Grapefruit with basil and rhubarb with rosemary? Herby desserts that really work
Some years ago I was interviewed by an American journalist who wanted to understand how food writers get ideas for dishes. Usually, the process just goes on in my head – when I’m on the bus or the Tube (the London Underground is a particularly fertile place) – but she got me to put it down in words.
I ended up with pages of what my children call ‘mind maps’, with a key word (an ingredient) in a circle and thoughts (flavours and other foods) growing out of it in a network of branches. Raspberries, peaches, pumpkins: this is how I think about what I’d like to do with them, what other foods ‘work’ with them.
It’s not that I don’t like ‘classic’ pairings or that I long for novelty, but I enjoy the unexpected. You start with obvious combinations – oranges with cardamom or mint – then you wonder about the less obvious, even combinations that seem ‘wrong’.
Citrus fruits work with rosemary – I love sliced oranges and grapefruit in a rosemary-infused syrup – and orange works with rhubarb, so perhaps rosemary would work with rhubarb? If rosemary works with oranges, would basil work with them? Not in my head. But grapefruit and basil? Yes!
And so it goes on. Before you know it, you’re planning a rhubarb, marmalade and rosemary cake (the flavour combination would also work in an ice cream or a bread-and-butter pudding) and a pink grapefruit and basil ice cream.
Simone de Beauvoir once wrote: ‘There is a poetry in making preserves.’ I think there’s poetry in making puddings, too. You can capture the flavour of different herbs – in cake batters (whizz or pound the sugar with the leaves), in infused creams (to make ice cream) and in sugar syrups for fruit compotes – in order to create desserts that evoke memories, a place, even the idea of a place.
Apricots and lavender? If you use the lavender carefully (too much and you get soap), you can eat the very essence of a hot afternoon in the south of France. You’re not just taking a romantic trip with your mind, though, you’re bringing a different dimension to apricots. As they cook, they become intensely honeyed. Lavender’s eucalyptus tones stop this sweetness becoming cloying. It also adds floral notes.
Putting herbs in savoury dishes is obvious: chicken and tarragon, tomatoes and basil, these are tried and tested. But open your mind to the possibilities of herbs in sweet dishes and you enter rich, less charted territory.
Grapefruit and tarragon? Pineapple with basil? They work. Rosemary appears to be the most useful (it goes with pears, apples, stone fruits, citrus, caramel, honey and chocolate) and basil is up there, too. When it comes to herbs and puddings, the potential for surprise – and poetry – is limitless.
