If there’s anything good about the oppressively hot and humid weather we experience too often this time of year, it is mousse.
Not the kind that floats on the top of your champagne, although there’s nothing wrong with that. But I mean the light confection you typically make with whipping cream, whipped egg whites, a sprinkling of gelatin on cold water and a sugar-egg yolk base.
Those desserts are perfect to top off a summer meal when you don’t feel you have enough energy left to chew.
The best mousses don’t really require anything other than opening your mouth and depositing. They seem to vanish instantly, after applying a supple soft shoe to your taste buds.
We had a nice one on Civic Holiday, a lemon mousse which perched gently on the fulcrum of tart and sweet. While you were trying to decide which it was, it was gone and you had to take another mouthful to further your research.
The downfall of mousse is, of course, the whipping cream. The Hammer of Grammar always says we should just apply it directly to our hips to save time.
We usually substitute an edible oil product, which is like walking Babe Ruth so you can get at Lou Gehrig.
Bought a liquid cream edible oil derivative this time, one of those which has to be refrigerated and used up within two weeks. So the mousse derby is on. We’ve had maple mousse, mango mousse, three-bowl rum mousse (white rum if you must know) and the aforementioned lemon.
Can’t figure out why we haven’t had them in our regular lineup for a while.
The recipes all say to make them well ahead and cool for several hours or overnight, but in reality that never happens. That would require pre-meditation, which would require energy, which is exactly what we’re short of in these hazy, lazy days of summer.
As a result, we have discovered that short-cutting the chilling time for mousse is not necessarily a bad thing. It tends to be lighter and fluffier with a gentle chill and there tends to be less separation of ingredients. (If it does separate, just call it a parfait and press ahead.)
People are most familiar with chocolate mousse which is generally quite a different and delightful thing in itself. Unfortunately, it tends to be a little on the heavy side in most restaurant versions.
Chocolate mousse comes in many forms but it really takes an expert to get it right.
Check out this chef: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRIwuxqKyyk