Many restaurants would be happy to be the top dog once, Noma in Copenhagen managed to get World's Best Restaurant prize for second year in a row.
Celebrate and get a chance to test your advanced skills in the kitchen with this Dessert of Flowers recipe from Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine (Phaidon, October 2010).
Dessert of Flowers
* This recipe requires advanced techniques, accurate measurements using the metric system, specialist equipment and professional experience to achieve good results.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Elderflower Mousse
130g double (heavy) or whipping cream
80g egg whites
4g gelatin
75g elderflower cordial (syrup)
16g sugar
200g skyr*
Rose Hip Meringue
75g pickled rose hips
50g sugar
45g water
3g egg white powder
3g gelatin
1g salt
Violet Syrup
22g sugar
75g water
1 drop violet essence
Thyme Fluid Gel
19g sugar
125g water
2g thyme
0.25g agar-agar**
5g instant food thickener
Skyr Sorbet
1 sheet gelatin
300g water
170g sugar
42g glucose
290g skyr
25g lemon juice
For Serving
Any fresh flowers in season
*Skyr is a mildly sour-tasting milk product, similar to strained yogurt, although technically a very soft cheese. It is popular in Iceland and Denmark.
**Agar-Agar is a gelling agent derived from seaweed, which retains its gelling properties up to a temperature of 80˚C (176˚F).
Instructions
Elderflower Mousse
Whip the cream and the egg whites in separate bowls. Bloom the gelatin and dissolve it in a small amount of the cordial by heating it up with the sugar. Mix the cordial and the gelatin into the skyr, and fold the cream and the egg whites into it. Cut a sheet of acetate into pieces approximately 8×4 cm and roll into tubes. Pipe the mousse into the tubes and freeze.
Rose Hip Meringue
Blend the rose hips to make a concentrate. Heat the sugar and water in a pan to 121˚C (250˚F). Lightly whisk the egg whites and add the caramel slowly to make an Italian meringue. Bloom the gelatin and add before the meringue base gets cold. Add the concentrate and the salt and pipe the meringues in small dots. Dry at 55˚C (130˚F) for 12 hours in a dehydrator.
Violet Syrup
Bring the sugar and water to a boil, then cool. Add the essence and keep in a squeezy bottle.
Thyme Fluid Gel
Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a pan to make a syrup, then cool. Blanch the thyme and refresh it in cold water. Blend the syrup with the thyme for 1 minute at full speed and strain. Whisk the agar-agar into the liquid and bring it to a boil. When cold, blend it with a stick blender and add the instant food thickener.
Skyr Sorbet
Bloom the gelatin. Warm the water, sugar and glucose and add the gelatin. Mix the rest of the ingredients and pour into Paco containers*.
Garnish
Pick all the flowers off their stems and put into ice water. Dry them and keep on dry paper.
To Serve
Put the plates in the freezer to get very cold. Remove the frozen mousse from the acetate tubes and let it temper to around 5˚C (41˚F) on a cold plate. Dot a little of the fluid gel and the syrup around the plates and cover it with meringues. Process the sorbet, make into quenelles and place a quenelle next to the mousse on each plate.
*Paco Containers are the receptacles used with a Pacojet, a machine used t make sorbets with a very fine texture.
Let us know how things work if you give it a try
Related stories: Chef Rene Redzepi of Noma Makes Time for Our 5 Questions Interview
(Adapted* from Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine (October 2010. Phaidon Press), recipe and photo reproduced courtesy of the publisher)