Cuttlefish Black and White

When Luigi brought me this dish, I thought: ‘Oh my God, what on Earth is this? Some kind of Italian Yin and Yang? How will I shoot this?

I spent around 5 minutes looking at the dish and thinking hard and also telling jokes to a pretty waitress who volunteered to help me in this wonderful restaurant with windows facing the main Milano landmark – Piazza della Scala.

We stood closely together and young Italian seemed to understand my challenge. I could smell her complicated perfume and was thinking about relations between men and women… And there was that thought in my head: ‘everything that is complicated is simple, just don’t complicate the things…’

And then it dawned upon me. Why should I create installations and make this splendid beautiful dish complicated? I’ll shoot it as it is, without draping and other details. Just a dish and a plate. A kind of Italian zen…

Cuttlefish Black and White

Difficulty Level: Medium
Calories: 400
Cooking Time: 45 min

Ingredients:

For the white cuttlefish layer:
  • 300 g cuttlefish pulp, cleaned and passed twice through the meat grinder
For the black cuttlefish layer:
  • 100 g cuttlefish pulp, cleaned and passed twice through the meat grinder
  • 10 g cuttlefish ink obtained from the cuttlefish juice
For the sea urchin panna cotta:
  • 100g fresh cream + 100 g fresh whipping cream, lightly whipped
  • 30 g sea urchin pulp
  • 1 g gelatin, in sheets
For the citrus juice reduction
  • 1 blood orange
  • 1 pink grapefruit
  • 1 yellow grapefruit
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 lime

Instructions:

 

For the white cuttlefish layer:
  1. Use a rolling pin to roll out the pulp between two sheets of parchment baking paper.
  2. Place inside a bag suitable for vacuum cooking and bake in a steam oven at 85 degrees centigrade for 6 minutes.
  3. Cool immediately.
  4. Cut out 4 disks with a diameter of 16 cm.
For the black cuttlefish layer:
  1. Mix together the two ingredients.
  2. Use a rolling pin to roll out the pulp between two sheets of parchment baking paper.
  3. Place inside a bag suitable for vacuum cooking and bake in a steam oven at 85 degrees centigrade for 6 minutes.
  4. Cool immediately.
  5. Cut out 4 disks with a diameter of 3 cm.
For the sea urchin panna cotta:
  1. Heat 40 g of the cream at a temperature of 36 degrees centigrade, add the gelatin and cool it to a temperature of 28 degrees centigrade.
  2. Add the remaining cream and the sea urchin pulp.
  3. Incorporate the lightly whipped cream and place it in a pastry bag for 4 hours in the refrigerator at a temperature of 6 degrees centigrade.
For the citrus juice reduction
  1. In a medium saucepan, add the citrus juices and cook over a low flame until it acquires the consistency of a jelly candy.
Plating and presentation:
  1. Brush the citrus juice reduction on the plate.
  2. Add the sea urchin panna cotta, the white disk and the smaller black disk.
  3. Drizzle with fresh hot pepper oil and fried spaghetti.

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