Wow on your plate: crème brûlée with asparagus and sea urchin from Fred & Joris

Culinary friends Joris Bijdendijk and Freddy Tratlehner found each other through a shared love of cooking and eating – and specifically for blue cheese (and for Mariah Carey, for that matter). For over eleven years, they have been giggling away in the kitchen and preparing the most delicious dishes together; at home and on joint vacations with their families.

Nice Sunday

In their cookbook 'Lekker Zondag', they show you what ends up on their table on the ultimate Sunday. For the most beautiful dishes are created in the Sunday chaos of the Bijdendijk and Tratlehner families. Quiche with artichoke and truffle, loaded brioche, plenty of vegetables, and the ultimate roast chicken, for example. And in their imaginary joint Michelin-star restaurant, this crème brûlée with sea urchin and white asparagus is on the menu.

Freddy: “Sea urchin is really one of my favorite ingredients. It’s incomparable to anything else. The creamy, custard-like orange stuff tastes a little sweet with a slight bitterness at the end. Like taking a spring dip in a clear sea. Now that I describe it like this, I suddenly understand why it works so well with crème brûlée and asparagus.”

Recipe: crème brûlée, asparagus, sea bass

• Preheat the oven to 150 °C.
• Peel the asparagus and cut off the woody ends; save all the trimmings. Cut the asparagus into 5-millimeter pieces and sprinkle with a pinch of salt.
• Cut open the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds. Heat the cream in a saucepan over the lowest possible heat. Add the asparagus trimmings along with the vanilla seeds and the scraped pod, turn off the heat after 10 minutes, and let it steep for a good while. An hour is perfect. A shorter time is also possible, but the asparagus flavor will be less intense. Strain the asparagus-vanilla cream into a bowl.
• In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and half of the sugar until light and fluffy.
• Pour the asparagus-vanilla cream over the egg yolks, mix until combined, and stir in the asparagus pieces. Divide the mixture among the ramekins. Place the ramekins in a suitable oven dish and fill it with boiling water until the ramekins are half submerged. Bake for 30 minutes.
• Let the crèmes cool and set in the refrigerator for 2 hours, covered. Sprinkle with a layer of fine sugar; make the sugar layer as thin as possible, otherwise this dish will be too sweet and that would be a waste of the sea urchin. Crisp the sugar with a blowtorch. Optionally, place a nasturtium leaf on each crème brûlée and place the sea urchin on top. Optionally, finish with a small bouquet of sweet alyssum.

Lekker Zondag met Fred & Joris is now available for purchase for 34.99 euros.