Sunday, November 25, 2007

Good food karma salad

This salad means a different kind of good food karma to me, than the topical SOLE food concept. It means that I have found a way to make a satisfying dinner from bits that may well have died in my fridge in the next few days. Now for some this can be easy or this can be hard, for me it's easy and hard in the same breath, unfortunately for me, I'm a bit fussier than the next...

Tonight's dinner started with some wild mushroom and chicken liver pate that was left over from dinner with PDC last night, he laughed when I decided to keep the small wedge. So the challenge was set!

What else was on hand to use up?
Watercress that was already picked and washed, just waiting for me to use it
Boudin Blanc, one of the highlights also from dinner last night

Next, I knew that these bits needed a sweet component, I instantly dreamt of figs, yet they are still a while out of season so fig vincotto would have to do.

I decided to play around with a way to incorporate these bits, so the base of the salad became the smeared pate, napped with the fig vincotto.

On top got piled the salad, and then after a quick couple of shots in the daylight saving twilight I devoured my rich and somewhat French inspired salad while still slightly warm.

Truffled boudin blanc, mushroom pate and fig vincotto salad
Boudin blanc, blanched
Mushroom and chicken liver pate
Baby pink eye potatoes
White zucchini
Watercress, washed and picked
Sugar snap peas
Du Puy style lentils, cooked in chicken stock until soft
Pullet free range eggs, soft boiled and peeled

Dressing
1/4 extra virgin olive oil
Dash white truffle oil
1/4 fig vincotto
1/2 verjus
S+P

Boil the baby potatoes and remove when just cooked, in the same water blanch the sugar snaps and then drain well.
Cut the zucchini into half moons and pan fry until golden, keep warm in the oven.
Build into a mixing bowl; watercress, warm zucchini, halved baby potatoes, quartered eggs, sugar snaps and some lentils. Add dressing components and toss gently.

Pan fry some slices of boudin blanc until golden on both sides.

Smear the plate with the pate and drizzle some more fig vincotto, top with the warm salad and then the hot boudin blanc.

Enjoy with good karma...
Jack

2 comments:

  1. Hi Jackie, how are you?? Still busy with work?? Visited Christie the other day, it was nice to catch up. If you are free for coffee it would be great to catch up... I am taking a few bloggers on bakery tours this weekend, we are hunting empanadas and cakes with dulce de leche. There will be one Argentinian and three Chilean bakeries in all. She be fun, my first gig as a tour guide! Vida x

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  2. SHOULD be fun not she be fun, as I wrote above... sorry, brain overload!! Vida x

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