This summer, I have become obsessed with the Cape gooseberry. We have great success with our gooseberry/champagne pan sauce for the scallop dish. The blue corn grits from Covered Bridge Gardens and the Niman Ranch pork belly confit really round out the dish.
Recently, however, we decided to infuse vodka with Cape gooseberries for a summer cocktail. As has been my experience with most infused alcohols, I don't ever seem to have the patience. After 2 weeks, it seemed like the flavor just wasn't being imparted into the vodka.
Some of the other chefs and I read a lot of blogs. One of my favorites, Ideas in Food, recently posted about clarification of liquids using a cryovac machine and agar agar. This sounded like the way to go. So we pureed gooseberries with vodka and heated up a little bit to "bloom" our agar. The agar mixture was then combined with the other mixture and allowed to set in the cooler.
The mixture didn't set all the way(probably due to the proof of the vodka). We then vacuum sealed under the highest pressure that we could muster. The mixture was then strained through a coffee filter and the result is one tasty product.
We can now start thinking about other alcohols to infuse with whatever we want. The possibilities are endless!
