The four ingredients for Paper Chef #8 are spinach, olive, cheddar and cream. The plan to use tofu replacement for the cream and cheddar was abandoned at the supermarket where natural instinct for cream took over. Frozen English spinach was substituted for the red amaranth (Chinese spinach) as the latter was not available in cold months. So there goes the plan for a beetroot-tofu concoction.
Shopping for olives turned out more difficult than expected with trips to several oriental shops finally turning up trumps at one with fermented salted black olives and sweet preserved snack olives. Even though the olives are of Chinese origin, they are used in Thai style cooking. Fermented salted black olives are used in a fried rice recipe by Martin Yan on FoodTV. All the snack olives come under scrutiny (yum yum) in the olive tasting report with a twist.
The proposed dish is technically modern Australian, with a fusion of English, and Asian flavours borrowed mostly from Japan. Beginning with the end in mind, in the worst case scenario should there be a stuff-up, the ingredients can easily be layered onto unleavened lavash bread sheets and baked like a lasagna. The leftovers go to a cheese board.
The dish is intended as a refreshing starter, using a combination of sweet and salted olives. The sweet preserved olives are dried with sugar, salt, liquorice and citric acid. They taste like sweet green mangoes, with a slight crunchiness. It is obvious the bright yellow is a colour additive. There is also a nasty surprise with the olive: the seed is sharp and pointed at both ends. The salted olives are preserved in rapeseed oil with mustard vegetable, salt and MSG. The paste is very salty and pungent, with a fried fish-like aroma, kind of crossed with black beans and soy sauce.
So let's begin at the beginning with the creation of wasabi spinach ice cream with cashew & cheese wafers, olive & coriander salsa, olive-spinach mandarine lassi shooter.
Because of the need for freezing, the dish is prepared in stages. The ice cream melted during photography, and has to be re-plated separately in an encore.
Cashew Cheddar Wafers
Grind 100 g cheddar, 25 g parmesan and 50 g cashew to a fine crumb. Season with a pinch of szechwan pepper. Sprinkle tablespoons of mixutre over a baking sheet using an 8 cm cookie cutter as a guide. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a 160-170 deg celsius oven until golden brown. The ingredients yielded 16 wafers.
Wasabi Spinach Ice Cream
Cook 2 packets (300 g each) of frozen English spinach according to instructions. Squeeze out the moisture and retain the juice for the lassi shooter. Puree the spinach and chill. Reserve some the pureed spinach for the salsa dressing. To the remaining pureed spinach, add 2 tablespoon orange juice, 2 tablespoon egg mayonnaise, 2 teaspoon wasabi (green Japanese horeseradish), and 1 cup low fat yoghurt. Adjust seasoning. Freeze until mushy. Fold in 150 ml of whipped cream and freeze. Beat every hour until frozen. When ready to serve, remove from freezer and defrost until soft enough to handle. Put into moulds or make scoops. Serve with a cashew cheese wafer, a sprig of coriander and fermented salted black olives. There is enough ice cream for 8 espresso cup size serves.
Salsa Dressing
Puree 1 small red onion, 1 tablespoon ginger, and the stalks and roots of 2 coriander plants. Add juices from deseeding the tomatoes for the salad. Strain the dressing, returning 1 teaspoon of the pureed ginger mix, and adding 1 teaspoon of reserved pureed spinach. Add 2 teaspoon of white wine vinegar. Adjust seasoning. Chill until ready for serving.
Olive Coriander Salsa
Coarsely grate 8 sweet preserved olives after slicing a few slices for garnish. Soak grated olives in the juice of 1 orange. Save 2 tablespoon of orange juice for the ice cream. Chill for 2 hours.
Dice 1 green tomato, 1 red tomato and half a cup of fried bean curd (after removing the skin for other uses). Mix together. Add a peeled and segmented mandarine, the leaves of 2 coriander plants and the macerated grated olives. Chill until ready to serve. To serve, drizzle with dressing and garnish with sweet preserved olive slices. Allow 2 tablespoons for each serve to make 8 servings as part of the ensemble. For alternative presentation, serve the salsa in ceramic Chinese soup spoons.
Olive-Spinach Mandarine Lassi Shooter
Make ice cubes out of the juice from the spinach. Pulverise in a food mill, 1 grated sweet preserved olive, 1 mandarine segment and 1 tablespoon of frozen yoghurt for each shooter. Pour into a 30 mL shot. Add 1 crushed spinach ice block to the top. Garnish with a slice of sweet preserved olive, orange peel slivers and coriander sprig.
Assemble the dish as shown earlier and dig in before everything melts! Check out the encore for a tidied up version of the dish as it is obvious Noodle Cook can't match the speed and presentation skills of the professional chef.
The dish is eaten starting with the ice cream, which makes sense, with the salsa as a side. The lassi is drank last, as an aperitif and to cleanse the palate for the main course.
The whole preparation, and research took over 20 hours of solid hard work for someone with no hospitality training and learning to cook by experimenation. Please leave a few words as a "tip" in the comments if you enjoyed the dish.
In conclusion, the dish appears edible with adjustments needed to sharpen the acid and salt in the salsa dressing. The slight sweetness of preserved olives, mandarine segments, and orange juice is refreshing although there is temptation to add a marmalade and pear juice reduction flavoured with aniseed-tasting Australian mytle (not the wattle seeds mentioned previously). But that would overpower the subtle liquorice of the olives, unless the olives are replaced by say nashi pear. The black fermented olives heighten the taste sensation of the ice cream. This dish goes well with the vegetable noodles in the Vegan Challenge or the oriental mushroom and red rice risotto with vegemite as main course. The latter tastes great with salted black Chinese olives.
Related articles:
The Paper Cooking Challenge
Wasabi Spinach Ice Cream Encore
Spinach Beetroot Tofu Whip
Olive Tasting ... to be completed
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