This time around, I was feeling ambitious, and full of vigor; I wanted to make three different things from Plenty. In retrospect, it was a little much on the palate; all of the strong flavors were amazing individually, but a little overwhelming together. Next time we'll keep it simpler.
First up was Nutty Endive with Roquefort. This one was a lot of fun to put together, and I loved the result. Ottolenghi suggests that the endive is bitter on its own, so the blue cheese/creme fraiche dressing needs to be smothered liberally, coating each leaf. He says getting your hands dirty is a necessity; it was super fun to do that step. John toasted the pine nuts and walnuts for the topping, and their nutty sweetness paired perfectly with the rest of the dish. I couldn't imagine it working without all of those elements.
The only caveat is that it's a lot of strong flavors with the blue cheese.
Second were crusted pumpkin wedges with sour cream. Knowing pumpkins would be tough to find this time of year, I bought an acorn squash instead, and it worked perfectly. The coating is made up of parmesan, bread crumbs, lemon zest, and herbs, with a little bit of garlic. These little wedges knocked it out of the park. The crust had a wonderful crunch against the soft roasted squash.
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| Look at those beauties. |
Lastly, we finished with the labor-intensive lemon and goat cheese ravioli. They took a bit of work; a turmeric and lemon-zest infused dough made from scratch, then chilled, then rolled out and filled with a mixture of goat cheese and spices and finished with pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, and a little chopped tarragon. These were incredible; the flavors were intense (mostly due to the goat cheese filling), and they were really filling (I only made it through 2 1/2 with all the other things on the plate).
Our only troubles with this one stemmed from our lack of a pasta roller; the dough was rather thick even with me rolling it as thin as I could. We never got the stereotypical Kitchenaid mixer as a wedding gift, so I didn't get to buy all those fun attachments. Some day, when we have real jobs, the pistachio green one will be mine...and I'll actually use it. All the time.
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| A plate full of insanely delicious flavors, in all its glory. |
