As the seasonal obsession with ramps continues one finds that the simplistic use of ramps while quite delicious really does little justice to the allium. The bulbs are absolutely best pickled while a puree of the greens has endless uses from savory ice cream to pasta. Standard technique requires you to blanch the greens at some point to get a vivid non-oxidizing puree. I do find that the exposure to heat loses a lot of the ramp flavor between blanching and puree process in a vitamix.
Answer to this minor problem = Pacojet.
I find that a super quick salted water blanch followed by putting it directly into liquid nitrogen goes quite a long way to preserve the flavor. It is then packed into a Pacojet container and frozen.
Processed you get fine green powder intensely redolent of ramps which will ultimately be the flavor base of the pasta.
On a side note I would like to run this puree in a centrifuge and make some kick-ass ramp butter. Click the "Beckman-Coulter" link on this page and read about "Allegra X-14" under "General Purpose Centrifuges".
Weighed and thinned out with a measured amount of water and added directly into the
AEX-18.
...........and the rest is history.
It obviously does not require $8 grand worth of equipment to make pasta however most chefs already have Pacojets and the resulting pasta when dropped into boiling water manages to retain most of the ramp flavor especially when simply served with butter and cheese. I would imagine simple dishes like Ramp-Aglio Olio or Cacio e Pepe noodles would be quite tasty simple food.
I am thinking shellfish like Abalone, Spot Prawns or Scottich Langoustine perhaps even chive flowers or leek ash.
Possibilities are endless.
Ideas are free.....sadly kitchen toys are not.
