Just Yolks

 

In the process of taking a closer look at the composition and structure of our everyday ingredients, the hopeful goal is that we’ll arrive at a better understanding of their functionality, both on their own and in concert with others. A fringe benefit of this research is when such information aids the chef in thinking outside of the box, linking functionality with an actual application.

 

It was through my friend Cesar that I discovered a novel approach to pasta being explored by Carlo Cracco in Milan. In essence, Cracco’s innovation was to subtract from the already short list of pasta’s traditional ingredients; but what he decided to take away may come as a surprise. If we were to take away the flour (or rather, the proteins and starch it contains), what’s left? Eggs? Water? How can that alone give us a reasonable facsimile of a noodle?

 

Cracco’s  egg pasta is the result of whole egg yolks that are individually packed into a ‘crust’ of salt, sugar, and a bulking agent, such as a bean purée. As the yolk ‘cures’, a good deal of the yolk’s water is extracted (remember, water makes up 50% of an egg yolk), passing through its permeable membrane. The liquid yolk has suddenly transformed into a workable dough-like consistency, behaving much like pasta- it can be rolled, shaped, dried further, if desired, and finally cooked. The method allows us to bypass the potential drawbacks a flour-based dough may present.

 

 

Such a realization affords us an opportunity to immediately make connections to similar techniques we’ve already seen, or to think outside the box altogether. That’s where constant reading and research pays off too; Cracco’s pasta instantly led me to take another look at Alinea’s butter-poached egg drops, dried egg sheets, and egg yolk truffles. And sometimes chance and luck have a way of bringing ideas together even if they experienced separately.

 

The technique employed by Cracco is time-intensive; the curing process can take several hours. But a different approach- a shortcut, if you will- can yield similar results in mere minutes. I first saw this variation while just hanging out in someone else’s kitchen; granted, it wasn’t an ordinary service, rather they happened to be testing possible techniques to employ in an upcoming episode of Iron Chef. Here, unadulterated egg yolks were spread into a thin film and gently steamed: instant egg noodles. What emerges has the look and feel of perfectly cooked pasta. And always wanting to track such an idea back to its original source, I’ve since learned the inspiration can be traced as far as Pedro Subijana of Akelarre in San Sebastien.

 

     
 

While I haven’t exactly come to any specific sweet application (though I instantly saw it as a possible wrapper for our recent corn ‘canneloni’ custard), there is certainly enough fertile ground for this component to grow upon. And there’s no real recipe to share, though I’d concede there is still room to explore and tweak in search of a pastry-relevant outcome.

 

That said, I couldn’t help myself- pictured below is an unabashedly savory interpretation: the inner line cook in me took one recent batch of fettucine-sized noodles, simply heated and dressed them with a touch of cream, butter, Parmigianino, smoke paprika, black pepper, and chive. In my own play, I’ve used both fresh yolks and a pasteurized liquid product. No doubt, this may be a great way to showcase the color and flavor some very special farm-raised eggs, but one early conclusion I came to was that I prefer the consistency of the pasteurized yolks.

 

 

I don’t have it in front of me, but also of interest is another technique (from Cracco as well, if I recall) detailed in a recent English issue of Apicius. Treating the egg yolk much like a ready-made spherification, he extracts a fair amount of its bulk, which is then replaced by another liquid, of course, with the aid of a syringe. All the while, the contents remain encased with the yolk’s own membrane. Definitely worth a look, and a moment to reconsider and redefine the role of our ingredients in low-tech ways...

 

 

 

Comments

[Michael Laiskonis]

Thanks to a reader tip, I was reminded of the fact that so much of what we think of as 'new' already exists, hidden from view by our own ignorance! Here's a link to a photo of a Thai khanom, or sweet, utilizing duck yolks, along with mention of similar 'traditional' applications in other food cultures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/a-culinary-photo-journal/3133570499/

I always appreciate another opportunity to deepen my own knowledge!

[will goldfarb]

very interesting as well to me; i was looking up thai egg sweets, and it turns out, many of the "thai" preparations are actually derivatives of the portuguese angel hair, which were adopted after the visits of portuguese explorers...