FYI- no corn here. Those are egg yolks, baby.

Hear that? It’s the collective sigh of food bloggers across the continent steeling themselves for the inevitable 4pm sunsets, hence no natural light in which to take decent pictures of their plates. Sorry these photos lack finesse- I promise to lug out ye old studio light kit asap.

How have I never done this before? I LOVE eggs. I LOVE butter. Why oh why did I not think to poach eggs in butter? Because I’m not a genius like Grant Achatz. Though I do have a few good years left in me to enjoy the wonder of egg yolks positively oozing with unctuous butter, so in that regard I’m fortunate to have discovered it now. It’s probably better- truth be told- that I didn’t cut my teeth on buttery yolk drops- my ass would be a doublewide by now if I had. I’m going to stop right now and tell you that if you value your girlish figure and you don’t run a gazillion miles a week or schlup up the stairmaster whilst watching dishy soaps, you might not want to keep reading this.

Alright, now that the crazies are gone, let’s get down to business. Let me just finish licking a stray yolk drop up off the floor. Yes, these little protuberant pearls of giddy gold fall into the rare category of floor-licking good. Have you ever done that before? C’mon, be honest, I really want to know how many of you have licked something up off the floor. I fully admit I have. Your turn. A few years ago we came up with this scale for wine:

1. Wouldn’t even serve it to your senile Grandpa who lives by the crick and thinks Bud is beer
2. Might pass it off at a giant party around 2am when no one can tell the difference anyway
3. Would drink it from a flask at the rodeo, but never from stemware at home
4. A passable daily drinker- potentially comes in a spacebag
5. 12 person dinner party wine- can’t spend too much but clearly must be palatable
6. Would be mildly upset if you spilled a glass of this one
7. If it were corked, you might drink it anyway because the last bottle was so damn good
8. You secretly horde this bottle in the back room during parties, and pour yourself pint-sized glasses when you sneakily refill
9. Cry genuine tears if you accidentally somehow shatter this bottle
10. Lick up off the floor any spilled drops, even if the floor is at a hoedown

The list works decently well for food too, though you have to change some of the analogies. These yolk drops are Bo Derek on the scale- a perfect 10- and I’m not the only one who thinks so. These babies pleased everyone from the toddler to the “selective” husband to the tile-lapping cat to the punch-drunk neighbor.

The method? Heat an inch of clarified butter in a small saucepan to 170°F. Drop whisked, uniform egg yolks into butter using a caviar pipette, syringe, or even a careful hand and a small spoon. Keep the drops separate from one another in the butter, and after ten seconds or so once they’ve sufficiently hardened on the exterior, jostle them around a bit to prevent them from sticking to the pan. Once they rise to the top, scoop them out with a straining spoon and let them drip off in a strainer until you’re ready to use them.

I served these exactly as Grant Achatz describes in the Alinea cookbook, with asparagus buds, asparagus bubbles (made from juiced asparagus  foamed with lecithin), lemon puree, and lemon vinaigrette. Then I made them the next day and served them tossed in fresh pasta with a light lemon cream sauce. Then I made them the next day but they didn’t last until dinner because Bentley Danger and I greedily spooned them all out of the strainer and they were gone before I could drop them inside my baked fingerling potatoes. Today I’m going to try really hard to make them last until the potatoes pop out because I think it will be a perfect pairing. I guess what I’m saying is that they are sofa-king good you could eat them with anything. But really, you can’t go wrong with eggs and butter.

*PS- Voting for Project Food Blog Challenge #2- The Classics, is now open. If you thought my The Jetsons: Space Food entry was worthy of advancement, I’d appreciate your vote here.

Pierogi are similar to the Italian pastas I am very familiar with making, and yet oh-so-different.  Stylistically, the dough is more like a hybrid between biscuit and pasta dough, for one thing.  With typical tagliatelle, ravioli, lasagna, etc, the dough benefits from extreme manipulation. Biscuit dough (and similarly pie crust), on the other hand, should be touched as minimally as possible in order to ensure an airy texture.  Pierogi dough falls into the latter category in that its texture is better if it’s handled as little as possible, and yet you still have to roll it down to about an eighth of an inch thickness in order to cut rounds in order to form the individual pierog.  Yes, you heard me right, singularly they are pierog, and plural they are pierogi. Yes, you’ve undoubtedly heard American bastardizations including but not limited to perogis, perogies, perogy, pirohi, piroghi et cetera, but the accepted and accurate pluralization and spelling is pierogi.  I’m not sure why I’m going all soapbox on this word- it’s not as though I’m any kind of expert either by birth or experience, I just find it interesting I guess.

Anyway, in my effort to conquer the world of pasta I’ve decided to branch out beyond the land of Italia which I know and love so well into other areas with rich traditions of unleavened dough.  I’ve always admired the standard pierogi in all its cheesy potato glory, though I can’t exactly be trusted to leave well enough alone. Luckily this time the resulting pierogi were unimaginably spectacular, but traditionalists, you’d best turn back now.  Those of you who have read this blog for any amount of time know that I have an (un)healthy obsession with eggs.  I also happen to love tucking them inside dough. Pierogi and eggs are downright meant for one another, though the dumplings are small enough that the eggs must be of the quail variety.  I also decided some shaved raw asparagus would spruce things up a bit and help remind me that it is springtime, after all. It was a good call.

This recipe makes 12 pierogi.  The basic pierogi protocal is make the dough, make the filling, assemble, boil and finally fry.  The first thing to do is caramelize an onion by slicing it and putting it into a lidded dutch oven along with some butter.  Slide it into a 400° oven and don’t fuss with it for an hour.  You can make the dough and soften the potatoes however you see fit (I sous vide them) in the interim.  Once the onion has spent an hour sweating all its troubles away, transfer it to the stovetop and remove the lid.  Deglaze the pot with a generous splash of vermouth and scrape up all the fond that has developed.  Evaporate the vermouth, stir it all together and you have your caramelized onion.

Next, make the dough by mixing all the ingredients in a large bowl, kneading until it comes together, then allow to rest in plastic wrap while you prepare the filling.  Here are the dough ingredients:

Dough

• 2 c flour
• ¾ c sour cream
• 1 duck egg
• 3 tbsp softened butter
• ½ tsp salt

While your dough is resting, combine the cooked potatoes with the filling ingredients (except the quail eggs, salt and pepper) in a food processor and process until smooth.  Here are the filling ingredients:

Filling

• ½ lb Yukon gold potatoes
• 1 c cheddar cheese, grated
• 3 tbsp caramelized onion (or more, to taste)
• ¼ c sour cream
• 1 quail egg yolk per pierogi (in this case 12)
• Salt and pepper to taste

At this point remove the quail eggs from the refrigerator and set a large pot of water to boil.  Divide the dough in thirds and roll the first third out on a floured surface into a rectangle about 4” wide and 1/8” thick.  Using a large cookie cutter or glass (3-4” diameter), cut four rounds out of the first rectangle. You will be making 12 rounds total.  Drop a tablespoon of filling on each round and make a hole big enough for the quail egg yolk in the filling using your index fingers.  Brush each pierog with egg wash to make sealing easier.   Crack egg yolks into each pierogi (it’s ok if some white goes too- it helps bind the pierog) and seal by folding one side of the pierog over the other.  Crimping is optional, but if you want to do it you can do it with the tines of a fork.  In order to ensure even crimping, always place the first tine of the fork in the last indentation you made, like this:

Repeat this process with the remaining dough and move each batch to rest on a sheetpan lined with parchment paper.

Once you are finished filling your pierogi, boil in batches of four in lightly salted water for four minutes.  Remove with a slotted spoon.  Meanwhile, shave several stalks of asparagus and leave the shavings in lemon water to tenderize. Fry the pierogi in butter along with more of the caramelized onion on both sides until they lightly brown. Serve with sour cream and shavings of raw asparagus.

A great dish is more often than not comprised of three elements. This is no exception.  You have a healthy yet creamy vegetable in the asparagus puree. Mix in a staple starch but do it with a seasonal, unique base a la sunchokes. Finish the whole thing with a perfect protein (homemade bacon fits the bill, no?) and you have a plate fit for a prince, king and queen.  If you have your own little prince or princess at home you’ll probably agree that a meal that suits the tastes of a manly king, dainty queen and persnickety prince/princess is not exactly easy to come by. This one succeeds in full purple regalia. 

Sunchokes are underground tubers that form the base of our starch. They are underground in more ways than one, if you catch my drift. You won’t typically see them at the supermarket, instead you’ll have to journey to the farmer’s market.  They grow underground and are otherwise known as Jerusalem artichokes, a name that is completely nonsensical. This name came about because English speakers had a hard time pronouncing girasole, which means sunflower in Italian, and is how Italians refer to these electrifying tubers.  They are full of zingy flavor, so dumplings from them are perhaps a stretch of the imagination, but an elegant one at that. 

It is springtime and for many of us across the Northern Hemisphere that means the return of asparagus in all its splendor (morning after not withstanding).  I can think of no better way to appreciate the muskiness of asparagus than to pair it with smoky bacon and rich heavy cream.  I did just that with this puree, which gets smoky flavor from the bacon matchsticks that get fried first then removed to a towel-lined plate.  The bacon fat acts as the base in which everything else gets cooked, thereby rooting the soup in its rich, outstanding essence.  The cream and bacon matchsticks are icing on the cake as far as I’m concerned, but the good, buttercream kind, not the nasty fondant crap. 

I’ll share with you the recipe for the asparagus puree. The sunchoke gnocchi is more of a cook by feel rather than by rote kind of a thing, but if you’re desperate for that recipe as well, I can probably give you some estimation if you shoot over a comment or an email. 

Asparagus Puree

• 1 bunch asparagus, tips reserved for another use
• 4 oz bacon cut into matchsticks
• 1 large spring onion, roughly chopped
• Garlic powder to taste. 
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh Savory
• ½ tbsb chopped fresh Thyme
• 1 c chicken stock
• 1 c heavy cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon matchsticks in a 12” nonstick skillet.  Remove to a towel-lined plate and reserve. 

Add the asparagus & onion to the skillet and fry for two minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the garlic powder (I use garlic powder that I smoke and make myself), savory, thyme and chicken stock, lid the frying pan, and simmer for 5 minutes or until the asparagus is tender. 

Add the cream, salt and pepper, heat just to the boiling point, and puree, either with a wand or in your blender or food processor.  Adjust seasonings and enjoy.