Pushing Further

After making the Tobacco Blackbery dish by Grant Achatz several times in the past few weeks, I finally found what I wanted out of this dish. To me (and I don't have anything on the originator of this dish), this dish was missing something. It took quite awhile to figure it out. We were discussing how this dish gave you a sense of having just had a glass of red wine and a fine cigar (providing you use a good one for the dish). What more could there be? Well for us it was more about the wine then the cigar. Something to balance that tinge in the back of the throat you get from this dish, much like an actual cigar. What was the elusive idea.
Port.
Really think about. Any cigar (of quality) that I have ever had was accompanied by a fortified wine. Port mainly. Having made the dish again today, I ws struck with the idea of incorporating some port. Some ways we will try tomorrow will include a port foam. This is not my favorite idea, as there is already a foam or air on tomorrow's menu. But also due to the fact that it would possibly obscure the blackberry's visual glory. Another would be to make a port reduction and sweeten slightly to be used as a glaze or sauce to be plated under or squeezed over the disc of tobacco on a chinese soup spoon. And then an idea we won't get to tomorrow, but the one I feel will yeild the best result. Simply a layer of port gelee through the middle of the tobacco. This way the port becomes an intricate visual presence, but also give just the right flavor balance (I hope) to the bite.
We shall see.