Odds and Ends

[SobaAddict70]

Chef Canora, thank you for taking the time to participate in this Q&A.

As soon as my heel gets better and I'm able to walk properly, I promise to come by and have dinner at Hearth.

A recent review in the New York forum described a dinner where there was a dish of pickles made from carrot tips that accompanied a game bird terrine.

Do you find it difficult to come up with new and inventive ways to use odds and ends such as the aforementioned carrot tips?

Again, thank you for being here.

Soba

[Marco Canora]

I have to admit that I couldn't help but laugh when reading your question because the infamous "carrot tips", "the part we normally snip off and throw away", are actually pickled crosnes, a tuber from the mint family, that are sold at the Greenmarket for about three weeks out of the year. I buy up as many as I can and pickle them, so I can use them year-round.

Nevertheless, in this business it is imperative that you are resourceful and try to find a use for everything. For example, my tuna appetizer, which is described in another thread, uses every part of the fish except the skin and the bloodline. I also use leftover chicken legs, the ones I don't serve with the rest of the Roasted Organic Chicken, to make the filling for the tortellini that is served in our Duck Consomme.

Edited February 19, 2004 by Marco Canora (log)

[Rachel Perlow]

I believe I had some of the pickled crosnes (or pickled something-else-equally-obscure) and had to ask the server what they were. They didn't remind me of carrots at all. Usually, I'm the one at the table that can identify all the mystery ingredients. This was a completely new one for me.

[Farmer Dave]

How anyone got carrots from crosnes is surprising.....even with the pickling..

We grow them here and they are oddballs to describe....a member of the mint family, called Chinese Artichokes, named Crosnes after the French prince that brought them into Paris....and most put the taste between a water chesnut and a raw potato....now carrot.....that's a new one

Edited February 20, 2004 by Farmer Dave (log)