Walnut

I did not set out to make a walnut dessert.  Really, who sets out to make a dessert about a nut, particularly a walnut?  It turns out I did.  Parts and pieces of this dessert have been tweaked, removed, refined and eliminated as it has come from concept to plate. 

I started with the streusel.  I think streusel coffee cakes were invented just for me.  As it is now autumn, maple came to mind and I began work on a maple streusel.  The next component for the dish is our white chocolate and yogurt ice cream.  While the ice cream was churning I began work on some apples.  I poached these apples in Madeira flavored with candied ginger.  The parts for the dessert were coming together, revolving around the feeling of fall.

I wanted a nut component for the dessert and walnuts, while not Aki's favorite, came to mind.  And in this case were a perfect fit.  At first I had plans of making a walnut and yogurt puree to balance the dish.  That idea was fleeting and was replaced by a walnut terrine.  I started with street vendor style sandy walnuts perfumed with ginger, cinnamon and cardamom.  When the nuts were toasty and the kitchen smelled a childhood walk down a Manhattan street on the days before Thanksgiving I pulled them off the heat and let them cool.

I reserved some of the toasted nuts and ground them to a medium crumb.  Now I really had sandy nuts.  The rest of the toasted nuts were pressure cooked with half and half.  The resulting tender nuts were pureed with some skim milk to make a toasted walnut cream.  We then thickened the cream with carrageegnan and set it as a terrine.  The texture and taste is of silken walnuts married to pumpkin pie filling.  I was really amazed at how good this filling was and how it made me want more. 

While I was working on the walnut base I had some golden raisins being glazed in hard cider and glucose.  Once again, I reserved some sticky raisins and then pureed the rest.  My original plan was to make a raisin crisp though its part in this dish seemed inappropriate.  Instead, I tamed the sweet richness of the raisin puree with yogurt, borrowing the tang from the ice cream in a fluid preparation.  The final element to the dish was simple, a reduction of the apple poaching liquid, a concentrated application of Madeira, apple and ginger.

This dessert took much longer to come together than I initially had planned.  As I noted, I did not know it was going to be about the walnut, yet that walnut terrine steals the show with all the other components piquing and complementing its flavors and texture.