This dish tasted awesome, and its visual impact was strong as well. It's fairly similar to a Noma dish, which is no accident. But my version actually isn't a reference to the Noma dish. Mine is a reference to a Mission Street Food dish that was a reference to the Noma dish. Theirs was styled, "yogurt parfait, peas, celery, chervil, pea shoots, mint oil - $6." From what I've heard (Dan went to Noma and was telling me about this dish there), the MSF version was much sweeter than the Noma version. I loved the MSF version, and am pretty sure it's more delicious than the Noma version. So consider this indirectly inspired by Noma, but directly inspired by Anthony Myint and Danny Bowien, formerly of Mission Street Food, now of the amazing Mission Chinese Food.

The cylinder is a yogurt panna cotta set into acetate-lined plastic cylinders (just go to Tap Plastics). The domes are that same base, but frozen in flexi-pan molds. There are fresh peas, blanched and tossed in a bit of simple syrup and a bunch of mint oil. The green powder is ground, freeze-dried peas. The darker green thing in back is a tuile made from just the pods of the peas.

Yogurt Panna Cotta
8 pounds Straus yogurt
4 cups heavy cream
24 sheets gelatin
pinch salt
4 cups sugar
4 tbsp lemon juice

Warm up the cream and stir in the sugar and salt. Bloom the gelatin and dissolve it into the warmed cream. Then combine the cream mix with the yogurt, pour into molds, and chill to set. Don't warm everything up together or else the acid from the yogurt will curdle the dairy (even without the lemon juice).

This same base works well if loaded into a whipper and foamed. Instead, I poured some of the excess base into flexi-molds and froze it, without churning first. I did a test run and didn't expect to like it, but it turned out that the hard frozen domes were a wonderful texture contrast with the soft panna cotta.

Pea Pod Tuile

While shelling peas, remove stems entirely instead of leaving them attached to the pods. Take the stemless pods and give them a wash by submerging them in clean water and swishing a lot. Then blanch them in basic water. The alkaline breaks down the pods a bit. I used maybe a teaspoon and a half of baking soda for about 12 quarts of blanching water. I blanched for two or three minutes. Shock the pods in ice water to stop the cooking process. Then run the pods through a juicer (Champion is my brand). The result will yield more of a puree than a juice. Chill this puree. It'll set up almost into a gel from the pectin. Blend this jelled puree, add sugar to taste, and spread it evenly and thinly on oiled acetate. Dehydrate until the sheet is uniformly dry but not yet brittle. Peel the pea pod sheet off the acetate and turn it over. You could cut shapes out at this point, but I chose to tear it later for more irregular shapes. Finish drying until the tuile is crunchy and brittle, then break it up into desired sizes. Store in an airtight container.

Posted by Barzelay on 2011/04/27 @ 2:28 | Comments (4) | Desserts, Lazy Bear, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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