Macaron making

For our anniversary Laura got me a voucher for a macaron making course at the On Cooking school.

The On cookery school is run by Loretta Liu, who trained in Raffles, Singapore, under the guidance of Pierre Gagnaire (Gagnaire is an iconoclastic chef at the forefront of the fusion cuisine movement)  His thinking has inspired her approach to the unique flavours in "facing tomorrow but respectful of yesterday".

Liu has a her own distinct range of macarons with flavours including jasmine tea and charcoal, and mango with yuzu cream cheese. These are stocked in Harvey Nichols and retail at £1.75 each, alternatively you could get them from their own website here.

Anyway back on topic, on Wednesday I went on the course and had a great time, the course was good fun, light hearted and informative. The macarons turned out really good, and have left me chewing at the bit to get experimenting and making some of my own flavours.

Here are the fruits of my labor, not bad for a first attempt!

  

11 Madison Park

After the first meeting with the chefs at Christopher's it was suggested we all start reading more and come up with some fresh and exciting new ideas, Chef recommend reading 11 Madison Parks cookbook.

It arrived today and has blown me away, the food combinations are amazing and the dishes full of colour, the photography is fantastic, Francesco Tonelli is a true artist with the camera.

I definitely need to book flights to New York to eat here, since this book was written it has jumped from a 1* to a 3* so I can't even imagine what they are producing now, I'm salivating at the thought of it

Just a few pics of a truly amazing city

Kolkovna

Marinated cheese, smoked lamb sausages and beer cooked sausage

Prague

I'm currently in Prague, turns out its a beautiful city full of little lanes full of small boutique shops, cafes and restaurants.

The square has an Xmas market at the moment with stalls cooking chestnuts and delicious hams over an open flame, being served with potato and pickled cabbage...lovely.

I'll be posting pics soon

St.Johns 1*, London

St.Johns is one of, if not the most famous restaurants in not just England but the world drawing plaudits from fellow chefs and celebrities alike, with TV chef and author Anthony Bourdain proclaiming it as his favourite restaurant of all time.

Whats the reason for this? Chef Fergus Henderson and partner Trevor Gulliver opened the restaurant in the old smoke house in late 1994 and pioneered the philosophy of 'nose to tail' eating, a philosophy that they have stuck with ever since and others have joined to varying degrees of success.

What is nose to tail? Fergus describes it as "meaning it would be disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast; there is a set of delights, textural and flavoursome, which lie beyond the fillet".

Ever since I started a career in cooking and heard of this place I was in love and placed it at the top of an ever growing list of places I wanted to eat at, so when some guys at work mentioned they also wanted to go we booked it for the next day!

So with high hopes and empty bellies off to Spitalfields we trekked for lunch. We arrived at the old smoke house which looks like it hasn't been touched since! we were greeted by the friendly bar staff and given a complimentary drink of negroni (with a st.John twist) It was far too bitter and really not pleasant to drink.



We were then taken through to the restaurant and seated at a table dressed with a paper tablecloth..as all the tables were, all part of the unique experience. As we were seated we were plied with more alcohol, this time rose champagne. As were were perusing the menu the waiter came and told us that they were out of two of the main courses...which as luck would have it were the only two that sounded interesting to me, so I opted for replacement dish of braised veal neck and shoulder, but more on that later.

I had already decided on my starter before I had even booked the table, the world famous roast bone marrow with a parsley salad and it didn't disappoint! the bone marrow was so rich and creamy and the parsley and caper salad beautifully cut through the richness, I couldn't have asked for a better start to the meal.













And then to the main, the replacement braised veal paired with aioli, I ordered a side of new potatoes to go with it as the main didn't sound that much on its own.

The dish arrived with a big healthy portion of braised meat with the carrots from the braise full of flavour and a huge dollop of home made aioli. It looked good, it smelt good, then I had a mouthful of the beautifully tender meat with a good smear of aioli...it was then that it hit me and i recalled a previous warning of avoid their aioli! Oh my god, it tasted like a raw garlic puree and it burnt the back of my throat and stung my nostrils!! such a basic condiment ruined, I can still taste it now!

This coupled with the barely cooked/bordering raw grouse served to my colleague and the fact that two main dishes had run out by 1.30 put a real dampener on the main course.

So to dessert, we were sent a pre-dessert of strawberry granita with a shot of vodka. It was a nice gesture but it was October so not entirely sure where the strawberries came from but the granita was definatley not made with fresh strawberries but a pre-packed strawberry puree! Not something I was expecting from this temple of all things cooking.

My main dessert was a large eccles cake served with a generous wedge of Lancashire cheese, the cheese was delicious but the cake was a touch on the dry side, the meal had really spiraled down hill.


















So a day that began with such high hopes and dreams, with visions of eating the best meal of my life to date, that started so well with a starter that both met and surpassed all expectations, for the meal to be tarnished by a distinct lack of choice in the mains and a dish that I could so easily have produced myself.

The restaurant was great and I loved the decor and the no frills, no fuss that went with it, but the food (starter aside) was disappointing which really was a shame.

The Square, London 2*

Last Monday myself and a colleague from work booked a table at Phil Howards 2star  The Square in Mayfair after the strong recommendation of the restaurant manager at work who booked us the table, having previously worked there.

When we arrived chef Phil Howard was outside having a photo shoot and was greeting the guests as they arrived.

We were seated and presented with the menu, there was the option of the reasonably priced set menu of the more pricey a la carte menu...we both opted to go for the a la carte!!

We placed our order and were looking forward to the meal, the sommelier came over and and talked to us about our food choices and what he thought would be the outstanding matches to go with theses dishes, I'm not much of a wine conisure so went with his choices...this proved to be a good decision.

Anyway to the food. As the restaurant we both work in has strong times to this we were treated extremely well, you could say even spoilt! We were both given a pre starter of langoustine tails with Parmesan gnocci and truffle, this is considered one of the best dishes in London along with two others also at the square! we were in for a treat!

 The only thing that can be said for this is outstanding, a truly amazing dish I could eat this all day!

Now it was time for our starters I went for the famous Dorset crab lasagna with a cappuccino foam of shellfish and champagne! The Lasagna was layers of beautiful meaty crab and soft pasta. the cappuccino was rich and full of flavour...delicious.

My colleague ordered the winning dish from Great British Menu which was a tasting of mackerel with oysters and caviar. the smoked mackerel was served under a glass dish the billowed smoke when removed...a real show, and the dish was pretty good too!

Crab Lasagna with shellfish and champagne foam

Tasting of Mackerel with oysters and caviar

We next received a fish course of cod with a cauliflower pure, cobnut and truffle pesto and grilled potato. This was a simple dish that was executed perfectly with the components of the dish left to talk for themselves. It was so light and perfect for the rare baking hot day we were enduring.

For our main course we had both ordered the saddle of Lamb with a herb crust, olive gnocci and tomatoes. The lamb was perfectly pink and tender, the gnocci beautifully plump...delicious.

We had a pre-dessert served in a shot glass of poached white peaches and yogurt sorbet. This was served with a complimentary glass of sweet wine.

For dessert we went for the Brillat-Savarin cheese cake with a red current glaze and raspberry ripple ice cream which is a traditional Square dessert always featuring on the menu with the fruit of the season.

Dinner was finished with beautiful home made nougat as petit fours, we got two helpings, much to my delight!!!

The Square is by far the best restaurant I've ever had the pleasure of eating in and well worth the hit to the pocket. I would highly recommend everyone to go, the atmosphere is relaxed, the service friendly and extremely knowledgeable and the food impeccable.

Visit the website and see for yourslef at http://www.squarerestaurant.com/Home.aspx

Christian Etienne, Avignon

Christian Etienne is situated next door to the Palais des Papes and was built in 1180! We were seated in the outside seating area under a glass rough with a view of the square. The glass covered dining area was decorated with hundreds of plants which at closer inspection turned out to be all the herbs and vegetables used on the menu with aubergines, chilli and bell peppers amongst them. 

 Owner Christian Etienne pays homage to his native Provence's abundance and offers an array of high-quality dishes that change with the seasons. The fixed-price menus change seasonally and  focus on different themes, including one devoted entirely to lobster. In summer, the "tomato" menu is also on offer, while in winter you might find the "truffle" menu, which features the region's black diamond, truffles. There is an extensive wine list, which contains many Côtes du Rhône wines.

Watermelon with Dried olive and cucumber gazpacho

Tomato and olive bread with a basil and anchovy butter

We opted for different menus as I eat more because I'm a bit of a fatty.

Laura had the lunch menu with Squid with a chilli jelly..her favourite course of the meal.

My starter was a delicious but quite random with a foie gras and absinthe terrine with a cold creamed courgette soup, courgette ribbons and a courgette chutney.

My second course was a fillet of John Dory with sage, artichoke, tomato confit, spring onion and pine nuts.

This was a delicious course the fish was perfectly cooked and the sauce so rich and creamy, I really enjoyed this, probably the course of the meal.

The mains arrived and Laura had duck breast with a courgette tart, there was no sauce which was strange and a mistake as it was dry and rather bland the tart was however nice.

My main course was braised bull with fennel and a red wine sauce, I also found my main a touch bland but the shaved fennel was nice and fresh.

My main was followed by the cheese board I had a selection of goats cheeses with honey which were nice and the recommended honey was a perfect match.

The Cheeseboard

Pre-Dessert was a delicious blueberry tart with blueberry sorbet, almond tuille with a blueberry rice pudding. This was surprisingly pretty amazing, I'm not normally a fan of either rice pudding or fruit tarts but this was gooood!!

My main dessert was a trio of chocolate with milk chocolate sorbet, dark chocolate mouse and white chocolate meringue. This was delicious, the mouse was so rich and light, it was delicious.

  

 

 

Laura was served a fruit salad with mango sorbet, the fruit salad was nice but nothing exceptional as you would expect from a 1* but the sorbet was delicious and the Swiss roll a nice touch.

Petite fours were however really nice with a pistachio and raspberry macaroon which was immense and mini Madeline.

In all I really enjoyed my meal at christian Etienne, and liked the fact that the man himself came out and talked to all the tables, our conversation was short due to his lack of English and our lack of French but still a nice gesture. 

The food was awesome and the ingredient and flavour combinations regional. Highly recommended.

Keisuke Matsushima, Nice

Recently went to France for the first time (other than Disney land!) and I have to say the food was incredible! Everything ranging from the supermarket to the markets and restaurants. Its clear that food remains an integral part in peoples lives with people buying their bread fresh everyday from the small local bakers and their fruit and veg in the supermarkets which are huge and full of things your local ASDA wouldn't even have heard of let alone stock!

When dining out its a real experience and something that's not rushed, you eat out to enjoy the atmosphere, the food, the wine and the company your with, its a pleasure!

Laura and I went to Paris, then to Nice and then to Avignon for two weeks.

In Nice we went to the 1* Keisuke Matsushima and had the special lunch menu which was unbelievable value at 33euros per person for 3 courses, a glass of wine and a coffee.

 Anyway to the food, when we arrived we were seated and immediately presented with our amuse bouches of a cherry tomato with a sugar shell which provided an interesting texture with the crunchy sweet outside to the slightly bitter soft centre of the tomato.

For starter I went for a crunchy vegetable salad with an olive tapenade dressing, It was nice but nothing really spectacular although the dressing was good, nice strong garlic taste.

Laura had a nice grilled sardine and cous cous which she loved.

 Due to the french menu we we a tad unsure on the option we opted for the one dish we understood (much to Lauras disgust) which was Rabbit with soft polenta. I can honestly say it was the best main course of the holiday, the rabbit was so moist and perfectly cooked and the polenta smooth and full of flavour...Laura felt dirty but she says this is her fave restaurant of the holiday! high praise from someone who used to keep guinea pigs!

The desert options were slightly disappointing with only a fruit salad being offered or a cheese board so with both of us being fans of cheese that's what we opted for.

The cheeses were really nice and and the breads were really fresh and on constant offer ( I think we ate 5 each :s) i Particularly liked the anchovy roll whilst Lau liked the foccacia twist.

Laura being the coffee expert said it was one of the best of the holiday...they like it too strong over there!!!

In all the meal was really nice, the staff friendly and the restaurant small and quiet. The Rabbit was a real high point and for the price a real bargain.

Viajante

Two weeks ago I went for lunch with a couple of guys from work to try the acclaimed Viajante (traveller) in Bethnal Green for what would be my first dining experience at a Michelin restaurant even though I have worked in a few!

The three of us had heard so much about the restaurant and the type of food we would encounter with viajante being compared to both the fat duck and El Bulli ( both winners of the worlds best restaurant) our expectations were high.

The head chef is Portuguese Nuno Mendes, however his cuisine, like the name of the restaurant is travelled, there is no real way to pigeonhole it under a certain bracket., He took two years off before opening Viajante to travel and get inspiration and this is evident in his cooking with dishes being influenced from his native Portugal but also Thailand, Japan and South America.

Anyway back to the restaurant, we opted for the 9 course tasting menu. I would like to write a detailed piece about all the dishes but the 9 course quickly became 16 after a flurry of amuse bouches so this would soon become a very very long blog which nobody would read so I'll just show a few pictures of some of the highs..and lows of the experience.

First up was the famous Thai explosion 2 which was a great opener.




This was a confit chicken sandwich with Thai flavours giving it a Thai green curry taste, the 'bread' of the sandwich was on one side a coconut tuille and on the other chicken skin crackling. This was truly delicious.




Next was an amaranth grain and sorrel dish, the sorrel pure was the best part of this amuse.

this was followed by a delicious squid and pear amuse but then came this...

it was a young baked potato with yeast and olive..


For me the worst dish of the lunch. The yeast puree was baffling it just tasted like raw bread really not pleasant.

However Nuno redeemed himself with the fantastic bread and butter


The bread on the right was unreal it was a bacon and raisin sough dough with hay smoked butter. incredible.

The next 6 courses showed Nuno's clear love of all things sea! with all of the containing seafood. The flavour combinations were interesting but worked, for example the scallop with liquorish was divine!
The crab and langoustine with egg yolk and rhubarb didn't however!

Left: Pea custard with morels and onions

Right: the not so delicious crab and egg yolk

 Next up were two great fish dishes of bream with dill chicory and fennel caramel and turbot with spring vegetables.


As I said seafood appears in many forms throughout the menu but one dish really divided the table, this was the cod tripe with onion and crispy potato. The slightly sticky texture of the tripe really put off one of the party but when coupled with the crisp potato the dish became a joy to eat.

The following dish was pigs tail with pecan mole and sweet cornbread served by Nuno himself.


This dish had great flavor combinations with the delicious sweetness of the corn bread and the bay leaf yoghurt being the perfect combination to the crackling and tender meat of the tail, I'm getting hungry just writing it now!



The last main was Dehesa Lamb with goats curd and black quinoa, the lamb and the curd were both beautiful but for me the quinoa spoiled it, just not my thing I guess.

The palate cleanser was a really refreshing dish in the form of pickled and raw cucumber with a reduced milk sorbet, I absolutely loved this the sweetness of the pickled cucumber and the crunch of the raw cucumber and the sorbet was lovely not too sweet balancing the sweetness and acidity of the rest of the dish.

Dessert was a Jerusalem artichoke and rosemary ice cream with candied artichokes and chocolate soil. An odd combination for a dessert and the candied artichokes were so hard and the rosemary too overpowering. This dish was an unnecessary experiment and not the best end to an otherwise lovely lunch.

I would recommend Viajante as we loved the meal although maybe next time 9 courses would be too many, I think I rolled all the way home.

Definatley worth a visit.

Im back

So its been a month since my last post, Ive missed blogging but work has been so hectic recently with all sorts of dramas meaning extra hours and extra stress, add to this the new deal on top table and it makes for a very busy month in the kitchen.

In my last few posts I mentioned seasonality alot and this has been a huge focus for the restaurant since it opened, this is part of the reason the restaurant has been so successful, getting great seasonal produce in and cooking it properly but simply to ensure these ingredients reach their potential.

At the moment fresh peas and wild garlic and wet garlic are featuring heavily on the menu, asparagus are also starting to make an appearance but it will be a few weeks before the best of british asparagus make a ful introduction to the menu.

Something I have learnt alot about recently though are mushrooms, something I have previously had no interest in due to my hatred of them! however being a chef means you have to try everything, and as Heston says it can tke as few as 21 tastes of something you don't like for it to become something you do! Any way getting back on topic wild mushrooms are in season for a short period of time every year, april/may see's the growth of morels which are extremely expensive (we paid £70 for 1kilo) and are seen as a delicacy, I've had the pleasure of trying a few over the last week and I must admit they are delicious! If these are out of your price range (Which they are for nearly everyone) then dried morels can be brought and soaked,  change the water regularly lifting the mushrooms out leaving the grit in the water.

If you can get your hands on either o these you can use theme to make an amazing mushroom risotto or make a creamy morel sauce to go with a grilled chicken breast.

New Season, New Menu

Its been an extremely busy week, especially because of mothers day on Sunday which made the weekend all the busier. We got through it with not too much stress and very few raised voices :)

Went in to work yesterday to be greeted with a whole host of new seasonal ingredients and a new menu to start at lunch...time to push on then I guess.

We have new season lamb sweetbreads with lambs tongue, wild garlic, jersey royals and baby onions.
North African spiced Mackerel and baked aubergine and a slightly out there dish which I love, Parsley soup with snail tortellini and sauteed snails in garlic butter and a red wine jus.

Think of the flavours!

The north African mackerel is a take on a traditional dish called Imam baylidi, which translates as the priest feinted, this is reportedly because he feinted when he ate it because it was so good, another variation was because of the price of the ingredients and the amount of oil in it...it is a spiced onion, tomato and aubergine dish traditionally braised in olive oil and served cold as a meze. Definitely worth a try, I got to have a nibble last night and it was delicious, it could easily be altered to contain meat, like minced beef or another mullet??

Anyway I'm going to have to take some more pics of the dishes we are producing at the moment and post them on here for your perusal.

Steamed Sea Bass with a Soy Ginger and Chilli Broth

So in keeping with my seasonality post earlier I thought I'd post this dish as we are approaching spring, and sea bass, probably my favourite fish is in season.

Ingredients:
1 Fillet of sea bass cut in half with skin on per person
2 Spring onions sliced diagonally
90ml Mirin Sweet Wine
125ml Rice Vinegar
500ml Soy Sauce
1250ml water
Sesame Oil
1/2 Garlic head peeled and thinly sliced on mandolin
4 Red Chilli's (more if you like it hotter) half de-seed and julienne width ways
2 Thumbs Ginger slice on mandolin and julienne.
1 Litre fish stock
1 Pak Choi per person
1 Cucumber
100ml White Wine Vinegar
100ml Water
100g Sugar
Chervil - Picked
Shiso Cress

To make the broth:
Sweat off the garlic, chilli's and ginger in a splash of sesame oil, be careful not to colour any of the ingredients.
Add the Mirin, Rice Vinegar, Soy Sauce and water and bring to the boil.
Remove from the heat. The broth won't need seasoning as the soy sauce is extremely salty already you may need to adjust the broth by adding more water if it is still too salty.

For the Cucumber:
Mix the 100ml water, sugar and white wine vinegar in a pan and heat until combined, leave to cool.
Peel the cucumber cut into 3 and half length ways and cut into battons. Remove the seeds they are just water and will take away the pickled effect. add the cucumber to the pickling liquor and leave to pickle.

To cook the Sea Bass:
Place the Sea bass and Pak Choi into a steamer and place the steamer over the boiling fish stock.
Leave to cook for 6-7mins until just cooked.

To serve place the Pak Choi into a bowl and carefully place the bass on top. pile 4 battons of cucumber on top of the bass and spoon over the hot soy dressing, sprinkle over some of the chopped spring onion and top off with shisho cress and the picked chervil.

The resulting flavours should be a delicately cooked fish, with a flavour full broth with a spice to it. The cucumber adds a crunchy texture and an acidity to cut through the saltiness of the broth.

Seasonality

This wasn't something I had ever thought about until about 2years ago when I started working in top kitchens and the dishes changed monthly, weekly and more recently even daily! I was fascinated at the different seasons and the glorious food that appeared during that time, I soon found myself trying different fruit and veg that I had previously not liked purely because it was a different time of year, take asparagus for example, I couldn't stand it, and knew it made you smell funny after!! now however having tried English asparagus at the time its meant to be eaten around April I cant get enough!

I urge everyone to find out what is in season and to try something new or even something old just at a different time and I can assure you, you may find a new favourite just like I did.

Here is a simple chart that I was given at college that could really get you on the path to finding something new.