PICKLES, RAGÚ & MY NEW CARROT CAKE

My recent (first) trip to Wylie Dufresne's restaurant, WD-50, was an experience that effected. It jogged my own memories of personal strange tastes and inspired me to try making a new type of dish-- an unpretentious but deconstructed and reconstructed dessert.

After school before meals when I needed something to eat I often had free reign over the fridge from a bowl of after-school ice-cream with hardened whipped cream to chocolate dipped in peanut butter. But I was just as fond of savory snacks and strange combinations--my most memorable one, pickles dipped in tomato sauce (it may be something I need to be convinced away from but I'm tempted to try this again in a more adult manner if there's a way). I've always loved pickles, not sweet pickles, but the salty, vinegary types. When I'd finish a jar of pickles I'd slice up cucumbers, stick them in the jar, close the lid to see if I could make more of them. I never had enough patience though, within a few days I'd have eaten them, disappointed that my homemade attempts weren't as crisp or sour as those I'd already polished off. In these cases I'd drink the pickle juice.

It also made me think of all the ideas for bizarre, sometimes incongruous combinations that I've attempted over the years with varied results: peanut-butter and jelly pancakes, fig-gorgonzola-chorizo ravioli, and most recently Roquefort ice cream.

The Roquefort Ice Cream was something I came across on one of the food blogs I follow, davidlleibovitz.com. It's a site by a pastry chef devoted to food, specifically desserts. I keep meaning to pick up his book, "The Great Book of Chocolate." The result probably wasn't David Lebovitz's fault as I added more cheese than the recipe called for. Despite it being extremely creamy and serving the ice cream with fruit it was not a big hit for those unfortunate souls I served it to. No one I tell about the ice cream thinks it was a good idea, so maybe I should stop telling people I tried it...

But this all goes to the new understanding I came away from WD-50 with: things can be done just to be done but that's not necessarily going to mean it's going to be good. It's that balance of power/responsiblity.

I've been fascinated by carrot cake lately and varying a few recipes to come up with my own adaptation. The other day I had the idea to do something a little more out there with my carrot cake, to go out further on a limb while trying to do it responsibly. My idea was to make my carrot-pear cake and instead of a cream cheese frosting, I'd make a cream cheese ice-cream. Then I'd serve the cake warm with the cold ice cream.

CARROT-PEAR CAKE with CREAM CHEESE ICE-CREAM

Carrot-Pear Cake

2cups of sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 cups finely grated carrots
2 cups finely grated Bosc pear
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Grease pan.
3) In a bowl mix 2 cups sugar and 2 eggs. Add 1/2 cup vegetable oil and mix well then add 2 cups sifted flour. Mix in 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 teaspoon salt, and 2 teaspoons baking soda. Add 2 cups finely grated carrots and 2 cups ginely grated pears (with any reserved juice from grating).
4) Pour batter into greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the cake comes out clean.

Cream-Cheese Ice-Cream
(Adapted from "Vanilla Ice Cream #2, Extra Rich and Creamy," from "The Ultimate Ice Cream Book" by Bruce Weinstein)

1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 large egg yolks
1½ cups half-and-half
1 cup cream cheese
1 cup heavy cream
¼ tablespoon vanilla extract

1) In a medium mixing bowl, beat the cup of sugar sugar and ¼ teaspoon salt into the 7 egg yolks until thickened and pale yellow. Set aside.

2) Bring half-and half to a simmer in a saucepan. Slowly beat the hot half-and-half into the eggs and sugar. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and place over very low heat or in a double boiler. Stir constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon until the custard thickens slightly. Don't let the mixture boil or the eggs will scramble. Remove from heat and pour hot custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl. Allow custard to cool slightly, then stir in the cup of cream cheese, the cup of heavy cream and the ¼ tablespoon of vanilla extract.

3) Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in 1 or 2 batches in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions.

The result (left) was pretty tasty. I was very proud of myself for adapting two recipes to come up with something I felt wasn't revolutionary but was perhaps something that hadn't been done before. That's a hard road to go down though, determining you're going to do something no one else has done before. To that point, a few days ago I was looking over the WD-50 dessert menu and realized that one of the desserts listed was a Parsnip cake, coconut-cream cheese sorbet, carrot and walnuts ($11). I didn't taste it and didn't remember it on the menu but I must have absorbed it somehow.

I'm still proud of the adaptations and the dessert I came up with and I have a renewed determination to come up with other combinations but I'm also a little disappointed that osmosis might be so directly responsible for this dish!