From the “clandestine pleasure” of smoking a cigar in the kitchen came a dessert with 25 years of creative elaboration: history and recipe of Jordi Roca's Journey to Havana.
The dessert
If haute pastry “on the plate” today represents a science in motion, much of the credit goes to Jordi Roca. A pastry chef known even to the uninitiated, aided by the emotional scenes of Chef's Table and online videos of unpredictable desserts ready to come to life almost magically, the youngest of the El Celler brothers enjoys international fame thanks to the expressive power of his creations. Yet, few know the behind-the-scenes behind such signatures as “Cloud,” a simulation of rain on a plate through a condensation of mushroom distillate, or the Mother Yeast Ice Cream, which wiggles live in front of astonished guests in an escalation of chemical and physical reactions.
Scrolling through the entries of the Girona gourmet's most representative meal endings, one then comes across the "Journey to Havana", among the very first attempts at experimentation in which the early "young inventor" ever engaged. It all stemmed from the “clandestine pleasure” of smoking a cigar in the kitchen: Jordi happened to direct the hot jet toward the ice cream, placing the latter inside the freezer to see how the taste would evolve. Surprise: when the service was over, he discovered that that improvised recipe tasted just like tobacco, since (simplifying it a lot) a whipped ice cream incorporates air bubbles within it, and the smoky ones generated by the cigar turned out to be crackling, as well as particularly persistent in the mouth.
With his father's support, Jordi created a water pump that directed the smoke from the cigar directly into the ice cream maker. The resulting ice cream was then served in a dark chocolate cylinder. The refinement of the technique seems to have taken 25 years (we read on Infobae), leading to the composition of a “very fine chocolate-covered ice cream, plus sides of mojito, lemon gel, mint slush and white rum.” The outcome? A cigar to be grasped, bitten, smelled and explored altogether with all the senses well activated. Reproducing it requires patience and dedication, following the recipe reported by Molecularrecipes.com and Four Magazine.
The recipe for Journey to Havana - Jordi Roca's sweet cigar
Ingredients
For the cigar smoke ice cream
- 1 cup heavy cream (according to American recipe, whole cooking “fat cream”)
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 4 g gelatin
- 1 cigar
Pour the gelatin powder over half a cup of milk and let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
Gently heat the milk and stir until the gelatin dissolves.
Mix with the rest of the ingredients and follow the ice cream maker's instructions to freeze it. It is recommended to use an ice cream maker that is not completely closed and allows the mixture to infuse with cigar smoke during the operation.
While the mixture is spinning in the ice cream maker, fill it with cigar smoke for 1 minute. You can generate the smoke using your choice of two different methods:
-With an inexpensive manual siphon pump: connect the cigar to the end of the suction tube using a latex cylinder (cut off the finger of the latex glove). Continue pumping and direct the smoke into the ice cream mixture using the exhaust tube.
-Place small pieces of cigar in the smoking gun.
For the chocolate cigar
- 200 g dark chocolate
Cut the baking paper into 4 rectangles measuring 13 cm x 8 cm.
Using a spatula, spread a 2 mm layer of tempered chocolate (see below) over the baking paper rectangles, leaving about 1 cm uncovered along one of the longer sides.
Roll the chocolate-covered baking paper to form a cylinder, leaving the uncovered part of the rectangle on the outside of the cylinder.
Place the cylinders in the refrigerator. Wait a few minutes for them to solidify and immediately continue the procedure to assemble and serve, unless you want to temper the chocolate again at a later time.
*To temper chocolate
Tempering chocolate is the process of melting and cooling it so that suitable cocoa butter crystals form to make a hard, glossy chocolate that does not become “sticky” at room temperature. It should be processed in a cool, dry environment and a good thermometer should be used.
Finely chop the dark chocolate.
With the bain-marie method, heat 170 g of chocolate at a very low temperature, stirring constantly, until it reaches a temperature of 48 °C, but without exceeding 49 °C. Take care that water does not come into contact with the chocolate.
Remove it from the heat and add the rest of the chopped chocolate that has not yet melted. Stir until the temperature drops to 27 °C, but do not go below 25 °C, or you will have to reheat the mixture to 48 °C and start over.
Heat the melted chocolate to 33 °C. To check whether you have obtained good tempered chocolate, place a ball of chocolate in the refrigerator for a few minutes: if you have done a good job, it should be hard and shiny.
As you work with the tempered chocolate, stir it every few minutes and keep it warm at 32 °C using a heat lamp or other heat source.
For the fake ash
- 4 tablespoons black sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon powdered lemon peel
- 1 tablespoon powdered ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
Dessert composition
Using a decorating sac à poche with a medium tip, fill the chocolate cylinders with the cigar smoke ice cream.
Cover one end of the cylinder with tempered chocolate using a spatula. Store in the freezer until ready to serve.
Place a couple of tablespoons of black sugar-spice mix in a clean ashtray.
Dip the uncovered end of the chocolate cigar into the mix and serve immediately on the ashtray.
Website of El Celler de Can Roca
