Experimental, whimsical and intricate.
That's the essence of chef Chong Vang's sweet and slightly savory dessert creations at Inland Pacific Kitchen in downtown Spokane, especially his rich and herbaceous fall menu item "What We Do in the Forest" ($14), which literally looks like the forest floor.
"A lot of what we do here is very artistic," he says of Inland Pacific Kitchen's menu. "We try to do things that excite us and that we aren't seeing in the community here, but we're trying to just have fun."
This season's dessert is Vang's play on a mousse, which in this case is molded and frozen into the shape of a pine cone. He says the recipe is pretty traditional, but he doesn't add gelatin. Instead, he cooks the sugar to a certain temperature before adding it to the mousse, which allows it to hold its shape. The whole process takes two days to complete.
Surrounding the mousse is an eye-catching light green sponge cake that gets its hue from a mixture of blanched basil and milk that's incorporated into the cake batter.
Overall, each component of the dish is relatively simple to make, says Vang. Yet it's the combination of flavors and textures, plus the time and equipment he uses that add layers of complexity to the dish.
Take the basil cake batter, which is siphoned out of a whipped cream dispenser (or iSi canister) to make it more airy and moist than your traditional sponge cake. Successfully using an iSi canister takes trial and error for most.
"I've never made an iSi cake before, so it was an experiment for me," says Vang. "It's a little bit more unique — just a flavor that you wouldn't expect in a cake."
Beneath the cake and mousse sits a layer of a graham cracker butter that's inspired by a Trader Joe's cookie butter spread.
Vang tops that with his pine nut granola and then a chocolate "soil" — a cocoa and coffee flavored crumble that bakes for an hour on a lower temperature so it will slowly dehydrate without burning. He then sprinkles a layer of popped sorghum atop the soil, adding an extra layer of texture to the dessert.
"You have all those components to create this whole experience while you're eating it," he says, "like the crunchiness of the granola and then the uniqueness of the pine nuts that are in that granola, as well as the graham cracker butter, which adds a richness and kind of gives it that feeling of fall."
He adds some frozen huckleberries, which will remain in the dish for as long as he can buy them. The berries are coated with sugar and citric acid to cut through the bitter notes in the mousse and chocolate soil.
As a final touch, he takes some flaked salt and a pine needle infused honey — which he infuses himself with hand-picked pine needles — and drizzles it over top.
"I kind of like that controlled chaos look," he says. "It looks kind of messy, but everything is there for a reason and a purpose."
The visual component of "What We Do in the Forest" was the primary driving force behind Vang's concept, but he adds that his love of huckleberry cordials and nostalgic fall flavors, particularly that of s'mores, were equally impactful components of his creative process.
To Vang, it's a careful, complex balancing act to merge the flavors and textures of his dish together in a cohesive way. But that's a challenge he enjoys taking on.
"I think that dessert is meant to be playful," Vang says. "It's my way of just having fun and expressing myself." ♦
Inland Pacific Kitchen • 304 W. Pacific Ave. • Open Wed-Fri 5 pm-9 pm, Sat 9 am-2 pm and 5 pm-9 pm, Sun 9 am-2 pm • ipkspokane.com
