Korean crostata: my first cooking contest
The year 2020 has really been weird.
It is terrible if we think about the Corona virus, but amazing for some events in my private life.
First of all, I changed my workplace and am very happy with it.
Then, for the first time in my life, I took part in a cooking contest… and I won it!!!
It was a Korean cooking contest: I had to prepare a savoury dish and a sweet dish (the Italian mandu), using at least one among 5 predetermined Korean ingredients.
Now, I live in Paris, but I am Italian, so I decided to combine my culinary tradition with the Korean ingredients… so I created two peculiar trompe l’oeil dishes!!
The crostata, a typical Italian dessert, turned into my savoury dish.
And I am very proud to say that the very first question by the jury was : “Is this a dessert?”
“Not at all!” 😛
KOREAN CROSTATA
INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOUGH
125g of flour
50g of butter
25g of grated Parmigiano cheese
1 pinch of salt
1 egg
INGREDIENTS FOR THE FILLING
1 sausage
10g of gondeure namul
1 small spring onion
1tbsp of soy sauce
1tbsp of Omija syrup
1tsp of gochujang sauce
lemon zest
salt
sesame oil
INGREDIENTS FOR THE SAUCE
10g of dried wood ear mushrooms
1 spring onion
30g of butter
2 tbsp of Omija syrup
4 tbsp of Port
2 tbsp of miso + 200ml of hot water
salt
~ 0,6g of agar
INGREDIENTS FOR THE PUREE
2 medium potatoes
40g of butter
90g of milk
10g of grated Parmigiano cheese
1½ tbsp of Omija syrup
lemon zest
salt
PREPARATION: 60 MIN
COOKING: 30-35 MIN
DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM
SERVING: 2
Rehydrate the dried wood ear mushrooms in lukewarm water for at least 30 minutes and the gondeure namul in hot water for at least 10 minutes.
Start preparing the dough.
Put flour, Parmigiano cheese, salt, egg and butter (cut in small cubes) into a bowl. Mix all the ingredients, using only your fingertips and as quickly as possible, until it become a uniform and smooth ball. Wrap it with cling film and let it rest for at least 30 minutes into the fridge.
Boil the potaoes, washed, peeled and cut in small pieces. Cook the potatoes until tender.
Start preparing the filling.
Chop the white bulb of the spring onion. Heat up some sesame oil in a frying pan, put the onion and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the gondeure namul and its soaking water and cook for at least 15 minutes or until tender (add warm water if needed). Add the sausage, break it up with a spatula, then put inside gochujang sauce, the Omija syrup, the soy sauce, a pinch of salt and some fresh grated lemon zest. Cook about 10 minutes.
In the meanwhile, start preparing the sauce.
Chop the other white bulb of the spring onion. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium-low heat, then add the onion. Drain the wood ear mushrooms and cut them. Put them into the saucepan, cook for a couple of minutes, then raise the heat and sauté them for almost 5 minutes. Add the Omija syrup and the Port and let’s reduce. Dissolve the miso into the water, then add it into the saucepan and let it cook until it has a nappe consistency.*
In the meanwhile, drain the potatoes and press them, adding butter, milk, parmesan, Omija syrup, some grated lemon zest and salt.
Take back to the sauce.
Filter it with a chinois sieve, put the mushrooms into the frying pan and mix with the rest of the filling. Weight the sauce ant put it again into the sauce pan. Calculate the agar-agar quantity (usually you need 1g/250ml). Dissolve the agar in a bit of cold water, then put into the sauce pan, let it boil and simmer for at least 20 seconds in order for agar to work properly. Put half sauce into the frying pan with the filling and mix.
Take the dough from the fridge.
Grease two little moulds (about 12 cm) with sesame oil. Gently roll out 2/3 of the dough inside the moulds. Make sure to form a 2 cm border.
Fill them with them mix sausage-gondeure namul-wood ear mushrooms-sauce.
Preheat the oven at 180°C.
Take almost the rest of the dough (leave a little ball, the size of a walnut), roll some tiny stripes and put them on the top, pressing the extremities on the borders, and make a lattice finish.
Fold up the 2cm border to cover the extremities of the lattice finish.
Bake for almost 30 minutes or until gold.
Verse the rest of the sauce into the puree.
Scoop the puree into a pastry bag fitted with a wide star tip and shape two little mounds on each dish.
With the little ball of dough left, forme some small “chips”, cook them in a pan with some sesame oil for 1 minute each side and put them on the top of the 2 little mounds of puree.
Place the Korean crostata near the puree and…
Bon Appetit!!
* What is a nappe consistency? You can have a nappe consistency when the sauce reach a certain thickness: it is not too thin, nor too thick and with a velvety texture. How can you know if your sauce has a nappe consistency? Well, it’s easy. Take a tablespoon, immerse it into the sauce and turn it over with the back facing you. Run a finger in the middle of the spoon, tracing a line : if you have a clean line in the middle, your sauce is ready).
