Yum Kippur

Today, being a day of atonement- and more saliently, a day in which Milo’s school is closed- begged for some time-devouring activities to chew up the portion of the day in which I was the sole parent in charge. Copious swinging helped, as did some garden-checking (the rutabagas and black radishes are actually swelling a tiny bit! At this rate they’ll be big and fat by Christmas, except for the whole not-growing-in-winter thing, so they won’t). And since we had been the happy recipients of a big box of avocados from the gallery in Miami, I had an idea and figured that making ice cream is always a good hour-chewer when a kid is involved.

He was excited, to say the least, and not at all put off by the notion of a savory ice cream. For him, busting out the machine means good eatin’. And when I told him he could have it for lunch, well, that sealed it. So we puréed an avo with the kernels of one ear of corn, lemon juice, cayenne, cumin, salt, a drip of agave, and a little juice from a jar of salsa verde. Then I pushed it all through a tamis and spatulated it into the frozen whirligig for a chugging, adding about half an ear’s worth of kernels as it spun.

And lo- it worked. Smooth, creamy (avos being basically all fat) and with a citrus tang, and a solidly earthy warmth from the spices, it made a splendid substrate for our homemade gravlax of Arctic char, sliced thin. To finish it off, I put a couple of chopped cornichons, some capers, pickle juice, parsley, kimchi juice, a little mustard, olive oil, and pepper into a jar and stick-blended it thoroughly. Once all blended, I strained it and then blasted it again with a bit of Ultratex 8 to make it thick and sexy, then spooned it around the scoops. Very subtle, complex, and interesting- this will make a spiffy appetizer down the road. The char has a lighter flavor than salmon, so it worked better with the delicate ice cream. The pickle sauce is excellent, and cries out to be used with everything from salmon on bagels to tuna, egg, or potato salad; shit, even a burger or a dog would get off on this, and there are a million ways to tweak it for best effect.

So that was lunch. For dinner, local grass-fed sirloin well-crusted in butter and with our homemade lardo grated on top. Freaking genius. On the side, fresh-dug potatoes roasted with fat cloves of garlic and lots of olive oil, and a green mash made from the dandelions I weeded out of the potato bed while Milo dug, with lemon, walnuts, ume plum, and truffle oil, plus a pan sauce made from the butter, wine, a pinch of flour to stabilize it, and some of the super-jiggly chicken broth I made last night. Good fall fare all around.

We drank another of the just-rediscovered bottles from the cellar in VT- a 2001 La Jota Cabernet Franc from our Napa tour in 2004. It’s not bad, with good firm tannins and some layers between the grip and the fruit. Nobody’s going to confuse it with a Chinon any time soon, but it has some of the same flavor profile, if a steroidally enhanced version of it. Another 3-5 years would serve this well, allowing the tannins to relax enough to bring the other facets into better focus.

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8 Comments

  1. lisa
    September 29, 2009

    Your pickle sauce sounds pretty fantastic. I want that with a good tuna salad.

  2. Jen of A2eatwrite
    September 29, 2009

    Yum… when can I come over for lunch?

  3. Zoomie
    September 29, 2009

    Jeez, when I was a Catholic, atonement didn't mean gourmet fare – avocados and beef to atone??? Our idea of atonement confession and a penance of fish sticks. I think I need to convert!

  4. Jo
    September 30, 2009

    But wait. You need funds, we need interesting dishes. I see a match made in Etsy there.

  5. The Short (dis)Order Cook
    September 30, 2009

    I've always wanted to try making a savory ice cream, but I"ve never decided on what the ingredients would be. Avocado is a great start.

    That steak dinner would make me want to be Jewish just so I could break my fast on it. The best I get is being married to a Jew who wno't eat beef!

  6. peter
    September 30, 2009

    Lisa: You can dress it up, you can dress it down…

    Jen: Whenever you like.

    Zoomie: Eh, just eat well. It's a religion all its own.

    Jo: I've been thinking about Etsying some of the plates, but I'll need to make a bunch more.

    S[d]OC: Avos work well, as do coconut curries. Blue cheese can be excellent, too; just mess around and start easy with fatty things that don't need a custard.

  7. We Are Never Full
    October 1, 2009

    holy crap, you're right – GENIUS. i was somewhere where they served lardo butter and thought that was genius. if i had a heart of steel and a fast metabolism, i'd eat that on bread every frickin morning.

  8. peter
    October 1, 2009

    Amy: Howdy, stranger. Lardo grated on a good steak so it melts into the maillard = Nobel prize-worthy.

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