The Strawberries are here! Boneless Pork Chops with Strawberry Gastrique, Pecans and Gorgonzola

The Strawberries are HERE at last!  I've been buying and enjoying the Florida Strawberries for around a month now, and I think half the reason I buy the expensive inferior berries from down south is that when the New Jersey ones hit, they taste all that much sweeter!  Maybe they taste this good when you buy them fresh and local in Florida, maybe not.  All I know is that the plastic container of big fat berries in the supermarket cannot hold a candle to the fresh local berries I buy at the Farmer's Market in Trenton, or in a week when our organic farm share lets us start picking them ourselves.  So of course, at the Farmer's Market today, I got carried away and bought three quarts!  When I arrived home I immediately cleaned, hulled, sliced and sugared one of the quarts to have for dessert with some Halo Farms Lemon Cream Sorbet, toasted chopped pecans and whipped cream!  Then I decided that a nice gastrique style reduction would go nice with the boneless Pork Chops I bought for dinner,

So I sliced up about 1 1/2 cups of berries,

and put them in a pot with 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar, 3/4 cup White Wine (sauvignon blanc), 3/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt.

I boiled them...

and boiled them some more until they reduced about 3/4.  The sauce was looking nice and syrupy at this point so I removed from the heat and strained into a measuring cup through a mesh strainer.  It still looked a little thin to me,

So I put it back on the heat and reduced it some more.

While all of this was happening, I prepared a nice salad of fresh lettuces, tomatoes, and carrots I got at the Farmer's Market, and seasoned my Pork Chops with Kosher Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper, and Fresh Rosemary.
I browned the Pork Chops in a pan, and allowed them to rest, covered, for about 8 or 9 minutes, while toasted chopped pecans on the stove.

I plated by pouring a little of the gastrique on the plate, adding the chop, topping with some of the pecans and  crumbled Gorgonzola, and finished with a bit more of the gastrique on top.

Served with the salad, some steak fries on the side, and a glass of the Sauvignon Blanc, they were a delicious harbinger of the fresh bounty yet to come this spring!  The dessert rocked too!

Adventures in Baking: Two Layer Key Lime / Strawberry Mousse Pie with a Strawberry Mirror Glaze

Wow!  It's been quite a while since I have blogged.  A semester in fact!  I am currently attending a Paralegal Certificate program at Mercer County Community College and it has taken time away from my blogging efforts. The semester is almost over and the farm share is just about to open up for the season so I look forward to another summer of fresh organic veggies and new adventures in cooking!  In the mean time I have been trying my hand at baking, with mixed results.  It is a different animal than straight cooking, and isn't as friendly to my experimentations, but that hasn't stopped me from trying.

Back in February 2010, Erika and I went on a 3 day cruise and spent a morning in Key West.  We had just enough time there to take a cab to the southern most point and walk back to the Gulf, walking past Hemingway's house, stopping for Conch Fritters and PBRs at The Conch Shack, and for a slice of award winning Key Lime Pie at The Blonde Giraffe (since closed).  It was the first and only time to that point that I had enjoyed authentic Key Lime Pie, with Meringue on top instead of whipped cream (The original way, since they were working without refrigeration back in the day)

The pie was awesome, and I vowed to make my own Key Lime Pie someday! So a month or so ago, lo and behold, Key Limes were on sale at the local Acme!  I bought a few bags, and after struggling to juice the first bag of those thick skinned little f#@%&rs with my trusty reamer-juicer and getting 2/3 cup of juice from a whole bag, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a proper lime juicer like the one to the left.  It made all the difference, and I tore through the rest, ending up with a few cups of the

tart lime juice, which I apportioned and froze.  

My first Key Lime Meringue Pie, was a great success, and tasted fantastic.  I took me right back to sunny Florida with the first bite.  It was such a success I decided to make one to take over to my Mother for a Mother's Day visit.  When I was growing up, she would occasionally make a Lemon Meringue pie, which I loved, but the Key Lime took it to a new level for me. As I was doing my planning, I remembered her saying that she wasn't a huge fan of Key Lime Pie.  Knowing the  versions I have had in the past up here in the Northeast, with their thick pudding like gelatinous fillings and thick whipped cream toppings, I can understand why, and was sure she would like MY authentic version!  As I made my shopping list however, I kept thinking about variations.  I had two large containers of fresh Strawberries in my fridge, and after searching on the 'ol infernet, 
I found the beautiful item at the top of the page for sale at a high end pastry business and decided I had to make that!  The only problem?  I could not find a recipe.  So, I found a recipe for Strawberry Mousse, and in another place, a recipe for a Strawberry Mirror Glaze.  I figured I would use my existing recipe for Key Lime Pie, and just leave off the meringue.  I would love to say that My creation came out looking as good as theirs, but... we'll get to that.

First, I bought myself a nice new Pyrex 9 1/2" pie plate with a nice wide lip.  This pie uses a Graham Cracker Crust.  The Blonde Giraffe used a Nilla Wafer Crust, but I thought for where I was going with the recipe, graham would be better.  Of course you could simply buy a graham cracker pie shell, but that would be cheating, wouldn't it? Anyway, the only shortcut I took here was to buy graham cracker crumbs, since I only have a mini food processor.
The original recipe for a regular 9" pie plate was as follows:

1 1/2 Cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup white sugar
6 Tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
for my 9 1/2 " plate I used a whole stick of butter, the same amount of sugar, and a little more than 1 1/3 cups of crumbs.  I simply added more crumbs till the consistency was the same as I remembered from the first time I tried.  Mix the dry ingredients well, then add the melted butter, and mix until thoroughly ...uh...mixed.  Press evenly into the pie plate using the bottom of a smooth glass, or measuring cup (or anything you can think of really) and bake for 7 minutes at 375 degrees.

The Key Lime Pie filling is the easiest step (once you have the limes juiced and zested and all)  As a note, you can buy Key Lime juice at your local supermarket most anytime.  The ingredients are as follows:
(3) large egg yolks
(1) 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 Cup Key Lime juice
1 tsp grated Key Lime zest. (since I only have a zest peeler, I minced the peels.

Mix these ingredients well, in a large bowl.

Pour into finished crust, and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  This pie only needs baking because of the salmonella risk in the uncooked eggs.  Originally, the pie would be finished at this point and would only be baked if they added the meringue.
For our creation, the pie at this stage must cool completely, before adding the mousse.

For the Mousse, you will need:
1 pound cleaned, hulled strawberries,
2 cups whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 packet unflavored gelatin, poured into 1/4 cup of water to soften.

Here I am giving you the original directions. I diverted from these, because I evidently know MORE than the people that made the recipe!! (That was sarcasm, by the way.)  I used a recipe from the Joy of Desserts blog, and I thought that using a whole packet of gelatin would make the mousse too stiff and... well... gelatinous, so I halved it.  This could be my downfall.  As I type this, the pie in the fridge has a mousse that may not stand up when the pie is sliced later today at my Mothers.
So I chopped up the strawberries in my mini processor, in three shifts, and by then, my gelatin had hardened a bit too much to easily mix in,

So I threw it all in the blender and blended till smooth.
I poured this puree into a bowl, and placed in the fridge while I whipped the cream with the sugar until stiff peaks formed and held. (I forgot to take a picture of this, what with all the getting out of the Kitchen-Aid mixer, and cleaning up of same. Sorry.)

Then I folded the puree with the whipped cream and ended up with a lusciously smooth mousse, which I placed in the fridge, along with the cooling pie.

For the glaze, you will first need to make Strawberry Juice.  Use the following:
18oz cleaned, hulled, chopped strawberries
3/4 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup Water
Put this all in a saucepan, and mash while heating to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Then strain through cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer, without pressing on the fruit.  This will yield slightly more than 2 cups of strawberry juice.  You will need 1 1/2 cups of it for the glaze.  Pour the following into a small bowl:
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp Kirschwasser (dry cherry brandy)
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp unflavored gelatin (about 1 1/2 packets)
a few drops red food coloring (Not really necessary, as it turns out)

If the juice has cooled, bring 1 1/2 cups of it back to a simmer, then pour over the gelatin mixture.  Stir well until the gelatin has fully dissolved, and place the bowl into a large bowl of ice water, stirring periodically until the glaze starts to thicken up to a syrupy consistency.  DO NOT LET IT SET!!  Remove from ice water before it sets up.

Spread the Mousse into the pie shell, leaving a little space at the top for the glaze.  Notice how I didn't do that here.
I also didn't follow the directions properly on the glaze and didn't use enough of the gelatin.  So I reached a point where it looked like it was thickening up, and I poured it onto my over-filled pie at left, where it proceeded to start running off the edge, sinking into my crust, and sinking into my under gelled mousse.  Frustrated, I put the mess into the fridge and took a break while I cooked dinner.
For dessert we enjoyed leftover mousse which, while it might not be stiff enough for the pie, was beautifully smooth and creamy as a mousse by itself.

After dinner, feeling a little better, I took out the pie, and scooped the top inch or so of the notglaze and not-quite-mousse, put the pie in the freezer to make it set up, used the extra pints of berries I had, made the glaze from scratch (carefully following the instructions this time), and poured it onto the pie.

Whether or not it works out well, I won't know till later today.  I know it won't look as nice as the one here, but after cutting, I will photograph the results and update the blog in interest of full disclosure!
In any case, I know however it looks, it will taste good, and that's the important thing!
Happy Mother's Day!!