Sometimes I see trends in types of recipes that go through
my foodporn news feeds and it makes me think, hmm, I’ve never tried that
before. It’s such a common dish, or component of a dish and despite being quite
adventurous in my cooking, it’s not something I’ve ever made. Or even
contemplated making – like mac and cheese. Can you believe this last weekend
was the first time I’d ever made béchamel sauce? As I was stirring the milk and
it was magically thickening and turning into a delicious thick sauce in a way
I’d never seen before, I was thinking about starting this blog. It was
initially about trying new things and opening myself up to new cooking
experiences, so that we didn’t eat the same dishes on rote. But although the
flavours I mix together are often unique and different and new, my methods of
cooking haven’t really evolved much.
I watched Julie and Julia on the weekend (with a large bowl
of mac and cheese using aforementioned béchamel sauce to cope with all that
delicious food on screen) and watching Julie debone a duck and going through
the calf leg gelatin section of Julia Child’s cookbook made me determined to
make a few more things requiring a different cooking technique to my usual.
Whilst I don’t think I’ll ever buy a calf leg, or possibly even debone a duck,
I will definitely try a few new things.
I wrote before about being scared of roasting a duck, and
that experiment turning out deliciously well. And one of the other things I’ve
never really attempted seriously before is sauces or custards with egg. Even
making ice creams I try to avoid using custard based ones because cooking eggs
like that scares me. I figure I’ll end up with scrambled eggs and ruin the
whole thing. But I made a chocolate pavlova for Mothers’ Day and ended up with
a whole bunch of egg yolks and decided it was the perfect time to make a pink
grapefruit curd. Again, I enjoyed watching the magic of the yolks and
grapefruit juice thicken and become creamy and turn from ingredients into an
actual dish. So the next step was to make a sabayon sauce. Sabayon (or
zabaglione) is a light and fluffy sauce, drink or dessert made using some form
of alcohol and egg yolks as the main ingredients.
Things I’ve learnt in these two egg-based sauce dishes is
that you need to be patient at first, slowly drizzling the hot liquid into the
eggs and whisking first before putting it on the heat and whisking consistently
at a brisk pace. But it’s definitely a trick worth trying, you really do feel
there is a science behind cooking.
Given that it’s Autumn and the markets are full of
pomegranates, this sabayon is pomegranate flavoured and paired with one of my
favourite spirits – Gin. I again used the West Winds Sabre for it’s specific
citrus notes, but if you can’t get your hands on it, substitute Bombay
Sapphire. And like my last Gin dish, it uses crab meat. I had this frozen from our
very successful crabbing trip in summer, but you can generally get your hands
on crab or crab meat at most supermarkets. There’s something about gin and crab
that just *work*, you know! I then put it under the grill to heat the crab and
lightly toast the top of the sabayon. The end result is a toasty, airy, citrusy
puff of rich sauce on top of the flaky crab meat. So. Good.
This was paired with a warm buckwheat salad. I think next
time, I’d like to add a few plain salted tortilla chips as well, for a textural
counterpoint.
Grilled Crab with Gin and
Pomegranate Sabayon
2/3 cup West Winds Sabre Gin
4 tbsp pink grapefruit juice
2 pomegranates, seeded
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt to taste
300g cooked crab meat, picked over for cartilage and shell
Seed the pomegranates and reserve ¼ of the arils for the salad. Put the
gin, grapefruit juice and pomegranate seeds into a small saucepan and simmer
until the liquid has reduced to about ¼ of a cup.
Line a baking tray with paper and divide the crab meat into 4. Tightly
pack with your hands into patties and set aside until sauce is ready.
Once the gin mixture has reduced, strain through a fine sieve into a
glass bowl that you can set above simmering water. Set a small saucepan of
water to simmer. Add the egg yolks to the reduced gin and whisk briskly for a
few minutes to fully incorporate, then place over the simmering water. Whisk
constantly and briskly until the sauce becomes light and fluffy, the colour
will turn a pretty pale purple. It’ll take about 3 minutes. Remove from the
heat and drizzle the olive oil into the mixture, whisking slowly for a few
minutes until emulsified. Taste and season as needed. Set aside until salad is
ready and you can grill the crab.
Spoon the mixture over the crab and place under a pre-heated grill for
2-3 minutes until toasted and brown.
Warm Pink Grapefruit, Zucchini
and Buckwheat Salad
2/3 cup buckwheat
1 ½ cup water
½ tsp salt
Big pinch fresh black pepper
Olive oil
½ tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
¼ tsp coriander seeds
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, diced
2/3 cup corn kernels
1 pink grapefruit, segmented and diced
1 tbsp tamari
2 silverbeet leaves, stripped and shredded
1 Avocado, sliced
Handful toasted almonds, roughly chopped
¼ of the pomegranate arils reserved from
making the sabayon
Put the buckwheat, water, salt and pepper in a
medium saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until the buckwheat
is cooked, but still chewy, around 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork and set aside.
In a frypan, heat a splash of olive oil and
fry the garlic until translucent. Add the cumin, mustard seeds and coriander
seeds, stir well to coat in the oily garlic mix. Add the zucchini and corn
kernels and cook for 5-10 minutes until the zucchini is soft. Take off the
heat.
Stir through the cooked buckwheat, tamari,
grapefruit pieces and silverbeet leaves.
Serve with sliced avocado, toasted almonds and
the reserved pomegranate arils on top.
Gently remove the crab with sabayon patties and
serve alongside
