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:

Use a rolling pin to roll out the pulp between two sheets of parchment baking paper.
Place inside a bag suitable for vacuum cooking and bake in a steam oven at 85 degrees centigrade for 6 minutes.
Cool immediately.
Cut out 4 disks with a diameter of 16 cm.

For the black cuttlefish layer:

Mix together the two ingredients.
Use a rolling pin to roll out the pulp between two sheets of parchment baking paper.
Place inside a bag suitable for vacuum cooking and bake in a steam oven at 85 degrees centigrade for 6 minutes.
Cool immediately.
Cut out 4 disks with a diameter of 3 cm.

For the sea urchin panna cotta:

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.
Add the remaining cream and the sea urchin pulp.
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