rosemary & caramelized mascarpone semifreddo

a few weeks ago i had the pleasure of meeting rozanne gold at nyu’s bobst library. the occasion was her donation of gourmet’s food library to nyu, making bobst's food studies collection the largest in the country. i can personally attest to its daunting size, having finagled my way into the building twice in the past week in the name of saveur research (i now know more about latvian cooking than i ever dreamed possible). it’s a collection to be reckoned with, one which fortuitously fills in the new york public library’s cookery gaps. we're lucky to have a piece of gourmet history within reach—i know i’m not the only one who, over a year later, is still mourning the magazine's loss. my sister and i grew up with it, my earliest coffee table memories consisting largely of gourmet, national geographic, and cat fancy (ah yes, the 90’s). it’s reassuring to me, then, that their 4,000-something volume library will be put to good use.

and rozanne gold, she of radically simple fame, managed to put even somebody as easily intimidated as myself immediately at ease. she is, without a doubt, one of the sweeter and more genuine people i've had the pleasure of meeting.

she's not the only one doing inspiring thing things in the food world, though. i've been taking advantage of the cookbook library at work and have been unable to tear myself away from selmelier extraordinaire mark bitterman's gorgeous book, salted. bitterman (not to be confused with mark bittman, upon whom i am also shamelessly crushing, but for very different reasons) is responsible for portland's the meadow, but also for some of the most stunning food prose i've ever laid ravenous eyes upon. case in point:

make your soup, adding less than half the salt that you normally would. when you serve it, pass flake salt at the table. the right flake salt (or even sel gris) sprinkled on your soup will float on the surface for minutes before dissolving. so when the liquid with this crystalline flotilla slips off the spoon across your tongue, the crackling mineral architecture of the salt catches your attention. your tongue then presses the salt up against the roof of your mouth, arresting its movement toward your throat, and the liquid around it glitters, an eddy of freshly salted intensity, until it is swirled away by the next sip. finishing a soup with salt tunes our senses to the singular sensation of salt and frees the rest of the soup to tell a tale of its own quieter mood. (bitterman, 205)

the man is giving me the chills. salted reads like poetry, although to be honest few poets leave me quite this weak in the knees. i'll be testing out his recipe for cacao-nib encrusted chevre with cyprus black flake sea salt as soon as i'm reunited with my salt stash, currently squirreled away in portland.

of course, there are lesser-known chefs and authors who are also doing extraordinary things. i recently discovered a beautiful blog written by a fellow connecticutter (umm, i meant this as a bad cooking pun rather than a reference to self-mutilation) called playing with fire and water. linda experiments with molecular gastronomy modernist cuisine, a field with which i'm still somewhat uneasy, but she does it in such an inquisitive and unpretentious way that it seems completely logical to have a sudden urge to whip up some tomato milk in your own kitchen (and the best part is that you totally can).

and that's where i found inspiration for this dessert. a few weeks ago when i was making those chili truffles i accidentally torched some heavy cream, with phenomenal result: the cream was lightly caramelized in some places, yielding one of the most profoundly nutty, rich, and complex things i've ever put in my mouth. it was the jam. i haven't stopped thinking about it since.

so it was pure serendipity when, whilst digging through linda's archives, i stumbled across her post on that exact subject: caramelizing unsweetened dairy products, such as heavy cream, evaporated milk, and mascarpone. she did the research that i was too lazy to do myself, discovering that "the word caramelization should be reserved for the browning of sugar- any kind of sugar- in the absence of protein. when sugars or starches occur together with proteins as they do in onions, breads, and meats, the browning is mostly due to the maillard reaction, not caramelization." oops, i guess that means we now have to top our pizzas with maillardized onions and serve our ginger cakes with maillardized pears...but hey, cool! science!

though i plan on eventually caramelizing maillardifying lots of linda's recommended dairy products, mascarpone was the one which called my name the most loudly. joey suggested a profiterole filling--typically profiteroles are stuffed with ice cream or pastry cream (both sweetened), whereas mascarpone has no added sugar. i wanted to play off of that savoriness by incorporating rosemary, another savory herb that gets all happy in desserts. candying the herbs seemed like a logical choice, but then i decided to infuse the hot mascarpone with rosemary, figuring a hit of herbaceousness would be all the better for being invisible.

after a couple trial-and-errors, we decided that baking a shallow layer of mascarpone in a foil-covered baking dish was the best method of caramelization. the profiteroles were wonderful (thank you, julia child), but i wanted a mascarpone application that would allow it to really shine without having to play second banana to other textures. back to the ice cream drawing board, except i (still) don't have an ice cream machine. the only solution? semifreddo.

essentially a frozen mousse, semifreddo is unfortunately not one of those tasteful, effortless, last-minute-dinner-party desserts. caramelizing mascarpone takes around three hours, and then requires a few hours of chilling time. assembling the dessert itself takes about fifteen minutes, but the whole shebang needs a good 8 hours to freeze. if you have the time, though, it's worth it--it allows for all the flavor experimentation of ice cream, sans machine. i like this one in particular because it's not too sweet and has  some beautifully complex flavors: toasty, rich, green. texturally, it's all the more interesting from an addition of irregular chunks of bittersweet chocolate, stracciatella-style, that can alternatingly melt across the tongue or give way with a toothsome crunch.

rosemary & caramelized mascarpone semifreddo
serves 8

• 1 cup mascarpone
• 3 big sprigs rosemary
• 5 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• seeds of ½ vanilla bean, or ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp honey
• 3 oz good quality chocolate (i used callebaut 54%), finely chopped

first, caramelize your mascarpone. preheat the oven to 425°F. pour mascarpone into a glass pie plate or a shallow baking dish. set the pie plate within a larger oven safe pan or baking dish, and add hot water to the larger pan until it reaches halfway up the side of the pie plate. cover the pie plate snugly with aluminum foil and bake for 2-3 hours until lightly browned. check a few times during baking, stirring mascarpone to help it brown evenly, and adding more water to the roasting pan if necessary.

during the last half hour of cooking, put your sprigs of rosemary in with the mascarpone and gently stir so the rosemary is covered with the mascarpone. when done baking, remove from oven and allow to cool, uncovered. when the mascarpone has reached room temperature, gently remove the rosemary sprigs, cover mascarpone and refrigerate an hour or two (or overnight), until completely chilled.

make semifreddo: in a small mixing bowl, combine yolks and 1/2 cup sugar. beat on medium speed with a handheld mixer for 2 minutes, then turn mixer to high and beat for an additional 3 minutes, or until the yolks are light and fluffy. set aside.

in a larger clean mixing bowl, combine heavy cream, vanilla and honey. beat on medium-low for 2 minutes, then increase speed to medium and whisk until soft peaks form. add mascarpone, and whisk on low until incorporated. gently fold yolks and chopped chocolate into cream mixture until there are minimal streaks.

transfer semifreddo to a freezer proof container (i used a 9" round ceramic souffle dish, covering the surface of the semifreddo with seran wrap). freeze at least 8 hours before serving. when ready to serve, unmold semifreddo onto a plate and allow to soften at room temperature for 5 minutes before cutting into wedges.