cassata chocolate strawberry and vanilla with a special combination...

Editor's Note!

The presentation of the sweets of this blog will be accompanied by the description of one or two wines to match, their history and composition, made by a very special person to me, who has a twenty-year experience in excellent restaurants in Rome, my brother Gian Luca Zacchia, sommelier enrolled in the Italian register of Sommeliers since 1990. His experience has been developed in restaurants like  Agata e Romeo as curator of the celling and tasting, the restaurant La Pergola and restaurant Alberto Ciarla in Trastevere, among only the most important. Now it is not his main activity, then accepted to cooperate with my adventure and passion for this blog, enriching it with his great knowledge in a field that I love much enjoy, but have few experience. We can then call it a "joint-venture" for affection and passion that binds us, for good wine and food, and the ability to combine them.



cassata chocolate strawberry and vanilla

Recipe by Alastair Hendy

The result is amazing

Serves 12/14 slices

• 6 medium eggs
• 6 medium egg yolks
• 200g sugar
• + 1 tablespoon
• 450g of strawberries (or a mixture of strawberries and raspberries)
• + Some for garnish
• 150g dark chocolate
• 1 liter of whipped cream
• 2 teaspoons  liquore alla vaniglia bourbon

1. Heat the eggs and sugar up to 45 ° always stirring and with a whip, transferred and mounted in a planetary until mixture is thick and fluffy for about 10-12 minutes. Divide the mixture into three bowls.

2. Melt in a double boiler or microwave the chocolate and let cool slightly. Then incorporate it into one of the bowls with the egg mixture.

3. Puree strawberries with a tablespoon of sugar until the mixture is smooth, strain to remove seeds, and then incorporate it in a second part of the egg mixture.

4. In the third bowl add the vanilla liqueur.

5. Spread the whipped cream into the three bowls and mix well. Put in freezer until mixture is almost frozen, stirring occasionally to break up the crystals will form.

6. Grease lightly with oil 2 loaf pan and line with two strips of baking paper, making them slightly overhang. Using a spoon, spread the ice cream cake in the pan almost frozen, creating a nice contrast of colors. Be careful to press hard ice cream to prevent the formation of air bubbles. Leveled and put in freezer overnight.

Let the cake at room temperature for 15 minutes before you turn it over on a platter and serve with strawberries.

Tip for wine by Gian Luca Zacchia:

Picture taken by internet

Generally where there is fruit and chocolate thing is a bit complicated. In case you have prepared the chocolate parfait was not so strong as to overpower the other flavors. The cream has rightly covered the dark component (which is the hard part to match). The homogeneity of the sensory parfait is light and aggressive with no points. It then requests a sweet wine with alcohol content up to 11, 12 degrees. A combination is a particularly coupled Moscow, but not white, it did not reach the complexity of spicy vanilla and chocolate personality. So a natural pink moscato. By natural means that do not add carbon dioxide during fermentation. The wine is then stopped. My favorite of this genre is by Moscato Rosa di Franz Haas. It's a wine that comes in 12 degree purity (100% of one variety of grapes) from grape Moscato Rosa precisely. It is characterized by an intense ruby ​​red color. It has a strong taste, with net stretches sweet, spicy and fruity .... just what we strive for this kind of dessert.Manufactured in South Tyrol from grapes indigenous to the area of ​​Enga, is economically challenging. The price for 37.5 cl. is around 22-25 euros, but the success is guaranteed.

immagine di wikepedia Grappoli 

congelati per Eiswein

The parfait was perfect but if you wanted to do a variation on a little 'richer (maybe for the winter) with slices of dark chocolate and strawberry fruit with a little' syrup. A wine with a little-called ice wine, raisin wine that comes from the cold, it would be a treat. If you read the history of this wine was born by mistake, you will find it very original. I tried it once in Austria (Muscat Ottonel) and it is amazing. Its peculiarity is the presence in the grapes of the noble rot Botrytis Cinerea. Usually this mold permits the production of the world's best sweet wines, Sauternes and Barsac French Picolit Friulian, Torcolato Venetian are just a few examples. The difference of 'ice wine from all others is to keep the sweet and spicy characteristics of the mold (which causes a sur-ripening the berry) but not a wine of great structure and alcohol. This wine, however, is even more demanding in terms of "Dindi" than Moscato Rosa, also known as liquid gold came from the cold.



image taken by internet