Can you have both in this world? And, can you have it with a delicate foam of lemon, basil, garlic, salt and olive oil? And if you do, what would you call it? With a little more garlic and some snails, I’d call it: escargots a la Bourguignonne – so…
Crudo à la Bourguignonne
(Lemon Garlic Basil Foam)
Good quality raw fish (we used tuna and sea bass, but it seems like the sea bass had been previously frozen so it went into the frying pan after no one cared for it, come to think of it, not a bad second use for this sauce).
10 cloves garlic
1/2 cup basil leaves
juice and zest of 1 1/2 lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
- Mix everything but the fish in a food processor. Puree it until the garlic and basil are finely chopped. Let it sit in the bowl for 20 minutes to meld.
- Pour the mix through a fine strainer into a measuring cup. Press on the solids to get out as much oil mix as you can. Discard the solids.
- Put the oil mix into a foamer. Charge it, shake it, let it rest 10-15 minutes.
- Finely cut the fish and dollop the oil foam. Serve.
So how’d it taste? The foam was delicious. It was easy to make. I get agita from from discarding the spent garlic, lemon zest, and basil. The challenge was that it had too much solid without the straining to pass through the foamer and was way too fluid to serve without being foamed. Is this a mini-case of Sophie’s Choice? The other interesting thing is that resulted in a very loose foam. You can see it on the plate just after I spluuuudged it. The tiny bubbles are already popping. I did like how lemony it was so perhaps I would add some agar or gelatin and let it firm up before using again. Also, granted I was in a bad mood and had a bit of backache, my plate is not very pretty. I can’t stomach paying for the decorative tip, but I think tiny little drops of this would be more pleasing to my taste buds and my eye buds. Overall, interesting but meh — ment?
Mo on the other hand, clearly liked his marrow bone last night. Still trying to roust him.