A Long and Messy Business. Rowley Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ Pineapple with Chilli Syrup and Coconut Ice Cream

      *Roast pineapple with tipsy

      cake has been on the menu

      since Dinner opened. The

      ‘tipsy cake’ is a light, almost

      milky, brioche and is

      sensationally good.

      It is a take it or leave it sort of fruit, the pineapple. To some

      it is almost as repulsive as a durian or a Swedish rotten

      herring. I marvel at it. I eye them up carefully in the shop,

      looking for them to lose that greenness in the skin and for

      the leaves to look a tiny bit tired. Like melons, I turn them

      over and smell the bases, waiting until the aroma becomes

      quite strong. I have the same sort of awed respect for the

      pineapple as the eighteenth-century landowners who built

      greenhouses for their propagation and installed stone

      pineapples on their walls and parapets as a status symbol

      for the envy of their neighbours.

      This architectural respect for the pineapple even

      tended to dominate gastronomic approaches to the fruit.

      Many preparations involved scooping out the pineapple

      flesh and serving a mousse or sorbet inside the shell. That

      and the ubiquitous Ananas Condé – slices of pineapple

      macerated in kirsch and served with creamed rice – were

      about all classical cooking had to say about the pineapple

      until recently. It may be thought that was quite enough

      already and that the fruit, properly peeled and thinly

      sliced, needed no embellishment whatsoever. Nor does it,

      but nor does a little bit of heat do it any harm.

      I believe it was Marc Meneau at the three-star

      L’Esperance – still, sadly, on my unvisited list – who took it

      upon himself to roast a whole pineapple and flavour it with

      vanilla. I also believe Marco Pierre White produced a

      version of that dish when he presided over the Oak Room

      in Piccadilly. The pineapple arrived standing on a dais on a

      trolley, with spikes of vanilla protruding from the eyeholes

      in its skin and, as I recall, the whole fruit set aflame with

      rum. I hear that Heston Blumenthal has adopted the theme

      and intends to roast his pineapple on a clockwork spit in

      the dining room: I shall observe with interest.*

      I am all in favour of making things hot for the

      pineapple, and in more ways than one. I discovered

      that grilling a pineapple concentrates the flavour and

      smokiness induced by the chargrill only encourages the

      fruit. I believe that there was a chilli performing a largely

      decorative function in Marco’s roast pineapple dish and

      I – without any great originality – decided that the chilli

      should start taking a more active role. The smoky flavour,

      a quite serious degree of chilli heat and the concentrated

      sweetness of the fruit make for a heady marriage.

      73

      February

      GRILLED PINEAPPLE WITH CHILLI SYRUP

      AND COCONUT ICE CREAM

      The coconut ice cream is well worth it if you have an

      ice-cream machine. If not, buy in some vanilla ice cream.

      Serves six.

      2 red chillies, tops removed,

      deseeded and cut into very

      thin rounds

      1 vanilla pod, split in half

      lengthways and seeds

      scraped out

      ½ cinnamon stick

      4 star anise

      10 cloves

      50g (13⁄4oz) golden caster

      sugar

      1 pineapple

      FOR THE COCONUT

      ICE CREAM

      400ml (14fl oz) whole milk

      400ml (14fl oz) canned

      coconut milk

      8 egg yolks

      150g (5½oz) golden caster

      sugar

      200ml (7fl oz) double cream

      First make the ice cream. Combine the milk and coconut

      milk in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Whisk the egg

      yolks and sugar together in a heatproof bowl, then pour

      the (almost) boiling milk in a thin stream into this mixture,

      whisking constantly. Pour the custard back into the

      saucepan and return to a gentle heat, stirring constantly

      with a wooden spatula until the custard starts to thicken

      very slightly. Pour it immediately into a clean bowl and

      allow to cool completely.

      Whip the cream СКАЧАТЬ