A Small Step Guide to Helping Flavor Be More of Itself

I like flavors that hide in plain sight.

Never having been able to (and not expending much energy toward) overcoming my purist attraction for single flavors, I’m all about creating an inobvious mystery to the sweet and savory desserts and appetizers we produce at Essential Confection.

My other preoccupation is texture.

Texture that seeps into my marrow. And stays there. Closed eyes texture. My favorite way to get there is low-slow baking. I’m pretty sure it improves everything.

It’s early, early spring, and if sheer will to bring fruit to market were sufficient, it would have been here two weeks ago. This week my partner, Paul, and I had clandestine knowledge that the first Day-Neutral strawberries may make a covert appearance at our local farmer’s market. The Mother of All Farmers Markets. On the campus of Portland State University.

We dropped everything.

The Torture (Pleasure) of Portland Seasons

Today, we are still being punished… ahem… rewarded, with yet another stage of spring. It may be the Spring of Deception, though The Pollening in Mud Season is an undeniable suitor. Cold, wet misery, one might say.

The Pie Day Quandry

Here’s where I get to digress for a teensy bit from the topic at hand, which you cleverly guessed, is a strawberry-balsamic reduction. My as yet unexpressed purpose – there is often an ulterior motive – is strawberry pie. And this is where I circle back to flavors hiding in plain sight.

My premise is that a savory-silky-saporous reduction would bring the kind of mystery I like to slide into pie. Because pie is everything, and I’ve ordained that it is pie season – seasonal naming rights notwithstanding.

… last season’s Essential Bing Cherry-Berry Pie™.

Last summer, Paul and I in flashes of panic and wisdom, scurried to Sauvie Island to purchase a couple of flats of our beloved Oregon Marionberry. Much more on this indigo jewel as we again approach the two weeks of the year the berry is available.

Strawberries and Marionberries… all blackberries, actually… have affinity relationships with one another. So the goal today is to build the bones – a flavor and textural profile – for Essential Strawberry Pie™.

Predictably, the elusive berries had skillfully slid from the farms into the hands of a local fine food vendor who used the opportunity to charge a generous market rate.

We were undeterred.

Can a pie be aware of its own shortcomings? That’s what testing and tasting, and testing and tasting, is all about. Applause, applause.

Essential Strawberry-Balsamic Reduction

Yield: 155 grams | enough for 1, 9″ pie

Incorporating a berry reduction into a pie is a low-effort big-payoff step in baking. It’s infinitely adaptable to your own palate and to the type of seasonal fruit in your market. You’re taking a small step to guide the overall flavor into being more of, well, itself.

I’m a huge advocate of keeping a great pantry, both on my shelves and in my freezer. Building those pantry resources over time pays off in every project, every meal.

Only one thing needs to be said about balsamic vinegar. If there is anything other than cooked grape must and wine vinegar on the label, take a pass. In the three categories of balsamic vinegar – Traditional, Condiment Grade, Commercial Grade – Condiment Grade is a great choice for a reduction. Produced in Modena and typically aged for less than 12 years. (Keep a bottle of Traditional, 12-18 years aged, on your shelf to drizzle over fresh berries, au naturel.)

Ingredients

rinsed, hulled, quartered

36 grams sugar (3T)

32 ml balsamic vinegar (2T)

10 ml orange flower water (2 tsp) (inexpensive at Halal markets)

5 ml vanilla extract (1 tsp)

Procedure

Cook’s note: roasting delicately-flavored creatures like strawberries at low heat preserves their flavor, and allows other ingredients to further promote it. There’s pleasure in showing care and respect for the pristine ingredient you’re working with.

We’ve taken the first step in producing pies of extravagance and luxury. In upcoming posts, I’ll talk more about my pie preferences… expanding on simple flavor/texture tricks of the trade.

Join us, please! Until then, buon viaggio!