Pumpkin risotto with feta cheese

Ever since I began in this business there are a few jobs that have eluded me to get 'just so'

Bavoirs, since college where my lecturer would give me the same bavoirs recipe time and time again, only to be startled as to what it had turned into by the end of the day, sometimes even he could not explain what I had managed to do to it.

Turning mushrooms, thankfully a pretty much dead art, sorry I cannot get to grips with the sharpest of turning knives, my mushrooms just seem to resemble over zealous road-kill after I have tried.

and then this, cubing or slicing Feta cheese evenly, I have had chef after chef show me different tricks with hot knives to no avail, I simply end up with a pile of usually 'OK' cheesy bits. that is until now

a while ago I wanted to put a risotto dish on with feta cheese, simple, seasonal and quite lovely. I wanted it to look like we tried so the cheesy bits had to be sorted, so I thought if it was possible to make a cheese gel, without losing the trademark flavour elements to the cheese, so off I went.

I took a blind guess at a 2:1 ration of water to cheese and set about melting it.

Sitting on the edge of the solid top, I watched eagerly, hoping it would melt smoothly and not curdle and go grainy

It quickly arrived to the boil, hanging it nearly off the solid, I held my breath as things were not looking particularly good.

but hey presto, it melted into a silky liquid. stage 1 complete

I then weighed the resulting liquid and mixed in .19% xanthan (to restrict syneresis) and 1.1% Agar for the gelling. these ratios are what I commonly use for my fluid gels so don't set very firm, as I didn't want it to be small solid cubes, it still had to have the same mouthfeel as a cheese when warm

I brought the cheese and agar mix to just over 90C (to fully hydrate the agar) and poured into my chosen container, placed into the blast chiller and waited eagerly.

soon it was set, and as is usual with agar gels, came out of the container without any hassle, I had to prompltly chop some up

Result, perfectly clean no crumbling shows up any knife skill errors but hey, perfect diced feta. woo hoo. stick some in my mouth as a well done treat and......................

Mild cheesy gel, bother, bother and other words unpublishable.

but look at how clean,

left is normal cheese, not bad but wouldnt like to handle it much more, and you can juggle with the gel, BUT it doesnt taste like feta.

Anyway, I got busy for the rest of the day and resigned my cheese gel to the fridge whilst I actually did some work. 2 days passed..................

That afternoon, I had a bit of time to kill and was sorting the fridge, I came accross the gel and still cross that I had a failed product I started to think along the lines of increasing the feta and lowering the water. as I did this I stuck a couple of cubes in my mouth as thought fodder, and low and behold, the gel had started to take on a dry acidic flavour synominous with the feta and thought what will another day do. I re-wrapped and left it, and on day 4, perfect feta cheese, but gelled. The Agar had firmed slightly, as it does, and the flavours were much more pronounced and most acceptable for the dish. All's well that ends well, we now use 1.5 water to 1 feta to intensify the flavour and so it can be prepared closer to the time, any lower a ration to this and the cheese wont melt properly and is unpleasantly grainy.

But happy me, pumpkin risotto, feta cheese

risotto

flavoured with roasted pumpkin puree

pumpkin gel sheet over

pumpkin fluid gel

microplaned feta gel

amaranth

Next post will be a short photo journal of 2009 and my last post for the year, we close on the 23rd for the christmas break and return on the 4th of Jan, lucky us. To all other cooks out there having to work the holidays, have a great time and hope that business doesn't always get in the way of festivities, just remember 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'

Seasons Greetings

back to fillets, well this week I call them medallions

A while ago in This post I promised to follow up with the technique for the salmon fillet, well eventually have got round to preparing and photographing it.

I won't bore with any further 'fillet' comments so without further ado here goes, am thinking of serving with a simple risotto milanaise and a herb/tomato oil.

1st trim up 2 sides of salmon, removing the skin and scraping the worst of the meat from the skin, ensure all scales are removed, thus

do the same with the other side, roll cling film accross the board from top to bottom, leaving it attached to the roll, arrange the sides to be dusted with activa transglutaminaise

slightly overlap and lay on the film with each 'head' side on the tail of the other to maintain an even size

pulling away from the roll, roll as tightly as possible, going around the salmon about 10 times, refrigerate for at least 6 hours to allow the enzyme to work.

set up clingfilm as before and cut your skins in half, dust liberally with activa and pat the loose dust off

remove the cling film from the roll, which should now be held together, place on the skin and roll carefully ensuring no gaps, again roll tightly many times

trim the ends cleanly and vacuum pack for at least 6 hours again to allow this bit of the enzyme to do it's thing

measure a scallop from top to bottom and cut that thickness of salmon fillet, you can just cut fillets from here, but this week we are going to do a salmon and scallop medallion. Using a cutter slightly smaller than the diameter of the scallop, cut a 'polo' hole out of the centre

leaving this, the cut out piece can either be served as an aside to the dish, or reserved for canapes

push the scallop into the centre and reserve in the fridge for service, sear quickly on both sides, finish for about 3 minutes under a salamander grill and finish with a lemon beurre noisette, when I have the dish up I will post a pic of the finished dish.

quite a lengthy process but very simple to prepare, just need to allow the times between when preparing as rolling the skin in the first roll is hellish to do, so I opted for this method and definitely gave me a cleaner product at the end of the day.

Oh what a night, Birthday factor the results

Well, the weekend is all done and dusted, and would love to post a long list of pictures and comments now, but have to report that the whole day didn't go exactly to plan and as for photos, well they never stood a chance.

So will sum the day up quickly as promised and then soon move on to something more visual.

Let's start with the not so successful, beginning with waking up, not a happy moment in my day, was sick as a dog, to the point of very nearly calling the whole event off, I spent the fist couple of hours wandering round (and occasionally running for the smallest room in the house) in a complete daze.

But eventually pulled myself together, finished off the last touches and got my mis organized, most things were fine except for a quick change of plan with the spherification.

The evening before I got distracted by my kids and left the spheres in the fridge setting, and of course forgetting until the next day, I was left staring at a completely set alginate baths of olive puree and strawberry juice, many things crossed my mind including cutting them out but in the end decided to drop the introductory olives and make a fresh strawberry jam for the semolina, off to the shop I went.

As for the rest of the menu, all went as planned, the whisky sour knocked everyone for 6 to start, the surreal moment of piping my meth cel potato underwater to set them was a new experience (and quite a warm painful one) but the dish pulled off well, and most importantly my sorbet flamed up a treat.

There were a suitable number of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' in all the right places and everyone had a great evening, I was glad to see the cheese crackers and petit fours go so I could finally sit down and join in but was satisfied to pull off this menu in my shoebox of a kitchen, and bless my eldest boy Cameron for digging me out with the washing up the next morning, thank you son.

Anyway, back to work and whilst we don't have a huge amount of time to play the next post should be a more visual affair with more playing and much less working.

A very busy birthday party

I approach this perticular time of year with a small sense of dread and excitement.

My darling wifes birthday is this weekend, and for the last couple of years for one reaosn and another has been a very low key affair, so this year I thought I would put in a bit more effort. well actually a couple of weeks ago she asked 'could I have some of those little tricks you do with food at my birthday dinner?'

'err birthday dinner?' I replied, I had thought of organising the babysitter, booking somewhere nice and letting someone else take care of the cooking. However she had been talking with one of her friends and had come up with the plan of us having dinner in our house, so as I said before time to put a little extra effort in and organised a menu of 5 courses with suitable 'tricks' for good measure, our other guests are blissfully unaware of restaurants such as Alinea and the Fat Duck so I could easily plagarise a few tricks without them being passe, sorry to Grant and Heston (oh and Ferran for my opening cocktail) for the odd blatant theft of recipe, but where needs must the devil drives.

Next day at work, I am thinking of her menu when I am checking the business for this week, and never have I had such a mental week at work, what am I going to do? loads of split shifts needed, when am I going to prep?!? but of course we always make time for the important things in our lives, the only true issue I have had all week is to stop adding courses.

here is the menu, in the next post I will follow up with the pictures of the dishes with comments from our guests (providing i don't forget with the stress of cooking on her birthday)

she also commented on the fact she never gets a cake for her birthday, so with the genius of G's baking skills at hand, can finally put an end to that issue too, (she is normally the one who makes the cakes in the family, so she does get short changed when it's her day)

anyway the menu

Opening cocktail

Whisky sour

(blatant robbery from el Bulli, saw him prepare it a few year ago at a demo in London)

Butternut squash risotto & Heart of palm

‘Cannelloni’

(risotto with squash fluid gel filling a palm heart)

Seafood Platter

Lemon & saffron pudding, olive oil ‘rocks’

(mix of prawns, mussels, calamari and a rocket salad, lemon fluid gel and olive oil compressed in vacuum with tapioca multidextrin)

Truffle & cipoline onion tartlet

Savoury frangipane

(puff paste, classic frangipane (using multidextrin instead of sugar) great finger food to save on the washing up)

Rack of Lamb cooked at low temperature

Melting potato, ratatouille, mint and redcurrant

(58 degrees for 2 hours, then fat rendered and browned, meth cel potato, mint espuma and redcurrants enveloped in a redcurrant gel sheet)

Flaming sorbet

Poached apple ‘on the bone’

(1st part ripped off from the big fat duck cookbook, 2nd part spawned from a post on Ideas in Food)

Love in the mist

Semolina, strawberry spheres (or caviar) and iced foam

(born from Sally's comment on her favourite dessert of all time (as usual a childhood memory as it often is) classic semolina, strawberry reverse spherification, strawberry juice and versa whip frozen)

Cheese cracker

Chutney transparency

(first saw this cracker on the madrid lab blog and thought it one of the most creative frugal ideas I had come accross in some time, as for the chutney, this is an evolution of G's agar filtered juice from an earlier post)

Bounty bars & balls

Nearly texture-free

(sitting watching the hells kitchen final the other day, munching through a box of Celebrations, well what can I say I need simple comfort sugar every now and then (usually now))

(we were discussing a scene in Zombieland where Woody Harrelson finds a hostess truck in his search for a twinky bar, only to find it full of snowballs, he said it was not the flavour that was a problem, just the texture. Sally completely related to this but loves the flavour of coconut, so I had no choice really for petit fours, but to try and re-create a texture-less bounty bar so she can savour the coconut without spitting out the dry dessicated at the end, did I succeed? I say nearly, the chocolate I have used to coast is dark so a little overpowering but the filling is exact, and with only 2 ingredients too! I have done some bars which are agar set, and filled some truffle shells with a coconut fluid gel.)

Anyway I guess only time will tell if I got it right, see you after the weekend!

Slacking off, we don't mean to honest

Only just started the blog, and it looks like we dried up.

not really, just not enough hours in the day to play at the moment, what between business picking up ( a very good thing) family wintry things a plenty keeping me busy, hallowe'en, guy fawkes night tonight and this weekend (with a barbeque for about 500, ouch) and the pressures of making sure we get the correct toys purchased for christmas (not to mention the money involved), not leaving much time to sleep, let alone blog.

I can only apologise for now but will drop in from time to time and get back into some serious funtime after the holidays.

Alex.

Lamb stock - sous vide the real way forward

"why are stocks simmered for so long?"

"WHAT!"

"err, why are stocks made over days constantly topped up with fresh water?"

"Because they work that way, get on with your mis....!!"

sure that all cooks have has sous that had the stock answer (usually shouted) of "because it does", often accompanied by a swift thwack accross the back of the head, perhaps this is why I grew up in kitchens where questions were seldom asked, for myself I was quicker at ducking than most so asked anyway, also if something didn't make sense then I had to get an answer, even if it was dug up myself.

but one question still has not been answered.

so have stuck to these rules for the last 20 years as I have not known better.

recently the trend has led towards pressure cooking stock, this can lead to outstanding flavour, but also to a heavy gelatinous mass and (once pressure is achieved) loses volume anyway, which could lead to 'topping up' the main issue I have in the whole process. why add fresh water when you are trying to impart as much flavour as possible into the liquid.

which led me to this task:

whilst preparing a petit gigot for this weeks menu, I ended up with an inordinate amount of trim due to the nature of the mis en place, so with the idea at hand, it seemed as good a time as any to try out the thought.

so step 1; traditionally roast the bones in the usual way, rendering as much fat as possible for use later.

here is the fat infusing with orange and rosemary, this will later be used to fry the gigot in for service

Step 2: is to fill large Vac-pac bags with, bones, water, red wine, rosemary, thyme, mirepoix, seal at full pressure and double bag

Step 3: set my Rational oven to 66C and put deep waterbaths in the oven, add the bags and cling film the waterbath to minimise evaporation.

Step 4: go home and have a nice weekend with the family, leaving the stock (and some duck legs for good measure) ticking over for the weekend.

Step 5: 60 hours later, remove the baths from the oven, drain the duck, god what a texture, more on this another day. but eagerly drain the stock bag in anticipation of the contents, first thing to note was the meat was squidging off the bones incredibly but the mirepoix was still firm, so my first thought was, 'bugger no veg flavour' thankfully this was a short lived concern, as the flavour was greatly pronounced.

step 6: chill the stock to remove the last of the residual fat, and found the stock beautifully gelled and clear as a bell (this is where impatience got the better of me and should have agar filtered at this point, but one step at a time). the flavour was like none I had tastede in such a simple stock, deep and meaty but with a fresh sweetness of vegetables and herbs and none of the usual stewy notes of the usual over cooked veg in stock.

step 7: reduction, had to fulfill this with respect. most of our jus at this point gets either wine, or port a little fresh veg perhaps but all get as much gas as I can get underneath it, quick reduction and pass and store, next job.

but not this one. kept the temperature between 75 & 80 (mostly) but never boiling and brought down slowly, slowly heightening flavours and not just evaporating water, trying to maintain the balance of flavour I had in the original stock, also to this stock I added nothing, just time. the end flavour was a depth I have not known in a jus of such basic ingredients, no fancy wines or ports, just a basic stock.

step 8: pass, chill, store. Ready to be served with the Gigot which I will post briefly next time.

Agar clarified Apple juice, first dessert.

Time to put the clarified Apple juice into its first use…

Simple but flavoursome, completely clear and colourless Jelly.

I had an idea to play with the classic combination of Apple and Blackberry Pie and Custard and pulling all the components apart and ‘playing’ with all the pieces of the puzzle…..

Agar clarified Apple juice Jelly

Poached Apple balls, warm

Granny Smith infused Granny Smith ball

Bramley Apple puree

Pan roasted Blackberries

Blackberry reverse spherification, ‘ravioli’

Walnut crumble cubes and crumbs

Vanilla Custard Cremeaux

Apple Pie Ice-Cream

Apple tuille

I’m quite happy with how the puzzle came together, different textures, temperatures, tastes and techniques.

Maybe now after my head has cleared from my bike crash I might see it differently on Monday???
But several scraped clean plates on Friday make me think that it’s not just me…

Apple Agar Filtration.

I heard through Chinese whispers about this last year from a Pastry Chef I used to work with, his friend was telling him about a Chocolate Consommé he was doing at The Ledbury in Notting Hill but the technique wasn’t revealed. We thought about it momentary and then kind of just forgot about. But a few months ago it seemed to be popping up everywhere on the internet, with Ideas In Food using compression on there gels for clarification. Within less than a day I believe a new and incredibly simpler method from Cooking Issues stormed onto the scene.

Again I stored it away in the back of my Cerebral Cortex with all stuff I’ll get round to doing? Till the other day I was thinking about an idea with caramelising a hot Apple jelly to go with some Apple Pie Ice-Cream. I ran the idea past Alex and we discussed the concept a bit. I originally wanted to keep the beautiful green colour of whole Granny Smith Apples in the hot caramelised Jelly. I can’t remember how, but the Agar clarification method popped into my mind. I went back to the web site and checked out the ratio and set to work.

At first after cooking the agar to fully hydrate it and then adding the cold green apple juice to it, I thought that I had done something wrong. Not enough agar? I expected it to show signs of stating it set at least, it was cold enough. I come back to it a minute later and gave it a quick stir and at that moment right before my eyes it instantly started to turn into curds with a clear liquid swimming around them.

I passed it through a J-Cloth and left it to hang.

The perfectly translucent colourless liquid collected in the jug was quite astonishing to look upon. I eagerly picked up my spoon and dipped it in.

I then immediately proceeded to pour myself a shot glass of it and knocked it back.

Yeah, it was good. Put a big smile on my face.

Before and after

Ratio 0.2% of liquid volume

I honestly didn’t expect the results I got, especially for the first test. I imagined less flavour with some of the ‘body’ of the apple being left behind.

With this base of Apple water I can instantly think of numerous uses to fool, surprise and arouse people’s taste buds.

I’m thinking for my dessert a soft gelatine based jelly would be best to let the fresh flavour of Granny Smith melt in your mouth and linger just that little bit longer….

First Dinner Of Married Life...... At Arzak!!!

….Finally my first post, (Your not alone any more Alex, awesome work so far! )

With all the pre-Wedding/Honeymoon last minute scramble to put all the pieces of the puzzle together behind me and settling back into day-to- day life after the celebration of our union, I was very surprised or more to the point…forgot. That I still had the tidying up of all the loose ends of everything else I had put on the side during the last month or so. And with the light at the end of the tunnel getting within in sight, it’s as good a time as any to pick up my end of the deal…..

With a million things I could ramble on about stacked up behind me piling up I’m gonna put to one side for the moment and keep them for a rainy day- Don’t worry we’re in London.

I'll start with a few tales of the culinary kinda from our Wedding and onwards.

With the celebration of our marriage being the happiest day of our life, it was also one of the most enjoyable meals of my life. Sure the emotions were high, my blood stream flowing with happy chemicals and lots of love everywhere.

But the food…. Incredible. Maybe it’s the Spanish air? They seem to put an exciting edge on their ingredients that takes it to the next level.

The first thing that caught my eye was the canapés, little cubed sandwiches which had the loveliest piquillo pepper on top as the garnish and the lightest whipped butter as the filling. The four different flavours all had the ‘filling’ on top as the garnish. It was the first time I had seen that, so simple but perfectly cut, executed and tasty. Other highlights were olive reverse spherification, a la ‘El Bulli’ and Foie Gras Chocolate Lollipops.

In total 16 hot and 16 cold little wonders, forgive me if I don’t go detail for all of them.


Another Unforgettable Spanish canapé I’ll never forget was a liquid Tortilla in a shot glass - Chorizo, potatoes, onion and egg yolk slow cooked at 64c. All this gorgeous warm goo flooding your mouth with the thick velvet egg yolk giving way to the sweetness of the onion, smokiness and spice of the chorizo binding with the fried potatoes.
They quickly disappeared with people going back for seconds.

Before I knew it was dinner time,

Crispy Seafood Terrine, Vegetable tagliatelle, cloud of American sauce

Gin Fizz sorbet

Young Loin of Lamb 65c, Polenta Mushroom Mousse, Soy sprouts

Marinated Char-grilled tropical fruits with Spices Ice-Cream and Almond tiles

Mini Pastries and Chocolates

And…

CAKE – The beautifully decorated 3 level Wedding Cake which my incredible wife created especially for me with the flavours that I like very MUCH.
Super Moist Chocolate Sponge which is made from an mayonnaise base, passion fruit mousse, blood orange inserts all wrapped in Chocolate and topped with Large Coconut Tapioca Pearls.

Quite an involved menu for plating 47 at once and not forgetting all the work that went in to the Canapés and Petit Fours.
Due to everyone wanting to talk and thank the bride and groom, I didn’t even get a chance or time to try the Petit Fours. Doh! And being a pastry Chef, that’s quite a crime.
I do remember seeing 7 or 8 different little sweet works of art…..shame

Crime No. 2
With all the cameras taking photos over dinner, NO one actually took any photos of the food. Well apart from the occasional caught out guest taking a mouthful in the background.

Dancing, drinking and more dancing meant the night went very quickly before it was all over……..



Day 2.
Off to San Sebastian at the complete opposite end of the country to Malaga for a surprise (for my wife) culinary experience at Arzak.

It’s quite an understated place from the outside, I actually drove past it before realising what street number I was at. Better for the surprise, parked up and walked back up the hill. As the name above Arzak became visible my wife started to jump up and down with joy.

Extra brownie points!

We entered into the small bar/foyer area and were greeted by the friendly staff. Off to our left was Elena Arzak talking and signing photos with an old American man who was asking after her father, who was actually in New York for the International Chefs Congress. The American gentleman later went on to sleep at the table for at least a hour or so. When we left he was still going....

We were then escorted in to the dinning room, first through a rapidly opening automatic sliding door. Cool. The intimate room was waiting for us, being the first table to be seated was quite special as we had the whole downstairs dining room for 10minutes to ourselves, apart from the waiting staff blending into the surroundings preparing for the coming palette rollercoaster.

The whole experience went incredibly fast for the 4hrs we were dining.

Curiosity and intrigue with every plate, Looking and tasting each others dishes as most of the 16 courses were different for both of us.

It was really nice to have Elena Arzak come out and check and chat with us 3 times during the meal. She came across as really down to earth and very friendly. With my wife being Spanish, she managed to extract more info from Elena on the dishes; sadly my 12 word Spanish vocabulary wasn’t so handy and had to wait for the in-depth translation after she left the table.

Elena also asked politely that the photos be kept for personal use and not publish them, nearly broke my heart but agreed…..which brings up a whole lot of other issues on why?

(didn’t ask at the time, my mother did raise me with some manners you know! So didn’t want to be rude….after 10yrs in a kitchen I still have a few left).

Is it…..Intellectual property, keeping secrets, not spoiling the surprise for other future diners, spoiling the food by taking 20 photos before eating it and losing the instant magic of the dish by deconstructing it looking for the best angle, other people’s crappy photos of the dishes being put out on the net and of course the other side ‘I just paid 4-500euros for the meal’…….the list goes on.

But with respect for one of the best chefs in the world, I can see where they’re coming from, the surprise and anticipation for the next dish, not knowing what’s coming next gave me ants in my pants, my body tingled with excitement with each dish. Looking back, losing that element of the unknown would’ve cut down the whole experience of tasting and looking upon the dishes for the first time.

Unlike 2yrs ago I was at Per Se in New York and ½ of the meal was like going through the French Laundry book page by page. Sure everything was amazing, beautifully cooked, immaculate service but I knew what was coming and even tried half of it before back in the kitchen at work……..

So I’m with Elena on this one.

Arzak

At the end of the experience Elena then ask us to check out the kitchen and the pastry section. Service was nearly over with just the Pastry section left and half of the section cleaned down. She then went to demo one of the desserts we just ate Sopa y Chocolate “entre vinedos”

A light Strawberry soup, fresh basil ice-cream and liquid chocolate balls. I won’t go into much description to spoil it for anyone going.

What she went on to demo was very interesting.

A Methyl cellulose membrane around a solid looking chocolate ganache, heated so completely liquid when served.

One of the Pastry team then put the whole dish together right in front of us. It was brilliant to watch her work, you could tell she’d done that about a thousand times. The fact is that was her dish for the whole service and that’s all she did, practice makes perfect…..

So once back at work I was quite keen to give it a go, with no quantities or ratios give out from the Arzak ‘behind the scenes’ experience. Time to jump in the deep end.

A small discussion with Alex later I hydrated the Methyl cellulose, couldn’t wait for it to fully hydrate so did a quick premature test…..worked but should’ve waited.

The next day.

Decided to start with a frozen chocolate ganache, wasn’t working too well. I gave my wife a call to see if any finer details were passed on in Spanish back in the Arzak kitchen. Sure enough, the chocolate should only be fridge temperature and that it also contained an amount? Of cocoa butter with the chocolate. Hmmmmm…..

Not wanting to wait another day, I decided to try it out with a hand rolled Dark Milk chocolate Cherry truffle I had on plus for Petit Fours.

Dipped the Truffle with a needle completely into the Methyl cellulose base. Tapped off excess and submerged into lightly sweetened 80c water. Gelled up immediately. Left in for 1minute for the heat to liquefy the centre and carefully removed, dried off and then plated the second time round as membrane ripped on me. I think The ratio of the base needs to be tweaked a lot bit more before it’s at Arzak level.

I was more interested in testing the results and incorporating it into one of my own creations rather than complete plagiarism. Still, I would like to tick that off my list for future reference.

Second time, plated with a Strawberry Fluid Gel and micro mint.

It was just what was in the fridge at the time but it was nice / hot cold sensations which I quickly made disappear.

Back to the drawing board, well half way anyway….

Restaurant show 2009, brochures and book signing with Ferran Adria

Such a long time since I went to a catering trade show

never really liked going to them

wonder why?

usually is a hot bed of new inspiration, seeing wonderful new ingredients

from solid innovative suppliers

Cresses from Koppert, new items are eye opening, can't wait to work with them

also a chance to see competition work from the future of our industry

junior chef class, risotto starter. duck main (pictured), seemed to be free dessert based around pear

on the whole some great dishes with minor details in each, judging would have been tough.

listening to the most innovative chef of our time, discuss a whole lot about timelines and on what was novelty and often feared then is now normality and commercial available

Ferran with vanilla oil

can't say I was happy that the Canterbury Goods shed chef was distracting Ferran for my pic

not sure what G said

 but our books are now signed, one more down on the Bucket list

but as I left I remembered why I dont usually like trade shows, and that is the vast pile of brochures for items that I will probably never use, too many sales people crammed into a small area with no way out without being rude, so with the brochure I will go.

looking forward to wading through the stuff I actually was interested in, being inspired with new knowledge and new email addresses so questions can be asked to the right people.

rest of the team get to go over the next couple of days, can't wait to see what they see from their perspective

as for me, Hotelympia next year, whether to compete or not??

Strawberry fields forever

Following on from the last post

concluding the in and out of season strawberry dessert

thus

olive paint

pistachio sable

frozen pistachio powder

rest is strawberry in the following guises

fluid gel

agar jelly

mara des bois sorbet

champagne poached

meringue

macerated (salt, balsamic, black pepper, sugar)

croquant

finished off with small leaves of green and red basil and micro mint

now off to play with chocolate, rice paper, methyl cellulose and a laminator

Nature, surprise and seasons

wondering whether to roast it or crack it

smoked white aubergine caviar methinks

Now for this weeks menu, want to do something with strawberries, after all it is October and I try and stick to the seasons at all times.

Since when have there been strawberries in season in October? by now we are usually used to the bright coloured tasteless, bitter Dutch or Spanish glasshouse berries, and whilst I should I suppose be thinking of the orchard fruits, I stepped out into my garden yesterday and totally changed my mind.

Looks like I am in season after all.

Smoked salmon, don't mess with tradition

Since starting this blog, I have given much mention to gels, modern technique, protein glueing chemicals and basically heaps of modernism.

This not to say that our style is about to change, I think we are reaching an understanding where we can look at the old surviving classics and reinvent through texture or temperature, it is just that you musn't mess about with the absolutes in cookery, certain combination or techniques that have been with us so long that they deserve to be replicated in their entirety, as they were created back then. After all they still remain with us so many years later so who are we to mess with tradition,

Well all of us really, arent we all guilty of using electricity to cook with, are we not grateful for items taken for granted dare I say cling film (not known before 1953), but many chefs are challenging 'tradition' most have taken a bit of a bash for their original thought, see this from Grant Achatz where at the ICC has to defend the way in which he decides to cook for and serve his guests, the complaints from the Traditionalists come across childish, I respect them enough to happily accept without question that for them 3 traditional courses are enough, but why do some people lack the respect for others when they wish to do things their way.

click here to see which side Foodplayers vote is on. Touche Linda!

Even the new Dan Brown book labours the point that all new major discoveries are nearly always met with staunch opposition.

As for us, trying to define a term of culinary traditional progressive, we try to ensure that we are still cooking classically (I have commis I am responsible for) but we question each basic and explore as many techniques and textures as we can before deciding what incarnation of any given item goes on to each given dish, often you will order a sole dish with a champagne sauce, and you will get a white wine based, acidulated heavy cream sauce, if you're lucky you will have a little butter monted in at the last minute and a little chopped herb, (by the way why do so many soft herbs taste of different levels of anise, seems we only have parsley, chive and (anise in many guises), anyway not digressing, honest. so do we do this.? I say YES, but also lets do a champagne fluid gel, and perhaps finish the plate with a croquant of champagne and lemon, this is not poncing, it is not breaking with tradition, it is taking the same dish on a different journey enhancing the experience all the way.

Now make this dish into a 2 bite affair, As Linda did, and Grant ONLY does, when you are paying £100+ for a meal, you expect to consume a certain number of (fork/spoonfuls) to ensure you do not leave hungry, and you expect to be entertained, so I say lets keep flavour profiles high impact, and increase the number of courses to ensure our guests are entertained and well fed by the time they are presented with the bill and the espresso.

anyway, when I started typing I was trying to think of a way to introduce the next dish, lost it a bit didnt I?

wanted to show you:

smoked salmon, traditional flavours

Salmon, red onion, brown bread, horseradish, caper, black pepper