Memento Meal - Iron Chef Asparagus

All of us had such a great time at the inaugural Memento Meal hosted by Jason & Anna last month, that the same group quickly organized, picked a date and a plan for a second round. This time, Jacqui & Gerald hosted, and selected an Iron Chef-esque 'secret ingredient' that we would each be featuring in our dishes: Asparagus.

We all shifted one course forward, putting Dan & I first and Gerald & Jacqui last, and with the challenge of creating an asparagus dessert. But we'll get to that in a minute.



Dan & I kicked things off with a duo of appetizers and a little cocktail to go with them, titled 'The breakfast you wished you had time for'. It included a Cappuccino of Canales Produce Asparagus & Sea Breeze Farm Grass Fed Milk w/ Skagit River Ranch Bacon, a Tall Grass Bakery Crostini w/ Loki Fish Co. Salmon Lox, Sea Breeze Farm Crème Fraîche, & Canales Produce Asparagus Caviar, and a Spicy Bloody Mary w/ Pickled Alm Hill Gardens Asparagus.



Dan was challenged by our Espresso maker, which just doesn't create milk foam like the machines he used at Tully's years ago - but the cappuccino still came out as a the star of our course.



Likewise, I found myself fighting with my goal of 'caviar', as the alginate/asparagus solution that I'd prepped earlier in the day seemed to get thicker, and wouldn't consistently spherify. So after reminding myself to not attach to the idea I had in my head of what I wanted them to be, I ended up with lots of tear shaped 'caviar'.

Upon tasting the crostini, I also realized the 'caviar' gets lost in the flavor bath of lox and cream and the texture of the bread totally overpowered the delicacy of the caviar/tears.



The Bloody Mary, featuring spicy V8 juice augmented with horseradish sauce and Worcestershire sauce, and a home-pickled spicy asparagus spear was also given great compliments. We'll have to bust that out for brunches in the future.



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The second appetizer course was courtesy of Anna & Jason: Delicious inside out sushi featuring asparagus, cucumber, scallion, basil, mint, avocado, chives (some with the flowers still on), and a mayo of tarragon, basil, garlic, parsley and anchovy, and rolled in beautiful, bright orange flying fish roe. It was paired with a citrus soy dipping sauce, seaweed salad, wasabi, pickled ginger, and a glass of Sapporo.

They served it family style, which for me was dangerous - as I couldn't stop eating the amazing sushi! I was incredibly impressed by the inside-out roll technique, which I've tried and failed at in the past. And the fresh, bright flavors of the rolls were so wonderful.



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Next up was Kristin & her friend Dahlia, who presented the epitome of Springtime for the salad course. At it's center was blueberry & rice wine pickled asparagus ribbons, setting on a bed of fruit 'confetti', and topped with blanched asparagus spears. Along with it she served a rhubarb Dry Soda.



The salad had sweetness and some bite (from yellow peppers), and the soda was a wonderful pairing, as it was crisp and not overtly sweet, and really allowed the fruits and asparagus be the star of the course.



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For our first entree course, Marcy & James brought out a beautiful roll of chicken breast, stuffed with pureed asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, grilled asparagus spears, and Gruyere cheese, which we topped with an asparagus white wine gravy. And alongside it was a pickled white asparagus spear.

After two cold, bright courses, their dish took the meal back to a warm place of comfort just as the sun was setting and the temperature began to drop a bit. The roll of chicken breast was beautiful (as you can see), juicy and flavorful. The fact that they used asparagus no less than 5 ways in their dish was truly inspiring.



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David & Carolyn (but mostly Carolyn, apparently) graced us with the second entree course - hand rolled asparagus pasta in brown butter, with asparagus tips and walnuts.



The pasta included grilled asparagus, which was then pureed and mixed with lemon rind. And of course, Carolyn busted out table-side service to grate a HUGE block of Parmesan on our plates.



The pasta was so popular people were asking for seconds, and the brown butter was so precious that I was sent into the kitchen to round up the leftover baguette from our course so we could all make sure to sop up every last rich & delicious drop.



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Finishing off the meal were Gerald & Jacqui, with the self-imposed challenge of an asparagus dessert. I had lots of possibilities churning around in my head of how they might approach that challenge, but didn't even consider the (not one but) TWO preparations they created - nor did I expect they could be so incredibly good or feature asparagus so prominently and so well.



First was asparagus with orange supremes, strawberries, ginger, pepper, honey and orange juice, which was bright and sweet and so tasty. And second was an asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberry cobbler with ice cream and a glaze of reduced asparagus, rhubarb and strawberry juices. It was so good I completely devoured mine before remembering to take pictures, so I had to elbow in on Marcy's dessert to take photos before it disappeared, too.



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Given that Gerald was one of our hosts, we also got the pleasure of beginning the meal with some of his homemade pancetta, and ending it with some homemade chorizo sausage, both of which were stunning. And I think everyone went home with some of his homemade bacon.



While the night wound down, and we all sat around drinking a little more wine (or Grappa, or Scotch), Gerald lit up the chiminea and I brought out the leftover asparagus alginate mixture and the calcium chloride solution, so folks could play around a bit with molecular gastronomy. Anna, in particular, had a lot of fun creating orbs and noodles and building a tiny green sculpture on a piece of baguette, until the sun was gone and we could barely see what we were doing.



I really loved getting a second chance to get together with this group of food lovers. Every time I feel like I get to eat new and amazing things, try some new techinques, share what I've learned and learn from what others share. All the dishes were so flavorful and so good, and I think we all pushed our personal envelopes a bit to try something new. Asparagus was truly the star of the meal, but was presented and adapted in so many ways that none of us were sick of it after 6 courses.

And now that I'm reflecting on the meal as a whole, I realize there were some trends - which is surprising, given that we each only knew what the course directly following us was, and none of the others. Half the courses were Italian in nature (cappuccino of asparagus, the chicken dish, and the pasta), and half of them featured pickled asparagus in some way (spicy pickled asparagus in the Bloody Mary, rice wine pickled asparagus ribbons in the salad, and pickled white asparagus paired with the chicken - and I believe pickle juices in the gravy). So once again, continuity erupted despite the Memento method... or perhaps, as a result of the Memento method. Perhaps if we'd all know what each other were making, the dishes would become more disparate, as we intentionally avoided overlap. Instead, overlap naturally occurred in subtle ways, which turned out wonderfully.