In the kitchens of starred Chefs worldwide, new ingredients coming from local gastronomic traditions are becoming more popular so that to prevail among the trends of High-end fusion fine dining. Most of the time, they are super-food, i.e. food with healthy nutrition properties, like the Curcuma for instance, that has become a hit in the kitchens around the world for several years now.
Today we want to talk about three ingredients of the Asian cuisine, which have progressively become real “trends” of fine dining restaurants and have entered Acetaia Leonardi products portfolio in an original way: in the Gastronomic Pearls.
We refer to the Soy sauce, the well-known basic condiment of all Asian cuisine, and two less known specialties, which are strongly finding their way in the international fine dining tables: Yuzu and Ponzu. The Ponzu sauce actually contains Yuzu among its ingredients.
Let’s start our journey around the properties and usages of these three specialties, starting from YUZU.
Yuzu is a small citrus fruit which originates from East Asia and widely used in the Japanese cuisine. Its colour varies from yellow to green and its dimensions, from 5,5 to 7,5 cm makes it look like a small grapefruit with uneven skin. Like all citrus, it is very aromatic and tastes like grapefruit, with notes of lime and tangerine. Considered as a super-food, the Yuzu provides beneficial properties for the body, due to high content of antioxidants, flavonoids, Vitamin C, polyphenols and mineral salts.
In Japan, the Yuzu is used the same way we do with Lemon in Europe: consuming the juice and the peel. It is however an ingredient of many specific traditional recipes such as: the Ponzu sauce, the Yuzu vinegar, the Yuzu tea, the spicy sauce “Yuzu & pepper” and many liqueurs, besides garnishing the miso soup or flavouring home-made and industrial pastries and dishes. In the fusion cuisine, the Yuzu is always present to enhance savoury preparations based on fish and seafood, and also soups, butter and gravies.
The citric aroma of Yuzu recalls the bitter-sweet taste of Balsamic with all its dressing potentialities therefore Acetaia Leonardi decided to add this new flavour among its Gastronomic pearls, creating the Yuzu Pearls. They are perfect to create original dishes and delicious pairings: to dress salads, enhance and decorate fish, sushi, sashimi, maki, oysters, rolls, poultry, carpaccio, fruit salads, pies, ice cream, yoghurt, cheesecakes and even cocktails.
The Ponzu sauce is typical of Japanese gastronomy and is made of mirin (sweet Japanese sake used for cooking), rice vinegar, katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), algae konbu and Yuzu juice. It may be as well served combined with soy sauce (Ponzu Shoyu).
The Ponzu sauce has a fresh and citric taste, sweet-and-sour like the balsamic vinegar but saltier, it works very well when combined with seafood and meat dishes, but also with vegetarian recipes. Usually it is used to dress sushi, sashimi, tempura and dumplings, but the fusion cuisine has widen the applications ranging from meat and fish marinades, up to vinaigrettes for salads and grilled meat, fish and veggies.
Acetaia Leonardi offers an innovative product for all food lovers: the Ponzu sauce pearls. No need to be a great Chef to feel inspired by these little spheres with a liquid centre, suitable to pair with marinated, grilled, roasted fish or meat, cooked or raw vegetables, all the traditional Asian dishes: sushi, sashimi, maki, chicken skewers, tempura, ramen, gyoza , tofu and noodles. Other less obvious combinations are with avocado, potatoes, pizza, toasts, omelettes, soft cheese and soups. Try and see!
Finally, among the new releases from Acetaia Leonardi, the gastronomic Pearls of Soy sauce, made following the spherification technic used in the molecular cuisine. Through a jellifying process, the liquid is turn into soft little balls with liquid heart which boasts in mouth revealing its taste.
The soy sauce, which has always been extremely popular in the Asian gastronomy, is nowadays an essential ingredient of the Fusion cuisine. Its intense taste is beautifully trapped inside a jelly sphere and just like our balsamic vinegar, the sweet-and-sour liquid explodes when chewed. This sauce originating from China is a fermented blend of soy, toasted wheat, water and salt. There are various recipes of soy sauce with more or less sweet or intense flavour.
The Soy sauce pearls and the Ponzu sauce Pearls may be combined with the same dishes since they both provide a sweet-and-sour flavour, however their taste is more savoury compared to Balsamic Vinegar. In fact, they may replace salt in the recipes.
The Gastronomic pearls Acetaia Leonardi are available in the gourmet stores or in the fine dining kitchens worldwide.
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