Saturday, July 7, 2007

It's All About the Garnish




After only a few bites of this luncheon entree at Le Fumoir in Paris, I wrote in my travel diary: "fresh thyme: terrif. with zucchini" and "artichoke fritters as side dish."
The couscous-stuffed zucchinis were napped with a thyme-filled foam. I'm not usually a foam fan, but here it added a lightness often missing in vegetarian dishes. I won't be playing around with foams in my own kitchen, but as the relentless zucchini plants slither far and wide in our garden, I'll be picking thyme for zucchini sautes and cakes rather than automatically reaching for the basil.

Anything to deal with the relentlessly abundant zucchini. I try to practice my own form of zucchini planned parenthood by using the flowers before they develop any further, but the resident gardener has caught on to that tactic and become ardently pro-zucchini-life.


As for those delicious little artichoke fritters: they set me off on a quest for the perfect fritter batter. This will be a summer-long project -- trying Italian OO flour, rice flour, flat beer, sparkling bottled water and other suggestions I've collected. When I experimented with tempura-ish green beans recently, I followed a tip from British chef Angela Hartnett and kept the bowl of batter nestled in a slightly larger bowl of ice water as I worked. According to Hartnett a colder batter is a lighter batter.
Her new cookbook -- "Angela Hartnett's Cucina" -- is excellent. A recipe for chicory, golden raisin and green bean salad is going into the regular rotation here, as is her broad bean, pancetta and courgette salad. After all, a courgette by any other name...

9 comments:

lmc said...

yay! i can't wait to read this. you must post EVERY day. more than once.

Jack C said...

It's beautiful!

mikki said...

I'm hungry now. HUNGRY FOR MORE BLOGGIN!

Unknown said...

I can't wait for the updates to the blog! But no green peas?? Darn!

Marjorie said...

spring peas ROCK, you are a crazy person.

i wonder if you could foam with a whipped cream dispenser?

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with PEAS? The banner is fantastic, and so is the banter! More! More!

christine weibel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
christine weibel said...

we'll be over for our fritters tout suite!

Anonymous said...

Good day!

I am new to this forum and look forward to making some new friends

big respect, Dennis from [url=http://www.myonlinepayday.com]Payday Loans[/url] website!