To celebrate Anzac Day on Thursday April 25, head chef Mark Bennett from Esca Bimbadgen in the heart of the Hunter Valley has put together a tantalising passionfruit meringue that you can make at home!
For those of you that haven’t made plans to celebrate yet, Esca Bimbadgen will be putting on an Anzac Day menu from Saturday April 20 until Sunday April 28.
Ingredients:
Banana bread crumb
265g Self Raising flour
40g Plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
140g brown sugar
125g milk
2 eggs
50g room temperature unsalted butter
2 bananas (over ripe is better)
Strawberry gel
250g strawberries (finely diced)
50ml water
1g agar
10g caster sugar
Disposable piping bag
Bimbadgen Fortified Verdelho Cream
200ml Bimbadgen fortified Verdelho
200ml pure cream
Nitro poached passionfruit meringue
8 fresh free range eggs (whites only)
50ml Passionfruit syrup
100g Caster sugar
To serve
Fresh Blueberries
Edible flowers
Liquid nitrogen
Method
Banana bread crumb
Pre – heat oven to 140 degrees and grease an appropriate size bread / loaf tin.
Sift together the flours and cinnamon.
Whip the butter and sugar until pale and light.
Beat the eggs and add slowly to the butter sugar mix.
Slowly add the milk.
Fold through the flour.
Fold through the bananas.
Place in a greased baking tin and bake at around 140 degrees until a skewer can be inserted into the bread and removed cleanly (approximately 45mins).
Once the cake has cooled, break into pieces and blitz in a food processor to create crumb, store in an airtight container.
Strawberry Gel
Add all ingredients to a pot and bring to the boil whilst stirring vigorously.
Strain through a fine strainer into a shallow baking tray and allow to set firm in the fridge When the mixture has set, blitz in a blender and pass through a fine strainer again to obtain a smooth consistency.
Store in a disposable piping bag until required.
Bimbadgen Fortified Verdelho Cream
Add Bimbadgen fortified Verdelho to a small pot and reduce to a syrup like consistency. Allow to cool.
Whip the cream and gently fold through the reduced fortified Verdelho.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge
Nitro Poached Passionfruit Meringue
Whip the egg whites to soft peaks and then slowly sift in the caster sugar whilst beating on a high speed.
Whip to firm peaks and then fold through and passionfruit syrup.
Immediately spoon the mixture into the liquid nitrogen and allow a shell to form on the outside, but remove before it sets completely firm.
To Serve
Place the banana bread crumb in small piles on the plate.
Sporadically dot the strawberry gel.
Scoop dollops of the Bimbadgen Verdelho cream onto the plate.
Place the Poached passionfruit meringue on the plate.
Garnish with berries, flowers and some passionfruit syrup.
Note: You can speed up the process by buying a slice of banana bread and blitzing it in the food processor. Strawberry jam can substitute the gel. You can also freeze the Meringue on a tray in the freezer if you can not access Liquid Nitrogen.
By Mark Bennett
Esca Bimbadgen Restaurant
www.bimbadgen.com.au
