Sensory Blog Post

The new food I tried this week was Romanesco Broccoli. My dad and I decided to go up north to go shopping at some of the farms because on the weekend we were going to make our own Bomba, which is spicy Italian hot pepper oils so that we can give it out as gifts for Christmas and we needed a large amount of hot peppers. At one of the farmer's markets I noticed this strange and yet beautiful vegetable, the Romanesco Broccoli. I had no idea how to cook it or what to do with it so we bought two. The meer shape and structure of it was magnificent. My mind kept trying to figure out how I  was going to cook it and I am always up for a challenge.  

After we visited the farmer's market we went to the grocery store and they had wild pickerel on display and decided to pick some of those up. Then and there I decided to make dinner: wild pickerel, with a warm charred Romanesco salad with parsnip puree.

     When creating the dish I thought about the delicateness of the pickerel, the smoothness and sweet notes the parsnip puree would give and the nice smoky and spicy flavours the warm Romanesco salad would give. The Romanesco salad was made by charring some of the buds, obviously and placing it in a roasting pan with some freshly sliced chilli, and a mire poix and some white wine given to my family that was made by one of our neighbours. I cooked the Romanesco broccoli as I would of either broccoli or cauliflower in that I did not overcook it so that it is soft but undercook it so that it still has its crunch and the sweet clean notes that are associated with broccoli and cauliflower. The warm salad really complimented the pickerel as the pickerel did not have too much flavour but more so with texture. I thought it was a perfect pairing as the salad was crunchy, the fish was cooked so it's still tender on the inside and soft, and the parsnip puree just soaked up any juices from the fishes and the salad and acted just like a sauce. There was a lot of umami in the warm salad because I added some anchioves which just melted in the dressing whilst it cooked. The broccoli had a toasted nutty sort of flavour and just a little bit of bitterness but not an overwhelming sort of bitterness it just sort of had a soft note in the background.

Seared Wild Pickerel with warm Romanesco salad served with parsnip puree

     I really enjoyed the Romanesco broccoli and I would probably use it again. For the recipe above I didn't want to create a dish with this beautiful produce that someone would typically do with a broccoli or cauliflower as it was so different and unique that I knew most people probably would not have seen it or cooked with it. 

     I always encourage my friends to try something that makes them uncomfortable because life shouldn't always be about being in comfort it should be about moving outside of your bubble and living on the edge. If one's life is just kept in comfort that life is not a life well lived. There are so many things to learn about the world and especially in the culinary world that if we close the shutters to these opportunities we might as well just leave the profession.

     The next food I am going to try is something I have tried before but haven't made it yet or made it at home. Come the colder season I will be making my own homemade proscuitto as well as cure my own italian pork sausages and let them cure and age in my cantina ( Italian for cold room) with my homemade bomba's as well as the hot pepper oils and hot peppers stuffed with tuna in extra virgin olive oil. I cannot wait to see the results and hear what other's think of them. The great thing is about doing this is I haven't done it before and it is something I am very interested in learning more about and if I make mistakes along the way that's fine because that just means more learning and you always learn from your mistakes.

Until next time,

K.M.W.