ROASTED CAULIFLOWER
Deep-Fried Chicken Stock | Vadouvan | Pea Shoots | Grana Padano

This was my favorite savory course of the night (and one of my favorite things I've ever made). It was very refined, but so damn delicious. This course was basically a meditation on browning, both caramelization and Maillard. It started out with the deep-fried chicken stock, which I wrote about a couple weeks ago. That stuff is the essence of Maillard. It's pure, crispy, deeply browned bits. They're right on the line between browned and burned, smelling almost like coffee. They're way too intense to eat on their own, but they are a perfect condiment. Anyway, I wanted to find things to pair with the deep-fried stock bits. Roasted cauliflower seemed right. The plan was originally going to be to puree some roasted cauliflower with the brown stock bits, and to top it with some pieces of roasted cauliflower. I decided that wouldn't showcase the stock bits enough. Jeanette suggested curry as an additional pairing, and it immediately sounded right.

Vadouvan is the French interpretation of curry, which, it turns out, is just curry with shallots. I toasted and ground all the spices for vadouvan (other than the hot peppers, which I did not want in this dish), and instead of slowly roasting the shallots with the spice mix, I kept the spice mix separately so that I could have more control over the amount of curry flavor in the final puree. I just cooked down the shallots in a pan. I roasted some cauliflower using my standard method: cut a head of cauliflower up into chunks no bigger than maybe an inch and a half cubes, toss with salt, a bit of sugar, and some olive oil, roast at around 425F for around forty minutes, tossing a couple times. I added the roasted cauliflower into the pan with the shallots, added some cream, and cooked until the cauliflower was extremely soft. If I hadn't done that, the puree wouldn't have come out as smooth. Finally, I pureed all of it together, adding the spice mix carefully until it had the perfect amount of curry flavor, and pushed the puree through a chinois. It was luscious and delicious.

To complete the dish I roasted some cauliflower a la minute with some salt, a bit of sugar, and some olive oil. That was the toughest timing issue in the dinner, since I had to start it roasting about 40 minutes before serving (though there's some leeway there, as it can stay hot in the oven for 10-15 minutes). Roasted cauliflower doesn't reheat well at all, in my experience. The stock bits were sprinkled over it, then the whole thing was topped with some pea shoots which had been tossed with a very light balsamic vinaigrette. I decided at the last minute to grate some gratuitous grana padano over it, which added even more nuttiness.

It was fantastic. Jeanette and I sat in the kitchen basically licking our plate, with eyes rolling back in pleasure. I could have eaten about twenty of these plates. The next step with these deep-fried stock bits is figuring out how much different they'd be if I used vegetable stock (or other stocks). I think that the gelatin in them may contribute quite a bit to their final texture, but I'm not certain. I'm also wondering how much the more subtle flavors in other stocks will come through. Would deep-fried duck stock taste different from deep-fried chicken stock? What about white veal stock? Deep-fried mustard stock would be the most amazing hot dog or sausage topping!

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/09/23 @ 22:49 | Comments (0) | Lazy Bear, Poultry, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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