Michelin Star Recipe Design

Dish Title
“White Forest: Coal-Kissed Pine, Malted Vanilla Snow & Fermented Moss”

Conceptual Narrative
This plate is a walk through a winter-birch forest at twilight: the air is resinous from pine, the soil smells faintly of smoke and cocoa, and a single ray of moonlight gilds the frost. The menu’s “White Forest” is therefore monochrome in hue but explosive in aroma—an inversion of the classic Black Forest cake. Instead of chocolate and cherry we pair white pine, charcoal-barley koji, and black birch sap. The guest is invited to smell the forest (a warm pine-infused vapor released tableside) before tasting the cold, sweet, bitter and mineral layers that follow.

Unusual Pairing
• White-pine cambium (the tender inner bark) wrapped around a black-birch-sap caramel
• Malted vanilla “snow” aerated with liquid nitrogen and infused with toasted yeast to give beer-like umami
• Fermented reindeer moss marinated in birch-syrup koji, then brûléed—its lichenous crunch echoes the pine bark while the koji introduces chocolate/malt notes that never actually contain chocolate.

Advanced Techniques

1. Vacuum-impregnated cambium bark tubes
2. Liquid-nitrogen tableside snowing
3. Charcoal-barley koji grown in a controlled micro-kiln
4. Brûléed freeze-dried reindeer moss
5. Aroma vapor released from a warmed pine-frond “teabag” hidden under the plate

Sourcing Notes
• Fresh white-pine cambium: harvest from storm-felled trees in late winter (legal on private land with permission). Freeze immediately; cambium oxidizes in minutes.
• Reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina): food-grade dried from Nordic wild foragers (e.g., Nordisk Tang, DK). Rehydrate in 3 % salt + 1 % glucose.
• Barley koji spores: Hishiroku “Chōhaku-kin” white strain for sweet aroma.
• Black birch sap: early-spring tap, sterile-filtered and vacuum-reduced to 60 °Brix syrup.
• Liquid nitrogen: restaurant supply or university food-science partnership.

Yield
One plated portion (à la carte) or 8 tasting-menu bites if served as a canapé.

COMPONENT A: Coal-Kissed Pine Bark Cylinder
Purpose – The “tree trunk” element; visually a pale log, but once cracked open it oozes a dark birch caramel that resembles sap bleeding from a charcoal scar.

Ingredients
• 40 g fresh white-pine cambium sheet (8 × 20 cm, 2 mm thick)
• 60 g black-birch-sap caramel (60 °Brix syrup cooked to 118 °C with 0.2 % pectin NH)
• 0.5 g activated charcoal powder (food grade)
• 0.5 g sea salt smoked over pine needles

Method

1. Blanch cambium 10 s in 90 °C 1 % citric acid to fix color and remove resin harshness.
2. Vacuum-seal in single layer with birch syrup and 0.2 % salt; cook 85 °C/45 min to impregnate.
3. Chill <0 °C 2 min to set pectin network; cambium becomes translucent and pliable.
4. Brush interior with a micro-thin film of charcoal powder mixed with smoked salt; this provides a visual “coal seam.”
5. Pipe 12 g warm birch caramel down the center; roll into tight cylinder (2 cm Ø).
6. Flash-freeze 30 s in liquid nitrogen to set roll; store at –18 °C until service (max 4 h).

COMPONENT B: Malted Vanilla Snow
Purpose – Cold, aromatic “powder” that dissolves on the tongue leaving vanilla & toasted-yeast malt.

Ingredients
• 100 g birch-syrup koji (see below)
• 200 g whole milk
• 50 g heavy cream (36 %)
• 3 g Maldon salt
• 1 Tahitian vanilla bean, scraped
• 0.6 g gellan gum LT100
• 1 g toasted deactivated brewer’s yeast (180 °C/10 min)

Method (the night before)

1. Blend milk, cream, salt, vanilla seeds, gellan; bring to 90 °C for 30 s to hydrate.
2. Chill to 35 °C; fold in koji and toasted yeast.
3. Shear with immersion blender 30 s; pour into ISI siphon, charge with N₂O, refrigerate 8 h.
4. At plating discharge into thermos of liquid nitrogen; agitate to form feather-light frozen snow. Hold at –196 °C in Dewar.

COMPONENT C: Fermented Reindeer Moss Brûlée
Purpose – Forest-floor crunch with caramelized lichen bitterness.

Ingredients
• 4 g dried reindeer moss
• 40 g birch-syrup koji (same as above)
• 5 g pine-needle oil (cold-pressed)
• 1 g glucose syrup

Method

1. Rehydrate moss 5 min in 3 % salt brine, squeeze dry.
2. Marinate 2 h in koji + pine-needle oil + glucose.
3. Dehydrate 55 °C/3 h until glass-dry.
4. Just before plating, torch with butane brûlée iron until moss sugars blister—do not burn.

COMPONENT D: Charcoal-Barley Koji “Soil”
Purpose – Edible earth that releases a deep smoky malt when warmed by the plate.

Ingredients
• 40 g pearled barley, steamed
• 0.2 g koji spores
• 3 g binchotan charcoal dust (food grade)
• 1 g cocoa butter

Method (72 h total)

1. Inoculate cooled steamed barley with spores; incubate 30 °C/48 h until fully furred.
2. Dehydrate 60 °C/12 h; pulse in Robot Coupe with charcoal dust to coarse crumb.
3. Bloom cocoa butter 45 °C; toss with crumbs to create micro-coating that prevents sogginess. Store in desiccator.

COMPONENT E: Pine-Needle Vapor
Purpose – Aroma trigger; when the plate is set down a server pours 50 °C water onto a compressed pine-needle and cedar-bark “tea bag” hidden beneath. Steam carries the scent upward without affecting the food temperature.

ASSEMBLY & PLATING

1. Plate is a matte white porcelain disc with a small recessed cavity at 7 o’clock for the vapor sachet.
2. Sprinkle a 4 cm crescent of charcoal-barley soil along 3 o’clock.
3. Nestle the frozen pine-bark cylinder upright in the soil so it leans 5° toward center.
4. Spoon 20 g malted vanilla snow in airy peaks around the cylinder, covering soil but leaving 1 cm of bark exposed like a fallen log after snowfall.
5. Drape 2 pieces of brûléed reindeer moss across snow like dark twigs.
6. Finish with three micro-drops of extra birch caramel on the snow for shine.
7. Server pours 10 ml 50 °C water into cavity; aromatic vapor rises for ~30 s.

Service Notes
• Timing: bark cylinder must temper 90 s at room temperature so the caramel is fluid when cracked by the guest’s spoon.
• Provide a warm spoon; contrast amplifies.
• Wine pairing: 1989 Côteaux du Layon “Clos de la Coulée de Serrant” (honeyed but laser acidity to cut koji umami and vanilla).

All components are gluten-free except for the barley koji; substitute buckwheat if needed.