Gooseberries, marrowfat peas and livar rack; black box #3
Almond gooseberry cakes with custard and gooseberry sauce
Did you know that the task of filling the black box with meaningful contents is actually underrated? It’s almost as difficult, if not more difficult, to decide what to put in as it is to make something out of it! For those who do not know… the Black Box is some kind of mystery box that Tom and I are using to challenge each other in cooking. We take turns; one month Tom fills the box and I get to cook or the other way around. We can pick up to 5 ingredients and adding more ingredients is allowed (for now…) This is our third session and you can read about the first one here and the second one here..
So this time it as my turn to fill the box with yummy goods and I struggled. I struggled a lot! At first I wanted to add quail in but then the Paperchef challenge for this week is also quail so that fell of the list. I went back and forth; added chestnut paste (tinned variety), then tamarind paste but took them all out again and what we ended up was the following list of ingredients:
- Marrow fatpeas (fresh ones ofcourse
- Gooseberries
- Livar Rack (livar is a pig raised in Limburg one of the provences of the Netherlands and is raised for flavor. They are free range and roam around an abbey, which is why they are also called cloister pigs!)
- Akvavit (alcoholic drink used a lot for cooking)
- parmaham
Fresh marrowfat peas
I thought it was a fairly simple challenge..lol… 
but ofcourse when you buy the ingredients you have an idea on what you could make with it.. So what did he make? I’ve first got to tell you that he made a dessert… I think that must have been the first time ever that he actually baked something sweet… For a guy who doesn’t particularly like desserts that was a big thing… Which is why that is the first photo here… It’s nicely plated too don’t you think?
With the marrow fat peas (which I think is a really weird name as these are called capucijners in Dutch… which would literally translated be something like capucin…) he made a starter and prepared the peas in three different ways. He cooked them in the regular way and served those with little crispy bacon bits, the second version was braised slowly in honey and served with parmaham, then the third was pureed with tomatoes, peppers, creme fraiche and some other ingredients and served with tomato bruschetta’s.
Marrowfat peas 3 different ways
As a main we had the rack of Livar which was first quickly baked with a crust of parmezan and breadcrumbs to give it a cruncy, salty exterior and then finished in the oven. When I bought the rack it was vacuumsealed and that always makes
it looks smaller then it actually is, so it was way to big for me to finish but it was very tasty.
He wanted to serve this with a simple pasta with just garlic and roasted tomatoes and while a good idea, the pasta was a tiny bit too dry.
Then on to dessert which were the almond gooseberry tarts with a homemade custard and a gooseberry sauce with akvavit. All in all quite an impressive dinner and very tasty too… I will now share with you the recipe for the almonds cakes!
Almond gooseberry cakes
Rather heavy but delicious dessert
Ingredients:
- 250 gr gooseberries
- 85 gr ground almond flour
- 5 gr cornstarch
- 1 egg
- 85 gr icing sugar
- 1 tbsp ricotta
- 85 gr almondpaste or butter
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 175 C. Crumble the almondpaste by hand. In a bowl mix the almondpasta, cornstarch, sugar and the almondflour. Add the ricotta and egg and mix it all through until completely blended. Now carefully add the gooseberries.
- Put the mixture into baking tins. Muffins forms work really well but use any form you like. Make sure you grease them properly before adding the mixture in!
- Bake for about 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Leave to cool for 5 minutes, take them out of the tins and sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
Healthy
What marvelous food and photography! I am a sucker for gooseberries as they remind me of my holidays in England. My grandparents grew them…
Cheers,
Rosa
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 11:18
Thanks Rosa! I never really see a lot of gooseberries around here but I love them too!
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Wow. The pork chops look gorgeous and what a cool story. I had never heard of those cloistered piggies ;0)
Tom did a great job and I love the gooseberries any way I get them. The recipe sounds Easy enough and we always have ricotta in the fridge!
Looking forwrward to your next black box!
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 11:18
O yes the next one I get to cook… Can’t wait to find out what’s gonna be in it…
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I’m not familiar with gooseberries but they sure do look delicious. I love that different parts of the world have so many ingredients that are specific to that area. The chops looks really great. How fun to do your blackbox challenge!
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 11:19
I am not even sure that gooseberries are from around here. We get them locally grown for sure but it’s not a berry that is very easy to find for whatever reason..
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This is such a brilliant idea, nice way to mix things up a bit and steer clear of the dreaded cooking rut! Gooseberries are so very underused, some of my fondest memories of my Austrian family involve sitting in the hot summer sun picking off the ripest gooseberries from the bush in their garden. They are so so delicious
this recipe looks gorgeous and i will save it for the next time i get my hand on some! Lovely post 
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 11:20
Thanks Sasha. It is indeed a great way to challenge ourself and to start thinking outside of the box so to speak.
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what wonderful pictures! wow it looks soooooooo good and tasty now im hungry^^
wow, wow, wow great blog
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 11:21
Thanks!
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It looks fantastic and I am sure ittastes fantastic too.It is nice to try new things.I do it all the time;)
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I love this black box idea! Need to convince Mrs Q. to do something like that with me four our Sunday Brunches ;o)
Oh and gooseberries – we grow them in our garden, Grandma used to make the most delish jam with them.
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 11:40
They’re really hard to get here. And I know they are grown locally quite a lot so I have no idea why they’re not sold everywhere…
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Astrid — July 11th, 2011 at 13:01
Same her I know that they are grown locally but you rarely see them at the markets let go supermarkets.
What an interesting challenge! I can’t imagine Nick ever wanting to do this – unless the contents of his black box were ALWAYS lamb chops (for the BBQ), pasta, tinned tomatoes, onions and fresh chillies hahaha! I don’t think I have ever had marrowfat peas and am intrigued by their colour! All the dishes T made with them sound grand… Also love the purple gooseberries – usually see the green ones and only saw onesthat lovely purple colour last week for the first time. Stunning!
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 23:35
Well you could make it a challenge to come up with something else with the same ingredients every time..lol… Marrowfat peas are – at least here in the Netherlands – mostly sold in their canned variety and then they are boring brown… I’ve also never really seen the purple gooseberries. Green is more common here too!
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Looks like Tom did a great job! You chose very original ingredients, I don’t think I’ve ever had gooseberry…
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 23:35
You should try it Valerie… If you can find them that is, but they’re quite good, Slightly sour but tasty.
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What a super interesting and creative use of the ingredients!
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 11th, 2011 at 23:36
Thanks Jenn. I will pass it along to Tom..
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What an interesting challenge, and what drop dead gorgeous photography Simone. Really nice! Love what you conjured up!
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 12th, 2011 at 22:21
O thanks Deeba! You’re too kind!
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I`ve never seen peas like that before…wow. That`s cool.
And yes! I agree with Deeba, your photography is just stunning!
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Simone (junglefrog) — July 12th, 2011 at 22:21
Thanks Charissa!
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gorgeous photos. the light wraps around the food so beautifully. gooseberries arent common here in Sydney. that custard has mine name written all over it.
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