Category Archives: Soups and Creams

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.