Crab Salad with Corn Sheet Sauce

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 05:23:11 GMT

So I've been reading about Grant Atchez, chef at Alinea in Chicago. He worked for a while at the French Laundry (the source of my favorite and most-dirtied cookbook). Then he branched out on his own and has been creating some pretty wild stuff (molecular gastronomy).

Last weekend I was reading The Way We Eat in the Sunday New York Times magazine and found an article about Grant -- and also a molecular gastronomy recipe that's adapted by Grant for us poor home chefs.

This weekend, I tried it out. Here's the recipe with my notes (in red). The verdict? Yummy and startling.

Adapted from Alinea

8 ears yellow corn (or 7 cups frozen kernels)
[I used fresh ears]
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar, plus more to taste
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
Cooking-oil spray
½ cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon mild curry powder
1 avocado, peeled, cored and cut lengthwise into 1/3 -inch slices
[As usual, I always manage to forget an ingredient. I'm sure the salad would have been even better with the avocado -- but I forget it. Sure didn't notice at the time, though, it was so tasty anyway :-)]
1 lime
40 small or 20 large basil leaves
[I only ended up using about half of this. It seemed like way overkill to use more.]
8 ounces crabmeat, preferably large leg sections, cleaned
[I used Alaskan King Crab; yum]
½ red bell pepper, cored and cut into 1/8,-by- 1/8,-by-1 ½ -inch strips.

1. Cut the corn kernels from the cobs. Set aside ¼ cup for the garnish. Over a bowl, scrape each cob with the back of a knife to release the juices.
[There was almost no juice in my corn ears. Nevertheless, the measurements below about yield for the corn juice were right no the mark.]

2. Place the kernels and juice in a blender. Blend briefly on low to break up the corn, then on high for about 2 minutes to make a purée. If using frozen corn, add ¼ cup water to the blender. (If the corn will not blend, stop the machine and loosen the kernels with a spoon before trying again.) Strain the purée through a sieve placed over a saucepan and lined with 3 layers of fine cheesecloth. Press on the solids with a ladle to release the juices, then wring out the corn-filled cheesecloth to extract the remaining juices. You should have about 2 ½ cups corn juice.

3. Add the butter, 2 tablespoons sugar and ½ teaspoon salt to the saucepan and place over medium-low heat. Season with more sugar and salt to taste. Whisk continually until the butter melts, then stir until the sauce lightly coats the back of a wooden spoon, 12 to 16 minutes. Transfer to a heatproof container and cover with plastic wrap to cool.
[I was a bit worried at this step. Within about one minute of the butter melting, the sauce was already thickened like a custard. And already coating the back of a spoon. I wasn't sure how much longer to cook it. In the end I settled on about 8-9 minutes. Seemed like it might burn if I went longer. The sauce -- and, thus, the corn sheets -- seemed to turn out fine.]

4. Whisk the cooled sauce until smooth. Cover an 8 ½ -by-12-inch rimmed cookie sheet with wax paper. (Make sure the cookie sheet fits in the freezer and that its surface is perfectly flat.) Spray the wax paper with cooking oil, then pour the sauce over it in a thin sheet (about ·2-inch thick). Drain off the excess sauce and place the sheet in the freezer. Repeat with a second cookie sheet.
[My sauce was pretty viscous. I actually had to spread it around with a rubber spatula like a loose frosting almost. From the description I had expected it to be runny enough to spread out on its own, but it needed a bit of help. Again, it didn't seem to suffer as a result.]

5. Combine the coconut milk, curry powder, 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 ½ teaspoons salt in a small saucepan. Simmer for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and chill.

6. Cut the avocado slices in half horizontally. Zest the lime, then peel and segment the lime and cut the segments in half horizontally. If using large basil leaves, tear them into small pieces.
[Note that the published recipe tells you in this step to segment the lime, but never mentions the segments again. I just added a couple to each salad as a nice bite-sized surprise. They fit in well and were great when you reach them.]

7. Cut each of the frozen corn sheets into 4 3-by-8-inch rectangles, slicing through the wax paper. Return the cookie sheets to the freezer.

8. To serve, arrange a few pieces of crabmeat, avocado and red pepper flat in a 2-by-6-inch area on each of 8 plates. Do not pile the ingredients. Top each salad with a few corn kernels, a little lime zest and basil. Dab with a touch of coconut sauce. Remove a rectangle of corn sauce from the freezer. Peel the wax paper from it as you lay it directly over a salad. Work quickly — the sauce melts rapidly and will stick to the wax paper unless frozen solid. Do not worry about breaks in the sheet. As the sheet thaws, the sauce will envelope the ingredients below. Garnish with corn kernels, lime zest and basil. Repeat with the remaining 7 salads.

Serves 8.

Next up - Grant's craziness with Grapefruit and Broccoli.

David Ornstein's Blog: Food and drink

Crab Salad with Corn Sheet Sauce