Apparent April
In which I look back at a favorite dish from each Casa SaltShaker meal last month.
Like many people in my line of work, when some chef or cook somewhere posts an interesting sounding dish on Instagram or elsewhere, I save them with the idea to “play around” with the idea at some point. It’s rare that these dishes are posted with recipes, almost always it’s just a brief description. But the combination of flavors or the presentation sparks something in us, to recreate the dish and put our own spin on it.
Over the years I’ve amassed quite a collection of saved photos on IG and only now and again actually went back and followed through on my intentions. I decided last month to “clean up” the array of photos and actually engage in that playing around - and several of the dishes turned out quite well.
That said, I’m starting with a dish that wasn’t from an IG inspiration. As those of you who follow things Casa SaltShaker know, we started offering lunches in March, on most Wednesdays. A simple two-course prix fixe followed by coffee and some sort of cookie-ish sweet that fits the theme. It’s been a slow start, but the lunches we’ve had have been well received. We also changed things up a bit and the two of us join the table - it’s been fun to get to spend more time with our guests, and relax while we eat rather than gobbling a few bites in the kitchen.
I’ve been giving each lunch a sort of base theme of a particular region in the world, and for this lunch, it was Lucania, or, in modern day, Basilicata, in southern Italy. Along with a very interesting semolina based focaccia called strazzata, and a main course with a lucana style pork medallion smothered in garlic, served with a local whole wheat pasta called lagane, we started the meal with a take on a torta salata di verdure - a savory vegetable tart.
The tart itself was fairly classic - sandwiched between two layers of rough puff pastry is a sauté of our own Italian sausage spiked up with a bit of chili and aniseed, along with fennel, argula, basil, and pecorino cheese. It’s simple, but so delicious. I wanted to give it a little sort of dipping sauce, and served it up with a take on a Bolivian salsa llajwa, but making it a thicker reduction sauce after pureeing and straining tomatoes, rocoto chili, huacatay (Amazon black mint), and garlic.
The inspiration - a buckwheat sourdough bread sandwich with smoked mozzarella and caramelized onions.
I won’t go into the long series of playing around with the dish that eventually led to buckwheat cannelloni filled with a smoked mozzarella, ricotta, and caramelized onion filling, and topped with a sauté of oyster mushrooms sautéed with garlic, rosemary, merquén (smoked chili blend), finished with cream and crispy guanciale and a grating of parmesan and lemon zest. But that’s where we ended up. Very happily.
This one wasn’t an IG inspiration, but something I’ve been working on for a long time. I just couldn’t get the flavor balance the way I wanted it. But slowly, it came together. The base, salted yogurt, topped with a crumble of serrano ham and panko toasted together; over that, an olive oil confited tentacle of jibia, the Humboldt squid, our house rocoto chili crisp, a little salad or red onion, fennel, and cilantro dressed with lime juice and salt; and finished with a lightly sweet lucuma (a Peruvian fruit) infused molasses (I picked up some lucuma extract while in Lima earlier this year). This one will definitely make a return visit.
It was a simple enough dish, a plate of steamed asparagus in a verjus and colatura di alici beurre blanc. But the use of verjus, essentially a grape juice made from unripe grapes, so it’s very acidic, and the colatura, the Italian version of fish sauce, sounded intriguing. This one didn’t take a lot of experimenting - I know how to make a beurre blanc, and subbing in the verjus for lemon juice and adding just enough colatura di alici to give it a good umami hit was pretty easy. I turned it into a pasta, with our homemade farfalle. After trying it, I wanted to spike it up a bit, and some playing around led to finally using a bit of our sun-dried tomato salsa macha in the mix as well, finishing cooking the asparagus in the sauce, and adding in some whole parsley leaves at the end to wilt into the dish.
And, let’s round this up with another one that’s been in the works for awhile. The original dish was one of prawns sautéed with chermoula, a North African herb and spice mixture, and some preserved lemons. Here, I marinated the prawns in the chermoula (ours is a blend of cilantro, garlic, hot paprika, cumin, ginger, chili, saffron, lemon, oil, and salt); then quickly just heated through in the sauce, just enough to barely set the prawns. Chilled those. The base, a fondue of finely diced carrots cooked in prawn stock, garlic, , chili, marsala, and honey; also chilled. And finally, a lemon curd spiked up with what I would use to make preserved lemons - cinnamon, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, coriander seed, white pepper, and salt. Garnished with some fried chickpeas and cilantro leaves. That lemon curd is a keeper. I’ve been using it on… everything.
On to May!