Pear and dark chocolate jam

1 kg pears
625 g sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Juice of 1 orange
½ cinnammon stick
Zest of ½ orange
250 g dark chocolate, chopped

Cut the pears in thin slices.
Place the pears with the sugar, the juice, the cinnamon and the zest in a pan.
Bring to boil for 5 minutes and remove from heat.
Add the chocolate and combine well until smooth.
Let it cool down and refrigerate overnight covered with wrap film.
Bring to boil again removing the surface foam.
The mixture should cook over low heat for 40 minutes or until it reaches 105ºC.
To test whether the jam is ready, place a cold metal spoon in the mixture and tilt. The jam should form a single stream.
Quickly pour hot mixture into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1 cm headspace; wipe jar rims. Cover at once with metal lids, and screw on bands. Process jars in boiling-water bath 10 minutes.

I’m a keeper of sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts
And each thought a sensation.
I think with my eyes and my ears
And with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth.

To think a flower is to see and smell it,
And to eat a fruit is to know its meaning.

That is why on a hot day
When I enjoy it so much I feel sad,
And I lie down in the grass
And close my warm eyes,
Then I feel my whole body lying down in reality,
I know the truth, and I’m happy.

Alberto Caeiro





Curdled goat milk with plum jam and pinenuts

Serves 6:

Plum jam:
250 g plums, peeled and pitted
125 g sugar
½ cinnamon stick

Place plums, water and cinnamon in a stockpot and bring to boil over low heat.
Pôr as ameixas, o açúcar e a canela num tacho e levar a lume brando.
Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until fruit is soft.
Remove from heat.
Let rest for 1 minute, then skim off any foam.
Set aside.

Curdled goat milk:
150 ml pasteurized goat milk
18 drops of liquid rennet

25 g pinenuts, roasted

Bring the milk to 38ºC. Rennet won’t work if milk reaches 85ºC.

Presentation:
Place the roasted pinenuts on the bottom of 6 shot glasses.
Pour a small amount of the plum jam over the pinenuts.
Put 3 drops of liquid rennet in each glasse and immediately pour the milk at 38ºC.
Let the mixture rest at room temperature until the milk curdles.
Refrigerate.

300 g ginger crème anglaise
50 g ginger
100 g white chocolate

Ginger crème anglaise

1 l milk
10 egg yolks
180 g sugar
50 g ginger

In a bowl mix egg yolks, sugar and enough milk to combine all the ingredients.
Bring the remaining milk and cream to boil with the ginger and pour over the egg yolks mixture stirring constantly.
Sieve and bring to low heat (without boiling) to cook the egg yolks and the custard stays at the back of a spoon.

Pour 300g of the ginger crème anglaise over the chopped white chocolate stirring until smooth.
Refrigerate.

Ginger tuile

Cut thin slices og ginger with the help of a mandoline.
Place the ginger slices over a silpat or parchment paper.
Sprinkle generously with icing sugar.
Bake at 140ºC until dry.

Fruit:

Pineapple
Strawberries
Kiwi
Starfruit
Passion fruit
Pomegranate
Orange

In a very hot pan slightly roast the fruit (except passion fruit and pomegranate).

Serve while warm with the cold custard.
Decorate with the ginger tuile and mint leaves.

“We are all stardust”

Carl Sagan

Stardust pears

Serves 4:
20 g stardust tea
500 ml water
4 pears
120 g sugar
100 ml Port wine
Laminated almonds and milk chocolate to serve.

Peel de pears.
Bring water and sugar to boil.
Remove from heat when boiling and add the tea.
Let it rest for 10 minutes.
Sieve.
Add the Port wine and bring to boil again.
Add the pears and cover.
Keep it in low heat for 30-40 minutes.
Serve with laminated almonds and milk chocolate, an ice cream scoop or a biscuit.

Stardust tea: mix of black tea, cocoa, red pepper, rose leaves and coconut.
Taste: chocolate and toffee.

Someone opens an orange in silence, at the entrance
to fabled nights.
He plunges his thumbs down to where the orange
is rapidly thinking, where it grows, annihilates itself, and then
is born again. Someone is peeling a pear, eating
a bunch of grapes, devoting himself
to fruit. And I fashion a sharp-witted song
so as to understand.
I lean over busy hands, mouths,
tongues that devour their way through attention.
I would like to know how the fable of the nights
grows like this. How silence
swells, or is transformed with things. I write
a song in order to be intelligent about fruit
on the tongue, through subtle channels, unto
a dark emotion.

Herberto Helder, Teoria sentada, 1977

Candied orange peel

Oranges
250 ml water
220 g sugar

Cut the oranges in quarters and remove all the pulp.
Cut the orange peels in 6-8mm witdth stripes.
Place the orange peels in a pan of cold water to cover and bring to a boil. Drain.
Repeat this process three times, using fresh cold water each time, to remove some of the bitter flavor from the pith.
Set aside.
Bring the water and sugar to boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Reduce to a very low simmer, add the peesa, and poach until translucent (about 1 hour).

To dry the peels, drain them and spread on a wire rack set on a parchment-lined sheet pan.
Allow to dry and crystallize overnight at room temperature. Or place the peels on a parchment-lined sheet pan in a 140ºC convection oven for 1 1/2 hour.

Toss the peels in granulated sugar or dip them in tempered chocolate.

* Lemon, lime or grapefruit may be used in place of the orange peels.

Based on a Culinary Institute of America recipe