In this article we’ll have a closer look to the flavour profile of the – Shiso® Green – one of Koppert Cress’ interesting cresses. To finish, we’ll serve you a Shiso® green co*cktail recipe.
Shiso® Green
Shiso Green belongs to the same family as the Shiso Purple, namely the family of the nettle. The taste is reminiscent of anise and mint, and is slightly stronger than the Shiso Purple, but not dominate.
The flavor profile of Shiso® Green
“Shiso® Green has some typical roasted, nutty notes linking very well to (shell)fish, rice, beef. The floral, rose and peach notes of Shiso® Green make a perfect match to citrus, Cointreau and Gin.”
Foodpairing Tree
For this co*cktail we focused mainly on the floral direction, but added roasted notes through the soy sauce.
Cointreau is used in many co*cktails, but the White Lady (gin, Cointreau andlemon juice shaken with egg white) is a co*cktail that stands out because of its powerful simplicity.
Shiso® Green – Cointreau® – Gin – lemon – shiso – soy sauce
How to make this co*cktail: We blended a basic sugar syrup with Shiso® Green, next we sidetracked from the original White Lady recipe by adding egg white to the syrup, pressurizing it with nitrogen in a siphon. This gives a creamy foam with the aroma of Shiso® Green.
Next we applied this foam as a second layer to the shaken gin, cointreau and lemon juice. The physical separation of the two elements provides a strong taste contrast, which is quite fascinating indeed. Even so, it might be wise to dampen contrast a bit with a pinch of salt. Addition of salt in any co*cktail will provide fullness, prolong all flavours and smooth out crude edges.
Freeze dried soy sauce presents itself when looking at the Foodpairing tree of Shiso® Green, so we garnished our White Lady variation with it, and it works surprisingly well!
