This Pre Dessert of Barry Callabaut Chocolate finds it’s origin in a collaboration of Ice Solution with Barry Callebaut and there chocolate products. We’ve made a very special dish with it, our Pre Dessert. In this dish you will find some experimental flavor combinations wich show my excentricity in my cooking style. All made using the ice cream calculator.

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Smoked Herring & Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients:

  • 432 gr Smoked herring broth
  • 180 gr Pureté evocao wholefruit ( cacao barry )
  • 6 gr Erythritol
  • 28 gr Water
  • 95 gr Dextrose
  • 6 gr Glycerin
  • 363 gr Sucrose
  • 49 gr Trehalose
  • 290 gr Cream 35% fett
  • 10 gr Whey protein
  • 39 gr Maltodextrin
  • 3 gr Xantaan gum
  • 6 gr Cortina

Preparation method:

  • Boil all sugars with the smoked herring broth
  • Add dairy and pasteurize
  • Cool down to 40 degrees Celcius
  • Dissolve the chocolate
  • Cool down
  • Dissolve cortina, whey protein and xantaan gum in it
  • Let it ripen overnight
  • Prepare in the ice cream machine

Pre-dessert Mackerel

This course in our menu is the course where I can let go completely. Like this mackerel dish. A pre dessert of Barry Callebaut chocolate. Here I clean the mackerels, smoke them, fry them for the right taste and then caramelize them. This ripe smoky and sweet taste needs a nice fresh complex counterpart to create a sensation in your mouth. Cocoa fruit pulp and juice. Fantastic products, raw and unprocessed. Wonderfully fresh, sweet, simple but complex and extensive. Nicely creamy Wholefruit chocolate ice cream (which has that same fresh fruity taste) made of smoked herring, and you have a dish that will make you think and surprise you while eating.

My vision

During the lockdowns we have also been able to service the evenings of our guests at home. On one of these occasions, I got the inspiration for this pre-dessert. We were in Amsterdam. So a few hundred kilometers from our restaurant. While the first snacks and amuse-bouche are being made and walking around, we are told by 2 guests that they have allergies and dietary wishes. So I was put on the spot there, taken by surprise, because this affected 3 of the 7 courses. My only option was to walk to the supermarket diagonally opposite. A kind of AH to go like setting. It was 2nd day of Christmas on this day. Perhaps you can already make an estimate about the scenario I walked into.

 

“I was already thinking on the way to the store.”

Actually right from the moment I had to switch. So I also walk into the store without a payment method, so I can also walk up and down to pick up my debit card. Well, I was at work in the meantime. Many scenarios ran through my head. All kinds of taste scenarios in which I could make an adjustment and maintain the dish or in which I would make a completely new dish and bring the right funky, unexpected taste combination that I would like you to experience. I know from experience that I cannot and should not start thinking in terms of products, that is not how I work. I work in flavor types, and flavor combinations. This often ensures that I can combine/find the same taste combination or taste experience with sometimes products that you would not think of at all. But these products do contain the right properties and/or flavors or taste properties to make that combination a success.

Finally on this day it turned out to be hot smoked mackerel, which I caramelized with cumin or caraway seeds (I just don’t remember). This as an alternative to the pre-dessert I had with me, namely fried foie gras with licorice and Anise Hyssop plant structures.

 

Why does this work?

I’m going to try to explain as best I can why this was possible in my head. I had to replace the foie gras in this scenario, or yes I couldn’t use it. The pre-dessert was Anise Hyssop plant with licorice and foie gras. So I was looking for a full, ripe and heavy taste. One that can take on a fresh side and also has a subtle freshness of its own. caraway and cumin are for me 2 very nice examples of rich, ripe and full spices that still have a large “fresh” content. After staring in front of the shelves for a long time, breaking up all the products I saw in flavor profiles in my head, there was only one ingredient left. hot smoked mackerel.

After this day I made myself think about this combination. After giving it some thought I let it rest for a while. Eventually I was triggered to pick this up again when I got to taste the Cabosse (cocoa fruit and pulp from Barry Callebaut). And immediately the link was made in my head. The beautiful fruity taste that has many fresh notes but also a ripe underlying base was perfect to use as a counterpart. I got to work and after a few tests this was the result. I am very proud of this, and I think this is the dish that is most me for now. Because you get fucked in the head while eating, you don’t understand what’s happening, but it is very tasty. And I love that. This is how my pre dessert of Barry Callebaut chocolate was created.

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