Chilled beetroot gazpacho with vodka jelly and avocado sorbet

Aiden Byrne

Aiden Byrne

5th December 2010
Aiden Byrne

Chilled beetroot gazpacho with vodka jelly and avocado sorbet

Chilled beetroot gazpacho with vodka jelly and avocado sorbet.

Ingredients

  • To serve 4 portions
  • 2 kilo of fresh beetroot
  • 500 mls of beetroot juice
  • 500 mls of fresh apple juice
  • 125 mls of sherry vinegar
  • Juice of 2 lemons
  • 3 avocado
  • 25 grams of sugar
  • 125 mls of water
  • 2 whole avocadoes
  • Juice and zest of 2 limes
  • 2 large golden beetroots
  • 200 ml of Belvedere vodka
  • 2 leaves of gelatin
  • 50 mls of olive oil

Method

Method
Wrap ½ of the beetroot and the golden beetroot in tinfoil. Bake them on a tray lined with rock salt in an oven on 160oC for 1- ½ hours.
Leave in the tin foil for 10 minutes to sweat, this will make them easier to peel. Peel the golden beetroot first.
Using a small pastry cutter, cut out 4 fondant sized pieces of beetroot. Peel the other beetroots, cut 4 more fondants and chop the rest up fairly small.
Mix the olive oil with the vanilla and store the fondants in this oil.
Peel the remaining raw beetroot, chop them up into fairly small pieces and place it in a jug blender with the cooked beetroot, the apple juice and the beetroot juice.
Blend until smooth, this will take some time.
Pass the liquid through a fine sieve only by tapping the sieve, again this will take some time - don’t try to push the pulp through the sieve, it is the just the juice that you want. Sit the gazpacho in a bowl over another bowl of iced water.
Now for the difficult part: the seasoning.
A gazpacho is meant to have some acidity, also we need to taste the earthiness of the beetroot and this is why we use raw beetroot in this recipe. Plus we want to taste the natural sweetness of the beetroot so this is why we bake the beetroot. So, start with salt.
Season with the salt until it’s almost at the point where you feel you can’t put any more in and then add the sherry vinegar, this will almost accentuate the salt.
Add some castor sugar and this will now balance both the flavors.
Remember, you want the acidity, you really want the sweetness and the saltiness is in the background.
Pass again through a fine sieve and refrigerate. You will probably need to test the seasoning of the gazpacho again once it is fully chilled.
Peel the avocadoes and again using the same cutter, cut 4 fondant like shapes out.
Coat in a bit of lemon juice (to prevent oxidization) and set aside.
Boil the water and sugar together, blend the avocado in the blender until smooth and add the sugar / water solution.
Pass through a fine sieve and add the juice and zest from the lime and also the juice from 1 lemon.Place into an ice-cream machine and churn until frozen.
Soften the gelatin in cold water, heat a couple of tablespoons of water in a small pan, add the gelatin and a small amount of the vodka, dissolve the gelatin and slowly, off the heat, add the remaining vodka.
Pass the jelly through a fine sieve into a small container and set in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, it will go cloudy (this is natural).
Re-check the seasoning of the soup and pour it into 4 chilled bowls, place in all the fondants, spoon in the vodka jelly and spoon in the avocado sorbet, dress with a few leaves of coriander cress.

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