Alice's Birthday-plum theme

The Menu:

Broiled Redfish filets on a sauce of leeks, butter, and cream.

Asparagus boiled, shocked, and broiled with parmesan cheese.

Meringue with plum sauce, plum ice cream (Pavlova+)

We bought great plums at the farmer's market to make ice cream. I used a recipe from Friberg, The Professional Pastry Chef) with the idea of putting it on a Pavlova (baked meringue topped with a fruit syrup). Meringue is a perfect complement. The ice cream calls for 10 egg yolks, and meringue is mostly whites. It's like having scrambled eggs. Plus, when you form the meringues for baking you can shape a bed for the ice cream.

This is what happened:

2 lbs. plums, 1/3 diced and macerated in cognac, 2/3 stewed in a spiced simple syrup

You could use another liqueur for the cognac if you prefer. I would have used Grand Marnier if we had had any, orange and plum sounding like a nice pairing, but we were out. The cognac was plenty good. Macerate for a few hours, or overnight.

For the syrup bring to a boil:

1 quart water

2 cups sugar

1/2 lemon cut into wedges

6 cloves

1 t. vanilla

one cinnamon stick

Add the plums and simmer until soft. Fish them out with a slotted spoon and allow to cool. This is what it looks like:

What remains of your syrup is basically a soupy plum jelly. Reduce it by half and it will be an intensely flavored sauce for the ice cream pavlova. It will also turn into a jelly when chilled. Warm to re-use as sauce--good in all its forms!

For the ice cream:

Whip 10 egg yolks with 5 oz. sugar until the mixture forms a ribbon.

Scald 1 quart half and half and add slowly to sugar egg mix whisking rapidly

Put the custard into a double boiler and whisk over heat until it covers the back of a spoon.

Stir in macerated plums and allow to cool.

Add the stewed plum to the custard.

Process in whatever kind of ice cream maker you use, then remove to freezer in a covered container.

For the meringue:

1 cups egg whites

2 cups sugar

1 t. cream of tartar

Beat whites with cream of tartar until thick and foamy (small bubbles, 1-2 minutes)

Add sugar slowly while whisking.

Beat at high speed until stiff peaks form (about 3 minutes). Don't over beat!

At this point I took a spatula and

put the whole mess in a plastic bag, cut off a corner and used it as a pastry bag, piping meringue "dishes" onto a baking sheet covered with parchment. You could spoon it on but it is pretty sticky. Leave a depression in the unbaked meringue for the ice cream ball.

Bake at 210 degrees for abount 50 minutes until dry. Try not to let them turn light brown. Lower the heat if it looks like things are heading in that direction. Here's what mine looked like:

Once everything is cool assemble the three ingredients. Garnish as you wish. We used mint. I made the ice cream mixture a day ahead and got it into the freezer early the next day. I did meringues in the afternoon and they were good to go by dinner.

It was an intense dessert. Not for every night cooking, however