Lucas Sin Makes Almond Tofu With Poached Apricots & Black Sesame | Food52 + Lexus

my name is lucasin and today we're going to be making a Chinese almond tofu it's going to have poached apricots over the top and black sesame sauce as well this recipe is dedicated to Cecilia Chang who I think is one of the best Chinese chefs in America she had opened the Mandarin in San Francisco in 62 which was the first fine dining Chinese restaurant in America it was also the first Northern Chinese restaurant she wanted to show that Chinese food in America wasn't monolithic they could be diverse they could be Innovative it could be futuristic and it could like really push forward American Cuisine Cecilia demonstrated that one of the ways for a chef to never lose their Edge is to consistently and relentlessly refer to your traditions and your cultures and show it off today's recipe is a result of the collaboration between food 52 and the Lexus RX the new RX is a result of restless reinvention and the desire to always find new ground Leica Chef's restlessness to create the Lexus rx's aggressive design and Cutting Edge technology only happens when you're willing to push yourself out of the comfort zone weather chefs opening restaurants coming up with recipes telling stories that tenacity creativity and Innovation is core to their career this version of the recipe that we're showing you today wasn't the first version every single time we've served it whether it's at the James Beard house or in the restaurant or privately for parties every single time we've served it it's been a little bit different and the question is where does that Innovation I suppose or creativity come from you're constantly looking backwards into tradition but you're always constantly looking forward for new sources of inspiration foreign we are making almond milk the same way everybody else makes almond milk but we're going to be splitting it between Chinese almonds and Western almonds so these almonds that we know these are Blanche and slivered no skin on them I want the final product to be white which is why I prefer to use a blanched and peeled almonds this is what most almonds are here in the U.S in China these are apricot kernels they are related sometimes they're mistranslated as bitter almonds but they're related to what westerners call regular almonds apricot kernels are obviously from the apricot it's the center of the apricot you can't eat too much of this make sure you buy it from the proper sources and that's why when we're making something like almond tofu or almond milk we're splitting it with Western almonds or what we call sweet almonds usually fall into two categories it's called Northern almonds and seven almonds they're usually used in conjunction with each other Northern almonds tend to be quite bitter the southern almonds tend to be a little bit more sweet a little bit more fragrant a little bit more floral this time we're relying primarily on the southern almonds these almonds that sweetness is used in a lot of context in Savory context this is quite popular in a soup with pork bone and spinach or Watercress but also used in desserts one of the things I really like about this recipe is that yes the the recipe is called almond tofu but there's a little bit of a subversion for what people expect in terms of the Almond part as well as the tofu product these almonds need to soak overnight so that they hydrate fully that helps bring out a lot of the flavor but also allows it to blend quite a bit more smoothly if you don't soak this overnight the final product won't be as smooth and it won't be as delicious this is almonds that were soaked last night we're going to blend it until it's as smooth as you can get it and then we're going to strain it through a nut and milk bag here we go [Music] great so check for the fineness of the Grain on the outside of the blender cup just to see that this is not going to get any smoother than that like you'll see little bits but that's what we're screening out with the nut bag I think with blending that milk it's always just a couple seconds maybe half a minute more than you think it needs just to extract as much flavor out of there as possible she's going to drip a little bit and then the idea with this bag also is that you can start to twist this and squeeze out the excess it's about three cups of liquid to this amount of almonds which will yield about two cups of milk you should see that's perfectly smooth there shouldn't be any Grain on it especially if you rub it between your fingers you shouldn't feel any solids foreign it's important to point out that today this recipe is for a composed dessert originally almond tofu would have been served like little cubes of tofu right it would have been set with agar agar which would have given it I like to describe it as a sort of like crispy jelly texture it like has a little bit of a snap to it and you would be able to eat it with a fork or with toothpicks or whatnot this is inspired by that recipe but we're actually making more of a composed pudding dessert so the first thing that's going to go inside of this pot over medium heat is the almond milk that we made with a little bit of heavy cream traditionally almond tofu probably wouldn't have been made with any dairy inside of it I like the addition of dairy and also vanilla extract because those are two things that most of us in the Western World associate as a flavor profile with dessert milk cream tends to burn so just whisk this occasionally as it's heating up it's going to take you about three to five minutes for it to come to a simmer we're simmering this for two reasons first to cook it a little bit I think cooking it brings out a lot of the flavor and also helps quell some of the concerns about uncooked Chinese almonds because depending on how they're processed they have Trace Amounts of Cyanide and you want to dissolve first the sugar and the gelatin so a little note about gelatin we're using powdered gelatin today here you'll see it it's been bloomed if you've baked before blooming is an important technique because it just allows that gelatin to dissolve this is a teaspoon of gelatin it's solidified already because you let it sit for a little while but over the same medium heat we're just going to make sure everything is dissolved take your time with it don't let it burn last element is a pinch of salt pinch of salt brings out that sweetness actually similarly I mean a lot of people have made cupcakes and you know baked know to add salt to the sweet things to make the sweet thing taste more sweet and a lot of Chinese cooking we like to add a pinch of sugar into our Savory dishes because that makes it taste more Savory also works both ways so we're only cooking this until a simmer which is basically a boil and we want to make sure that everything is dissolved take it off the heat and then we're going to add two things vanilla extract and the second thing we're adding is almond extract whisk it all together make sure it's Incorporated and I'm pouring it into this because it's easier to portion out this is going to be a nightmare no it's not confidence baby there you go okay so you have about a pint or two cups of liquid here just set it in a nice cup whatever you have keep everything even put it on the sheet tray when you chill this in the fridge you can chill it overnight in my experience it takes about three four hours for it to set completely blowtorch take the bubbles out if you want it to be perfectly smooth definitely not necessary especially because we're going to pour sauce over it but I like to pour the sauce over it tableside which is why you want it to look nice there is cream and sugar and gelat in here so you don't want to like go too long and blow torch this is going to go in the fridge three four hours until it sets solid foreign [Music] half of the almond milk that we made went into the pudding the second half is going into sauce we're just going to heat this up until it's simmering again we just want to cook it and we're going to be sweetening it with osmanthus gem or sometimes described as osmanthus syrup basically all this is is osmanthus flowers which is preserved in sugar in syrup water all this almond milk has meant to syrup all of it together a couple of minutes maybe five six seven is my guess but we're just warming this up all together until it reduces just slightly and this thickens up a little little bit we're just reducing this so that it barely coats the back of your spoon we're just going to strain this out because I don't want the flower solids in there and all the flavors already inside of that almond sauce we're going to chill this down because I like to serve this as a cold dessert so we want to make sure all the sauces are cold too fresh sauce into the fridge second sauce is the black sesame sauce this is inspired by um which is a Cantonese Southern Chinese dessert soup it's black sesame and glutinous rice the glutinous rice helps to thicken it the black sesame is most of that flavor a pretty vivid childhood memories of eating almond tofu or like almond dessert soup with black sesame soup together sometimes called a yin yang dessert because it's black and white when you set them together you can mix them and like create cute little patterns it's almost a little similar to like latte art and it's fun as a kid so this is that the black and the black part is going to be black sesame seeds it's really important to first toast your sesame seeds to give it that toasty flavor right to give it that nutty flavor but because of black sesame seeds are hard to read in terms of degrees of toastiness it's helpful often to add a pinch of white sesame seeds once the white sesame seeds are toasted the black you can assume are too so dry pan just move it once in a while medium Heat by the way when we're toasting sesame seeds if you see a bunch of brown color and I'm being very nitpicky here technically you're actually burning the sesame seeds and so there are sesame seeds pre-toasted for you made from Korea that are toasted by infrared instead of dry heat which ends up coaxing what they say the maximum amount of flavor out of those sesame seeds Without Really any of that bitter astringent note but anyway that's really nitpicky fine dining stuff when you see that your white sesame seeds are brown you know they're toasted now those those sesame seeds are done it's going to go inside of a blender with water the sweetness is going to come from honey today it could easily be Agave it could be sugar as well as glutinous rice so this is sweet short grain glutinous rice long grain works as well gluten this rice is going to help thicken this because this whole mixture is going to get cooked so just blending it in high again foreign until it's basically completely smooth this is not the final texture because it's going to get cooked um sometimes when you do this step you're going to smell a little bit of like self-risk kind of like stinky stuff um and that's just from the the sesame seeds and the rice being grind it up like that once you cook it it's all going to go away and a lot of that like beautiful like bottom notes of of earthy toasty sesame seed flavor um all of that's going to get coaxed out beautiful I'm going to cook this for about seven minutes or so that beautiful black gray color most traditionally this would have been made ground between two rotating stones and the reason why we like that in Cantonese culture is because of that variance and texture that Randomness some slightly larger grains of Sesame some a little bit fighter so this has been on the sofa about five six minutes and this is the texture that you are aiming for once all that's come together you can turn that off and set this aside in the bowl cool that in the refrigerator as well [Music] here's a final component this is the post apricot and the reason why we're doing apricots is because apricot kernel was the extraction of the apricot kernel from apricots we're using the rest of the fruit you know very chefy sort of like apricot and apricot almond tofu and almond on almond almond type of like dish composition so dried apricots they're already dried which means that the sugar and the sweetness is concentrated really great use in this case so everything's combined it's white wine any white wine is fine the sugar is going to be the syrup thickener the other sweetener inside of this is big chunks of lemon peel after her goes in just a pinch of salt again to elevate that sweetness and we're just going to basically poach or stew this bring this to a simmering Heat reduce that temperature just let this slowly cook until the wine and the sugar and everything reduces into a syrup here push apricots about 20 minutes later you should be able to see that the wine syrup has reduced almost to a total syrup consistency and that your apricots should be fully hydrated and soft and tender so take that off the heat let it cool a little bit and then we're going to cut this into wedges once you finish cutting all your apricots cool that down in the fridge once everything is cold then we can compose a dessert couple pieces of the apricot in a pile on the side here you want a little bit of verticality because the sauce is going to pour over it flowers are edible and for show I also think yes they are for show they look pretty but they signal the flavor that's inside of the Almond tofu I really like to serve this as is with the saucepart tableside because it's quite fun to do this is a black sesame sauce this is a slightly heavier sauce that's going to go in the bottom so um we're putting it in the vessel that has a little bit of a spout on it on top of that we're going to gently layer a bit of our almond sauce near the front and then we're going to pour it into the vessel on top of the Almond tofu on top of the pudding it should hopefully create a bit of a striation so that you get two colors two textures here's a completed dessert one of my favorite things about this is that you get apricot at different levels almonds and different levels Sesame and you have a very tender panna cotta on the bottom with a gorgeous black and white sauce over the top you know um oh so good so nostalgic um the highest compliment that a Chinese grandmother and Cecilia was sort of to me could give dessert is that it's not too sweet um the bitterness and the toastiness of the black sesame seed plus most of the sweetness comes from the apricot kernel itself it's kind of like a perfect little bite is my go-to dessert and one of the best things we've done on food 52 so far by reminding myself of the people who are making Chinese food in the U.S prior to this and the way they were introducing different elements different textures into the menu I think we're able to build something that references a very strong tradition but doesn't forget about Innovation and I think a lot of our innovation in a lot of the ways that chefs don't lose their Edge is by referring to the tradition in the past but maybe presenting things in a different sort of aesthetic and textural way recipes on food 52.

Channel: Food52

Views: 100,337

Keywords: Food52, food, cooking, recipe, chef, foodie, cook, home cooking videos, lucas sin, lucas sin food52, vegan dessert, almond tofu, chinese recipes, black sesame, apricots, tofu dessert recipes, tofu dessert chinese

Id: VqQCCScUHAA

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2022