… I’m back in K.C. after a whirlwind tour of San Francisco and Napa Valley (will report later) and have waded through boxes upon boxes of why-did-I-bother-to-pack-this-and-ship-it-back-home-crap. Now, that things have settled down, I have been spending extra time creating sinful food marriages in the kitchen that even the angels couldn’t resist – and because of which I know there’s a god.
Carpaccio of roasted pineapple with olive oil gelato
Originally uploaded by ulteriorepicure.
My latest union has TRU (you can see my meal at the TRU kitchen table here) flirting with Babbo. I took the roasted pineapple carpaccio from the TRU cookbook (pg. 239) and topped it off with Mario Batali’s olive oil gelato from the Babbo cookbook (pg. 294), which I encountered for the first time at Otto). The gelato is garnished with crunchy bits of sel gris. Oh, and I took artistic license by sprinkling dark rum over the pineapples.
I didn’t have a professional meat slicer, so it was impossible to get “carpaccio-thin” slices. I didn’t want to risk botching it up with my mandoline, so I just sliced the pineapple with a sharp knife.
Taste: Although the core was just a bit harder than desired, it was entirely edible and digestible. The meat was very fleshy and meaty, without being stringy – and it was amazingly sweet. The carameled fringes added a dark touch to the sweet-tang of the flesh. Personally, I think that some combinations, like pineapple and coconut just are real winners not to be tinkered with. However, I do think that the creamy olive oil gelato was a unique stand-in for coconut – and the crunchy salt not only complimented the olive oil, but the pineapple as well. Perhaps the most important note I can offer is that if you make the olive oil gelato, try to get the freshest and fruitiest extra virgin oil you can find – it really makes a difference.
More to come… I promise!
