Vinesh Johny has sought, like everyone else, the best way to overcome these times of a global pandemic. Being his Academia Lavonne school (Bangalore, India) practically closed since March 2012, he has engaged in intense online activity from his own home that has led him to propose up to 60 different creations with his own videos. Far from wasting time in lamentations, the young chef has seen in this experience the opportunity to further enrich his creativity by changing his equipment from professional to domestic. This time of confinement has also served to carry out an exercise in introspection, a trip to his own childhood, full of nostalgia, and with typical sweets from his country as the main motivation.

Vinesh Johny is getting strong in this idea of combining a modern pastry base, with its corresponding repertoire of techniques aimed at refreshing, lightening and reducing the sweet and fatty character of many classic recipes, and combine it with the rich Mithai tradition and the typical cakes of his childhood. It is what we could already see in previous so good #23 with creation like Ghevar Tart.

‘Ghevar’ is a traditional Indian sweet from the region of Rajasthan. A very underrated but a delicious confection. ‘Ghevar’ is made of flour slurry which is deep fried in ghee and soaked in sugar syrup. It is usually served with a milk-based accompaniment called ‘Rabdi’, which is basically milk that’s been sweetened and thickened. It is then topped with slivered pistachio. For this Modern Ghevar Tart, I’ve used saffron cheesecake at the base along with some pistachio cream. A layer of macerated raspberries has been introduced which is meant to add sourness and to uplift the overall flavor. Finally, the Ghevar itself has been sprayed with honey syrup and is placed atop the tart.

Ghevar tart

Brown butter and roasted flour sablé

• 25 g brown butter, cold
• 35 g butter, cold
• 35 g icing sugar
• 5 g invert sugar
• 2 g Maldon salt
• 20 g cashew flour
• 30 g eggs
• 75 g roasted flour
• 75 g flour

Heat the butter until it reaches noisette or brown butter stage. Once done, freeze the brown butter. Roast the flour until it turns golden brown and keep aside. Mix the cold brown butter and the other part of cold butter with all the ingredients except for the eggs and mix until a bread crumb consistency is obtained. Add the eggs to the mix until you get a smooth dough, being careful not to over mix. Sheet out the dough to 5 mm. Line the tart and half bake at 170ºC for about 8 to 10 minutes.

Saffron spiced cheesecake

• 54 g heavy cream
• 9 g corn flour
• 390 g Philadelphia cream cheese
• 1 p vanilla bean
• 2 g saffron
• 54 g butter
• 54 g caster sugar
• 20 g invert sugar
• 2 g Maldon salt
• 1 g cardamom
• 120 g eggs
• 30 g freeze-dried raspberry

Smoothen the cream cheese, saffron and vanilla bean and keep aside. Mix the cream with corn flour. Add it to the cream cheese mixture and reserve. Beat the butter, invert sugar, sugar, salt and cardamom until you can no longer feel the sugar granules. Add the eggs slowly and beat. The mix might look curdled due to high fat ratio. Add the above mixture to the cream cheese mix and fold. Pipe into the half-baked tarts, sprinkle the freeze-dried raspberry over the cheesecake and bake at 160ªC.

Macerated raspberry

• 100 g raspberry
• 60 g sugar
• 1 g Maldon salt
• 5 g rose water
• 15 g lemon juice
• 50 g raspberry purée

Marinate the fresh raspberry in the sugar, salt, rose water, lemon juice and purée mix. Vacuum seal and store in the refrigerator for 12 to 16 hours. Strain and use the fresh raspberry chunks.

Pistachio milk crème

• 500 g whole-fat milk
• 150 g pistachio
• 100 g heavy cream
• 20 g invert sugar
• 60 g sugar
• 3 g pectin X58
• 1 g Maldon salt

Blanch the pistachio, deskin and toast. Cook the milk along with the toasted pistachio until it thickens for about 30 minutes. Once the milk becomes viscous and thick, add the heavy cream, sugar, pectin x58 and salt. Cook further for 3 minutes. Take it off the flame and emulsify until completely smooth. Pour into the baked tarts.

Ghevar

• 500 g flour
• 125 g ghee clarified butter
• 1.000 ml rose-infused water
• 10 ml lemon juice

Mix all the ingredients to make a thick slurry. Store the batter in the refrigerator for 12 hours. Place a ring inside the hot oil and pour the slurry inside the ring in a thin stream. Fry until it has a golden-brown color.

Honey syrup

• 100 g sugar
• 100 g water
• 50 g honey
• 10 g invert sugar
• 2 g saffron
• 3 ml lemon juice

Heat all the ingredients except the lemon juice to make a sugar syrup. Once cooked, add the lemon juice and store for later use. Use at 40ºC for spraying.

Montage

Once the tarts are half baked, pour the cheesecake mix topped with the freeze-dried raspberry and bake at 160ºC. Once baked and cooled, fill the tarts with a layer of macerated raspberry and chill. Once set, pour a layer of pistachio milk crème over the raspberry until the top of the tart and freeze. Spray the fried ghevar with honey syrup which is at 40ºC and place over the filled tarts. Garnish with chopped pistachios and gold leaf.

Discover the Modern Kaju Katli recipe by Vinesh Johny in sogood #23

Modern take on Kaju Katli