Mergination & Inspiration: Duo of carrot & fennel

"It's fun to come up avant garde flavor combination, but same time the "food" is not about how innovative it is, how the flavor works on the plate.  The bottom line "Is it taste great or not?" Those 'Classic' flavor combination which is known widely do have the reason for it....."




Summer menu change@Journeyman-vegetarian alternative bound:  This time around I decided to use fennel stalk/fran since we just use bulb and throw those away.  And we had bunch of baby carrots sitting around, carrot & fennel, here I start!

No offense to anyone, but say "making super soigne sole meuniere with lemon & brown butter caper sauce", is that excite me?  NOPE.  I mean nothing wrong with the dish, flavor is spotless solid & taste great.  But.....  I want to "play" with the food, create the dishes with story to tell.

But same time I hate kind of latest "trend" of weird ice cream flavor some chefs copying around these days.(I don't name what I'm talking about)  It may be "hip, cool & innovative", but hey...  don't you wanna eat strawberry, milk, salty caramel... regular ice cream instead of some weirdo?   Again nothing wrong doing "straight forward" flavor, but I say even a little, bring in some own twist/tweak, then the dish is start sparking & vitalized.... I think!

Mmm, let's talk bout "duo of carrot & fennel", I start flap n' flippin my thought over carrot & fennel.  I decided to do couscous with it since no grain on the menu.  Structure done, flavor profile> miso! orange! corriander!  Very straight forward, little boring..... need some twist!   So I decided to pull back miso and squeeze in sesame flavor up front.  Not super surprising or anything, but definitely little more  fun & interesting than miso/orange/corriander.


FCTV profile>>>
Flavor:  carrot/fennel couscous dish flavored with Sesame, miso, orange & corriander.(+anise from fennel)  Intentionally bring sesame up front and bring back miso like "bass guitar" on 4 piece band
Concept:  use fennel stalk/fran, N2T(nose to tail, no waste)
Title:  It is couscous dish, but I like the sound of this title.
Visual:  3 dimension, height n' green stained glass

Flip, Flap n' Finalize>>>
1.Fennel stalk:  peel the skin of fennel stalk, miso cured  /  shave n' shock in ice, make ribbon
2.Fennel fran:  make puree, mix with glucose powder & egg white, dehydrated it >> green stained glass
3. Fennel trim:  put it in the pot with  corriander roots/stem, cover with water.  Steep it(never boil) > fennel corriander tea
4. Carrot: grind in the robo coup, make "couscous", cook with fennel corriander tea
5. baby carrot:  mix with tahini & grapeseed oil, roast in the foil > tahiki roasted carrot
6. warm up carrot couscous & regular couscous with fennel corriander tea, place on the bowl, put miso cured fennel stalk, tahini roasted carrot armored in toasted sesame seeds & fennel stalk ribbon dressed with orange vinaigrette.  Garnish with corriander, fennel flower, green stained glass & orange zest.   Done!!







Wish I have better pics, but... "I" don't fuck around during the service, so....(laugh)  This is first time I did tahini roasted vege, but I love the result.  Tahini paste became kind of tahini crumble and have good aroma/flavor.  I also love fennel corriander tea, which is basically scrap cover with water(laugh), but have good earthy clean anise flavor.  Looking forward to seeing what comes up hinted by this dish in the future!

Duo of carrot & fennel:  couscous & carrot couscous cooked in carrot/fennel tea, shaved fennel stalk dressed in orange vinaigrette, miso cured fennel stalk, tahini roasted baby carrot armored in toasted sesame seed, corriander, fennel flower, green stained glass & orange zest

Coming up:  I say final post from M&I@Journeyman......  Cauli, Coli, Coco Next!!!!!