God I love my wife.
I really do!
Between the last post and what you see here, she organized and threw me an epic surprise birthday party. I had no idea, no clue that she could be so sneaky.
The house was filled with family and friends while I was brought to the mall, which I later found out was to kill time for the set-up. I come home, she leads me in the door, and I think I actually jumped when I heard them scream, 'Happy Birthday'. It was an amazing way to start my 35th year of life on this planet.
Speaking of surprises, she also got me my dream chef's knife for a present, the Japanese Shun classic pictured below. I decided to switch over to Japanese steel a while ago as I became more dissatisfied with my Wustof. The Shun fits in my hand so much better, it's lighter, and holds an edge longer. Getting one of these babies means that now I can finally leave the clerk at Williams & Sonoma alone and stop stalking those knives in the display case. I was eager to try out my new knife and what a better way to do so than to use it on some acorn squash.
Sformato in Italian comes from the verb sformare and means 'to unmold'. It's hard to pinpoint what it is exactly, more like a custard than anything, but it looked good in the book and there's plenty of acorn squash to go around this time of year, so why not?
Little did I know from the looks of it that this was such an involved recipe with many parts, so I really had my work cut out for me. Let's dive into this.
First, I heat the oven to 325°. I cut some acorn squash down the equator to create three pieces. Two parts gets tossed with olive oil and wrapped in foil, and the other piece gets set aside for the salad garnish.
I also take some Cipollini onions, toss them with olive oil, wrap them in foil, and bake them in the oven with the squash until tender, which took about 45 minutes in my oven. Before I went on my ingredient quest for this cooking mission, I called around to all of the local grocery stores to see if any of them had cipollini onions for sale, and it should be noted that the only one that did was...you guessed it...Whole Foods. Is there any reason to shop anywhere else?
Once the squash cooled, I scooped the flesh out into a mixing bowl and gave it a good mashing. To this, I add egg yolk, whole eggs, fresh Parmesano-Reggiano, mascarpone cheese, nutmeg, and salt and pepper.
I took the reserved egg white and whipped it to a stiff peak.
I then added it to the custard and gently folded it in, being careful not to deflate the whites.
This mixture was put into buttered mold cups and put in a deep roasting pan, where warm water was added to come about halfway up the sides of the cups.
This pan then gets wrapped in foil and put in a 400° oven for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the custards.
While these are baking, I remove the stems from shittake mushrooms and put them in a small baking pan with a hefty amount of extra-virgin olive oil, chopped sage, and garlic. The mushrooms get roasted until tender, or about 15 minutes.
When finished, the mushrooms need to cool slightly and the oil gets strained and reserved.
While all of that is working, (told you there was a lot going on here), I get a small sauce pan and heat some more extra-virgin olive oil to 300° and deep-fry some sage leaves for the garnish. They take about 30 seconds to fry. I removed them from the oil with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate lined with paper towels to help remove the extra grease. The kitchen smells amazing so far but with all of this going on I'm running around a little ragged to get all of the components ready.
The finish line is in sight, just a little more prep to go. I take the reserved acorn squash, give it a julienne, and toss it with some olive oil and seasoning. This is then set aside.
Next, I have to make a mushroom vinaigrette. OMG! Will I ever get to the end of this recipe??
I pour some sherry vinegar into a small bowl and whisk in the reserved strained mushroom cooking oil and season with salt and pepper. The vinaigrette gets set aside.
Okay....finally....I'm ready to plate this thing! I spoon the shiitakes in the center of the plate. The sformato gets unmolded on top of the mushrooms. I place one of the cipollini onions next to the sformato. The raw, julienned squash goes on top of the sformato as a garnish, along with the fried sage leaves. I then spoon some of the mushroom vinaigrette on top of everything and around the plate. The whole thing gets a healthy shaving of fresh Parmesano-Reggiano.
My wife and I both used the same word to describe this dish...underwhelming. I loved the taste of the shiitakes, (my wife won't touch any kind of mushrooms). I was at first hesitant about the addition of the julienne of raw squash, but later loved the texture that it gave the dish. But unfortunately, even with everything that was going on in the plate, the main component, the sformato, didn't really wow me.
I didn't hate this dish mind you. I just feel that I wouldn't go through all of the trouble to make it again anytime soon. This one took a lot out of me and it probably would scare the shit out of most home cooks. But then again, this isn't a cookbook for kindergarten either. Good food takes time, preparation, and attention to detail. This is why I am here. I want to learn and be challenged like never before, pushing my boundaries as far as they will go. And from the looks of things, they are about to be pushed even further.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment