like gelatin, agar dissolves in water in a matter of minutes, after which you can add flavoring and/or coloring to it, before pouring it into moulds. I used this brand (Rose brand) of Japanese agar, it's super easy to use and makes 1 litre of agar solution:

Here's one funky way to serve up dragonfruit!

Place dragonfruit agar on top of the cream layer, then cover over with chocolate.

How it looks like once sliced.

Dragonfruit, Chocolate and Cream Agar Dessert

Ingredients:

1/2 of a dragonfruit, peeled and sliced

100g dark chocolate

100ml double cream

13g agar powder (1 packet)

700ml water

1 cup sugar

Method:

1. Dissolve sugar in water in a pot, and put on medium heat. Add agar powder and stir frequently to prevent agar from thickening at the bottom. Once the mixture boils, switch off the heat.

2. Measure out 200ml of of the agar solution and blend with the dragonfruit slices. Pour immediately into tiny semi-circular moulds (I used tiny muffin tins). Let it cool slightly before placing in the refridgerator to harden. Remove carefully from mould and set aside.

3. Measure out 250ml of the remaining agar solution and add the cream to it. Pour immediately into the bottom of a square tin (8 x 8in). Let it cool and firm up only slightly.

4. Add the chocolate, broken up into chunks, into the remainder of the agar (250ml) and stir until combined. Now the dessert is ready to be assembled.

5. Take the dragonfruit agar rounds and arrange on top of the cream agar layer, pushing in slightly into the layer (if it is still soft. If not, don't sweat about it, just place them on top!). Pour the chocolate agar on top of the cream layer and dragonfruit, and leave to cool. Chill in the fridge before cutting into slices and serve immediately.