Frédéric Bau's Nippon

We visited Tokyo over the New Year. As always, we had a fantastic time. There are many many reasons I love this city, not least of which is the abundance of amazing pâtisserie every corner you turn. Aside from the opportunity to revisit favourites, there's the assurance that there's always something new and exciting awaiting discovery.

While I didn't bring my camera with me and sadly have no pictures to share, I did bring back a suitcase full of edible treats. And of course, a yen for more of that distinctive Japanese-French style of pâtisserie, in anticipation of which I had dutifully shelled out a princely sum for less than an ounce of matcha.

Not for ceremonial tea - being gaijin (excuse the political incorrectness), of course, I'm not hardwired to appreciate the intricacies of the tea ceremony and probably can never hope to. But for use in a dessert or two - I would like to imagine that I have a growing appreciation of matcha's many uses in the sweet kitchen.

I had a bit of a tough time deciding what to lavish my precious jade-coloured cargo on. For weeks now, I toyed variously with the idea of churning it into an ice cream, using it to flavour crème pâtissière as a filling for éclairs, mixing it into a financier or madeleine or macaron batter...foolproof, tried-and-tested recipes I knew would be simple, straightforward and scrumptious.

But expectedly, impulse ruled the day. As I was flipping through Chocolate Fusion by Frédéric Bau (an exquisite book I'd briefly mentioned here) for an entirely different purpose, I was immediately sidetracked by Nippon, the maestro's very elegant homage to his second homeland, serendipitously symbolic of the Hinomaru. Even more appealing was that the dessert is a composed number - the vividly green apperance may suggest that matcha plays a dominant flavour role, but it is in fact rather subtly used to harmonise with a number of other flavours.

Hemispheres of delicate milk chocolate parfait are coated in a thin shell of white chocolate, the potential sweet cloyingness of which is tempered by the grassy, pleasantly bitter flavour of pulverized first harvest tea buds. Fragrant, crunchy toasted sesame seeds are sprinkled on before the matcha-white chocolate mixture gets a chance to crystallize.

To assemble, two hemispheres of the frozen parfait dipped in matcha chocolate are adhered on either side of a crisp sheet of chocolate tuile in such a fashion that the set-up will stand upright. And to serve, some warmed lychees cooked in ginger caramel.

As for the eating? Put it this way, it was unfortunate that the recipe didn't leave very much matcha left over, because if it did, I know exactly which recipe I would be headed for next - exactly the same.