Eclair is usually an oblong thin pastry made with choux pastry filled with a cream and coated with an icing. Éclair in French means lightning as it sparkles when coated with confectioner’s glaze. The origin of eclairs is France and is a widely appreciated dessert of the world.
The dough is piped from a pastry bag in an oblong or circular shape on baking tray and baked until it is crisp and hollow inside. The filling is either filled from a hole on the side or the pastry is split and filled. The filling is traditionally a vanilla pastry cream or whipped cream or chef’s choice and usually topped with chocolate fondant.
The variations in the fillings are numerous and also vary from one region to another. Like the recipe mentioned below uses pineapple cream due to its Hawaiian origin and also the shape of pastry is like a cored pineapple slice. Baking a choux pastry is little tricky as the oven temperature is very crucial.
So while baking the eclair in the oven do not open the oven door to check for at least first 15 minutes or else the pastry will shrink as the temperature of the oven goes down. Also while piping the rings you can use a star nozzle to give some attractive outer layer design.
Hawaiian eclair
Ingredients
Yield 800g mixture
Water 250ml
Butter 125g
Flour 150g
Salt a pinch
Sugar a pinch
Egg 5 no
Vanilla essence few drops
For custard cream
Milk 500ml
Sugar 50g
Butter 2tbsp
Pineapple, chop 50g
Custard powder 40g
For garnish
Icing sugar to sprinkle
Or sugar ½cup
Or chocolate 50g
Method
In a heavy bottom sauce pan boil water with butter.
Add sugar and salt to the boiling mixture.
Gradually add flour stirring the mixture continuously to avoid lumps.
Pour the hot mixture into a mixing bowl and add eggs one by one.
Turn the mixture continuously using a spatula or a paddle.
The consistency of the batter should be piping consistency.
Pour the mixture in a piping bag and pipe circular rings in a greased tray.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 degree C for 35–40 minutes.
Once baked, remove and allow to cool and make custard cream.
For custard cream, boil milk and sugar and dissolved custard powder and butter.
Stir to avoid lumps, remove from flame and add chopped pineapple and allow to cool.
Using a piping bag fill the prepared pastry rings with custard cream.
Garnish with icing sugar or caramelised sugar threads or melted chocolate.
Skewers
Mankind has long been associated with using skewered food in their diets. One of the earliest recorded recipes of cooking meat was to skewer it over flame and make it more palatable and easy to digest. We all know and must have eaten many recipes which involved cooking the meat or vegetables on skewers, but the recipe mentioned below uses fruits skewered and cooked on a grill. When you marinate the fruits and skewer them the smoky and the slightly browned edges enhances the overall taste of the fruits.
Grilled fruit skewers
Serves 4
Ingredients
Pineapple 1 no
Apple 2 no
Guava 2 no
Cherry tomato 100g
Bell peppers 1 no
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Ginger, chop 1 tbsp
Sea salt to taste
Black pepper, crushed to taste
Mint leaves chopped 2 tbsp
Lemon juice 1 tbsp
Sugar 2 tbsp
Lettuce for garnish
Method
Wash and peel the fruits and cut them into equal sized cubes.
In a mixing bowl prepare a marinade using olive oil, salt, pepper, ginger, mint leaves, lemon juice and sugar.
Marinate the pineapple, apple, guava, cherry tomato, bell peppers and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Skewer the fruits on wooden skewers and grill on a hot plate or a nonstick pan greased with olive oil.
Once the outer part of the fruit gets brown colour turn to colour on the other side also.
Do not cook for long otherwise the fruits will be soft and will lose their crunchiness.
Once the sides have browned, serve on a lettuce bed with choice of dip.
Note: This is one of the easy-to-prepare recipe which does not involve a lot of preparation and can be cooked easily without much hassle.
**** Tarun Kapoor is executive chef at Doha’s Horizon Manor Hotel. Send your feedback to: exe.chef@horizonmanor.com