A-N-A-T-O-M-I-Z-E: Zen ‘Pebble’ Dessert

By Raul Dias

Picture this. You’ve just gobbled up the last savoury morsel that was part of a mammoth, multi-course Cantonese-Sichuan meal, which had the pastry chef constantly telling you to not eat so much and to save space for dessert. Albeit reluctant, you surrender your chopsticks and do just as she says. Minutes later, a server places onto your table a plate laden with what you believe to be a couple of smooth, fist-sized, grey pebbles—the kind that you’d find at the bottom of a Zen garden. And they are just that. Well, at least some of them are. The others? Edible doppelgangers of their plate-fellows that look and feel just like the real deal.
Yes, cottoning onto the latest food trend of ‘trompe-l’œil’ (French for “deceive the eye”) desserts, Zen is a dish like no other, where both real and faux pebbles are placed together, to playfully confuse the diner. It’s only when you run your knife through a fake pebble—that is, after making several failed attempts with a few real ones—do you see its creamy, non-petrified interior!
Conceived by dessert chef Solanki Roy and available at Mumbai’s Typhoon Shelter restaurant, this is one wacky creation. Inspired by her tenure at the über-experimental Gaggan Bangkok where she worked earlier, Chef Roy drew in traditional flavours and a contemporary approach, with a surprise twist to present this dessert.
So, here we find a creamy caramel-vanilla mousse that is coated in a melted white chocolate exterior, holding within its core a hazelnut crunch for that all-important contrasting texture. Much like one would do when making marble paper, the white chocolate-covered ‘pebble’ is then quickly dipped in a colour-swirled bath for that desired marbled effect to get imprinted onto it.

(This column first appeared in the 5th August 2018 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/zen-pebble-dessert/article24590483.ece)