Golden Angel Hair Pasta

Cheese, Cream, Pasta, Saffron these are a few of my favorite things. This dish is so simple but focused on a few high quality ingredients. The angel hair pasta in golden cream sauce turns the mouth-feel of this dish to extremely creamy. It may look like an incomplete dish to some, but once you try it you will understand how complete it is with just a few ingredients. The Gruyere could be substituted for a similar firm white cheese, but the saffron threads must be in this! I realize it can be a pricey pantry bottle, but local mega-marts offer saffron for less than $25. It only takes a pinch of saffron, and most commercial bottles have enough for 10 servings of this recipe.

Golden Angel Hair Pasta

Ingredients-

3tbsp butter

½ cup heavy cream (half n half can be substituted)

1-2 pinches saffron threads

12 ounces(2 servings) angel hair pasta (cooked al dente)

3-4 ounces Gruyere(thinly shaved)

chopped parsley

salt and pepper

2 slices fresh bread

Melt butter in small sauce pan. Slowly add cream and whisk in on low heat. Bring to a simmer and kill the heat. Add saffron threads and steep 15 minutes. Return heat to low and whisk in Gruyere and continue whisking until combined. Add pasta to saute pan on lowest heat. Add the golden sauce and heat through so pasta absorbs some sauce (2-3 minutes) Season to taste. Serve with shaved Gruyere and chopped parsley, and your favorite bread sliced thick.

Sea Scallops with White Chocolate Foam

It's very rare for me to insist on plating a dish with a garnish I don't intend to be eaten. After a few days of trying out some pulled and blown sugar work I had to put it to a savory use. The dish is just as good without it, but offers a nice contrast for the colors. I adapted this recipe from a Heston Blumenthal one that is a scallop tartare with white chocolate foam and caviar. Fresh scallops are 500 miles from my home so I had to rely on the flash frozen ones at the local mega-mart. Obviously a tartare was out of the question, but I loved the idea of scallops with a savory white chocolate foam. The foam is not sweet like a dessert sauce, but lightly kissed with the sweetness of the white chocolate. To compliment the sweet and buttery flavors of the scallops and white chocolate I added some tart blood orange jellies and a bitter radicchio salad to balance flavors. This is not a standardized recipe and I encourage tweaking to match your palette as with any recipe.

Scallops and White Chocolate Foam.

White Chocolate Foam
1 cup low sodium chicken stock
1 1/2 cup warm water
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 fennel bulb, sliced very thin
1cup diced cremini mushrooms
1/2cup diced onion
1/4cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup chopped white chocolate (add to taste)

Blood Orange Jellies
1 cup fresh squeezed blood orange juice, strained clear
1/2tsp agar-agar
1tsp salt
2tbsp sugar
1 small parsley leave for garnish

Radicchio
1 head radicchio or preferred bitter lettuce, thin julienne

Scallops
2 Sea Scallops per serving (thawed and patted very dry)
1tbsp olive oil

Start the white chocolate foam. Sweat in saute pan: onion,carrot,fennel,celery,mushrooms on very low heat 10-15 min until onions are translucent not brown. Deglaze with chicken stock and water and bring to a boil. Add coriander. Reduce heat and simmer 30min. Add salt to taste. Strain well into clean saucepan and keep warm.

For the blood orange jellies, put the juice, agar-agar, salt, and sugar in a saucepan together and mix on medium-low heat until it boils and remove from heat and pour into a mold of your choice. (Frozen ice cube trays without water work well). After mold is filled chill 15 min to set. To remove, run warm water on a rag and use the rag to warm the sides of mold so they pop out with a little force.

Now we're ready to start finishing the dish. Plate your blown sugar if you decided to get fancy today. Sear the scallops until just brown in saute pan with olive oil (1-3 min on highest heat). Add the chocolate to your warm vegetable base that you strained until the chocolate flavor is present and the sweetness doesn't overpower the savory element of your sauce. Plate about 1/4 cup of your radicchio into two portions on your plate and place scallops on-top  Place the jellies around the plate. Using immersion blender or whisk; froth up your white chocolate sauce and use a spoon to just get the foam to inrobe the radicchio and a little of blank space on the plate. Garnish with some fennel flowers