This is a Jean-Georges recipe that I found on Food & Wine a few years ago. It's super-easy, but features a fun surprise when you serve it. The very Jean-Georges flourish comes in the form of "Lemon Dumplings," which start by essentially making lemon jell-o.
Lemons are zested...
... then supremed (with juice squeezed from the membranes added to the zest)...
The lemon sections are chopped...
... then combined with the zest and juice.
A little gelatin sprinkled over the top...
Once the mixture has started to gel, the pan is placed over moderately low heat until just warm enough to melt the gelatin.
The mixture is then poured into a dish and combined with cayenne, sugar, salt, and olive oil.
After a couple hours in the fridge, things are ready to assemble. The sheet of lemon jell-o is chopped relatively fine...
The recipe gives instructions for folding the wontons that don't really work with mediocre grocery store wonton wrappers (which are what I had on hand this time), so I go with an Emily-style fold that I think actually looks cooler in the soup anyway...
Repeat that many more times, and you can throw your lemon dumplings in the freezer for a day or two, thus saving you crazy work the day of your dinner party...
The soup itself is simple, as any good in-season vegetable soup should be. Butter. Shallots. Asparagus. Stock. Cream. That's it.
The mixture is puréed, and thus becomes Creamy Asparagus Soup. The frozen dumplings are added to boiling water, then seared in a pan of butter until the bottoms start to just brown... and you're ready to plate.
The lemon filling in the dumplings becomes liquid while they cook, so each lemon dumpling bite results in an explosion of lemon in your mouth...
The soup itself is fantastic, but I love how the dumplings are able to take a simple soup to another level. No part of this dish is particularly hard to make... just a little time-consuming. The result is well worth it in the end, though. Check it out next time you have too much asparagus on your hands...
Lemons are zested...
... then supremed (with juice squeezed from the membranes added to the zest)...
The lemon sections are chopped...
... then combined with the zest and juice.
A little gelatin sprinkled over the top...
Once the mixture has started to gel, the pan is placed over moderately low heat until just warm enough to melt the gelatin.
The mixture is then poured into a dish and combined with cayenne, sugar, salt, and olive oil.
After a couple hours in the fridge, things are ready to assemble. The sheet of lemon jell-o is chopped relatively fine...
The recipe gives instructions for folding the wontons that don't really work with mediocre grocery store wonton wrappers (which are what I had on hand this time), so I go with an Emily-style fold that I think actually looks cooler in the soup anyway...
Repeat that many more times, and you can throw your lemon dumplings in the freezer for a day or two, thus saving you crazy work the day of your dinner party...
The soup itself is simple, as any good in-season vegetable soup should be. Butter. Shallots. Asparagus. Stock. Cream. That's it.
The mixture is puréed, and thus becomes Creamy Asparagus Soup. The frozen dumplings are added to boiling water, then seared in a pan of butter until the bottoms start to just brown... and you're ready to plate.
The lemon filling in the dumplings becomes liquid while they cook, so each lemon dumpling bite results in an explosion of lemon in your mouth...
The soup itself is fantastic, but I love how the dumplings are able to take a simple soup to another level. No part of this dish is particularly hard to make... just a little time-consuming. The result is well worth it in the end, though. Check it out next time you have too much asparagus on your hands...
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