Weekend Herb Blogging

Or, how I made a dish and wasn't brave enough to try it.
Consider this cowardice on my part, or consider your own personal reaction to raw egg yolk. Perhaps you don't like anchovies, beetroot, parsley or raw onion. If so, this dish isn't for you.
Actually, this is a dish of great beauty but in a spiky Egon Schiele way, rather than a voluptuous Dante Rossetti way. After spying it in a Tamasin Day-Lewis book and having a curiosity about it ever since, I decided to prepare it for this weekends Weekend Herb Blogging being hosted this month by Ulrike at Kuchenlatein.
This is an event that I really enjoy participating in because I am not a big meat eater but I find some vegetarian food to be dull so this gives me the opportunity to experiment in the kitchen on a quiet Sunday afternoon AND I get to pinch ideas from other people too!
So, as I mentioned, this dish combines beetroot, that delicate, sweet root vegetable that stains your fingers deep pink, freshly chopped parsley for it's clean, grassy taste, raw onion for a hot taste and gherkins for their sour tartness. The salt element is provided by chopped anchovies and the whole dish is - literally - bound together with a raw egg yolk. The dish is a Swedish delicacy called Sologa or 'Suns Eye'. It also goes by the name of Birds Nest, which presumably represents the concentric circles of the various ingredients, and the yolk representing the egg or baby bird.
This is not a dish for the faint hearted, nor is it for the impatient or heavy handed. It took me well over 20 minutes to make one of these little platefuls, which constitutes no more than four or five mouthfuls (it is supposed to be served as an appetiser or part of a smorgasbord). However, further investigation of the dish revealed that it would be wise to use 5 glasses or cooking rings, all of increasing diameter, to make this quickly. I can reinstate that this would, indeed, be a good idea.
My husband, he of Swedish/German heritage, enjoyed this dish greatly. He mixed it all up and ate atop Rye Bread, declaring that the egg yolk enhanced and combined the complexity of the other ingredients. My husband grew up eating Swedish food and he has somewhat of the Swedish demeanour, so he didn't even flinch at the egg yolk. I, on the other hand, a lily livered Brit who was brought up in a household that wouldn't even eat lamb or duck, much less raw egg yolk, just couldn't bring myself to try it. However, as a talking point for a (very) small dinner party, it certainly is a lovely dish to serve, and the more adventurous guests would also relish the unique flavour.
SOLOGA 'Sun's Eye' serves 1 person
Ingredients:
1 Egg Yolk
4 Cornichons, drained, chopped into miniscule chunks
3 Anchovies, drained, chopped into - you guessed it - miniscule chunks
1-2 Tablespoons White Onion, ditto
Half a small globe of pickled beetroot, ditto
2 Tablespoons finely Chopped Parsley
METHOD:
Starting with the anchovies, arrange all the ingredients in ever increasing circles, leaving a hole in the middle for the yolk to be carefully dropped into once ready to serve.
Serve with Rye Bread or Toast.