Bright green and olive drab are in the same color family but are as opposite in visual appeal as I can possibly imagine. Yet, over the past two days, I have worked with both variations and been exceedingly pleased with the taste results.
The first shade we ended up with was bright green. We were planning on making a pure parsley puree. Aki mentioned that we had some garlic shoots on hand and their flavor would complement the parsley both flavor-wise and aesthetically. I was game, and the puree was vivid and bright. I then added some of the anchovy onion puree Aki had made. This was important. Previously, when I had made salsa verde and other green sauces, I just pureed all the contents together and then strained the resulting puree. Here, I was able to integrate the finished anchovy-onion puree into the parsley-garlic shoot puree. The result was a much brighter and balanced flavor profile, and I did not need to spend nearly as much time pulverizing ingredients. Each base was done separately and then combined together.
The second shade of green was an olive drab. Green foods, especially beans, are not normally enticing when cooked to an olive, just-from-the-can green. Yet today, the result was so darn good the color does not really matter. (Until I can figure a way to keep the bright color of the beans and also retain the silken rich texture of braised beans.) We began with a paste of onion and poblano pepper, which we slowly cooked in olive oil. When the puree began to caramelize, we added sliced Romano beans and truffle juice. The beans cooked slowly and absorbed the heady truffle juice. When the beans were finally cooked, tender, and decadent, we folded in some diced preserved truffle. Sure, the color is not the color of my jeep, but the taste and texture are ones that will certainly turn heads.
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