Kenneth Culhane’s clementine recipe
On our November 2021 newsletter, we’re joining our sponsor Wellocks in celebrating the new harvest of leafy clementines. Roux Scholar Oli Williamson says when cooking with them “Don’t neglect the leaves: they make a great powder, oil or cream infusion.” Meanwhile our judge Rachel Humphrey suggests an exciting yet simple way to cook them, which you can even try at home: “Use the zest to season fish such as mackerel, then peel and slice and char with a blow torch or very hot grill. You can then add to sliced fennel and season with balsamic and olive oil to serve with the grilled fish.”
Roux Scholar 2010 Kenneth Culhane has featured them on his menu at The Dysart Petersham in the past. He says: “The dish is a wonderful fresh celebration of the clementine season, we also get these great English yuzu fruits at this time of the year, which perfectly complements the clementine flavours. It’s a great pre dessert on a tasting menu or seasonal palette cleanser.”
Clementines, port Ajwa dates and Earl Grey tea, English yuzu fruit, almond dentelles tuile
Date purée
300g Ajwa dates
100ml Clementine juice
100ml port
50ml Manzillia sherry
50ml rum
1/2 vanilla pod
2 early grey tea bags
Pick the stones from the dates and place in a pot, scrape the vanilla beans from the pods and add to the dates with the clementine juice, port, sherry, rum and cook until soft for 10 minutes on a low heat.
Add the tea bags while all the ingredients are still hot and leave to infuse for 10 minutes with a lid on.
Squeeze all the tea from the bags and remove the vanilla pod and blend to a purée consistency.
Coconut purée
1L coconut purée
10g agar agar
Heat 600ml of the purée with the 10g of agar and cook out for 1 minute. Leave to set on a flat tray and then blitz to a purée with the remaining coconut.
English Yuzu sorbet
2 yuzu fruit sliced
350g water
200g unwaxed lemon juice
150g caster sugar
150g glucose
3g stabiliser
80ml vanilla infuse extra virgin olive oil
Warm all the ingredients together except the olive oil and leave to infuse for one night in the fridge. Pass the sorbet and squeeze out all the juices from the yuzu. Churn in an ice cream machine and for the final few moments ripple the olive oil into it as it makes its final few churns.
Clementine skin and leaf syrup
This is a great way to make sure all the flavours of the fruits are used in this dish.
10 strips of clementine peel
10 individual clementine leaves
100ml water
30g caster sugar
Gently warm the ingredients to 65 degrees and then leave to infuse for one day in the fridge. Use a spoon of the syrup to mix with the clementine segments.
Almond tuile
120g Fondant
80g Glucose
60g Finely crushed almonds
Heat the sugars to 160 degrees and then add the almonds. Place this in between two silicon slip mats and roll out into strips, you can keep placing it back in the oven if it starts to set on you, once you’ve formed the strips then roll into various sized circles.
To plate
Place some of the coconut and date purées on the plate, add a quenelle of sorbet, mix the clementine segments with the leaf syrup and place around. Then garnish with the tuiles.
