For our first multi-course meal at our new place in Hayward, I spent a lot of time brainstorming a theme. My initial idea was to base it on ice cream because it would be completely prepped ahead and offer a unique twist. I found some really interesting recipes, including several savory ice cream options, but ultimately, I felt it would be too much sugar and too one-dimensional to be a complete meal.
My second option was to go with a potato theme, especially since I had always wanted to recreate the Hot Potato Cold Potato dish. However, I remembered that the last time I did it was also a potato-themed dinner, so I decided to switch things up and go with pasta and pasta-adjacent dishes instead. This would also allow me to bring out things like gnocchi and risotto, which are always fun.
Black Truffle Explosion
I decided that the famed Black Truffle Explosion from Alinea was going to be my anchor dish and built everything else from there. Since that would require quite a lot of truffle juice to make the broth, I decided to buy a fairly expensive can of the stuff and split it between the truffle explosion and doing the hot potato cold potato again. Due to the truffle juice split, I had to scale the explosion recipe down to 80% and still ended up with almost 30 truffle spheres, which was way overkill for a 6-person dinner.
Looking online people say that there is a large amount of wastage in truffle explosions. In the Alinea book they say that they used to have up to 60% loss of the ravioli on some nights. Since breaks in the pasta appears to be the most common reason for the loss I planned to follow the recipe very carefully and take extra effort where possible. Since I was going to make several other pasta dishes as well I made a double batch of the pasta recipe using 400g of flour and a dozen egg yolks. The recipe says to knead it for at least 15 minutes to activate the gluten and I gave it a full 30 minutes of kneading till it became flexible enough and lost its stickiness. I then let it rest overnight in the fridge instead of the 45 min recommended. The next morning the pasta was wonderfully flexible and had no tears despite stretching it to the #8 (from #0) setting on the pasta maker.
When I got to assembling the ravioli by hand I found that stretching the dough to encapsulate the sphere did sometimes stretch the lower layer enough that small tears would come through. They are repairable by attaching a small piece of dough to that spot but I found that doing the sealing with a tool would prevent me from getting greedy with stretching the past. After layering the top sheet over the spheres I roughly shaped the top layer with my finger and used a ~1.5 inch cutter to cut out my ravioli. I then used the round side of the cutter that was once size smaller to make the seal which worked out quite well and didnt cause any repair overhead. One other trick I found was cut the top sheet such that I could to do two ravioli at a time.
I then followed the rest of the recipe as is and the explosions came out very well. You get a nice burst of truffle flavour when you bite down and its a good surprise for people who have not tried the dish before.
I did get fresh black truffle to use on top of the dish though to be frank I’m not sure if it adds much to the experience. It is possible that the truffle I got was sub par – will have to try fresh truffle again to get more data. I made 16 explosions over 2 days and only lost 2 ravioli in the boiling process. Restaurant chefs might lose a lot of ravioli when they need to make several hundred ravioli at a time but for a home dinner it makes more sense to trade a little extra time per ravioli to reduce wastage.
Palak Paneer Ravioli
For dish number two, I decided to put a twist on the classic Indian dish palak paneer. I made ravioli with a simple filling of grated paneer seasoned with just salt and pepper. Next, I blanched the spinach and then pureed it in the Vitamix before setting it aside. To make the sauce, I sautéed some garlic in butter and added the spinach puree and a splash of cream. I brought it to a simmer and seasoned it with salt, chili powder and some kitchen king masala.
At service time, I boiled the ravioli for about a minute and served them over a bed of the sauce and sprinkled the plate with some chat masala for flavour/salt. This dish came out very well, and I do see myself making this in the future.
Liquid Parmesan Gnocchi with Mushroom Consommé
This is an old favorite that I’ve made multiple times. The delightful pop of the liquid parmesan spheres never fails to impress. This time, I only had mushroom broth on hand to make the consommé, and it didn’t turn out as clear as the chicken stock version, which uses gelatin to further clarify the liquid. It should have looked more like this.
Chewy Gnocchi Noodles
Next on our menu were the delightful chewy gnocchi noodles. Now, this recipe is quite straightforward, all it takes is steamed potatoes and potato starch. Initially, I had planned to serve them cold, but they turned out a bit too stiff in the fridge. So, I popped them into the pasta water for a quick 30 seconds, and they were good as gold! The chili-garlic sauce was a real standout, and the best part? It doesn’t require any cooking, which is a fantastic bonus.
Hot Potato Cold Potato
With truffle being one of the main ingredients, I made hot potato cold potato at home for the second time, and ran into a few issues. I totally misread the recipe and instead of bringing the potato balls to a simmer in clarified butter so they warm up without browning, I simmered the butter first. Guess what? That turned out to be a good thing! The potato balls got crispy and delicious. I put them on toothpicks and served them right away with the cold potato soup. But, like the first time I made the dish, they still cooled down on the way to the table, which reduced the temperature variation part of the experience. Next time, I’m going to bring the saucepan to the table and let everyone pick the hot potato balls directly out. That way, they’ll stay warm and tasty all the way.
Kimchi Carbonara
The first entree was Kimchi Carbonara using fresh fettuccine made from the dough for the black truffle explosion. I also swapped out the speck for bacon and doubled the amount of kimchi in the recipe to get a little more flavour. Be sure to chop the kimchi really finely and reserve some of the crispy bacon from step one. Sprinkle the bacon over the pasta instead to give it a more professional look.
For my first attempt at this recipe, I used store-bought fresh fettuccine. I have to say, making extra thin fettuccine (#7) was totally worth the extra effort!
Uni Risotto with Seared Scallops
I’ve always been a risotto lover, but I’ve never been keen on spending 20 minutes stirring the rice. When I saw this sou vide risotto recipe, I was instantly intrigued. The steps were simple, and the only change I made was to cook it for 40 minutes instead of 30 because my Anova maxes out at 92°C. Once the risotto was cooked, I stirred in about 60 grams of uni, but I’m not sure it really added much flavor to the dish. I paired it with Ad Hoc seared scallops, and that was a great way to end the savory courses.
Ultimate Tiramisu
For dessert Nithya made this Ultimate Tiramisu which makes individual servings of tiramisu that are coated in a hard chocolate shell and dusted with cocoa to look like regular tiramisu. We were unwilling to do the whole paint gun process the recipe called for so instead she just dipped the frozen tiramisu block in the chocolate to make the hard shell and dusted the top with cocoa powder. We also used a wax paper card at the bottom to help move them instead of the tuille.
If we do it again I would try dusting the block without the cocoa shell and see how that holds up to the thawing process. I think it would be more magical to eat it without the shell but thats something to try in the future.
Final Thoughts
All in all it was quite a successful dinner and 8 courses is about the right length for a 4 hour meal. I really enjoyed coming up with the menu and Nithya enjoyed taste testing my various options. I need to do this more often and I think I have a good idea about what my next theme is going to be.
