Here comes the moment of truth. The dressing of the different ingredients that will make up Claire Vallée’s “Spring” dish. A subtle interplay of colors and shapes that will first taste with the eyes. Then comes a breath of fresh air that will remind us that it is still only April and that the slightest ray of sunshine is appreciated at its fair value. Finally, a delicate interplay of textures and flavors, mixing sweet, salty, spicy, acid, bitter and umami… which clearly shows that a dish loses nothing by being 100% vegetable, quite the contrary.
A characteristic floral touch
In her cookbook Non-animal origin (ed. Chêne), the chef describes this plate as an “emblematic creation around spring, the season of renewal and all possibilities. The asparagus marries the sweetness of the strawberry, and the grapefruit, with its natural acidity, balances the composition. The mimosa brings, for its part, this floral touch which characterizes my culinary universe so well”.
For the dressing of the various ingredients prepared since Monday, namely fresh, roasted, smoked and fermented strawberries, chlorophyll tuiles, burnt grapefruit vinaigrette, white and green asparagus, cooked and raw, it’s very simple.
Composition of the plate
Arrange the snacked asparagus and the raw shavings first on a plate. Intersperse the raw and cooked strawberries, then add a few dots of the mimosa strawberry condiment, as well as the pulpy vinaigrette and the chlorophyll tuiles. Finish by decorating with mimosa flowers and a few daisy flowers. “Unlike the stems, all the flowers are edible,” Claire Vallée reminded us at the start of the recipe. Some mimosa, I was able to bring back some from the Arcachon basin, but I couldn’t find any daisies. It doesn’t matter, we can also do very well without it.