Shochu Think You Can Dance

The idea for this meal was to combine French and Japanese influences, and to paint each course in one of the pastel colors that are generally associated with Easter: Blue, Green, Yellow, and Pink. We had to wing it a bit on the yellow, as you will see, but for today, we are starting with blue.

The first course was an amuse bouche of shiso sorbet and shochu soda. There is nothing in nature that is both blue and edible, except certain pigments which turn purple in the color in the presence of acid, such as that found in blueberry skins and pea flowers. Ergo, we had to cheat, by stirring in a little bit of blue gel dye.

There are many purists who will vocally eschew the use of food coloring, only to pour up a negroni and delight in its brilliant red color, which certainly was not rendered from the crushed up corpses of cochineals. In these days of modernist cuisine, a man can be forgiven his use of industrial chemicals.

Beyond that, I wanted to incorporate the flavor of radish, which is crisp, bracing, and appropriate to the spring season. Unfortunately, radish juice is utterly flavorless, scarcely even maintaining its subtle isothiocyanatic burn. In search of radishy flavor, we tried juicing daikon, only to find that, upon oxidization, developed a rancid smell. Finally, we fell upon horseradish, and boosted it with ginger.

I am far from an expert on shochu, but I will note that, while it bears a superficial resemblance to vodka, it manages to have far more flavor, and as is typical of Japanese cuisine, it is nuanced and understated. I visited my local Japanese market, and picked up a bottle of Ginza no Suzume, distilled by Yatsushika Sake Brewery.

Shochu Think You Can Dance?

1 oz High Quality Shochu

.25 oz strained fresh horseradish juice

.25 oz strained fresh ginger juice

The teensiest drop of blue gel dye

Dash of simple syrup

Stir over ice, strain, and top with 1.5 oz chilled soda water

Garnish with cubes of daikon

It turns out, the way to get daikon into the drink was to float the cubes on top. Daikon is boyant, and crunching into one or two of the cubes on the sip releases a bit of extra radish flavor. I soaked the daikon in water prior to service, to help mellow out their otherwise too-pungent flavor.

Sip this slowly, and notice how all of the flavors are manifest, yet light and airy upon the psyche.

We served this with a shiso lime sorbet, made by pulverizing ice, fresh shiso, lime juice, sugar, and corn syrup in a food processor. I was inspired by a similar sorbet that I had at a fine Japanese restaurant, in the course of a kaiseki dinner.

Cheers.