Blood Orange Cured Lamb's Lettuce Bites with Miso Aioli and Pickled Ramps

Ingredients

• ▸120 g lamb's lettuce (mâche), roots trimmed, left in rosette clusters
• ▸2 large blood oranges, zested and juiced (approximately 120 ml juice)
• ▸1 tbsp aji amarillo paste
• ▸1.5 tsp fine sea salt
• ▸1 tsp caster sugar
• ▸0.5 tsp ground white pepper
• ▸8 ramp bulbs with lower stems, cleaned and halved lengthwise
• ▸80 ml rice wine vinegar, unseasoned
• ▸60 ml water
• ▸1 tsp honey
• ▸0.5 tsp coriander seeds, lightly crushed
• ▸1 small dried aji panca chile, crumbled
• ▸2 large egg yolks, room temperature
• ▸1 tbsp white shiro miso
• ▸1 tsp yuzu juice (or additional blood orange juice)
• ▸1 small garlic clove, microplaned
• ▸180 ml neutral oil such as grapeseed
• ▸1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• ▸200 g quinoa flour
• ▸0.5 tsp fine sea salt
• ▸2 tbsp olive oil
• ▸60 ml cold water, approximately
• ▸1 tbsp black sesame seeds
• ▸1 tbsp white sesame seeds
• ▸0.5 tsp huacatay paste (optional, for finishing)
• ▸1 small blood orange, sliced into paper-thin rounds for garnish
• ▸edible flowers such as borage or viola, for garnish

Instructions

1. 1

   1. PICKLE THE RAMPS (2 hours ahead): Combine rice wine vinegar, water, honey, coriander seeds, and crumbled aji panca in a small saucepan. Bring to a bare simmer over medium heat, stirring until honey dissolves, about 2 minutes. Pour hot brine over ramp halves in a heatproof jar. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 90 minutes. Ramps should turn vivid pink-purple and smell bracingly funky-sweet.

2. 2

   2. CURE THE LAMB'S LETTUCE: Whisk together blood orange juice, aji amarillo paste, sea salt, caster sugar, and white pepper in a wide, shallow bowl until salt and sugar dissolve completely. Taste — it should be aggressively salty, sour, and gently spicy, like a ceviche leche de tigre. Gently submerge lamb's lettuce rosettes in the cure, pressing down lightly. The leaves will begin to wilt and deepen in color within 10 minutes. Cure for exactly 20 minutes at room temperature, turning once halfway. Do not over-cure or the leaves will turn mushy rather than silky.

3. 3

   3. MAKE QUINOA CRACKERS: Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Combine quinoa flour, fine sea salt, both sesame seeds, and olive oil in a bowl. Add cold water one tablespoon at a time, mixing with a fork until dough just comes together — it should feel like Play-Doh, not sticky. Roll between two sheets of parchment paper to 2 mm thickness. Peel off top sheet, score into rough 5 cm rectangles with a bench scraper or knife. Bake 12–15 minutes until edges are golden and crackers feel dry to the touch. Cool completely on the pan — they crisp as they cool.

4. 4

   4. MAKE MISO AIOLI: Place egg yolks, shiro miso, yuzu juice, and microplaned garlic in a tall jar or the cup of an immersion blender. Blend briefly to combine. With blender running, drizzle in grapeseed oil in a very thin, steady stream until a thick, glossy emulsion forms. Finish by drizzling in sesame oil and blending 5 more seconds. Taste — it should be deeply savory, slightly sweet, and faintly nutty. Adjust with a drop more yuzu if it tastes flat. Transfer to a piping bag or squeeze bottle and refrigerate until assembly.

5. 5

   5. DRAIN AND FINISH THE CURE: After 20 minutes, lift lamb's lettuce from the cure using a slotted spoon or spider. The leaves should be glistening, slightly collapsed, and stained a deep orange-red at their tips. Shake off excess liquid gently. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the cure liquid — you will use this as a finishing drizzle. If using huacatay paste, stir it into the reserved cure liquid now for an herbal, marigold-funk dimension.

6. 6

   6. ASSEMBLE THE BITES: Arrange quinoa crackers on a serving board. Pipe a small, confident swoosh of miso aioli onto each cracker — roughly 1 teaspoon. Nestle a small cluster of cured lamb's lettuce on top, allowing it to drape naturally over the cracker edges. Add one pickled ramp half per bite, curling it artfully. Lay a blood orange paper-round over each bite at a slight angle. Drizzle the reserved cure liquid (or huacatay cure) over the assembled bites from a spoon for a glossy, luminous finish.

7. 7

   7. GARNISH AND SERVE IMMEDIATELY: Scatter edible flowers across the board. Serve within 10 minutes of assembly — the quinoa crackers will absorb moisture from the lettuce and soften if left too long, which is actually also delicious in a different, more contemplative way.

Variations

• ◆VEGAN VERSION: Replace egg yolks in the aioli with 60 ml aquafaba (chickpea brine) and 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard. The emulsion is slightly less stable but equally funky and rich — blend with an immersion blender for best results.
• ◆PROTEIN BOOST: Lay a thin slice of tiradito-style raw yellowtail or hamachi beneath the lamb's lettuce before assembly. The fish cures slightly from contact with the aioli and residual citrus, echoing the Nikkei tiradito tradition perfectly.
• ◆SMOKY DEPTH: Swap shiro miso for mugi (barley) miso and add 0.25 teaspoon smoked paprika to the aioli. Swap aji amarillo for aji panca paste in the cure for a darker, more chocolatey, campfire-adjacent flavor profile.