Category Archives: Eggs

Oh yes, with this dish I’m going up on elegance and more for sure. Thought for my future menu and experimenting for the first time with foams and textures; reading about flavour combinations and cooking methods. This plate has travelled from Julia Child’s artichoke bottoms cooked in a ‘blanc’ (‘like it used to be done’), to an artichoke foam accomplished with Ferran Adrià’s ISI Gourmet Syphon. Over these two textures a poached egg and to enhance flavour crispy pancetta and some Parmigiano Reggiano. This is harmony ladies and gentlemen.

Ingredients. For 4.

• 12 fresh artichokes, the biggest you can find. If they are not so big then you will be needing 16, 8 of which will be bottoms and the rest for the foam.
• 4 eggs, best quality and very fresh
• 100 gr of pancetta
• Parmigiano Regianno cheese
• 3 lemons
• 1/2 onion finely sliced
• 200 gr of cream 35.1% grease
• 100 gr water and 100 of the broth form the artichokes
• 30 gr butter
• 3 gr agar-agar
• 1/2 litre ISI-Gourmet syphon
• vinager
• salt, pepper and nutmeg

Preparation.

Let’s take it by steps.

1. Artichokes. Day before.

1. First you need to pick up the 4 biggst artichokes because we need the biggest bottoms or hearts, where the poached egg will be layed on. If they are smal there will be 2 per plate. These ones we will prepare as Julia Child did, ‘as done before’ a friend told me: in a blanc.
2. First break the stem off close to the base of the artichoke. Holding the bottom up, bend a lower leaf back until it snaps. Then pull it off. Continue until you’ve gone beyond the curse, where the cones of leaves folds inward.