Time for dessert!
While waiting for the MxMo and the following Mai Tai rum combo posts i have this little dessert to squeeze in between, enjoy!
One of my favorite dessert treats is a Tahitian dish called “Papayes au four” – Oven baked Papaya. This dessert has been very appreciated everywhere i have served it and i love it. Its simple and sumptuous and a real treat.
You can use any nice dark rum in this but if you use a Demerara rum…well..i just happen to LOVE Demerara rum, those who know me knows that i`m on a life-long Demerara tasting experience..call it a part of my rum research (which also includes the research for the best Mai Tai rums). In this dessert i like to use Banks XM 10 year old which is a outstanding and very yummy Demerara rum with that sort of caramel flavor that is just perfect for this.
BAKED PAPAYA
For 6 servings you need:
3 papayas
3 vanilla beans – scrape out the seeds and spread them on the papaya.
6 tblsp raw sugar
6 tblsp dark rum
a bit of butter
1 can of Coconut milk
You cut the Papayas in halves, take the seeds out (they can be used in a salad) and place on a oven proof dish and fill each papaya halve with 1/2 – 1 tsp butter, 1/2 vanilla bean, 1/2 – 1 tsp raw sugar, 1 tblsp rum and bake in the oven at 180C for 15 minutes.
When done you pour some coconut milk in each papaya and leave the vanilla beans in for garnish.
In this blog i`m going to write about my drink and food experimenting, rums and other spirits and liqueurs. Mainly its going to involve Tikidrinks. But also the making of syrups, bitters and infusions…and whatever else i may come up with.
I do this for fun and i hope you`ll have fun too!
Its something special about Vanilla..maybe its the warm sensual fragrance and flavor of this beautiful exotic tropical climbing orchid…or the beauty of the flowers which only are open for a few hours in the morning. Maybe its the rich fragrant and oily darkness of the cured beans which at first are green. Vanilla flowers once a year in a period of about two months.
I love Vanilla and i always have my favorite beans at home which are the Tahitian beans, from Vanilla tahitensis. They have a very special floral aroma and flavor.
I`ve made my jar of Vanilla sugar with these beans since about 10 years now. I mix 1 pack each of Tate&Lyles – or Billingtons dark and light Muscovado sugars with 3-4 Tahitian beans which i split on the length and scrape out all those lovely tiny black seeds which i mix with the sugars.
The longer they stay in the sugar the more flavor the sugar takes on from the beans. When the sugar is finished i just add some more and it goes on and on..
I also make my Vanilla syrups using 1:1 ratio sugar and water and add a couple of split beans to the pan, let it simmer and then cool before i discard the beans (rinsing them and moving them to the sugar jar that is) and bottle my syrup.
A friend to me did mention that the Trinidad Especial cocktail, made by Valentino Bolognese who also won the European Angostura Cocktail Competition 2008 with this unusual cocktail, which indeed is a very special cocktail, using no less than 30 ml of Angostura bitters, is nice poured over Vanilla ice cream..(if you like Angostura bitters..)
Such a brilliant idea is one i cannot resist trying out for myself and my friends. So i made both the cocktail and then the Vanilla ice cream with some of the cocktail poured over it..and indeed this cocktail tastes good! It wasn`t that bitter as i first expected but rather aromatic and spicy with a heavy dose of clove flavor. On the ice cream it was a treat. I couldn`t resist dusting some Vanilla powder on top..
10 ml. Pisco Mistral
20 ml. fresh lime juice
30 ml. barley syrup
30 ml Angostura Aromatic Bitters.
Shake hard and long, and strain in a Martini glass.
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