A Kitchen Mistake: Purée of Broccoli
I was going to call this a “disaster,” but I’ve had too many of those, and this wasn’t a disaster. It was edible. It was simply, a mistake.
I’ve been a big fan of using natural flavors of somewhat exotic things in dishes. Ever taste a cauliflower purée? It’s delicious as a bed to a piece of crispy-coated fish. Yesterday, I sautéed some tilapia in bacon fat coated in panko crumbs. I thought sitting it on top of a thick puréed vegetable would be tasty.
I took an entire head of broccoli and par-boiled it, then added some water and cream with the broccoli in the blender. I had the start of a great soup (I would find out), but not a purée. With the water, it was too… thin. Perhaps with a small potato and less water it would have had success. But with the addition of garlic, parmesan, and fresh parsley, it was nevertheless tasty.
I instead en-robed my asparagus with this “sauce” and while it tasted good, it was very odd looking. I think in the future these ingredients (alongside the bacon) would make for a good soup.
Imagine… Crème of Broccoli Soup, so fresh, with the parsley, maybe a hint of lemon juice, then on top, we float a few pieces of asparagus tips fried-up in bacon fat? Or maybe even a little crab meat too? This would make for a fun starter.
The fish, then, sat by itself on the plate. For my exciting sauce, I took a bottle of black currant juice and reduced it over medium-high heat into a syrup, and mounted it with butter. At that point I also took out the garlic clove that had been around for the reduction ride.
The only problem, I still had “too much” sauce for 2 pieces of fish. For four or five, it would have been a nice accent on the plate (and the taste was what I had hoped for, sweet, but tart). But alone with that fish, it was overwhelmingly strong.
The final accent on the plate was a dice of Hanover tomato. Again, it was excellent with the fish, but there was too much of that currant sauce. I also crumbled the bacon on top of the fish. The combination of the bacon and tomato made one recall a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich (BLT).
So, to recap:
- Tilapia encrusted in Panko with Black Currant Sauce, bacon flavor
- Purée of Broccoli
- Asparagus
Hold-back on the strong sauce; it should be used as an accent. The bacon-tomato thing was interesting and I’d do it again. For the purée, either augment it with something starchy (potato), or make it a soup instead. IN this case, some cubed potatoes, fried up with garlic, perhaps in the same pan with the asparagus, with some balsamic vinegar and herbs, would have been a better idea.
Any edible mistakes you’ve made? Share in the comments.
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