Who would have expected to find Granny Smith apples on the 102nd Floor of the Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong? Here at TOSCA, the hotels italian fine dining restaurant, two-star Michelin chef PINO LAVARRA presents Italian cuisine in an innovative style and an original approach that keeps fascinating gastronomic connoisseurs from all over the world. Among other things, the chef challenges himself by coming up with a new amuse bouche every day – a feat he has achieved continuously for the past 10 years.
Chef Pino Lavarra’s gastronomic talents have earned him prestigious recognition, including “One of the Best Chefs in the World” by the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences as well as two Michelin stars during his ten-year tenure at Rosellinis at the Palazzo Sasso hotel on the Amalfi Coast. Tosca was honored with one Michelin star just eight months after Chef Pino took over as director in 2013, and then another star for the third consecutive year.
It is with the greatest pleasure that we publish his recipe for a sophisticated dessert with Granny Smith apples.
Granny smith apples, fennel, walnut
and caramel ice cream
...
Walnuts crumble
Peeled walnut, toasted 110 gr
Butter 15 gr
Walnut Oil 6 gr
Malt dextrin 40 gr
Walnut flour 120 gr
Brown Sugar 70 gr
Plain Flour 70 gr
Salt 10 gr
Toast the walnuts, place in a blender with the butter and let it run for 5 - 8 min to form a melted butter. Let cool to room temperature and add walnut oil and maltodextrin until a powder. Add the walnut flour and mix.
Walnut Soil (previous preparation) Mix with the rest of the ingredients in a bowl until smooth, crumble it and bake at 140, low fan for 30 min. ensure is cooked and dry. Allow cooling. Leave to dry and blend until powder.
Caramelized Granny Smith apples
2 Granny smith apples
180g of sugar
150g White wines, Chardonnay
200g of water
½ Star Anise
½ cinnamon stick
1 clove
1 Pimento Berry
Put the water and spices in a sauce pan and bring to 45º. Remove from heat and reserve warm.
Put the sugar in a saucepan with enough water to make a sandy texture. Cook on a medium dark caramel mixture and sprinkle with the hot water / spice reserved. Add the white wine and water to the store toffee.
Peel and sliced the apple, place in a bag. Fill with caramel approximately 300 g of broth per bag. Place in bathtub to 75C and cook for 2.5 hours. Allow cooling to room temperature.
Apple acquavite mou
70g Sugar
10g Water
90g Cream
10g Green Apple Acquavite
Boil the cream, Cook sugar and water to a caramel amber, Sprinkle with hot cream. Add the brandy and let sit for 30 minutes and filter.
Apple and Fennel jelly
250g Granny smith Apple Puree
85 g Fennel Bulbs, Clean/Chopped
1 g Fennel pollen
Simple Syrup taste
0.14 g Citric Acid
2 sheets gelatin, bloomed
Puree ingredients in a blender and blend oven for one minute, put 10% of puree and gelatin over a boiler until melted. Combine with the remaining 90%. Store in a jar and let it set up. Dice the same size of the apple caramel.
Walnut Ice Cream
1 lt Cream
1 lt Milk
5g Ice Cream Stabilizers
510g sugars
Nuts 375g
430g Yolks
Heat half of milk, cream and sugar. Toast walnuts, Add the milk and blend with a hand mixer. Allow marinating for 1 hour and strain.
Bring the infusion with sugar and ice cream stabilizer at 85° in a deep pan.
Mix the other half of the sugar with the egg yolks in a separate bowl.
Temper hot dairy mixture into the bowl of egg yolks and sugar.
Place back into the pot over medium high to high and stir it until you reach the coats the back of a spoon.
Chablonage
Melt the 50% Caramelia chocolate with 50% cocoa butter and final add the green (or red) liposoluble edible colour. Use at 25º.
Preparation of dessert
Place the walnut Ice cream on silicon mould, fill with apple caramel and apple gelatine. Freeze. When nice freezes, remove from silicon and crumbled on very fine walnut crumble and keep it at -22.
Prepare a Chablonage and spary the very freeze walnut and Apple ice cream until evenly coated. Keep at -14 no more than 1 day.
Place the caramel on dots on plate, add the Granny smith and walnut ice cream and decorate with chocolate leaf and stem.
