Unraveled White Asparagus al Pil-Pil and Morels in Cream

By corlear

Ingredients

• For the creamy cream:
• 2 cups single cream (35% fat)
• For the morel mushrooms in cream:
• 24 morel mushrooms (13/4 or 2" each)
• salt
• freshly ground white pepper
• 1/2 oz 0.4º olive oil
• For the meat stock:
• 2.2 lb veal knucklebone
• 2.2 lb veal blanquette
• 121/4 oz onion
• 51/4 oz carrots
• 51/4 oz leeks
• 2 oz ripe tomato
• 4 1/2 cups red wine
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 tbsp 0.4º olive oil
• 10 cups water
• For the morel sauce:
• morel juices (see previous step)
• 3 tbsp reduced meat stock (see previous step)
• For the garlic crisps:
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup 0.4º olive oil
• salt
• For the unraveled white asparagus:
• 8 white asparagus (approx. 2 oz each)
• For the tartufo pil-pil:
• 1 sheet gelatin (previously rehydrated in cold water)
• 1/2 cup 0.4º olive oil
• 11/2 tbsp tartufo oil
• salt
• water
• To finish:
• 1/2 cup garlic oil (from making the garlic crisps)

Details

Servings 4

Preparation

Step 1

For the creamy cream:
1. Put the cream in a pan and place over the heat in such a way that only half of it is heated. Reduce the liquid and remove the cream that forms on the surface while the liquid boils. Keep the cream on one side. Use the creamy liquid left over to add the finishing touches to the dish.

For the morel mushrooms in cream:
1. Clean the morel mushrooms by trimming the stalks and washing them in a generous amount of water 3 times. Drain thoroughly.
2. Sauté and cook the seasoned morel mushrooms in the olive oil over a low heat for 2 minutes. Add the water and leave to cook for 4 minutes more. Leave to cool in their juices.
3. Strain and sieve the juices.
4. Use an icing bag to fill the morels with the creamy cream.

For the meat stock:
1. Add the sugar to the red wine and reduce it by half. Keep to deglaze the frying pan used to seal the blanquette.
2. Brown the veal bones in the oven at 355ºF.
3. Cut up the veal blanquette into pieces, 4" long and 2/3" wide. Seal in a little oil over a high heat. The meat should be golden on the outside, but raw inside. Deglaze with the wine.
4. Cut the vegetables into small pieces. Brown on the oven in a little oil at 300ºF.
5. Once they begin to brown all over, add the tomato quarters. Continue cooking until the juices have come out of the tomato and the vegetables are golden brown.
6. Put all the ingredients in a pressure cooker. Cover with cold water and cook over a medium heat. Whisk constantly.
7. Once the liquid has started to boil, lower the heat so that it simmers for 6 hours.
8. Strain and leave to cool so the fat solidifies. Scrape it off.
9. Reduce until you have a tasty, thick stock. Strain.

For the morel sauce:
1. Reduce the morel juices and add the reduced meat stock. Keep warm. Thicken with the cornflour, if necessary.

For the garlic crisps:
1. Blanche the garlic cloves twice and cool them. Peel and cut the garlic into 0.5 mm slices. Cover with oil and gently brown. Drain the chips on kitchen paper and season with salt.
2. Keep the oil used to fry the garlic on one side.

For the unraveled white asparagus:
1. Peel the asparagus and discard the woodiest part. Cut into slices (2¾" long x 1/10" thick)
2. Finely chop into a julienne (each slice 1/10" wide)

For the tartufo pil-pil:
1. Put the drained and rehydrated gelatin into a metal bowl and warm through.
2. When the gelatin begins to dissolve, drizzle the oils into the bowl and whisk to thicken the oil. Add the water until you have the consistency of pil-pil.
3. Season with salt.

Final Steps & Preparation:
1. Heat the 0.4º olive oil and add the finely chopped asparagus. Cover and steam gently. Season with salt. They should be white and with a texture similar to cooked eels. Approx. 3 minutes.
2. Remove from the heat, add the two spoonfuls of tartufo pil-pil and season with salt. Stir and heap up in a dish.
3. Heat the morels in the salamandra.
4. Arrange the morels beside the asparagus and drizzle with the morel sauce. Place a garlic crisp on top of each asparagus.