#19 [Survival Kitchen - Aardperen sauce]

On the past two days I had an overflow of work with my DBA hat (sometimes I think its a wizard hat). It was much more than what the doctor prescribed and also enough to suck some of my creative energy. But suddenly,  by the end of the afternoon, the five plates I was holding in the air had a happy end (without crashing on the ground) and I could finally invest some time (one hour) to think about what we were going to eat and cooking it.

And then I did my favorite play: "Survival in the Kitchen". This is a very nice play where you grab the things that are the oldest... the vegetables, the products, everything that has not yet come to live again (=green animals) and is not yet shouting, and produce something eatable.

On the promotion I had: "aardperen" is this vegetable you see above and it is called "Jerusalem Artichoke" in english and Tupinambo in portuguese (just learned on Wiki) , leek (alho-porró in Portuguese/prei in Dutch) and some bacon. "Aardperen" look like an "inhame" but they are a bit sweet and have also a more soft consistency.

First I scrubbed the "aardperen" and cut it in big (2cm) pieces. The leeks I cut on rings. Warm up some butter on a pan and revolve the aardperen and the leek on that botter (do not fry it, just give it some glans). Than you pour some good broth, a little bit of water (just one finger on the bottom of the pan) and cover it with bacon, parm ham, or something vegeterian if you don't eat meat.

Now cover the pan and leave it in a very very very low fire to cook for about 20 minutes.  After that, turn off the fire and throw a hand full of parmesan cheese. Close the pan and leave it quite for a while to allow the sauce to settle and incorporate the flavor.

And then you have a sauce ready to your pasta (or you can put on the top of the rice).

I made it with pasta and some chipolata sausage. I must say: it is not beautiful, but it tastes good!

About the pictures: its just a disaster. But I won't miss to post a good recipe just because the pictures are bad. First of all, I have a different lightening in the kitchen. Some lamps that were burned out have now been replaced by my sweet husband. Now I can see what I do in the kitchen but the pictures have an horrible color cast between the green and blue.

Also, the lazy pop here took some of the pictures without the tripod. No no no, never ever do that again.

And something else: I have set the aperture to low (1.4) so the sharpness has also been seriously compromised with such depth of field.

Anyway, at least I am aware of it!