It turns out the Chartreuse was not the only culprit in the discoloration of our celery-raisin-Chartreuse sauce. The raisins also react with the vibrant celery leaves and cause the sauce to transform from vibrant to drab quite quickly. Unfortunately it took several too many tries to realize it was the raisins degrading our sauce. While the sauce's beauty is short lived, we cannot leave it alone.
The flavors of all three ingredients together are amazing. The experience of combining them and watching them degrade has furthered our work with the last minute combination of ingredients. It is great to be able to have a complete sauce on hand and just use it, although the last minute balancing of three flavor bases, while not considered overly functional, yields a sauce both vibrant in color and flavor. We now have a celery leaf puree made with celery leaves pureed with celery water and ice, a golden raisin puree made with celery water soaked raisins, and a Chartreuse syrup consisting of slowly reduced Green Chartreuse. The a la minute blending of ingredients is something we have leaned away from in the past. I believe that previously we focused on efficiency and consistency and so finishing sauces in advance made sense. Though our recent experiences have reawakened the concept of and the need to execute sauces at the last minute. The key to this approach is the quality of the elements which are going to be blended and the palate of the chef.
