Fall is definitely here! While I totally welcome it since it is my favorite season, yet how fast it transitioned still surprised me! Fall to me is more than just a season of colors, it is also a season of harvest and reflections. One of the best memories I had growing up in the idyllic countryside in the mountains is the smell of farm grains ripening- a symphony of sweet aromas from the corns, millets, wheats, reg sorghum, red/green/black beans…. If I were to have my own line of perfumes, that is scent I will be after and I would call it “Country Harvest”. Later in the fall, we would have another harvest of the gardens, cabbages, beets, sweet potatoes, pears, apples, a true season of abundance! Even the pigs get their dib: we let them loose to dig the fields for any root vegetables left behind, sort of a treasure hunt for them. Watching them cavorting up and down made you think they did have a good life, or even a happy/care-free life, although the fate of becoming the delicious pork stew in winter was inevitable!
Oh yeah, the pumpkins! There tend to be a lot of pumpkins around in the village just like how omnipresent they are here in the US. My grandparents of the worst way of cooking them- boiling in water until they become a mushy mess! We, all the grand kids, still gobbled that down as we were always hungry! Later in college, I encountered this dish where slices of pumpkin were coated with duck egg yoke. I know it does not sound very appetizing, but it was rather tasty. So that is the inspiration of the dish today. I don’t know exactly how they make it in restaurants, but my method yields a result just as good. I named it Boules de Citrouille (pumpkin balls) because it sounds fancier in French LOL!
Ingredients: one pumpkin, 3 salted duck eggs, olive oil, lemon juice, chopped chives, could not be simpler! Do you agree?
Preparation:
Open the pumpkins, scoop out balls with a melon ballers. You will need about a dozen balls for 3 egg yoke
Microwave on high for 3min.
Remove yokes. Heat about 2 tablespoon of olive oil medium high heat, add egg yokes, cook until slightly bubbly, break it down to almost powdery from with a wisk, add the pumpkin balls, combine to coat with the yoke. Season with salt after tasting the bits of the yoke; because salted eggs can have different degrees of saltiness, the salt should be added carefully!
Right before serving, drizzle a few drops of fresh lemon juice and garnish with chives or other fresh hersb. Plate as you like. I offered 3 presentations here, but there really is no limit to how many ways these can be plated! Go wild and go crazy!
