A is for Achar and Adria (Ferran)

Achar - a type of Indian pickle. 

The recipe given in Larousse is for a Vegetable (and lemon) Achar, comprising of cabbage, carrots, peppers, onions, ginger, cucumber, cauliflower, french beans and lemons.  It requires about two days to create - most of that time is spent steeping chopped vegetables in salt, in order to drain out the water content (a surprising amount of water comes out).  Only the lemons in the recipe are actually cooked; the rest of the chopped vegetables receive no cooking time whatsoever.  Technically, the cauliflower did not make it into my version - it arrived from Tesco with a few too many slugs in it for my liking.

The recipe is very open to interpretation - no actual quantities of any of the ingredients are given.  Which is nice, since you do get to choose what proportions of vegetables you use, but worrying in another way, since it does not say how much salt/vinegar/oil is required in order to sufficiently preserve the final product.  Here's my interpretation:

By now, it's been sitting on the kitchen shelf for a couple of days - the bright colours of the various vegetables has receded slightly. However, my main worry (that it would go mouldy/rot) so far has been unfounded.  Nobody has dared to taste it yet.

Adria, Ferran - acclaimed Spanish chef, trained at El Bulli.

To fulfil this entry, I did briefly consider spherifying my dinner. However, luckily for me, Mr Adria has published The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria, which includes the recipe for a "Crisp Omelette" - an omelette with ready-salted crisps in it. (Make the omelette as normal, but when you drop the beaten eggs into the pan, add a handful of crisps on top.  Continue to draw in the edges of the omelette and swirl the pan (as per usual technique) so that the gaps where you have drawn in the edges are now filled with the still-runny egg mixture.) I did not serve it folded/rolled, since the crisps would've broken up had I done. I'm not entirely sure how this is meant to be served.

I decided not to include a photo of the finished article, since it looked a lot like how you'd imagine a "Crisp Omelette" to appear. I hear it tasted fairly nice though.

Also this week, I finally got around to cooking something from Pierre Herme's Ph10.    Making things from this book takes a lot of pre-planning, not least to find a good translation, but also to fully understand the recipes when it has been translated.  Here's my first attempt at Cake Ispahan, covered with homemade Pink Pralines and Crystallised Rose Petals:

I accidentally overcooked the sponge.  I think it was a consequence of not having exactly the right size cake tins and so having to guess cooking times; I was too worried that if I took it out early, it would sink.  Thankfully the cake has quite a firm crumb, meaning that it's fairly easy to cut off the overcooked sides and top crusts without it crumbling everywhere. (And yes, the sponge inside is also bright pink).  I'm happy with it as a first attempt, but it's nowhere near perfect. 

I'll include the instructions on how to make Pink Pralines in a future post; they're amazing for decorating baked goods, but also for baking things with them in the dough. (Such as the French classic Brioche a praline rose). Yummy.