Spring Break: Asparagus Gone Wild!

Late last week we received a special shipment of wild asparagus from our 'not-to-be-named' truffle supplier. He'd managed to source it from somewhere outside of Australia and turned it over to us for roughly $100/kg. For wonderfully fresh and herbaceous young shoots that are available for only one month of the year, the going rate isn't really too much to ask.

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Chonz decided that he wanted a dish centred on simplicity which would allow the quality of the produce to shine so for two days we ran with what we had in the bag - asparagus, eggs and cheese.

All up we used five components to create this dish. Wild asparagus, morcilla (locally made Spanish blood sausage), champagne beurre blanc, a poached duck egg and a little grated Manchego (imported from La Mancha, Spain) over the top. The simplicity of ingredients and the quality resonates from the very first taste until the last. You'll see.

The champagne buerre blanc is the most time consuming so we'll start with that. You'll need to melt a small knob of butter and sweat off 2 finely chopped eschallots with a pinch of salt, a bay leaf and a few cracks of white pepper (so as not to be left with dirty flecks in the final sauce). Pour in 50 ml of champagne vinegar, 250 ml of champagne and reduce at a simmer until you are left with about 25 ml of liquid. Remove from the heat, discard the bay leaf and add 200 g of chopped butter a little at a time, whisking continuously until emulsified. You can stabilise it at this point by adding a small splash of cream, totally optional. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Have a small pot full of salted water ready to poach your egg in and another with enough seasoned chicken stock to blanch the asparagus in with a few knobs of butter thrown in. Working quickly now, slice the morcilla into thick rounds and pan fry them in a little oil over medium-high heat. With a little swirl, slip the duck egg into gently simmering water and immerse all the asparagus in the chicken stock until soft.

To assemble, pour a little champagne beurre blanc onto the plate. Pile the slices of morcilla onto one side and the drained asparagus onto the other. Carefully lift your poached egg into the centre and grate a generous amount of Manchego over the top.

When you first attack the egg, the semi-cooked yolk will ooze out and combine with the now melting Manchego to create a lusciously cheesy sauce. As if in an out-of-body experience, you will begin a quick attempt to drink up every inch of this gooey goodness with what little is left on your plate.

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Do you see now?

Vanilla Dreams

Weird dreams have been plaguing me as of late. I wonder if it has anything to do with my diet. Come to think of it, I've been eating an abundance of bread. Bread, vegemite and parmesan cheese. I'm aware that excessive white bread can cause flatulence but that's not really my concern. Ruling out bread, could cheese consumption therefore be a cause of nightmares? I sure as hell hope not! Although.. Perhaps I may have force fed myself the same items a few too many times. This could very well be my body's method of subconsciously regurgitating all of the bland and boring foodstuffs that I've been shoving down my throat this past week.

Keeping to the theme of 'boring', vanilla instantly springs to mind. Vanilla is a classically overused aromatic found in every chefs repertoire when nothing else seems to inspire; from chocolate cookies to royal icing, chantilly cream, panna cotta and lemon puddings. Again, it's also an easy choice when attempting to bridge sweet and savoury.

I imagine there must be a hoard of vanilla-obsessed gnomes flashing past when our backs are turned to add a dash of vanilla to every dessert so that one day when we are all vanilla dependant they can control an underground extraction monopoly.

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(more pointless rambling..)

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Here's a simple recipe you could do whilst sleeping upside down if you so please. The malty flavour of parsnips would do well to be combined with venison and chocolate sauce, caramelised hazelnuts or dulce de leche ice cream.

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Vanilla Parsnip Puree

1 kg parsnips, core removed
1.5 L milk
200 g unsalted butter, chopped
1 vanilla pod, split & scraped
300 g cream
1 tsp salt

Simmer parsnips gently in milk until cooked through.

Strain and discard milk.

In a food processor combine parsnips and butter.

Bring cream and vanilla to a simmer to infuse.

Add cream and salt to parsnip mix then strain through a fine chinois.

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Sometimes I Find Myself..

..wishing that things were a little more challenging. That's not to say that I'm the ungrateful sort who doesn't appreciate what I have. I wish I was learning more that's all. People say that experience is the best teacher, well I'd like my experiences to be a little more memorable.

At the moment I feel as if I'm teaching myself and with food it's a slow process to forego through trial and manipulation. I'm lucky to have been raised in the age of world wide technology and all that jazz. If it weren't for the countless people willing to share their wealth of knowledge online I think I would be going crazy right now.

I've recently been looking at various culinary college courses in the US and geez louise! I can't believe how freaking expensive they are! It just doesn't add up for me. A bachelor degree in the culinary arts at CIA is on par with a four year course in veterinary science. I mean seriously! Does every kid who walks through those doors expect to become a fucking culinary celebrity a couple of years down the track? FCI would be no better except that the length of the course - being only 6 months, makes the fees invariably cheaper.

Colleges such as the aforementioned don't exist here in Australia. At this point in time the only professional school offering more than just one day pastry classes that I am aware of (aside from TAFE) is Savour Chocolate & Patisserie School. Perhaps there just isn't enough demand for it with our considerably smaller population. My apprenticeship is almost over and hasn't even begun to satiate my desire for knowledge let alone hands on experience so a fairly decent amount of my 'culinary education' comes from books and other sources. Sad isn't it?

Feeling Blue..

We've got a great new cheese on the menu. It's replacing the previous Valdeón - an intense and biting blue cheese made in Posada de Valdeón from a combination of cow and goat's milk, wrapped in sycamore maple leaves and aged in caves along the Cantabrian sea.

From today we'll be using another blue called Onetik which is made from sheep's milk, aged for a minimum of 3 months and is slightly firmer, sweeter and creamier on the palate. It originates from the French side of the Pyrenees Mountains in Basque Country, otherwise known in Spain as País Vasco.

Inspired Ideas in Food

I was reading yet another post from Ideas In Food last night about the combination of olives, chocolate and carrageenan used to create an olive ganache. Seriously lacking in both hydrocolloids and cash, I went searching for a slightly more traditional method of binding chocolate and olives. Fifteen minutes later, my inquisitions were answered by a recipe on Epicurious for dense chocolate and olive oil brownies. I wonder why I never attempted to pair the two flavours before? I used to make luscious chocolate ganache tarts served with sea salt and almond oil ice cream although it's not quite the same as they were still two completely separate components.

I'm not a fan of overly sweet desserts and am constantly trying to combine sweet with savoury. Of course I was curious about matching a bean puree with chocolate and just had to try it for this month's WTSIM. By the way did you know that botanically speaking, beans are actually fruit?

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Anyway, this adapted brownie recipe turned out pretty darn well. The cooking time and temperature needed a little adjusting to compensate for using the gas oven at work. I also added a little more salt than the recipe suggested as I wanted my brownies a touch more on the savoury side. The seasoning really enhances the fruity notes present in the oil and if you're wondering, I used a Jingilli extra virgin olive oil. It's beautifully spiced, fruity and not too bitter, made with Western Australian grown Tuscan olives and has been awarded with numerous accolades for the last 8 years running.

Lemon-Infused Bean Puree

100 g dried cannellini beans, soaked for 10 hours
20 g unsalted butter
1 brown onion, brunoise
1/2 bunch lemon thyme
1 lemon, zest
pouring cream
salt and sugar to taste

Melt butter in a medium pot and sweat off the onion, thyme and 1/2 lemon zest with a little salt.
Drain the beans and rinse.
When onions are translucent and beginning to caramelise, add the beans and enough water to cover.
Cover, bring to the boil then reduce heat so it barely simmers.
Allow to cook for an hour or more until soft.
Strain off excess liquid, remove thyme stalks and puree with a food processor.
Add a splash of cream for a smoother consistency.
Season to taste, add more lemon zest if needed.

Chocolate & Olive Oil Brownies

230 g dark chocolate
160 g extra virgin olive oil
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
5 g salt
4 eggs
270 g castor sugar
170 g walnuts, toasted, skinned and roughly
chopped
160 g flour

Preheat oven to 185ºC.
Combine chocolate, olive oil, vanilla and salt over low heat until melted. Set aside to cool.
Cream eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until the ribbon stage (about 5 minutes).
With the mixer running on low, slowly add the chocolate oil.
Gently fold in the chopped walnuts then the flour.
Pour into a sprayed and lined tin and bake for 25 minutes.
Allow to cool completely before cutting.

Alinea Weighs In - Zesty!

Professional chefs who write recipes in cups and tablespoons deserve to have chicken stock ladled down the back of their pants. No, not just chicken stock. The greasy, floating scum from the impurities rendered out of the bones in the chicken stock. How dare they fold to the ignorant yearning of the masses at the expense of perfection! It's so frustrating to see absolutely stunning, beautifully photographed cuisine that can be labelled as nothing other than low grade food porn because the erroneous recipes have been dumbed down and gone unchecked.

After my most beloved knives and diamond steel, a set of scales are the next thing I would not want to live without. Every single time I'm handed a recipe I convert all the volumes to weights and every single time I make an experimental change or adjustment I weigh, weigh, weigh. I weigh eggs, I weigh water, I weigh a pinch of salt because ultimately a chef's career depends on his or her ability to punch out tasty and consistent food.

Some industry professionals who I have met (especially the line cooks it seems) have this unlearned impression that pastry chefs can't cook and scales are just for sissies. For some reason you're not really a great cook unless you can guesstimate weights and volumes and do everything by sight. Well I really only have one thing to say to those suckers -"Try working on the other side of the kitchen". We'll see who looks like the bigger sissy when chef turns around to throw discordant food in your face!

Ever since I came across the awesome NY blog Ideas In Food, I've been slowly progressing my way through the archives. Just this morning I stumbled over last year's post on the opportunity to pre-order the soon to be released Alinea cookbook. Apparently it doesn't come out until October this year which isn't soon enough. When you register for a book (extremely cheap for a book of it's calibre) you also get access to the Alinea Mosaic which is a collection of unpublished recipes, pdf page previews and short videos. I've already signed up, it didn't take much convincing to fork out the $50 I must say. The recipes are all in metric weights and boy I can't wait for October to come around!

To keep the rest of you satiated until then, for Sugar High Friday #43: Citrus held by Tartlette this month I present to you my recipe for sheep's milk yoghurt sorbet. You could substitute this recipe with any kind of yoghurt you fancy or even a mixture of strained fruit purees but I personally find that the combination of lemon juice with the sheep's milk yoghurt really lends a hand in bringing out the wonderfully fresh and tangy flavours. I've accompanied it this time with crushed raspberry ice to accentuate the citrus zing, polvorones (Spanish shortbread) for a textural contrast, white pepper ice cream for a different kind of sweet smoothness and manzanilla olive cheeks for a little savoury saltiness. Anyway enough talk, more plate.

Sheep's Milk Yoghurt Sorbet

100 g water
150 g liquid glucose
50 g castor sugar
25 g lemon juice
500 g sheep's milk yoghurt

Combine water, glucose and sugar in a small pot.
Bring to the boil, stir to dissolve then refrigerate until cold.
Empty yoghurt into a medium bowl and add the lemon juice and syrup.
Whisk until smooth and churn immediately.

Crushed Raspberry Ice

175 g water
65 g castor sugar
star anise
2 cardamom pods
300 g raspberries
10 g lemon juice

Combine water and sugar in a small pot.
Crush the aromatics with the heel of a large knife and throw them in.
Bring it to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow aromatics to infuse until cool.
Strain the syrup and discard the spices.
Combine syrup with raspberries and lemon juice in a shallow tray.
Place in the freezer and fork once every hour until set.

White Pepper Ice Cream

250 g milk
250 g cream
125 g egg yolks
85 g castor sugar
20 g white peppercorns

Bring milk and cream to a simmer.
Cream the yolks and sugar in a large bowl.
Temper the yolks by slowly pouring in the hot half and half while whisking continuously.
Place bowl over a bain-marie and stir continuously with a spatula in the figure eight.
Remove from heat immediately once it reaches 83ºC, strain through a fine chinois into an ice bath.
Refrigerate until cold then churn.
Grind the white peppercorns (but not too finely) with a spice grinder or mortar & pestle.
Throw them into the churning ice cream just before it's ready.

Liver Lust

I often wonder what direction food is heading towards in the 21st century. Globalisation of the world's cuisine has seen many changes over the last few decades and at times it can be more than a little confusing. Back in the day (although for some of us it seems difficult to imagine now) pineapple hors'doeuvres, chicken nibblets, meat trees and tuna jelly were all the rage. Thank god we're past that. I think I'd cry if every meal I was presented with was served up in gay coloured crockery and overzealously garnished with sprigs of curly parsley.

But what of now? We've been gradually overwhelmed with increasingly bastardised variations of god knows what kinds of gastronomy.. Minimalist, architectural, contemporary European, modern pan-Asian tapas, 'classic', naturalist and most recently molecular. It's all well and good to eat a deconstructed bloody mary composed of hot-frozen pudding with spherified tomato water and a celery tuile craquante, garnished with a whiff of dancing nitrous and I admit that I think having the knowledge and ability to execute that kind of technical stuff is pretty darn cool, but sometimes it just gets down right confusing.

I mean when exactly did the consumption of good food become some kind of complex ceremonial act where we find it necessary for a professional to stand beside the table and direct us in the art of mastication? How long will it be before El Bulli and Will Goldfarb gelling kits are found in every 'modern' restaurant? Where will the foodie scene move to from there? Will we see gastronomy continue to be pushed into the abstract with the likes of alcohol-soluble flavours and the convergence of sweet and savoury? Or perhaps we may even be introduced to restaurant menus designed specifically for tasters, non-tasters and supertasters.

It's absolutely confounding to try to imagine all of the different possible turns the industry may take in the near future. But you know what? It doesn't matter because regardless of how cuisine changes, we can always return to our favourite memories from the good old days of comfort food before Texturas, like sauteed chicken livers with white onion soubise and oloroso glaze.

The onion soubise will take the longest to cook so be sure to start that first. You'll need four brown onions, about 80 g of unsalted butter, a few sprigs of marjoram and 180 g of pouring cream. Have a pot warming on medium-high heat while you thinly slice up the onions. Splash a little cooking oil into the pot and throw in the butter. Give it a few moments until all the solids have melted then throw in the sliced onions and stir it around. Add only the tiniest amount of salt to bring out the moisture and help along the sweating process then turn the heat down to medium-low, bang on the lid and let it cook for another half hour or so. Give it a stir every now and then (to be sure it doesn't stick and begin to caramelise as it's a white sauce) and keep it cooking until it's completely broken down and the natural sweetness has emerged. Now scrape everything into a food processor with the cream and the marjoram leaves and blitz it until it's as smooth as possible. Taste it for seasoning and add a little more salt if you think it needs it.

The oloroso glaze is a very simple one. Bring a tablespoon of castor sugar to a light caramel and carefully add a splash of red wine vinegar (carefully as it may spit at you). Bring it to the boil then add a cup of oloroso sherry. You can leave this ticking over and reducing slowly while you prepare the livers.

With a sharp knife, remove all possible sinew from the livers and rinse off any unsightly gunk. Toss them in enough cornflour to give them a good coating and season generously with salt and pepper. Have a pan ready over medium-high heat with a splash of good olive oil. Place livers into the pan and caramelise on both sides. Continue cooking until they're done to your liking.

To serve, place a dollop of soubise onto the plate. Pile the livers on top and drizzle over with the thick oloroso glaze.

Alone in the Kitchen...

I have a tendency to collect things. Never mind what they are, if they're colourful or potential craft materials they'll somehow find their way home with me. Glass jars full of dried flower petals line the top of my bookshelf next to a variety of different coloured paprika tins, handmade model boats and a raft made entirely of wine corks and skewers are shadowed by a not-so-small model of the Eiffel Tower. Just below sits a long row of cook books. There are two large boxes living underneath my desk that are packed to the very top, a pile almost waist high on the floor beside a wide wooden bench and another rapidly growing on the desk aside my computer.

If you ever find yourself in my company, whatever you do, do not under any circumstances allow me to enter a bookstore. I think there's something so awfully romantic about cuisine-based literature whether it's fiction, a collection of recipes or a bit of foodie porn. You'll be dragging me out by the hair, still clutching desperately at a heavy hoard of coffee table books. I've found ebay to be an indispensable tool for new and used books that would otherwise be very difficult to source or unavailable in Sydney. Books For Cooks is another great site which is sadly closing in a few months (there's currently a 20% off sale so hurry on over), they carry some great books and a few hard to find ones too!

I'm currently reading the advanced reading copy (ARC) of 'Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant' which is a compilation of musings and amusing stories by 26 various writers and foodies, all of whom I assume are from the US as I'm not familiar with any of them. Here's a little excerpt from the introduction to whet your appetites.

"The more I thought about it, the more surprised I was that a book like this didn't already exist. A quick search on Amazon turned up some books on cooking for one, but they tended toward the pragmatic; their focus was logistical and dietary, and not on the rich experience of solitary cooking and eating. I noted with a mixture of amusement and trepidation that based on my search words---"cooking for one"---the website suggested I might be interested in books on the subject of cookery for people with mental disabilities. I didn't find a single book on the subject of dining alone. It started to seem as if we were talking about a phenomenon that hadn't yet been recognized as a phenomenon. It started to seem like anthropology. Or sociology. Or something that belonged on the Discovery Channel."

The book is hilarious at times, a slight drag at others but overall a good way to amuse yourself if you occasionally find yourself in a lonely planet.

With One Stone

I've been meaning to write up this recipe for a little while now, although with a fair amount of sleep deprivation I haven't quite been able to think of anything near witty enough to warrant posting.

Well, as I'm sure most of you are aware, we are now in the month of May which happens to be National Osteoporosis Awareness Month. Susan of Food Blogga has graciously decided to hold her very own blogging event to contribute to raised awareness of this disease. As with many other common diseases, most people are aware of the name and not much else. Do yourself, your friends and family a favour by taking a few minutes to find out the risk factors and likelihood of having osteoporosis.

This month's food event coined 'Beautiful Bones', encourages participants to create recipes centred around the use of calcium-rich foods including dairy, fruit, nuts, legumes, seafood, vegies and so forth. I've combined both dairy and nuts to make a pistachio cream tart with PX ice cream.

The tart was inspired by a recipe found in Casa Moro which I found fairly disappointing to be completely honest (the description that comes to mind is compact nut slurry). My version is more similar to a frangipane however and I find that the best method involves the food processor as it doesn't aerate the mix as much as an electric mixer and simply yields a better result overall. You could of course substitute pistachios for virtually any other kind of peeled nut. I think chestnuts would be at the top of my list to try if I were to make this tart again.

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Pedro Ximenez Ice Cream

150 g Pedro Ximenez (cheapish brand, eg. Nectar)
375 g milk
250 g egg yolks
175 g castor sugar
500 g cream

Bring PX to the boil and carefully flambe to remove alcohol (excess alcohol prevents freezing).

Combine PX with milk then bring to a simmer.

Cream the yolks and sugar in a large bowl.

Temper the egg mix by slowly pouring in a little hot milk at a time and whisking continuously.

Place the bowl over a bain-marie and (whilst scraping the bottom continuously with a spatula in a figure 8) very slowly bring it to 83ºC.

Remove from heat, pour in the cream (lowers temp to prevent any further cooking without the need for an ice bath) and strain through a fine chinois.

Refrigerate until cold then churn.

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Tart Pastry

125 g unsalted butter, chopped
250 g flour
160 g castor sugar
1 orange, zest
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 eggwhite

In a large bowl, combine everything except eggs and rub together with your fingertips.

Cut in the eggs and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll and line a tart base then freeze until hard.

Blind bake at 180ºC.

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Pistachio Cream

130 g almonds
250 g pistachios
50 g castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 orange, zest
50 g butter

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it becomes a smooth paste.

Set aside.

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Tart Filling

180 g unsalted butter, chopped
90 g castor sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
2 egg yolks
40 g flour

Combine butter, sugar and cardamom in a food processor and work until it becomes smooth.

Add the eggs and pistachio paste and blitz until well combined.

Transfer to a large bowl and fold in the flour.

Fill the tart base with pistachio cream and bake at 180ºC for approximately 25 minutes or until set.

Serve immediately with a side of PX ice cream.