Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Acorns for dinner!

So after I leached and dried my acorn flour I invited some friends over for an experimental dinner.  I invited the 2 friends who helped me gather and then another friend stopped by purely by coincidence.  I decided to make 2 different dishes with the 2 different acorns.  I wanted to compare, though the dishes tasted so different it's hard to say which acorn tasted better.

With the black oak acorns I decided to make a soup.  I found a recipe for acorn soup online.  As always I changed the recipe a bit, substituting things I didn't have or that didn't sound like what I wanted.  I didn't have the pear brandy so I substituted red wine.  I also never added the cayenne, sour cream, or parsley.
With the valley oak acorns I decided to make a scramble, an idea I got from Flavors of Home by Margit Roos-Collins.  Basically I just sauteed garlic in butter and then added some damp acorn flour, some salt and pepper.
I paired this with some broiled salmon with a fresh raspberry sauce and some salad made by one of the guests.

The soup was a bit tangy/sour.  The two friends who helped gather preferred the soup since they liked that tangy taste.  My other friend and I preferred the scramble.  Garlic and butter, how can you go wrong with that?  A delicious meal.  I just finished another round of valley oak acorns.  I have about 2 1/4 cups of flour.  I'm thinking of trying some acorn pancakes, before preparing the rest of my acorns for a larger dinner in January.  And I still have to sample some Tanoak acorns I collected on Mt. Tam.