La Rossa likes it bitter

For our series of recipes from the finals of the fourth edition of Premio Birra Moretti Grand Cru, we finish the mini-menu created by chef Giovanni Sorrentino from Campania, at work in restaurant Vinile in Salerno. His savoury dish was dedicated to pigeon. Here’s how the chef presents his dessert.

The dessert follows the notes and characteristics recalled by the first course, but it also recalls the beer production process. In this way I tell its journey giving value to malt and hop, pairing them with a fresh and pungent herb like tarragon, white chocolate and hop caramel which loses its bitter notes thanks to the malt biscuits and the Birra Moretti La Rossa toffee.

Giovanni Sorrentino, chef at restaurant Vinile (Salerno)

La Rossa likes it bitter – White chocolate mousse, Birra Moretti La Rossa toffee sauce, puffed biscuit with barley malt in two textures: fresh and dried; tarragon ice cream and caramel made with Belgian hop from Poperinge

Recipe for 20 people

INGREDIENTS
For the mousse
450 g 35% fresh cream
45 g whole milk
45 g white sugar
3 g gelatine sheets
210 g white chocolate

For the toffee sauce
200 g Birra Moretti La Rossa
300 g white sugar
20 g salted butter
250 g 35% fresh cream

For the malt biscuit
250 g egg white
37 g white sugar
20 g icing sugar
50 g almond flour
18 g flour
100 g powdered barley malt extract

For the tarragon ice cream
1 l whole milk
100 g fresh tarragon
150 g white sugar
50 g honey
70 g glucose
4 g stabilizer

For the caramel made with Belgian hop from Poperinge
8 g dried and powdered hop flours
100 g glucose
150 g fondant sugar

As a pairing, Birra Moretti Zero

METHOD
For the mousse
Mix the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to 60°C and remove from the stove, add the gelatine sheet, previously softened in cold water. Drain it and mix it carefully with the melted white chocolate. Put the mixture into a glass bowl and leave it to rest in the fridge for 16 hours, then whisk and move into a pastry-bag.

For the toffee sauce
Mix the beer and sugar into a saucepan, bring to 160°C and remove from the stove. Leave it to cool, until warm, then add the salted butter with the help of a spoon, and then gradually add the fresh cream. Once you have added all the cream, put it into a sauce bottle and chill at +3°C.

For the malt biscuit
Using a whisk, mix all the ingredients inside a glass bowl, strain them in a colander and move to a syphon charged three times with nitrogen. Leave to rest for 6 hours in the fridge, then quickly shake the syphon. Fill some 200 ml plastic glasses suitable for a microwave oven to a half. Cook in the microwave at 900w for 1 minute.
When the glasses are all ready, turn them upside down and make some wholes on the base of the glass, to allow the humidity to come out. When they are cold, take half of them and remove them from the glass, putting the biscuits thus obtained in a drier at 40°C for 6 hours.

For the tarragon ice cream
Heat up the milk together with the tarragon and honey, bring it to 49°C then add the white sugar and glucose. Bring to 85°C, leave in infusion in the chiller at +3°C for 12 hours. Strain and cream.

For the caramel made with hop from Poperinge
Mix the three ingredients in a saucepan, using a spoon. Bring to 155°C, then pour on a silicon mat and leave to cool until the mixture can be handled and rolled out into thin leaves.

For the finishing
Using a pastry bag, create a white chocolate mousse spiral on the plate, place a layer of Birra Moretti La Rossa toffee on the grooves. Put a fresh and a dried biscuit on top. Form a boule of tarragon ice cream and place it on the biscuits. Finish by garnishing with a hop caramel leaf.