Recommendations
Pavlova and red fruit with Ramos Pinto Porto Ruby
On the platter is a pavlova with a crust that crackles and an inside that stays chewy, filled with whipped cream and topped with red fruit and its juice. Opposite it, the port is a ruby, whose red fruit follows along with the plate and whose tannin is absorbed by the cream.
From the shelf
The bottle
Ramos Pinto is a port house from 1880 with vineyards in the Douro, including Quinta de Ervamoira and Quinta do Bom Retiro. This is the ruby from the range, made from Touriga Franca and Tinta Barroca and matured for three years in large chestnut wood casks. The bottle is 20 percent alcohol and holds 75 centilitres, with about 96.5 grams of residual sugar per litre, which places it in the sweet class of the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto. The house itself serves it with duck salad, desserts with red fruit and with cheese, and uses 17 to 18 degrees; the institute uses 12 to 16 degrees for the ruby style.
The combination
Why this works together
A pavlova consists of three layers that each do something different with a glass of port. The meringue is almost nothing but sugar and egg white: that sugar prevents the plate from coming across as thin next to a sweet port, and the egg white binds part of the tannin on the tongue, which would otherwise attach itself to the proline-rich salivary proteins and dry out the mouth, as Zanchi and colleagues described. The whipped cream is the second layer: fat takes tannin away and lays a soft base under the fruit. And the red fruit itself is the third: a ruby that has lain on chestnut wood with little oxygen smells of precisely this fruit, and the house itself recommends its ruby with desserts with red fruit. The fruit acidity of the berries cuts through the sweet meringue, so that the plate does not close up and the glass gets room beside it.
At the table
The dish
- For 4 people
- Ready in 1 hour and 15 minutes, plus cooling in the oven
- Type dessert
What you need
- 3 egg whites
- 165 g fine granulated sugar
- three-quarters of a tablespoon of cornflour
- three-quarters of a teaspoon white vinegar
- 300 ml whipping cream
- 20 g icing sugar
- half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 250 g red fruit, thawed if you use frozen
How to make it
- Preheat the oven to 140 degrees, or 120 degrees fan. Beat the egg whites in a clean, dry bowl with a mixer until soft peaks form.
- Add the granulated sugar bit by bit and beat well after each addition, until the sugar has dissolved completely. Rub a little of the mixture between your fingers: it should feel smooth and not grainy.
- Fold the cornflour and the vinegar into the meringue.
- Line a baking tray with baking paper and draw a circle of about 18 centimetres on it. Spoon the meringue onto the paper, make a shallow dip in the middle with a palette knife and pull soft peaks up along the edge.
- Bake the pavlova for 45 minutes, until it feels dry. Then turn the oven off and let the dish cool in the oven.
- Whip the cream with the icing sugar and the vanilla extract to soft peaks. Spoon it into the chilled dish and smooth it out.
- Spoon the red fruit with its juice on top just before serving.
In the glass
Serving
Serve this ruby at 12 to 16 degrees, or at the 17 to 18 degrees the house uses. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third. Decanting is not necessary. According to the institute, an opened bottle of ruby keeps for eight to ten days; store it upright in a cool place with the cork on.
Everything about Ramos Pinto Porto RubyBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje
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