Cool Recipes for a Hot Summer - Il Peperone by Chef Ernesto Iaccarino of Don Alfonso 1890

Photo by Ennio Calice

La complessità con un piatto semplice…Chef Ernesto Iaccarino’s mantra. Simple ingredients, but complex. Like this recipe he shared with me that uses red and yellow peppers - perfect for the summer.


Ingredients

Tuna Mousse: 400 g tuna in oil (already drained),40 g carrot,10 g celery,20 g leek, 120 g egg white, 3 sheets gelatin,40 g extra virgin olive oil

Pepper sauce: 400 g yellow pepper,cleaned, 50 g onion, 100 g vegetable broth

Pepper gelatin: 200 g yellow pepper, 2 g agar

Pepper caviar: 200 g red pepper, cleaned, 3 g agar, 2 l vegetable oil

Olive powder: 500 g pitted black olives,100 g muscovado sugar

Creamy cod: 400 g of chopped cod (baccalà), 50 g potato, 20 g onion, 1 clove garlic, 100 g milk

Cod Emulsion: 200 g of codfish skin, 50 g cod pulp 300 g extra virgin olive oil, 2 cloves garlic, chili pepper (to taste).

Crunchy cannoli : 300 g rice,100 g red pepper (already cleaned)

Additional ingredients: green chili, fried parsley leaf, flavored breadcrumbs, salmon eggs

Directions

Mousse
Drain the tuna to eliminate most of the oil in which it was stored. In a bimby, shred the vegetables, add the tuna and then the gelatin(which has already been soaked and dissolved, possibly in a little fish broth). Once this base has been adjusted to taste with salt, in a container, incorporate the beaten egg white, taking care to mix thoroughly without leaving any lumps of egg white, but without disassembling it. Pour into a plate and let rest for at least 2 / 3 hours.

Sauce
In a frying pan, soften the onion without browning, sauté the green pepper, which has been cut into small pieces, add salt and add the broth little by little. Cook covered over medium heat. Once cooked, blend it all together in a food processor adding a little tapioca, if necessary

Gelatin
Run the pepper through a centrifuge. Adjust the salt, incorporate the agar ( 2g. for every 200 g of juice) and bring to a boil in a saucepan. Let it lightly foam, spread well on a flat plate and let stand in refrigerator for at least 1 hour. At this point you can cut it.

Caviar
Run the pepper through a centrifuge. Adjust the salt, add the agar ( 2g. for every 200 g of juice) and bring to a boil in a saucepan. Let it lightly foam . Meanwhile, put the oil in the freezer, so that it gets as cold and dense as possible. With the help of a syringe, make balls that fall in the cold oil, but do not stick to each other. Once solidified, drain and rinse

Powder
Soak the olives in cold water for a couple of hours, so that they will lose some of their bitterness. Drain well and place them in a shelf dryer at 60/70 °. When they are dehydrated, run them through a mixer for a short time, then dry again. Obtained a dry powder by mixing well with moscovado sugar oil in proportions of 3 olives to 1dl of sugar.

Cod
Cut the potatoes into cubes, sauté the garlic in oil, and remove. Sautè the potatoes, add the onion (cut julienne style) followed by the fish, which has been cut into medium-sized pieces. Once it has warmed up a little, add the milk and cook covered over low heat. Once cooked, cream with the help of a whisk, adding more oil if necessary, pepper, salt and chopped parsley.

Emulsion
Emulsify (at no higher than 70 °C) all the ingredients, making sure to stir from time to time. After a couple of hours pass through a fine sieve and press down well. Allow the liquid obtained to rest so that it separates. Set aside the oil, which will be used again, for making a mayonnaise, using it as a base instead of an egg, the same thick liquid obtained by cooking the cod, and separated from the oil as it rested.

Cannoli 
Overcook the rice in plenty of water and the peppers (which have been cut into large pieces), Blend in a Bimby to obtain a cream, add salt, spread on a sheet, dehydrate for about 20/30 minutes 65 ° C. When it is still wet cut with round pasta cutter, wrap in well-oiled metal finish cylinders and dry for 30 minutes. Remove fry in oil at a very high temperature.

Other ingredients
Slice open the green chilies, remove the seeds and then fry at 160 degrees for a few seconds, just enough time to soak and separate them from the skin if it seems too thick. Heat in the oven right before serving. Fry the parsley at a temperature of 140/150 °C

Sauté the breadcrumbs in oil flavored with herbs and garlic. Salt and let cool in a single layer so that they do not remain humid.

Directions for plating
In a square dish, with the help of a brush, make two strips of yellow sauce that run down the side borders. At the center of the plate place the mousse cut in the form of a circle, cut and lay the gelatin(cut in the same shape/size) on top, adding the fried parsley on the top. Just below the mousse, placed parallel to the lower side, set the green chili which has been warmed in the oven. Just above it, set the cannoli stuffed with creamed cod. Garnish the cannoli with salmon eggs and a sprinkling of olive powder. On the side place a scoop of the emulsion, some bubbles of pepper caviar and the breadcrumbs on the top part of the plate.

Photo courtesy of Ennio Calice