Thursday, August 30, 2007

Making Invert Sugar II

I returned a few days later to check out the batch of invert sugar I mentioned in an earlier post. It fully liquified and was starting to separate, a clear sign that yes, indeed, I do now have invert sugar. The separation is the sucrose and fructose having been broken apart from what was originally glucose.

I made another batch two days ago and by day two it was starting to soften and separate as well. My initial problem had been that I was expecting instant results; this, I now realize is impossible. But with a few days patience, you will have perfect results.

Making Pate de Fruits or Pectin Jellies

Yesterday I attempted, for the first time, to make pectin jellies. I started with strawberry fruit puree and all the other required ingredients. Adjusting for altitude, I lowered the cooking temperature, mixed up the ingredients, and cooked away. In under an hour I was at the right temperature, and added my acid and poured the jelly.

It set up almost just right, perhaps just a bit soft. I cut them on the guitar cutter and they were almost perfect.

Today, I made a second attempt with blackberry puree. I cooked it up slowly; it thickened to almost a jellylike consistency before I added my acid. I poured it into the frame and left it to set up. After over an hour, it was still fragile and a bit crumbly. Unfortunately, it never did set up firmly like the first batch. Guess I'll have to use it for blackberry jam or something.

I am considering making these for sale here as part of my product line, so I went online to some of the major chocolate/confectionery shops in the US. I was fairly appalled to see that most places charge upwards of $50 a pound for this item. My major considerations for pricing include cost of ingredients and labor, as packaging and marketing are fairly fixed across the board. I thought maybe I could get $10 a pound. But considering that quantity trumps almost all other factors, even quality, I had to go down in price.

The most difficult factor in selling high-end products and getting a decent price for them here is the lack of understanding and appreciation for craftsmanship and quality. The root of this problem lies in the country's economic situation as well as cultural factors. Labor is cheap, even if it is highly skilled. The overall level of quality of most products here is fairly low, so there is no recognition of quality, even when it is obvious. And most people aren't willing, and often are unable, to pay for it.

The lower levels of education and lack of a sophisticated consumer culture makes marketing a high-end product difficult. You can't appeal simply based on quality or craftsmanship. It takes consumer education, and time, to be able to market a product here based on those traits.

Taking Patés de Fruit as a specific example, most people simply equate it with gum drops, those cheap, mass produced, corn syrup laden gum drops with artificial flavors and colors. It's hard to compete on price with these, unless I were to be selling to the mass market. And it's even hard to make people understand that the two are not the same thing.

As for ingredient costs, Ecuador is blessed with an abundance of cheap, fresh, exotic tropical fruits. 500g of passion fruit puree in the US could cost anywhere from $20 to $35. Here, costs are less than a tenth of that. Blackberries are so cheap here you might as well be buying rice or flour. The same goes for other exotic and not so exotic fruits, including strawberries, soursop, orange, pineapple, and mango. So I have reduced the price to $7 a pound, and I'll keep experimenting until I get it right.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Making Fondant and Invert Sugar

I made my first batch of fondant today; it's not something I would have ever contemplated making, but there is a tremendous lack of many items here I need for confectionery. The other two are invert sugar and gianduja, both of which I am also starting to produce on my own.

Following the recipe but adjusting for the difference in altitude, I lowered the cooking temperature substantially and poured out my syrup, this time crystal free, onto my granite slab. It took me several batches of crystallized brittles and toffees to finally figure out the problem with crystallization here was the sugar; most Ecuadorian sugar is not very highly refined and thus had problems staying in a liquid state. I finally found a brand that works, just by chance.

The syrup was hot and thin when I started agitating it with a spatula. Within ten minutes it had whitened up and thickened substantially, after fifteen minutes it took on the short, almost crumbly texture that indicated it was done. This was a fairly thick batch of fondant, and it took a lot of elbow grease to keep it moving.

I decided on making a second batch, but this time with the addition of some cream of tartar in hopes that I would create some invert sugar. I cooked it at least twenty minutes as recommended on several sites, then removed it from the heat when it was still in an early stage of cooking, so that my final product would be substantially thinner than the first batch I made. After agitating it on the slab over fifteen minutes, it was white, shiny, and still fairly fluid. I'll see how it looks tomorrow after it has matured overnight-but it did look, and taste, just like a batch of invert sugar I had previously.

Seems to me that all the invert sugar recipes I find out there-most of which are for brewing beer and thus for a highly caramelized, and thus hard, version-never mention stirring the syrup in order to create crystallization. If you don't initiate crystallization, you either end up with a simple syrup, a crystallized chunk of sugar, or something in between-none of which are just what I am looking for. I made this batch of fondant/invert sugar thin on purpose; so that I could agitate it substantially and get those tiny crystals that go unnoticed in good confections, and so that I could add it and integrate it easily into my recipes. We'll see how it works out, but for now, it seems like the right stuff and has just the right texture, color, and taste.

Eating in Esmeraldas, Ecuador

You don't find a lot of variety here, no imported foods, no fancy vinegars, no fine cheeses. On the other hand, it's about as local as you can get. Nearly everything is fresh, and nothing comes from more than 100 or so miles away; so you can get potatoes and onions and other cool climate foods from the highlands, along with the fresh shrimp and fish, cilantro, melons, and yuca from the coast.

Most people who come to visit here-the economy is largely supported by tourism-eat at the local restaurants. The most typical and commonly found food are "Bolones de Verde" and Empanadas de Verde. Bolones are made from plantains, and are kind of round ball, about ping-pong ball sized, often filled with cheese and deep fried. The empanadas are made by making a dough from green plantains, usually filled with cheese, then fried too. Arroz con Camaron or rice with shrimp, and rice with seafood are other common dishes. Then there's seafood stew, fish either breaded and fried or sauteed with lentils and rice, and fresh langoustines too, usually either sauteed with a garlic butter or sometimes with a mild coconut curry.

Two days back we picked up 5 pounds of fresh langoustines for $25, on the lower end of the price scale. Fishermen with buckets of fresh shrimp and langoustines often come through the neighborhood, portable scale in their pocket, and weigh it out right there for you. You have to peel and clean, but it's well worth the price. Yesterday we had fresh "picudo" tuna, I don't know the variety in English but it's a fairly pale colored tuna, for about $4 a pound. The other common fish here is Corvina, which I don't yet know what is in English. It's a mild, flaky white fish. Today we stopped at the ATM to get cash, and a guy in the street offered us fairly jumbo sized shrimp, about 12 to a pound, for $4/pound. I took them home and sauteed them in a little oil and butter, finished with some white wine, and served them with a risotto made with a stock from the shells we peeled off them.

For the adventurous and strong of stomach, you can get fresh ceviche, either shrimp of fish, right on the beach from the guys with the bicycle carts. To accompany your meal, you can get bottled beer right on the beach. Finally, to finish off your meal a number of guys, either with bicycle carts or some with motorized trikes, will sell you any variety of frozen ice creams from the Pinguino factory in Guayaquil, which distributes throughout the country and makes a run of the mill, but not fantastic, variety of ice creams and popsicles.

Sopa de Bolas de Verde

We ate lunch today at a place just outside the entrance to the community here. Off the highway about 30 yards down the dirt road entrance, the restaurant, dirt parking lot, and house on top stand. In front of the house is the restaurant, a large tile patio covered by a round thatched palm roof, typical here. You sit at one of the tables dressed in Christmas table cloths with poinsettias on them. No pretenses here. You can get soda with a straw just long enough to poke out of the bottle top, a liter of beer, or watermelon, pineapple, blackberry, or orange juice with your meal.

They bring you a menu and a dish of silverware, and there's a pad on the table with a pen. You write down what you want, they come pick it up and read it back to you, and then you get served.

To start I ordred the typical Sopa de Bolas, or Plantain Ball Soup. What you get is a large, deep soup bowl with a reddish, fish base stock, made also with ground peanuts or even peanut butter, which gives it a hearty body for such a tropical climate. Today's soup had a big hunk of yuca, a large piece of fresh firm fish-my guess is tuna, one piece of cooked plantain, and of course, the bola, or ball, of plantain. It's about the size of a golf ball, with a heavy, almost chewy texture, like a piece of unrisen but well baked dough. Not a texture I was really familiar with nor would rush to be, but it had its place with the rest of the items. Occasional you will also find a third or so of a cob of corn, but this is really an unusual addition for a coastal food where corn is not grown nor used much in traditional cooking.

This is really a soup that makes a whole meal, as I was barely able to finish off the delicious whole red snapper I ordered to follow, leaving aside the lentils and rice which accompanies almost every dish at the restaurant, and most others in this region.