Brazilian Mousse de Maracujá (passion fruit)

We've been to three Brazilian restaurants recently and all offered a dessert I'd never had before: Mousse de Maracujá. Maracuya (also called Passion Fruit) is one of my favorite fruits -- intensely tart with crunchy seeds.

When coming up with recipes, I usually look at a bunch, omit outlying ingredients, average the amounts, and come up with what I hope is a typical version. For this one, some recipes were minimal, with only Frozen Maracuya, Heavy Cream, Sweetened Condensed Milk, a couple use Table Cream (20% fat, which makes a more firm mousse), one recommends Gelatin for a semi-solid consistency, and one recipe even included Cream Cheese. Some say to blend a long time (6-8 minutes), others claim that less blending is crucial. 

Despite my skepticism about the AI hype, this time I asked DuckDuckGo's LLM (GPT-4o mini) to synthesize a recipe. The one it came up with is quite simple, adding only Gelatin to give it a more firm texture, which I hope will be similar to the Passion Fruit Cremeaux we made 5 years ago. FWIW, I also asked ollama (gpt-oss:20b) on my Mac but it gave me a much more complicated recipe adding Egg Yolks, Butter, Whole Eggs, Vanilla. I'll stick with the simpler one.

If you don't have Gelatin or are vegetarian, the LLM suggested substituting 2 g Agar Agar; see below. Further prompting to replace both Gelatin and Agar had it substitute 100 g extra Heavy Cream, whipped and folded into the blended mixture, but won't go there this time.

Makes 5 small (165 ml) ramekins as shown above.

250 g   Passion fruit pulp, frozen

200 g   Sweetened Condensed Milk

200 g   Heavy Cream, 35% fat

  5 g   Gelatin, unflavored (or 2 g Agar Agar)

 30 ml  Water

 taste  Sugar

Thaw the frozen Passion Fruit Pulp.

In a small bowl, dissolve the 5 grams of Gelatin in 30 milliliters of water; let it sit for about 5 minutes to bloom, then gently heat until fully dissolved. If using Agar, in a small saucepan, combine 2 grams of Agar with 30 milliliters of Water; bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly and let it simmer for about 2-3 minutes until the Agar is completely dissolved; remove from heat.

In a blender, combine the thawed Passion Fruit Pulp, Sweetened Condensed Milk, and Heavy Cream. Blend until smooth, about 5 minutes. I used a stick blender, moving it up and down to ensure it was well combined. 

Slowly add the dissolved Gelatin / Agar to the blender, mixing well until combined.

Taste the mixture and add sugar if desired, blending again to incorporate.

Pour the mixture into serving cups. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or until set.

Serve chilled, optionally garnished with fresh passion fruit seeds or a sprinkle of grated chocolate.

Next Time

The texture was good: not fluid but not so firm as to retain its shape on a spoon.

The only fault was that there were shards of the Gelatin which were not incorporated. This was probably due to drizzling the warm liquid into the cold Maracuya mixture, causing it to seize before the stick blender could incorporate it thoroughly. 

Next time: use a regular blender to incorporate the Gelatin immediately, and warm the Maracuya mixture a bit to prevent seizing. 

Atún encebollado: tuna with caramelized onions

This is a dish from Cádiz where the ancient Almadraba red tuna harvest takes place. It's fairly easy to make, but has a rewarding flavor from rich ingredients. I like mine a little saucy, not soupy, but juicy, not dry. It's frequently served with bread to sop up any remaining juices.  It may seem like a lot of Onions, but they'll cook down significantly, and it is the name of the dish.

Tasty, but not photogenic

Some recipes cook the tuna as steaks and top with the onions, but I prefer chunks of tuna that give more opportunity to grab some onions. Most don't marinade nor sear the Tuna, but I think it gives more flavor than cooking it naked in the onions.

Look for red tuna (átun rojo) -- the traditional tuna from the Almadraba -- but yellowtail can be used if that's not available. Don't use the luxurious Ventresca cut, it's fat is too luxurious.

Serves 2, measurements are flexible

300 g       Tuna, fresh, cut into steaks
            Olive Oil, extra virgin
            Salt
500 g       Onion, large, sliced into strips [4-5 whole onions]
  2 cloves  Garlic, sliced thin
  2 whole   Bay Leaf
            Oregano
 50 ml      Sherry
  5 g       Pimenton picante (spicy) or dulce (sweet) [1/2 Tbs]
            Parsley, minced, for garnish

Marinade the Tuna with Salt and Pimenton for a while, then slather with Oil and let them marinade a while longer -- over night is OK.

Slice the onions into strips and sauté in Olive Oil with the Garlic until very soft and golden brown; this will take a while. It goes faster if you cover it, but remove the cover if it's too wet. Stir occasionally. Add Pimenton and stir to cook briefly. Add the Sherry to deglaze and combine.

Meanwhile... Sear Tuna hot and fast, very briefly, to develop flavor and texture;  you don't want to cook it because you'll finish it later in the onions and don't want it to dry out. Remove and cut into bite-sized pieces.

Add the reserved Tuna back to the Onions and combine. Adjust Salt, Pepper, and Pimenton. Cook just a few minutes until the Tuna is barely cooked through -- do not overcook the Tuna, it will become dry.

Garnish with Parsley and serve.

This is frequently served with bread to sop up any remaining juices, or roasted potatoes or rice. You could add a fresh salad with tomatoes and roasted bell peppers. 

A dry white wine or Fino Sherry would go well.

Samin Nosrat's Ligurian Focaccia Bread

I've been working on Focaccia here because our excellent bakers don't sell it by the slab, only as finished sandwiches and such. My latest attempt gave me a lofty rise and good texture with minimal work. A Silpat prevents sticking, but parchment or foil should make a better bottom crust.

This recipe won The Kitchn's bake-off and they gush about it in another post. In the recipe, one commenter transcribed the amounts by weight from the video, which is where I'm starting from. If you combine the water from the dough and brine, you get an 85% hydration, about as high as I've seen.  A follow-up suggested adding Barley Malt, which I might try after mastering it the honey.

I can't get Diamond Kosher Salt here, so am using basic cooking salt, but measuring by weight so the density shouldn't be a factor. I'm baking in my small oven's baking tray, which is 38x30 cm (15x12 inch), which is a 77% the area of her 18x13 inch pan. In practice I've been using a 93% scale which fits comfortably enough, and that's what the SCALED amounts below are based on.

My first attempt at this used the food processor and more yeast because I didn't plan ahead for the overnight rise: it was promising but both rises took 5 hours, and the bottom burned a bit because I put the tray directly on the oven floor. The second attempt with her long rise took more than 14 hours for the first rise and 2 hours for the second, didn't come out lofty as I'd hoped, and it stuck to the tray. For the third try, I increased the scaled Yeast to 3 grams and got a good bubbly first rise overnight (12 hours) and a one-hour second rise; I baked on a Silpat which made removal easy but the bottom was a bit soggy so try parchment next time, but the rise and texture of the bread was rather good.

ORIGINAL   METRIC  SCALED BAKER%

Dough:

2 1/2 C     600 g   560 g ( 75%) Water, lukewarm

  1/2 tsp   1.7 g   3.0 g (0.4%) Yeast (increase from original)

2 1/2 tsp    15 g    14 g (1.8%) Honey (or Barley Malt)

5 1/3 C     800 g   750 g (100%) All Purpose Flour

    2 Tbs    18 g    17 g (2.2%) Salt

  1/4 C      50 g    47 g (6.2%) Olive Oil, Extra Virgin (plus extra)

                                 Rosemary, chopped (optional)

5 

Brine:

1 1/2 tsp     5 g   4.7 g (0.6%) Salt

  1/3 C      80 g    75 g ( 10%) Water, lukewarm

In a medium bowl, mix Water, Yeast, and Honey.

In a very large bowl, sift Flour and Salt, then add in Yeast liquid and Oil.

Stir to combine with a spatula and scrape down edges; this is easy since it's so fluid;

cover with film and let rise 12-14 hours, overnight is convenient.

Line the 38x30 cm tray with parchment or foil (the Silpat shown here keeps it too moist).

Spread 2-3 Tbs Olive Oil over the lined tray.

Fold the dough gently onto it self and pour into the tray.

Pour additional 2 Tbs Olive Oil over dough and spread gently.

Gently stretch the dough to the edge of the sheet by placing your hands underneath and pulling outward. 

It will pull back but let it relax over 30 minutes, repeating the stretching a couple times to fill the pan.

Add chopped Rosemary if desired.

Dimple the dough with finger pads

Make a brine by dissolving the Salt in the Water, then pour over dough to fill dimples.

Let rise about an hour until the dough is light and bubbly.

About 30 minutes before the rise is due to finish, heat oven to 230C/450F.

Sprinkle dough with Flakey Salt.

Bake 25-30 minutes on a preheated surface; putting the tray directly on the floor the full bake time overcooked the bottom but might be OK for half the baking.

Bake until the bottom crust is crisp and golden; if needed, move the tray to an upper rack for a few minutes to brown it.

Remove and brush with 2-3 Tbs Oil over the whole surface; use a fancy Oil here if you have it.

Let cool 5 minutes then release Focaccia from pan with metal spatula and transfer to a cooling rack.