Overlooking the meadow: steak tartare
topped with a quail egg and a long toast, with
a side of prosciutto. Photo courtesy David Burke Fromagerie. |
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A few years ago, our globe-trotting gourmet friends, Laurel and Harry, returned from Florence raving about a particular meal. The primi and secondi piatti were outstanding in their own right, but the dessert was an epiphany—an incredible, edible forest.
As they explained it, they were served a plate that looked like a ceramic sculpture of an enchanted forest. But every tree, blade of grass, flora and fauna were made of cake, cookies, bread pudding or other dessert.
The pastry chef subsequently left to achieve fame on Italian food TV, but we have always dreamed of that dessert.
While it would take amazing technique to reproduce it, we did come across this sylvan yet approachable steak tartare from the gifted chefs at David Burke Fromagerie.
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Whether you create it with steak tartare, a lamb chop, slider or other food, it shows how a little imagination can create a meadow on the plate.
Create a lake with whatever works with the main element. For a savory dish, consider cream sauce, crème fraîche or sour cream. For a sweet dish use crème anglais, mascarpone or vanilla yogurt.
For a savory dish, scatter the landscape with baby beets, gherkins, cocktail onions, tiny mushrooms and greens—baby arugula, dill sprigs, microgreens, watercress and/or whatever you can find.
For a dessert plate, use candied citrus peel, champagne grape clusters or individual champagne grapes) crushed toffee, edible flowers, marrons glacées, mint leaves, nuts, pink peppercorns, pomegranate arils, rosemary sprigs, shaved chocolate, sliced grapes and/or small berries or melon balls.
Then, enjoy your edible art.
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