Somehow this season sunchoke or jerusalem artichoke was a rare guest in my kitchen. Main reason for that was that it was almost impossible to find them real fresh and juicy. Though the season is almost over, I just discovered a farmer's shop that had perfect sunchokes. I trust they were picked the morning or maybe a day ago. Fresh and firm. I thought it would be nice to celebrate that great bulb with something special. Sunchoke and hazelnut are going amazingly well together, it is almos like magic. So the actual plan was to make the pesto with roasted hazelnut, but I had no in my pantry. I thought to give it a go with cashew nuts and I must say it worked really well!
Ingredients:
for the sunchoke tagliatelle:
260-300 g sunchoke
200 g durum wheat
salt
for the sage scented parsley-cashew nut pesto:
150 g parsley leaves
100 g cashew nut
50 g parmesan
5-7 sage leaves
10-12 tablespoons olive oil
salt
freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Pack sunchokes on aluminium foil and bake for 15-20 minutes or until soft. As soon as it has cooled down to lukewarm, cut in half and scrap out the baked sunchoke from the peel. In my case I ended up with 140 g of puree. I added 200 g of durum wheat to the puree some salt and kneaded a dough. Then I rolled it out with the help of a pasta machine and sliced into tagliatelle.
For the pesto roast cashew nuts for 1 and a half to 2 minutes in the 200°C hot oven. Keep during the whole roasting time an eye on the nuts, because they can burn fast! Wash parsley and dry. Grate parmesan and puree all the ingredients together. Season with salt and pepper.
Cook pasta in simmering water and mix it the pesto. Serve with parmesan shavings and roasted cashew nuts.
Well, it seems that the beetroot-blood orange combination is unstoppable at least here at the "corner". However, after yesterday's soufflé it was not my intention to include sunchoke in this dessert, not at all! However now I am happy, that my original idea did not work out. First I planned to repeat the poppy seed mousse, but this time using white poppy. However, it just did not work out, because the components didn't stay together, so it ended up in the garbage. I thought, it is time to say good bye to this dessert, but then I remembered the sunchoke-white chocolate cake and I decided to use that combination in form of a mousse. The jelly on top turned out just perfect thanks to a blood orange and a half-blood orange that I mixed with the beetroot jelly. You can taste the beet, but it is not dominating, just right there, where it should be. If I would make these tartelettes again, I would use a dark chocolate ganache as the first layer, instead of some molten chocolate.
Ingredients:
for the cocoa pastry (adapted from Johnny Iuzzini)
140 g cold butter
150 g sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 egg white
310 g flour
50 g cocoa powder
4 g baking powder
Cream butter with sugar and salt. Whisk in the egg and the egg white, then add the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Knead a dough, flatten and put it in the fridge for at least 1 hour. I have used about half of it, and that made 4 tartelettes, you can easily freeze the rest of the pastry. Blind bake the tart shells at 180°C in 10 cm diameter tartelette rings for about 10 minutes.
100 g white chocolate
50 g baked sunchoke + 1 tablespoon cream
60 g simple syrup
2 egg yolks
2 sheets gelatine
200 ml cream
Puree baked and peeled sunchoke with cream and stir in the previously soaked gelaint sheets into the still warm puree. Beat egg yolks with simple syrup over steam, so that the bowl is half way in the hot water. Beat until thick and creamy, then remove and keep on beating until it cools. Stir in molten white chocolate, then the sunchoke puree and finally fold in the beaten cream.
100 ml blood orange juice
100 ml cream
100 ml milk
1 vanilla pod
2 tablespoons sugar
2 gelatine sheets
Bring milk, cream with sugar and the vanilla seeds and pod to the boil. As soon as it is boiling remove from the heat, add blood orange jucei and discard the vanilla pod. Stir in the previously soaked gelatine sheets and let it cool to room temperature.
100 ml blood orange juice
50 ml beet juice
1 gelatine sheet
Bring blood orange and beet juice to the boil and stir in the previously soaked gelatine sheet. Let it cool to room temperature.Take the blind baked tartelettes shells and brush with molten chocolate or pour a layer of chocolate ganache on the bottom. Chill until it sets. Then pour a layer of room temperature panna cotta on it and chill for 1-2 hours. Put 4 desserts rings on top and pour white chocolate-sunchoke mousse into the ring and chill for 2-3 hours. Finally pour a layer of blood orange-beetroot jelly on top and chill until it sets. Sprinkle with poppy seeds before serving.
Actually, this supposed to be yesterday's lunch, but I simply had no time to prepare it, because I started with this year's spring cleaning. Altough there is still a lot to do, I could not resist and had to get back in the kitchen because I have so many ideas that are must be tested before all the gorgeous spring vegetables arrive! I must say, that I still haven't had enough of beets, sunchokes and blood oranges. Still so many possiblites and ideas opn my mind. Really, can't wait to test them all! Though it would also be great to try new combinations, but not yet. I hope you are also not bored of it! As far as the soufflé is concerned, well if you ask me these ingredients harmonise just perfectly together and the blood orange salad with the salty feta cheese and chervil made a great match.
Ingredients:
150 g baked sunchoke (weighed peeled)
50 g baked beetroot (weighed peeled)
20 g butter
20 g flour
125 ml beet juice
3 eggs
salt, pepper
2-3 tablespoons poppy seeds + butter for the forms
Puree sunchoke and beet in a mixer. Melt butter, stir in flour then add beet juice while whisking, cook over low heat until it thickens. Remove from the heat, stir in sunchoke-beet puree, then the egg yolks. Season with salt and pepper. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt, then fold it into the batter. Pour it in buttered and with poppy seed coated ramequins and bake for 6-8 minutes over 200°C.
While I was watchin the fifth egg white dripping into the plastic box, I started to panic a little bit, because I had no clue what I should make using them. Of course I could bake some macarons and I probably will, but I rather wanted something salty, after all today I baked a big portion of aranygaluska among a portion of vanilla sauce. Oh yes, and that meant two more leftover egg whites. And where are these egg whites when I need them for cleaning a consommé?! Usually then there is not a single one waiting in the fridge. But finally I have seen the solution: pasta! I have been waiting almost a year to make these! Altough I often end up with quite a lot of egg whites, but still I just had no opportunity or I simply did not think of it. Thank to a sudden idea I cooked some sunchoke and those made just the perfect filling together with cep for the ravioli. I've never thought that these two work so well together. Love it! Of course I could have included pears or walnuts, even beetroot would have matched the main ingredients, but maybe next time! Now I wanted the cheese and the cep to be stars of the dish. However, as now fresh cep is not available I served some fried king oyster mushroom flavoured with shallot, garlic and thyme with it.
Ingredients:
for the pasta:
(source: lamiacucina)
100 g egg white
160 g flour
40 g durum wheat
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
First prepare the pasta dough: sift flour, add egg white, salt, durum wheat and olive oil. Start kneading and when the dough is getting viscous keep on kneading until you get a smooth dough. Chill for an hour before using it. With a help of a pasta machine roll out pasta dough as thin as possible and place a teaspoon of the filling on it and form a ravioli with a help of a cookie cutter. Bring salty water to simmer and simmer ravioli for a 2-3 minutes and toss in melted butter.
3-4 small sunchoke
1 shallot
1 teaspoon butter
1 twig thyme
30 ml sherry
10-15 g dried cep
salt, pepper
Cook sunchoke until soft, then peel. Soak dried cep in hot water, then sieve, but put the water aside. Melt butter and sautee chopped shallot, then add mushroom. After a few minutes add sherry, cep water and thyme and reduce almost completly. Puree together with the sunchoke and season with salt and pepper.
1 shallot
1 tablespoon butter
70 ml white wine
150 g gorgonzola dolce
100 ml cream
salt, pepper
Sautee onion in butter, add white wine and let it reduce by 3/4, sieve, then add cream and gorgonzola and stir it until the cheese is molten, season.
20 g butter
1 shallot
150 ml white wine
100 ml cep water
50 ml cream
1 twig thyme
salt, pepper
Sautee onion in melted butter, add white wine and reduce to 2/3. Now add cep water and reduce by half. Sieve, then add cream, season and foam it with a blender.
Well, honestly I do not often make doughnuts or beignets or other deep fried treats. In fact, I only do it once in a year, simply because of the scaring calories, however I decided to break this habit. Therefore here I am with the second batch of beignets this year. After the beetroot, I've chosen another seasonal favourite of mine, the sunchoke, that I boosted with some nutmeg. Though this wouldn't been enough, so I sprinkled it with ginger-lemon flavoured icing sugar. Well, my neighbour, who received a medium sized paper bag full with beignets just ate it all within a few minutes, while we still were chatting. I think that was quite a compliment! By the way, what I especially love about these, among the taste and the light and fluffy texture, is that they pretty much resemble to the sunchoke bulbs, agree?
Ingredients:
180 g sunchoke
60 g butter
200 ml water
150 g flour
2 eggs
nutmeg
pinch of salt
icing sugar
ground ginger
zest of 1 lemon
Cook sunchoke until soft, peel and puree. Bring water with butter, salt and freshly grated nutmeg to the boil. As soon as it is boiling add flour, the whole amount at once. Whisk it together with a wooden spoon, and as soon as a thin white layer is visible on the bottom remove it from the heat. Pour batter into another bowl and stir in 150 g of sunchoke puree, then stir in the eggs one by one. With a help of a spoon form small balls and bake in hot oil for 3-4 minutes. Roll baked beignets in ginger-lemon flavoured icing sugar.
While enjoying the first bites of a nashi pear, suddenly I noticed that it smells in a way like chocolate. Immediately everything was clear and I just knew how to combine the ingredients for the cake I was planning during the weekend. I wanted to bake a loaf using sunchoke and nashi pear. If sunchoke, well then hazelnut is a must, but what about the rest? So that chocolate fragrance that filled the air in the morning brought me the idea to add white chocolate and vanilla to the loaf. The neighbour's eight years old daughter loved it, so I am pretty sure that I made the right choice with the ingredients. Besides a slice with a cup of hot tea was just perfect in this cold and snowy afternoon.
Ingredients:
150 g butter
200 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
130-150 g sunchoke
150 g flour
100 g ground hazelnut
1 teaspoon baking powder
juice of 1/2 a lemon
100 g white chocolate
2 nashi pears
Cook sunchoke until soft, then peel as long as it is lukewarm and puree. Whisk butter with sugar and a pinch of salt until fluffy, then whisk in the eggs one by one. Stir in 100 g of sunchoke puree, vanilla extract, flour and ground hazelnut. Sprinkle baking powder on top and squezze lemon juice over it. Fold in coarsly chopped chocolate and the peeled and diced nashi pears. Bake for 50-60 minutes in the preheated oven on 180°C.
