CUBE OF GUADALQUIVIR STURGEON WITH SALT CRYSTAL, CAVIAR AND CELERY AND BUTTER JUICE

Alberto Chicote
2010

INGREDIENTS:

Celery and butter juice:                  
850 gr. celery
400 gr. butter
1 dl. Tío Pepe
1 dl. water
walt

Sturgeon en confit:                         
1 cube of fresh sturgeon, weighing 100 gr.
½ dl. Arbequina extra virgin olive oil

Salt crystal:                                      
2 oblate leaves
ash salt
pimentón salt
lemon salt

Others:                                             
30 gr. caviar

PREPARATION:

Celery and butter juice: Peel the celery and cut into 1×1 cm. dice. Place with the rest of the ingredients in a vacuum pack and cook in a bain-marie at 80ºC for 5 hours. When cooked, the celery dice should be soft. Drain the contents of the pack through a cloth filter, pressing a little so that the celery releases all its juices. Beat the resulting liquid with the fat to give a light creamy texture. Set aside.
Sturgeon en confit: Place the cubes of sturgeon in a vacuum pack with the olive oil and cook in a bain-marie at 65ºC for 30 min. Remove from the water, place in the blast chiller to cool, then refrigerate for at least 1 day.
Salt crystal: Place 1 wafer on a sheet of sulphurised paper and spray with water to moisten lightly. Add the salt crystals of different types and cover with the other wafer. Moisten again and cover with another sheet of non-stick paper. Place in a vacuum pack at high pressure so that the wafers stick together as if there were just one of them. Lightly grease a silpat and place on an oven pan. Top with the double wafer with the salt grains incrusted in it. Grease and cover with another silpat. Bake in the oven at 165ºC for about 10 minutes until crisp and transparent. Leave to cool.

TO SERVE:

Trim to sturgeon to form a perfect cube. Brown all over on the griddle. Head the celery cream with the juices from the sturgeon vacuum pack, but without boiling. Serve two spoonfuls of celery cream and top with the browned cube of sturgeon, then top this with the salt crystal as if it were a saucer. Finish with a teaspoonful of caviar and a few drops of olive oil aromatised with black truffle.