So….

What did we see before?

• Avocado & coffee…
• Tomato & strawberry & banana…
• Chocolate & cheese…

Everyone must has an opinion by now – safe or risk?So many other crazy combinations jumping in my head – dont know how can i prove all… i will try at least these…

• Blood & cacao…
• Shrimp & walnut & orange…
• Mushroom & blueberry & rabbit…

BLOOD & CACAO

Lets try two things, one sweet and one savory dish. I adore this combination – lots of deep earthiness coming thru… and in the same time we can take a risk to compare a little Italy to a little Spain… My dessert recipe is an ancient italian one: Sanguinaccio Dolce. The spanish is a Morcilla – a blood sausage. Both of them are beautiful…

The Sanguinaccio Dolce is basically a cooked custard with milk, blood, chocolate, sugar and love. As u heat up the ingredients together its going to get thicker and thicker – as the blood is doing its job. Nothing else but fill up your little pots and let it cool down. Quite rich cream so better to serve with bread (i wouldnt mention the blood by the way – people afraid of it… )

Footnote: i tried this sweet ones in my life and was a real pleasure. Unfortunately nowadays seems easier to make a bomb at home than buy fresh liquid blood anywhere… i was hunting in every carniceria at Palma without any luck. Sorry – as soon as i can get a couple of drops from Dracula, i will introduce u much closer to this rich bloody dessert…

The Morcilla is a different case – like  a black pudding just 100times better :) U can find as many recipe as stars in the sky… my favoutite is from Granada. Normally the main ingredients are onions, fat, blood and rice… flavoring with garlic, oregano, thyme, paprika sweet and/or spicy, pinenuts and/or sultanas… depending on the region. I love to use a lot of toasted nuts and cacao but not to forget the spiciness adding a big amount of firing paprika or chilli… yummmmy…. :)

In this case i was cheating a tiny bit – with the blood again… because as i mentioned above: there is no way to find it liquid but i could buy some solid sangre… so i made my really own morcilla mix with potatoes, pinenuts, onions, garlic, paprika, cacao, chocolate and solid blood rolled in jamon Iberico… served with toasted ciabatta,a crunchy smoked speck ham and some lovely apple&mint chutney. Modern creative tapas.

SHRIMP, WALNUT, ORANGE

This is a nice try, i liked it a lot. But…

To be honest, i ‘kind of’ followed a recipe what i found on the Internet for the curiosity… 3 steps to follow.

1/ Candied the walnuts in a sugar syrup (moving continuously avoid having a brittle at the end) and leave it to cool down.

2/ Make the dressing of mayo, lemon juice, honey and condensed milk (i used sweet orange yogurt instead).

3/ Clean your shrimps and marinate them in eggwhites for a couple of minutes. After dust them in cornflour and deepfry for a minute. Last movement to mix everything carefully and finish with grated orange zest.

My honest opinion is: just a tasty funky salad. The play role is for the shrimps and dressing, the walnut does not give any huge explosion to the dish (i guess works the same or even better with almonds for example… ) The shrimps carry a natural sweetness which goes perfectly with the nuttyness and bitterness of the caramelized walnuts, fruitiness of the orange and the dressing which i made a bit more fresh (more citrusy) then normal… the whole plate is yummy (but hardly can call it as a crazy flavor combo).

MUSHROOM & BLUEBERRY

I had a dream about a beautiful rabbit dish with a rich ragu… and i made it. Was really interested about the relation between the mushroom and blueberry – an article said its beautiful in risotto… so i tried in my stew.

First cooked my rabbit roll sous-vide. Had no proper equipments and information about the time and so, but gave it a go at 64 degrees around one hour – just to make sure. The meat white and soft so should work like chicken  (in this case 25 minutes enough) but rolled it up with a nice liver-olive stuffing like a thick ballotine and didnt want to eat raw offals… In the meanwhile i preped a lot of veg to a nice stew (onions, garlic, peppers, celery etc etc) with the mushrooms and blueberry (fresh and dried) obviously. Sweat it down and cooked with smoked paprika, wine and so on… the fresh bluberry goes in at the end – makes it look nice :). The rabbit got a bit color in a pan with nice crust and voilá… i ve got a surprise.

The whole dish is really nice – absolutely enjoyable. The connection between mushroom and blueberry… i didnt find it special at all. Working together beautifully with everything else as well. Although i did find a special relation accidentally… between my stuffing and this little purple fruit. I used the liver of the bunny who is fell in love with the berry- i wish i had more of it. Worth to try, the fruit brings the acidity while the liver is working as the sweet component. Congratulation for the marriage!!!!