White chocolate with grapefruit and lemon

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Nuno Mendes creates a perfect meld of white chocolate and the fresh citrus flavours of grapefruit and lemon in this delicious recipe - and you get to burn hay to smoke the meringues.

First published in 2015

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

White chocolate mousse

French meringues

  • 4 egg whites
  • 100g of caster sugar
  • 100g of icing sugar
  • 2 handfuls of hay, large

Lemon sauce

  • 5 lemons, juiced, zested with flesh cut into segments
  • 250g of caster sugar

Grapefruit sorbet

  • 50ml of water
  • 50g of caster sugar
  • 400ml of pink grapefruit juice
  • 40g of atomised glucose
  • 10g of dextrose
  • 5g of ice cream stabiliser

White chocolate syphon

  • 4 sheets of gold gelatine
  • 700ml of milk
  • 30ml of liquid glucose
  • 400g of white chocolate

To plate

  • 2 sprigs of lavender, flowers picked and reserved

Equipment

  • Bain-marie
  • Ice cream maker
  • Piping bag with plain nozzle
  • Syphon bottle

Method

1
To make the white chocolate mousse, melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water
2
Whip the whipping cream
  • 500ml of whipping cream
3
Make a sabayon by whisking the eggs, egg yolks and sugar in a bain marie until the mixture is thick enough to hold a trail
4
Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes to soften. Mix the hot sabayon with the soaked gelatine leaves and cool until thick but not set
  • 4 sheets of gold gelatine
5
Mix the melted white chocolate with the sabayon and whipped cream to make a mousse. Put in the fridge until ready to serve
6
Preheat the oven to 80°C/Gas mark 1/4
7
Next make the meringue. Whip the egg whites with the sugar and when thoroughly blended, fold in the icing sugar by hand
  • 4 egg whites
  • 100g of caster sugar
  • 100g of icing sugar
8
Use a piping bag to make small dots of the mixture on a baking tray, pulling up the bag to give them points on top, then cook for 1 1/2 hours in the oven
9
Place the hay in the base of a large pot. Put the meringues on a tray above the hay, burn the hay and cover it with foil to contain the smoke. Leave for 2 hours
  • 2 handfuls of hay, large
10
To make the lemon sauce, cook the lemon juice, reserved segments and zest with the sugar in a pan until it forms a thick sauce. Strain and set aside
  • 5 lemons, juiced, zested with flesh cut into segments
  • 250g of caster sugar
11
Make a sugar syrup by boiling the water and sugar together. Take the pink grapefruit juice and mix with the syrup, atomised glucose, dextrose and ice cream stabilizer. Put in the fridge to cool and then churn in an ice cream maker
  • 50ml of water
  • 50g of caster sugar
  • 400ml of pink grapefruit juice
  • 40g of atomised glucose
  • 10g of dextrose
  • 5g of ice cream stabiliser
12
Finally, make the white chocolate syphon. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes to soften. Boil the milk with the glucose and add the white chocolate, stir and add the soaked gelatine leaves. Cool and put in a syphon bottle or cream whipper
  • 4 sheets of gold gelatine
  • 700ml of milk
  • 30ml of liquid glucose
  • 400g of white chocolate
13
To plate, spoon the white chocolate mousse onto the centre of each plate. Place a scoop of the sorbet on top of the mousse, then emit the white chocolate syphon mixture in four droplets around the stack
14
Place a meringue on top of each syphon droplet, then drizzle the lemon sauce across the plate. Finally, scatter with lavender
First published in 2015

For a chef, having mentors like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Ferran Adrià must be akin to taking music classes with Chopin and Brahms. Nuno Mendes' London restaurant demonstrates the qualities of ambition that most good protégés possess.

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