PAVLOVA Peter Gilmore, Bennelong Australians and New Zealanders quarrel about many things: the true origins of the Flat White, of Crowded House, even of Russell Crowe. Still more contentious, perhaps, is the pavlova, the classic assembly of fruit, cream and slightly chewy meringue that is named for ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured both countries in the 1920s. Recipes of that era from both sides of the Tasman Sea are often touted as conclusive proof by both sides – while, pitching a culinary curveball into the mix, some food historians claim that the pavlova is merely a simpler version of the Spanische Windtorte, a baroque Viennese cake from at least a century earlier. The truth is lost in distant clouds of icing sugar, but that has not stopped chef Peter Gilmore from commandeering an Australian icon to place pavlova firmly on his side of the Ditch. As well as the much-fêted Quay restaurant, he is at the helm of Bennelong, the restaurant in the Sydney Opera House, and the building’s famous roof gave him his inspiration. He fills poached meringue with seasonal fruit, then inverts it on the plate and uses piped, whipped double cream and wafers of Italian meringue to simulate the roof’s gloss and matte tiles, then completes the dish with crisp meringue “sails”. the egg SAINT HONORÉ Adrien Bozzolo, Sur Mesure the pastry Honoratus – or, to francophones, Saint Honoré – is the patron saint of pastry cooks, and lends his name to both Paris’s fashionable Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and to the gâteau Saint Honoré, a riotously rich confection of puff pastry, choux pastry, crème chiboust, caramelised cream puffs and lashings of whipped cream. The former has always been home to the latter: invented in 1847 at the Chiboust bakery, it is now a signature dessert at Thierry Marx’s Sur Mesure, in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel at number 251. A startlingly vertical and triangular construction – reminiscent, as it happens, of the pyramid in front of the Louvre, at the other end of the Jardin des Tuileries – it was created by Marx’s chief patissier Adrien Bozzolo, a superb culinary stylist who often prefers his pastries to stand up, rather than sit down. His version of the Saint Honoré is encased in rectangular arlettes (caramelised puff pastries) coated in translucent streaks of caramel to give a woody effect, and filled with crème brûlée, praline cream and a chantilly cream made from sweetened mascarpone and vanilla. Honoratus would indeed be honoured. PHOTOS FROM TOP: NIKKI TO, MATHILDE DE L’ECOTAIS; OPPOSITE PAGE: COURTESY GASTRO SENTRAL/LE MERIDIEN KUALA LUMPUR 80 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
the iced AIS KACANG Sazli Nazim, Gastro Sentral Shaved-ice desserts have a long and almost global history, from the snow cones of the USA to Japanese kakigori, Indian gola and Mexican raspado. Sherbets, sorbets and granitas are typically made by freezing a fruit syrup: for a shaved-ice dessert, the ice is flavoured and sweetened after being shaved. And nowhere is this done more spectacularly than in Malaysia, where ais kacang (literally “bean ice”) is a joyously garish staple of hawker stalls, coffee shops and food courts. Its name gives one clue to its toppings – sweetened red beans are invariably added – but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Palm seeds, sweetcorn, peanuts, cubes of grass jelly, syrups of various flavours and colours including rose and sarsaparilla, ice cream, condensed milk or coconut milk … ais kacang is surely the world’s most overdressed dessert. The version served last year by Sazli Nazim, head chef of Gastro Sentral in Kuala Lumpur, was even more extravagant than normal: weighing in at 3.5 kilograms, the challenge he set his diners was to finish the whole bowl within half an hour and their dessert would be free. The promotion ran for three months, and nobody claimed the prize. CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 81
