Leave the Gun, Take the Puri
A love affair with pistachio
The sky is crystal clear blue. The side walk seems whiter than ver. Walking into town, the air is filled with this intoxicating aroma of roasted pistachios. My stomach sends my brain a message with a growl and the scene from the little shop of horrors “Feed me Seymour” There it is, in the distance, what looks like a hot dog cart. Instead of serving hot dogs they are serving fresh plucked from the tress, pistachios. I ask how much, $0.50. The bag hits my hand and its warm. At this point in my life I have never in my life had warm fresh pistachio. I pop a pistachio in my mouth. At that exact moment in time I download my addiction and I have always been trying to get that same fix.
Fast forward 39 years. I am handed a box of cannolis. I opened said box and there is every color of the rainbow represented by each cannoli. I see the one. It is green, like the hulk. The shell, dipped in chocolate. I am not one for desserts, a lot of times I am truly disappointed with them.They usually look beautiful but lack flavor or just aren’t worth the caloric intake. I took that initial bite. I got that crunch factor from the shell of the cannoli. That chocolate came in as the masked rider. Revealing a layer of something that I did not know I needed. Then, I hit the cannoli cream filling. Let’s just say, nothing and we will move on.
After that taste of the cannoli, trying to think about Indian desserts and how I can mash something. It hit me. Cannoli shell pistachio cannoli cream. It wasn’t scratching that itch. There was something missing. It was not Indianish enough. It seemed more Italian wrong I country. I remembered back to India walking into the Punjab dessert store. At the very front there was a worker serving pan puri. That was my light bulb moment. Puri these little fried semolina puffs that give this crunch. It is pop in your mouth satisfying.
So, I set out to make this dessert. I wanted it to check several boxes. Indianish. Instagramable. Ease of execution for the line. Low food cost high profitability. It had to give a punch of pistachio. I wanted to touch a trend and push my creative side. I wanted to give the guest an experience for their senses that they have never known that they needed until they taste this. I took pistachios, and sugar. I made a brittle and then transformed it into a powder. I used that to stabilize the puri and add textures and more flavor. I will crack a hole and fill the puri with the pistachio cream and dip that into a sour orange chocolate ganache. Candied pistachios for extra crunch. Lastly brown butter katatifi that secret little touch. The difference between good and OMG!
Want the recipe, email me Jeffrey.schlissel@gmail.com or comment below…
#ChefEvolution #TheSoulBehindTheFlame #Foodtellsstories #cannoli#indiancuisine
