The Lotus Garden Dessert
10 July 2024
Dear diary,
A lil throw back dessert to my valentines day & Chinese new year week special dessert. The lotus.
Lotus Flower pastry (white lotus & vanilla)
Jasmine Tea ice jelly
Tadpoles
Pink guava sorbet
Jasmine and mirin pears (Dew drops)
Probably my most ambitious dessert yet. Inspired by the national flower of Vietnam, the lotus. The flavour of tea is supposed to mimic “sipping a cup of tea” in a lotus garden before the world starts. Peace and tranquility. Calm and cool. The inspiration of the pond draws from an lotus garden itself. Duh
Honestly, thinking back I did not have the slightest faith for this dish at all. I more of a do-er than a talker. I never shared ideas with chef Quynh until i actually have a prototype product to show and present. I like to believe that every time I speak of an idea (to anyone rather) I’ll end up over promising and under delivering. It might be that I am really introverted and shy by nature or that I have really low self esteem. Lack of confidence in what I do. As much as I hate to admit I am a people pleaser and some what perfectionist. In this case, I pitched to chef a horrid looking dessert to try. I was ashamed of what I put up but for some reasons, she liked it and told me to continue working on it till I can somehow perfect it. This to me was a surprise. In my head it is always ‘Good enough, put it on the menu’ or ‘This is shit, scape the idea’ . I never took ‘almost there, keep working on it’ as an answer that will be thrown back to me.
This is what the first plate up looked like and I have no idea what boss saw but I’m glad she saw potential.
SEE WHAT I MEAN??? LIKE HOW?
The lotus definitely didn’t bloom
what was the sphere of guava doing there
The black stuff was herbal jelly (original tadpoles)
Yuzu dots (not sure why )
The lotus itself is made from home made puff pastry but with a Chinese twist to it. Instead of butter it is made with pork fat. Same as regular puff pastry making, it consists of two doughs; the flour and fat dough. Imagine making puff pastry individually for every lotus. I tried making a big sheet and cutting out however I feel that it wasn’t as consistent as i like it to be. We work in a semi fining restaurant and I like if everything was exactly the same. Consistency is something I learned and value after working these few years in the kitchen.
I took the liberty to roll the 2 types of dough and filling. 15g of the flour dough, 10g of the pork fat dough and 8g of the filling separately and them laminating them 3 times before wrapping over the filling. Sometimes I want to shoot myself in the feet when service is slam and I have to repeat this process again. Time consuming and tedious. Not to mention the prep was all on me as the in charge of pastry. The balls are scored with a sharp knife and lowered to a 160C oil for 2minutes of frying. Yes, fry upon order. The day of launch was soo worrying. I was worried I’ll burn the lotus, or what if the layers combined and what if it doesn’t bloom?? STRESSSS but all worked out.
The filling was initially Roselle, lemon zest and white lotus but chef wanted the lotus flavour to be the star. A hint of vanilla is added to boost the lotus flavour. who knew.
The ‘pond’ was a tricky process, I probably spend the most time doing R&D on this area. It stared with just a thin pandan gelatin mixture that is poured onto a hotel pan, cut out with a circle cookie cutter. (as you can see from the pic above) ugly as can be. The process was also annoying. I could never get consistent thickness. I did more digging and remembered back when I was working in the hotel, we use to serve Ice jelly. essentially bring water and this powder to a boil and chill it. Taste was great and it didn’t have that gelatin or agar agar texture which I also didn’t like about using. Ice jelly has the soft slurping texture, sometimes found in bubble tea or fruit cocktail desserts. Turned out I really liked it and tried using Ice jelly. At that time Chef Quynh also just came back from vietnam with a bag of jasmine tea as souvenir for me. WALA. instead of water, imma use jasmine tea, throw some ice jelly powder in it, bring to a boil and hope for the best. That was the version I went with in the end.
How did I create the ripple/ pond effect? MOULD. Here is the answer. Pavoni mould.
Guava Sorbet fitting from the tropical aspect of Vietnam. The recipe was really easy
Pink Guava Sorbet
2000g Pink guava puree (ponthier)
240g glucose
16g stab
60g invert sugar
400g sugar
728g water
Bring puree, glucose,invert sugar and water to 40C. Mix the stabilizer with the sugar, add to mixture.
Bring to boil, hand blend. Let sorbet mixture mature overnight before churning.
Although this is my dish, but I like to think that it is collaboration of Chef Quynh and I. Without her faith in me and expertise, I wouldn’t have make it. The first time I plated it up and saw how ugly it was.. I honestly was just gonna scrap the idea. Thank you Chef Quynh for believing.
27 January 2024
