Monday, March 16, 2009

Riffing

During the winter, I stumbled upon an amazing combination of flavors for a lasagna: veal and dashi. I wrote about it here. This time around it was different, but took advantage of another exotic broth to create a standard-looking dish that had a surprising depth and complexity of flavor. In this instance, I used the last quart of barbecued pork broth from the freezer plus a healthy dollop of our basil/sorrel/nasturtium pesto to make the velouté, and ground turkey with a jar of our free-range tomato sauce for the... uh... sauce.

The combination of our super-sweet tomatoes and the pork/pesto liason made the turkey almost taste like ground pork- even sausage- in terms of all the body and aroma it gathered. The noodles were a jerusalem artichoke flour-enhanced semolina, which were OK, but next time I will roll out a custom pasta, probably heavy on some mushroom essence (powdered shiitake and/or duxelles of whatever's growing in the woods) to give added profundity to the umamitude. So go forth, and slobber; the easiest way to take your lasagna to another place is by using a passionately smoky broth.

10 comments:

The Spiteful Chef said...

You're getting buck-wild, Peter. Do you need a coloring book or something? Powdered mushroom pasta? Nasturtium veloute? Barbecued pork broth? Dashi lasagna? Wow. I'd drink barbecued pork broth out of a Keebler Elf mug in my pajamas for free. Sounds delicious.

lisa is cooking said...

How did you make nasturtium pesto? All flowers, or flowers and leaves? I have a lot of leaves right now, but the plants aren't blooming. Planted too far in shade, I think.

peter said...

Kristie: That's good, because I'm not sure you'd find too many people to pay you to do it. Although now that I say it, I realize that I'm probably wrong.

Lisa: Nasturtiums like full sun. I used mostly leaves for this, and puréed the flowers in softened butter with a little lemon and salt (it's also in the freezer.)

Heather said...

No, the easiest way to take my lasagna places is in a car.

My nasturtiums seeded themselves last fall, so I don't have to do a thing this year.

Brittany said...

As soon as the nasturtiums are blooming in my neighbor's garden, I will steal them in the middle of the night (humming the mission impossible theme to myself)
and make that pesto.

cookiecrumb said...

I'm making up a big pot of corned beef broth today. (How trite.)
I always save it.

Brooke said...

Trust you to fancy up a lasagne more than I thought possible. Well done, Peter, I am slobbering.

I gotsta make that pesto soon too.

The Spiteful Chef said...

I get paid to do ALL SORTS of things in my pajamas. The privilege of having big gazongas.

Heather said...

Which came first: Kristie's boobs or her engagement ring?

The Spiteful Chef said...

The boobs. But I'm pretty sure the boobs had something to do with the coming of the ring (holy Frodo!).