Vermicelli | Celeriac | Mushrooms | Wild herbs
The PASTIFICIO DEI CAMPI X JRE ROOKIE CHALLENGE is to create a fusion between cultures, flavors and ingredients by creating a recipe focused on one type of pasta from Pastificio dei Campi and top local ingredients. Each recipe consists of at least one type of pasta and 2 local ingredients (chef's location). The challenge is open to everyone working at a JRE restaurant in Europe.
Lambert Walter from the Restaurant ONE in The Netherlands, created a dish with Vermicelli di Gragnano, dried celeriac, mushrooms and mixed herbs.
"I have decided to cook a dish that emulates the philosophy of the Italian cuisine, but with my own twist to it using ingredients from my home region in the Netherlands (Limburg). I want to honour some of the main principles of the traditional Italian cuisine: family, heritage, territory, simplicity and complexity. Pasta is an important part of Italian cuisine, and is in very high regard - similar to how meat is treated in Western Europe. This is mainly why I decided to make this dish vegetarian. As a product often consumed in Limburg, my family and I enjoy eating mushrooms regularly. My grandfather even owned a mushroom growing business, so it is a product that is very familiar to me. I see it as a product that is the end of one life, and the start of another at the same time: the mycelium absorbs nutrients from its environment mostly from decomposing plant material, which then becomes the root for a new life.We also use a lot of celeriac in the Netherlands, particularly around the area called the 'Peel', which is close to where I grew up. The wet soil found in that area is great for growing vegetables like celeriac. The vegetable has an earthy flavour and I usually cook it in a salt crust (like Italians do with fish: Branzino in crosta di sale). I leave the skin on during the cooking process, and then leave it to dry for three weeks. Due to the specific amount of salt, it starts to ferment in the dehydrator. This results in a taste reminding me of hard cheese and it looks like truffle as well. This will make sure there is a great combination of flavours with all other ingredients in the dish. To top off the dish, I used several different herbs from my family's garden and also wild herbs. This will give the dish more depth. I chose to use vermicelli di gragnano because it is the kind of pasta my mother often used preparing meals."
Dried celeriac
Mix salt together with the egg whites until its homogeneous. then wrap the complete celeriac in the salt on a iron tray.
Cook the celeriac for around 2,5 ours on 180 degree Celsius in the oven.
Take the celeriac out of the salt crust and leave it in the dehydrator for 3 weeks.
The celeriac will shrink completely after 3 weeks and the taste will become really strong.
| 1 | Big celeriac |
| 2 kg | Coarse salt |
| 150 gr | Egg whites |
Pasta sauce and garnish
Put a big pot of water on the stove with salt
Cut the celeriac in small brunoise and blanche the brunoise.
Take out the celeriac brunoise but don't throw away the water.
Cut the mushrooms and celery- stick in pieces as big as the celeriac.
Chop the garlic and shallot
Now bake the mushrooms, celery stick, shallot, garlic in a big baking pan together with the olive oil
Now add the cream cheese and finely chopped herbs
Once you have the sauce and garnish of the dish, you only need to add the cooked vermicelli and add salt, black pepper and (if needed) some water from the pasta.
| 1/4 | Celeriac (around 130 grams) |
| 80 gr | Mushrooms |
| 15 gr | Olive oil extra vergine |
| 1 pcs | Garlic |
| 1 pcs | Shallot |
| 1 | Celery stick |
| 300 gr | Cream cheese |
| 40 gr | Finely cutted herbs from the garden |
Gremolata
Chop the garlic
Chop the parsley
Zest the lemon (keep the juice of the lemon)
Combine all ingredients-leave it on the side as garnish
| Zest of 1 lemon | |
| 30 gr | Flat leaf parsley |
| 1 pcs | Garlic |
Pasta
Cook the pasta as mentioned on the package (remove 30 secs earlier).
Cook it for 30 secs in the sauce.
| 400 gr | Vermicelli di Gragnano |
| Boiling water (whats left from the celeriac) |
When everything is prepared then swirl with your pasta with cooking tweezers in a big soup spoon. Add some extra sauce to it and top off with the gremolata and the herbs. Finish it with the celeriac.
