OLIVE OIL CRACKER
Creme Fraiche | Chives | Maldon Salt

This was the first amuse that went out, and it illustrates the importance of having a backup plan. It's just a simple olive oil cracker with flakes of Maldon sea salt embedded in it. I molded it during the baking in order for it to fit perfectly on the plates and to have a little crook in which to hold the creme fraiche. The creme fraiche had been whipped, rolled into cylinders, frozen, sliced into small cylinders which would fit perfectly in the crook of the cracker, then the cylinders held in the fridge. All that had to happen was that the cylinders had to come out of the fridge about half an hour before serving to allow them to come to room temperature and get creamy again.

However, some guests ended up being quite late, and the cylinders ended up sitting out for well over an hour. They turned to mush. I ended up having to throw them out, whip up some additional creme fraiche a la minute (no biggie), spoon it onto the crackers (guests at least got something resembling quenelles), sprinkle on some chives, and serve. So yeah, they didn't look so good. But I promise they were going to look much cleaner had they worked out as planned. Even so, it's not very interesting, I know. It was originally going to be paired with a goat bacon cracker, in the same shape, with a cylinder of egg yolk.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/09/22 @ 14:24 | Comments (0) | Baking, Lazy Bear, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese