Fig & coconut mousse

Showing the texture of the mousse and the sauce

I don't think I am being difficult. I'm very clear what I need, and my need should be pretty much the same as most other people'. The thing is, when we first arrived here we had a girl from a relocation company worked for us, mainly in the area of searching a place to live. We requested the flat equipped with air-conditioning. That young lady, however, said such a flat was very hard to find as people here used electric fans or just opened their windows. In awe (we)! We loved our apartment having some privacy; sometime we'd check the windows and discuss about installing curtain rods. That lady jumped in with her 'people-here-don't-do-this-or-that' thing, reminding us that there were (solid) panels already installed outside the windows, people here just closed them up if felt need to, why drapes then? Before I frowned she already headed to crane down the panels... ta dah! everything went black! Well, while we see some people really "don't do this or that", there is a whole lot more do, including us, and most neighbors surrounding us!

Back to the food, or fruit. I only like eating fruit as it is, no bake no fuss, merely focus on their natural sweetness and juiciness at the peak of the life. If I had a fruit tree, that could be a different story, fruit came in abundant, so baked, jarred, or tossed with pasta ... But this time I attempted to test my limit, which actally was still low: insisting on no cooking (fruit), I explored some new taste by combining fig with coconut (the latter is dried powder). I think the flavor is really wonderful! Since it is my first time making mousse, may I suggest you going to search more recipes to compare? Thank you!

serving suggestion: fig-n-coconut mousse, fig sauce and fig slices for garnish, pastry on the side

Recipe of fig & coconut mousse (yield: 2 servings)

*I did it by estimation*

Ingredients:

For the mousse:

• 3 - 4 ripe large figs
• 1 tsp dry coconut powder (available at Asian grocery store)
• 2 yolks
• 2 tablespoons of sugar + 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup double/heavy cream, very cold
• 1 - 2 tsp gelatin powder + spoonfuls of water

For the fig sauce:

• 1 - 2 ripe figs, large
• 1 tsp of sugar or to taste

To garnish: 1 fig, cut into 6 - 8 pieces

How-to:

To make the sauce: Halved the figs, scoop the pulps out, mash and mix with sugar. Cover, chill until use.

To make the mousse:

• Halved the figs, scoop the pulps out, add in coconut powder, mash and mix until the mixture creamy.
• Beat the cold cream to soft-peak form, cover, chill.
• Dissolve the gelatin powder in spoonfuls of lukewarm water, which should take a few minutes. In the meantime proceed the following steps.
• Beat the yolk over double-boiler (the bottom not touching the hot water) until it looks pale. Bring the sugar + 1/4 cup water to boil (simple syrup) in another stove. Take the bowl of yolk out, pour the boiling simple syrup into the yolk mixture and whisk immediately, until the mixture looks very creamy (which totally took me 5 minute to beat by hand). By then the mixture should be cool to touch.
• Check if the gelatin is totally dissolve, if not, warm the mixture up and keep stirring. Combine the yolk mixture, gelatin mixture and the fig mixture until just corporated. Fold in the cream (I didn't use it all). Pour the mousse into serving cup/bowl, and chill until before serving.

To serve: place a few slices of fig on top of the mousse, drizzle a tablespoon of fig sauce over, place a bite-size simple puff pastry on the side. Best to consume the mousse on the same day.

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