Cycle 3 – Item 298

29 (Mon) October 2012

Beans with Clams

1.5

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ, MIL

While the previous 2 recipes from Ferran Adria’s The Family Meal had been relatively simple, this dish took some work, despite appearances.  First, it required making sofrito, a garlic-onion-tomato paste, and picada, a parsley-saffron-hazelnut (HAZELNUT?!?!) paste, neither of which I’ll bother to describe in greater detail here.  But after all the work involved, the recipe called for just 2 teaspoons of each for the basic 2-portion serving.  If preparing 75 portions, then maybe the effort would’ve been worth it.  Then again, the dish didn’t taste all that great – the clams and saffron were fine, but the nuts and beans made it a bit too starchy/goopy for my liking – so maybe not.  Fortunately, the leftover sofrito and picada, which I’ve frozen into 2-teaspoon cubes, may be applied towards 4 additional recipes in the book, not that I’m particularly encouraged at this point to try them.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)