Sumac and Pistachio Meringues with Pomegranate

By Emma Hawkins | July 4, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

Those of you who follow my Instagram will know that I had an incredible meal at The Vanilla Pod restaurant in Lynton a few weeks ago. When I was there one of the specials was a sumac meringue with rhubarb and pistachios. Whilst I went for a different, but equally delicious feta cheesecake for dessert (which I’ll be adapting and re-creating soon!), I knew this was something I wanted to try out for myself when I got home.

Sumac is a tangy spice used in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking. Traditionally it’s used in savoury food, but the combo of the sumac with the sweet meringue and the pistachios is to die for (no exaggeration). This is also super easy to make, the hardest bit is just the meringues and the trick with them is just to make sure everything is spotlessly clean before you start and to whisk for a really long time. So if you’ve got something coming up which you want a cool, inventive dessert for, this is the one for you! These meringues will also store for a really long time in an air tight tin, so if you have some left over egg whites from something else you can whip them up and then bung them in a box till you need them.

Recipe

Serves 8

Time: 45 minutes, plus cooking time

Ingredients

4 Large egg whites (130g)
260g (Double the weight of your egg whites) Caster sugar
40g Salted pistachios, roughly chopped, plus extra to garnish
2 tbsp Sumac
400ml Double cream
A handful of Pomegranate seeds
100g Fresh raspberries

Method

To get set up pre-heat the oven to 140˚C and line two baking trays with baking paper. Then wash a metal or glass bowl and two electric whisk beaters with lots of soap and warm water to make sure they’re spotless (any fat on these utensils will stop the meringue for puffing up).
Weigh the egg whites into your bowl and note down the weight. Then, using an electric whisk, whisk the egg whites until they hit a stiff peak. Now add the sugar, 1tbsp at a time, to get a stiff meringue (about 8 minutes), you want to add in double the weight of the egg whites in sugar.
Add the chopped pistachios and 1 tbsp of the sumac, and then carefully fold them into the meringue with a large metal spoon or spatula.
Now spoon the mixture into 8 small mounds on your lined baking sheets. Take a spoon and make them into wells by pushing the meringue up the sides slightly.
Sprinkle the meingues with a little more sumac and then bake in the oven for an hour, until crispy but still white. Turn off the oven and leave the meringues to cool in it. When cool the meringues will store in an air tight tin for up to 3 weeks.
When ready to serve, whip the cream with a whisk until it just holds its shape. Crush half the raspberries, and then mix them into the cream to get a ripple and then dollop it into the wells of the meringues. Scatter the pomegranate seeds over the cream and finish with the rest of the fresh raspberries, a few chopped pistachios, and a sprinkle of sumac.