' BACKYARD SALAD #3 .'

Backyard winter harvested salad of Pea greens & Flowers, Watercress, Sorrel, Yellow Chard, Sweet potato greens, Nasturtium leaves & Petals, Watermelon Radish and Supremes of Blood Orange & Tangelo.

                  For this post I've done a quick little winter garden inspired salad to accompany some fresh citrus I had bought from the grocers. This tasty salad of winter greens with peppery and lemon notes has been dressed with a blood orange vinaigrette and makes perfect for an appetiser as it gets all those saliva glands going and taste buds zinging. The nasturtium leaves and petals along with the watercress and radish give off peppery and mustard flavour notes adding a little spice and warmth to the dish.        
                  To make this salad I started with preparing the citrus, slicing both the blood orange and tangelo into supremes and placing into the fridge to chill. In a bowl I whisked together some olive oil, blood orange juice, salt, pepper and panela until well combined, this was set aside. Next I went for a walk down the backyard to the vegetable garden and had a little forage for the winter greens, radishes and flowers. These were washed, the radish I sliced thinly and dressed the salad greens in the blood orange vinaigrette. The greens, radish slices, flower petals and prepared citrus fruit supremes were then arranged onto a plate and seasoned with some cracked black pepper.
                 When it was photo shoot time, I went outside to capture the days natural light like I usually do. But this time I had forgotten that I had let the chooks out to to free range earlier on. Well at the end of the shoot I was taking some variation plating shots and experimenting with a white back ground,  when the curiosity and patience had got the better of the White Sussex and she had to check out the backyard salad. Upon a closer look she dove in a started eating the salad, picking the tangelo supreme first followed by a frenzy of thrashing beak work annihilating my salad.

' SPICY CHOCOLATE SALAD .'

Chilli spiked Chocolate pudding, Nasturtium blooms, Watermelon Radish greens, Olive oil and Aged Balsamic vinaigrette and vanilla salt. 

                    This creation came about from a conversation I had with mum about a week ago or so at my cousins sons first birthday celebration. We were talking about our common interest food, and how she feels so strongly about the Mediterranean food culture, the simplicity, the whole food ethics and so on but how times are changing even over there. People are becoming more willing to participate in the unusual or the un-tried. How our children's tastes have been exposed to a greater number of food combinations than any generation in the past. The conversation went on and mum made a reference to how chocolate is being applied in many different ways now from just the humble chocolate bar, and she went on to state that we are now seeing chocolate in beer and wine, who knows whats next. At the time I'm looking a bowl of fresh garden salad on the table and mind starting ticking. When I got home I got onto the laptop to see if there were any chocolate salad recipes out there and low and behold there was a photo of a chocolate salad in a blog entry from years back by the food ideas group. So with a bit of improvisation and my adaptations I came up with this simple chilli spiced chocolate salad.                    
                    For this prep I started with the base for the chocolate pudding by gently heating some cream in a saucepan and adding cocoa powder, chopped de-seeded red chillies and melted bitter sweet chocolate, mixing to incorporate. Allowing time for the chilli to infuse, I then strained the mixture removing the chilli and placing the mixture back into the saucepan. To set the pudding I wanted something to be able to cut cubes but also have a velvet mouth feel, so I used carrageenan both iota and kappa which gave me tenderness with rigidness. I added the gums to the chocolate cream and while whisking, I brought the mixture to 80 degrees C. before removing from the heat and pouring into a plastic mould. This was then placed in the fridge to chill and set. To accent this pudding I foraged the vegetable garden for some nasturtium leaves and baby radish greens, both having a peppery bite to them each. Once the pudding was set, it was un-moulded, diced into bite size cubes and dressed in a vinaigrette of olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar, then all the ingredients were tossed together and plated. The salad was then seasoned with a little vanilla salt, something I had prepared some months ago by infusing salt with vanilla beans in a container sealed over time, bringing out a delicate sweetness and aroma to the salt.

 

post#100 - ' the GOLDEN NESTED EGG .'

Beetroot marbled free-range Hens egg in Nest of Golden Sweet Corn Silks accented by Nasturtium petals & leaves, Pea greens, Olive oil leaf herb, Water Hyssop and Edible Wild rocket flowers.

                         Post number 100 @ food play and I'd like to give thanks and appreciation to the support out there, the forwards, the comments and the general help to spread the site globally. A special thanks to my wife for early pursuits in spreading the word and for encouragement and praise, but I guess mainly for her taste buds and their critique. This blog started October last year and has been viewed by over 30 countries and has had thousands of page views, I would never have thought. So for the 100th instead of the golden nest egg, I've done 'the GOLDEN NESTED EGG'.                              

                         The idea for this dish came from applications I've seen similar with the root of the concept coming from a soup that uses every part of the corn ear but the kernels are only used for garnish. Starting with striping the husks which are roasted and the silks were fried for a crunchy accompaniment, the spent cobs were grilled and charred and used with the husks for the base of the chowder. Upon doing more prying I've seen a number of chefs using the corn silks to form nests to present various egg preparations. I thought it would be appropriate to post a breakfast for #1oo as the very first post was a breakfast post as well.

                         To make this dish I first put a pot of water on the stove and brought to the boil, adding a little vinegar to the water I cooked some eggs for 5 minutes and 12 seconds before plunging the eggs into cold water. In a blender I added chopped beetroot, rice wine vinegar and a little water before blending to a juice. This was then passed through a sieve and poured into a tall glass filling to three quarters in height. I then made cracks all over the egg shells with the back of a spoon before placing into the beetroot juice and set aside for about 2 hours or enough time for the beet juice to penetrate the cracks and stain the egg whites with pink fuchsia. Next I heated some oil in a saucepan to around 180 deg. c. and deep fried corn silks in the arrangement of a birds nest, once the silks had puffed and turned from light green to golden I removed the nest with a slotted spoon and drained onto paper towel. And next I foraged the gardens in the backyard for some fresh accents for the nest, these were arranged around the rim of the nest and placed in the centre of the plate for serving. Next I drained the egg from the beetroot juice and under a trickle of running water I carefully peeled the egg revealing the stained beetroot marbling. I then placed the egg in the nest of corn silks and seasoned with smoked sea salt and cracked black pepper before serving.