For this season my favorite flavor is local finnish plum.
Picked unripe or ripe, different varieties have different flavors and how and what parts of them you use is extremely important for the end result. Sweet, salty, bitter – all is there.
In fact, I have a farmer who picked two boxes of unripe plums for me and I made my own umeboshi, well, since it’s not Japanese ume I think it should be called (maybe) plumeboshi.
This – in a dessert with plum kernel milk ice cream served with great umeshu – has in my mind been maybe the best match this year.
Sasu Laukkonen, Chef & Sommelier (Helsinki, Finland)
The dessert is with a compote of yellow Finnish plums underneath (caramelized compote)
The ice cream on top is with plum stones (bitter almond flavor)
The grated ”white chocolate” is homemade – meadowsweet flower infused cocoa butter, salt, sugar (wild herb flower that is)
And the plumeboshi on top and around.