Alinea at Home: Croquette, Smoked Steelhead Roe, Endive, Radish

I teased this post on Facebook over a week ago and just now ;getting around to writing about it.  I've had a couple different versions of this dish on my various trips to Next and Alinea and was always very curious on how they pulled it off.  Fish eggs are very delicate and don't hold up to heat very well.

The star of the show, a tin of steelhead roe.  The recipe called for smoked and I could have gotten smoked but I checked the wrong box on the website I ordered this from.  The roe is from BLIS which is one of Alinea's and Next preferred product providers when it comes to roe and some other specialty items.

In addition to the roe, the interior of the croquette had small cucumber balls.

The final part of the filling was what brought everything together, this is a mixture of salt, creme fraiche, water and simple syrup.

The creme fraiche mixture was all simmered together and then some gelatin to get set the whole mixture.

In the bottom of the hemisphere mold I put a small dollop of steelhead roe and then but a cucumber ball in.  The whole mixture was topped with the creme fraiche mxiture and then went to the fridge to chill out until the mixture was set.

While the interior was setting in the fridge, I started in on the garnishes.  First up was candied endive.  This is a belgian endive, which is a relative of the cabbage which simmered in a water and sugar mixture for about 45 minutes.