I have been planning to make this mousse for a very long time now, like 2 months! Yes, that long... ever since I received Bertolli sauces via the FoodBuzz TasteMakers program... After much procrastination due to travel, challenge deadlines and life's other little things, I can finally talk to you about it! Phew! It's such a load off my chest!
So, from the top - Sometime in March, FoodBuzz sent a very nicely packaged parcel of two Bertolli sauces, Arrabbiata and Four Cheese Rosa, for us TasteMakers to taste, sample and write about. The Arrabbiata is a mildly spicy tomato and red pepper sauce while the Four Cheese Rosa is creamy sauce made with, well.. four cheese and crushed tomatoes.
I must say, the Arrabbiata is a pretty standard tomato sauce with a bit of heat and definitely found the Rosa the more intriguing of the two. I tasted the sauce as is and found it pretty rich. Perhaps, the cream in the sauce contributes to that. Anyway, after the first taste, my mind started churning. I wanted to use the sauce in a non-traditional way..
Given the creaminess of the sauce, mousse was rather an instant choice. I paired it with roasted pepper for flavor and smokiness. So, the final creation was a roasted pepper mousse on a bread base with a jelly of roasted pepper topping it off and driving home the pepper flavor.
It was good. The sauce is fantastic for the mousse. In fact, I even thinned it out a bit with milk to dilute the richness, just a tad. It makes for a refreshing appetizer and I really do prefer it this way than over pasta! :)
Roasted Red Pepper Mousseline and Jelly
(makes three 3 inch mousselines)
1 medium red pepper, roasted over fire until blackened
3 bread slices (of your choice, I used whole wheat)
1/2 cup Bertolli Four Cheese Rosa sauce
2 T whole milk
1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp gelatin
salt, pepper and other seasoning to taste
Peel the skin off the roasted pepper and des-eed. Slice about a third of the pepper into very very thin strips. Puree the rest of the pepper and set aside. In a small bowl add 1/2 tsp of the gelatin to the milk and heat until the gelatin dissolves. Whip together the milk, seasoning and cheese sauce into a thick-ish batter consistency. Fold in the strips of pepper.
Using a cookie cutter, cut out the shapes you want out of the bread slices. Layer the bread at the bottom of the mold. Divide the mousse mixture evenly into the molds. Refrigerate for atleast an hour until the mixture is just about starting to set and there is a film on top.
Heat the reserved pepper puree and dissolve the gelatin in it. Cool to room temperature and divide evenly over the mousse mixture. Let set overnight.
Serve with Parmesan chips.