Asparagus Tagliatelle

It's often important to trim your vegetables.

You want to refine your produce by deleting stringy fibers and removing exposed skin.

Say you lost track of such a task to the point where you kept peeling until the vegetable was no more.

In fact, it could very well become much more.

Case in point.

I gently attacked these asparagus stalks after separating the outer green layer and detaching the shoots.

I peeled until long, flat, thin strands were formed, producing ribbons that closely resemble flat pasta.

I simply reserved these raw and ribboned stalks in cold water while I blanched, roasted, blended and reduced the outer layer trimmings with some rosemary oil.

Corn Husks

Roasted

Steeped like tea in a corn cob stock creates a roasted corn flavor base great for soups and braising liquids.

Corn Silk

This week I am taking a closer look at corn. Examining the dissection like a Taino surgeon, curiosity builds at the separation of the floss-like silk located between the corn and it's husk (maybe more like a Taino dentist).

Not knowing much about it, I decided to use two basic methods of applying heat to peruse it's potential

Boiled for a few minutes in salted water, it produces a lovely color reminiscent of zucchini flower. Texture of fibrous noodles, as you can imagine.
Deep frying was a much better application. Crisply woven with a hint of corn flavor. I dusted them with paprika and salt. Made for a nice basket to surround a pear & radish salad I paired with veal breast.

It's important to take time with your produce and proteins. Discovery comes from taking nothing for granted.

Tripe Krispies

With the coconut milk-braised honeycomb tripe I slice them into thin strips, dust in peppered flour and give it a quick deep fry.

These are nicely crisp and tender with tripe flavor lingering throughout the bite.

Not as chewy as we're used to this cow stomach to be. Really enjoyable.

Like little meat fries.

Will tripe find it's place in America's trend chamber? Although veal breast may be the new pork belly for the incoming year, can tripe be the new sweetbread? This seems like a good place to start...

Dandelion Raita*

Made from dandelion stems pulverized with Greek yogurt, coconut milk, salt, sugar and lemon

This is a great condiment.

The bitterness of dandelions easily compliments the tang, creaminess, salinity and acidity of the other ingredients.

Tonight, it was paired with honeycomb tripe (which was pressured cooked in coconut milk) curried chickpeas and peanuts for a last minute dinner.

*Alternate Post title: Paperback Raita

Yolk Implosion

There's little less satisfying than a rich and runny egg yolk.

However, they always taste the same.

Nothing wrong with that, but how can we impart flavor the same way we do for meats and vegetables and practically everything else without sacrificing it's viscous and texturally delicious integrity? Reverse trickery, perhaps...

Hard-boiled, half-salty and 1000 year old egg's have a flavor profile all their own.

But what if we could have those preserved and marinated flavors with the texture of a runny egg yolk?

Maybe I'm a fool, but it's a work in progress.

Here I've made an alginate bath that I steeped a mixture of salted duck egg yolk, butter & calcium lactate into for a few minutes.

I then poached the newly formed "yolk" in water for a minute.

After fishing it out and straining it I achieved what you see above. A runny egg "yolk" made from a previously cooked egg yolk.

Only one problem: it didn't taste very good. The texture was way too chalky.

These are the kind of failures that promote perseverance. So I will be doing further experiments to see if some kind of breakthrough can be made and I can move on up to "New Yolk"

•Pork Blood Pasta

•Mussels

•Beef Heart-Tomato Sauce

•Fennel

This is the first time I've made fresh pasta (except gnocchi), so my noodle shaping skills are not worthy enough for a name or any sort of distinction outside of "pasta".

The sauce is very much a tomato sauce.

The mussels and beef heart combo is my little surf 'n' turf.

This is a rather nice dish.

Groceries

New ingredients automatically create new inspiration

Corned Beef & Cabbage

•Corned Beef Tendon

•Brussel Sprout

•Fennel Frond

•Colman's Mustard

The beginning's of a new dish and ode to the week ahead...

Rottweiler Farm Interview

Here's an interview and overview of "Dinner No. 1" from last month for Rottweiler Farm

Filmed by Jorge Rubiera [Rottweiler Farm/Swamp Valve]

Gastronaut Jones Dinner Series: Part I Presented by Rottweiler Farm from Jorge Rubiera on Vimeo.