A Charlie Trotter Christmas

I got a used copy of Charlie Trotter's Vegetables from amazon last week.  Most of the reviews say the recipes are for coffee table use only (there's a beautiful pic of each dish on the facing page), and they're too complicated, with ingredients that are too obscure, for any amateur to undertake.  But I couldn't help it!  I love spending an entire day in the kitchen, and that's what I did on Christmas Day.

 

(Cue some Schroeder piano music... :) )

 

The recipes are arranged by month, so I chose three dishes from the December chapter: "Baby Turnip and Beet Ragout with Scallion Sauce and Beet Oil" and "Roasted Matsutake and Cauliflower Mushrooms with Barley, Water Chestnuts, Sunchokes and Mushroom Broth," and for dessert the "Yam and Pistachio Custard Tart with Turmeric Anglaise Sauce." 

 

I Now, I did make several substitutions and a couple shortcuts, but I feel like that's totally within the philosophy of the book - he recommends experimenting in several recipes, and his wine notes always give a handful of possibilities and often never come up with a "correct" match.  So, since I only could find gold and red beets, I did without the candy-striped beets.  And I've never seen matsutake or cauliflower mushrooms anywhere, so I used shiitake and oyster.  Also in the mushroom dish, I couldn't find fresh water chestnuts so I just left them out.  And I only decided to do the yam tart the day of Christmas, so I had to make do with pecans and walnuts instead of pistachios and half and half instead of cream, and I just left out the turmeric altogether (have you ever seen fresh turmeric anywhere??).

So at about 11 am, I happily dragged out my old juicer for the first component of the beet dish and juiced 6 large beets, which then were reduced by 3/4 and mixed with a little oil.  The reduction took a good 2 hours.  I also started the mushroom broth, which was a pound and a half of button mushrooms simmered in water for 2 1/2 hours, then strained. In the meantime, I put together the scallion oil with blanched scallion tops and oil.

 

 

Then I began roasting things for each dish: the yam for dessert, each type of mushroom separately with a sprig of rosemary, and turnips and carrots for the beet dish. 

 

 

Then the beets were boiled (I would roast them alongside everything else next time), the scallion ends were braised, and the sunchokes sauteed. 

 

The plating doesn't come anywhere near the beautiful pics in the book, but it was fun.  I need something for drizzling the lovely sauces that take so much time - the beet dish looks more like globs of sauce than drizzles.  And this is why people like white plates instead of orange!

 

 

And here's a blurry pic of the Yam and Pecan/Almond Custard Tart with Anglaise Sauce.  They're supposed to be molded in three-inch rings, but all I have for that is a muffin tin!  Worked out fine, with a buttered and floured tin.  The crust is a barely-sweet pate brisee, one of several recipes-within-recipes to follow in this book.

 

 

I had a lot of fun making these dishes, and I plan to do a couple from every month this year.  The two main dishes were both vegan, and with no onion, which is a fun and interesting challenge.  The beets with beet sauce were wonderfully sweet, and the mushroom dish was subtle and earthy.

 

And, bonus, the next day I put together a couple more traditional dishes out of those components I worked so hard on: 

 

 

 

I made a spinach salad with blue cheese topped with the leftover beets and the rest of the nuts from the yam dish.  I used the beet reduction for the basis of an awesome dressing - I added balsamic vinegar, a little good olive oil, and salt and pepper.  I turned most of the components from the mushroom/barley dish into...mushroom barley soup - huge leap of creative energy there...  Started with slightly browned mire poix, which I deglazed with a little sherry.  Then I added the mushroom broth and some water, along with the rest of the roasted mushrooms - chopped, the sunchokes, and about a tablespoon of barley miso.  I simmered that for a half hour or so, then added the barley and warmed it back up. 

 

I did enjoy the leftovers more than the originals, but they were only such spectacular versions of these everyday dishes because of the refined and concentrated elements I started with.  I can't wait to try more Charlie Trotter recipes!