Hearts of Palm with Purée of Marrow Beans and Field Greens

One of the greatest things about The French Laundry Cookbook is the wealth of stories throughout the book. One of my favorite stories is about John Mood, the purveyor from whom The French Laundry gets their fresh hearts of palm. Mood served in Vietnam, after which he became a commercial pilot following his military service. He then bought some acreage in Hawaii and, with a business partner and fellow grower, turned his peach palm-growing hobby into a full-time business. It's the stuff dreams are made of, and I hope someday to be able to visit his farm because not only would it be a fantastic excuse to go to Hawaii, but because his farm looks so lush and green and fragrant and peaceful.

I'm sad to say that I was unable to procure fresh hearts of palm to make this dish. I tried ordering it from a number of sources as well as through a few chefs locally here in DC, but nothing panned out. I couldn't bring myself to order 100 lbs. of it (one option, and a rather expensive one at that), or wait until October when a different purveyor would have some ready and was willing to send me just 25 pounds (again, still really expensive and not too timely). So, I had to settle for canned hearts of palm and make the best of it. The good news is, even with the canned stuff, this dish is off-the-charts good, so I can't even imagine what it'll be like when I do get my butt to Hawaii someday, take over someone's kitchen, and make this there.

As you know, the dishes in The French Laundry Cookbook are served in tasting sizes. I usually have 6 - 8 people over to try what I make as part of this project, but when I made this dish, my usual crew was on vacation, out of town on business, or tied up with their kids' sports schedules. So, I thought it was a great opportunity to turn this into an entree-sized serving and invite my friend, Kerry, to lunch. Even though we live just five blocks away from one another, we hadn't gotten together in awhile, and our timing was perfect, so we enjoyed this dish for lunch (along with a few glasses of wine) and had a lovely afternoon. If you have the opportunity to schedule a lunch for two sometime soon, you might want to try this dish. You won't be disappointed.

I soaked the marrow beans overnight the night before I made the rest of the dish. That morning, I drained and rinsed them, then put them in a pot with some cold water and brought them to a simmer:

After they'd simmered for a minute or so, I removed them from the heat, drained them and rinsed them under cold water until the water ran clear. I put the beans in a medium saucepan and covered them with cold, homemade vegetable stock along with some carrot, leek, onion, and tomato as well as a bouquet garni.

I brought this to a simmer and cooked it gently for about an hour. After they'd cooled a bit, I drained the beans (saving the liquid, but discarding the veg), and set aside 3/4 C of them for the sauce.

The remaining beans (another 3/4C or so) went back into the liquid and reheated a tad while I ground some homemade brioche into fine, fine breadcrumbs.

I removed the breadcrumbs from the food processor and in their place put the hot marrow beans (I drained them and the liquid went bye-bye), which I puréed, then added the breadcrumbs back in to purée some more:

Then, I added some mascarpone cheese and kept the purée action going:

This is a point at which I debated calling Kerry and canceling lunch because I really could've just eaten this stuff with a spoon. It smelled amazing, and was so silky smooth. But alas, it was not meant to be, because there were (canned) hearts of palm to be filled with this gorgeous stuff.

Hey, at least they're cultivated and not, um, whatever the opposite of cultivated is.

I cut these hearts of palm into pieces that were 1-2" long, then hollowed them out:

Then, because I accidentally sliced my pastry bag with a knife a few weeks ago and haven't picked up a new one yet, I had to put the marrow bean filling in a ziploc bag (shame, shame, shame) cut a hole in the tip and pipe that stuff into these hollowed-out hearts of palm:
(notice how I kept that photo underexposed because it's so embarrassing?)

I put the filled hearts of palm in the fridge to chill while I prepared the bean sauce in which these hearts of palm would eventually sit.

When I bought my black truffles in the winter, I made mushroom stock and preserved one of the small truffles because I knew I'd be making this dish when black truffles were no longer available. Just as The French Laundry Cookbook instructs on page 87, I made the stock, plonked in the truffle, then stored it in the freezer. I thawed it for this dish, and kept every finger and extremity crossed that it would still be good (read: not poisonous or gastric distress-inducing) when I needed it.

It passed the smell test, for sure, and since I've already 'fessed up to loving this dish, I can tell you it passed the taste and non-sickness-inducing test as well. Whew.

To make the sauce, I put the stock in a saucepan with some sherry vinegar and brought it to a boil and reduced it by half. Then, I added minced shallots, minced black truffle, the remaining beans, and some diced heart of palm (I used the centers I'd hollowed out) and heated it until the contents of the pan were nice and warm:

I removed it from the heat and stirred in the tomato diamonds, parsley, brunoise, chives, and a tiny bit of white truffle oil and set it aside until it was time to plate:

Time to finish the hearts of palm! I dunked and dredged each of them in flour, milk and ground up panko and fried them in some canola oil in a skillet. This was a quick process, so I don't have any action shots of it (if I had done so, they'd have burned, and that would be not a very good thing).

To plate, I put a ring of chive oil on the plate (which is barely visible in the photo, if at all), on which I put the beans in sauce. I topped it with some of the hearts of palm, and garnished with the very last pea shoots I had (my chervil looked sad and droopy, so it got das boot):

I don't think I mentioned this yet, and I should be shot for not doing so, but did you know that marrow beans on their own taste a little like bacon? They do. I'm not making it up. Extra bonus points for that because it definitely added a little sumpin'-sumpin' to the dish.

The hearts of palm smelled a little farty when they were cooking so I was suspicious about how they'd taste (wouldn't you be?), but when I sliced a little bit of the heart of palm and ate it with the bean sauce? Wow wow wow wow wow! I had set aside the extra hearts of palm on a plate in the kitchen, but brought them out to the table so we could finish them right then and there. I set aside a little bit of the bean sauce and reheated it the next morning and ate it with an egg (over-easy). This dish is going into the permanent repertoire. It was a hit in every possible way, and I think this would be a great one to make if you want to try something out of the book, but haven't yet. The book even suggests a workaround in case you don't have truffle-infused mushroom stock, so there are NO EXCUSES for you not calling a friend, inviting him or her to lunch at which you will serve this and drink wine in the middle of the day and feel like a freakin' rockstar (without the heroin bender or passel of hookers, of course, unless that's your thing, in which case, get away from me).

A+ and smiley faces all around. This one's a keeper.


Up Next: Pacific Moi with Fresh Soybeans, Scallion and Radish Salad, and Soy-Temple Orange Glaze (and no, even though Moi also comes from Hawaii and is next to impossible to find on the east coast, I did not use canned Moi -- I got the fresh stuff because my fishmonger is like the Colombian drug lord of the fish kingdom and found some for me, but without all the murdering and stuff.)

Resources:
Roland Hearts of Palm
Dried marrow beans from the TPSS Co-op
Homemade vegetable stock from my freezer
King Arthur flour
Organic Valley whole milk
Edward & Sons panko
365 canola oil
Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. mascarpone
Produce from Whole Foods
Parsley from my garden
Saveurs white truffle oil
Black truffle from D'Artagnan

Music to Cook By: A little bit of Teitur and some Katy Perry. I downloaded a bunch of their music not too long ago and just dumped all of it into one big playlist. And somehow, it works to have them lumped together -- I'm not sure why. I first fell in love with Katy Perry when I heard one of her songs on the soundtrack of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (shut UP!), and I found out about Teitur the last time I was in LA and listened to KCRW on my little hotel room clock radio because I got sick of watching Project Runway reruns.

Read My Previous Post: French Laundry at Home Extra: Q&A with Carol, Part One