Noma, book launch and a few canapes

About 2 weeks ago, quietly strolled into work after a couple of very nice, restful days off, put the coffee on and started to get my head in the game.

Shortly after, my GM walked in with a cheeky grin on his face, knowing this usually meant an oddball request from my Danish owner asked ‘what’s up?’, the answer I got I was not ready for.

He asked if I knew of the upcoming Rene Redzepi book launch at Freemasons hall, which I did, (I had decided not to go along due to usual work/family commitments, and due to the fact of me already owning his book, much cheaper on Amazon than ticket price, truth be told), he then asked if I would like to cater for it….

‘What???!!!”, there must be a good 600 tickets sold I thought, “are you mental”, I was told closer on 800, feeling a little faint now, thought a big fat ‘NO’, knowing the audience would be the cream of the crop of foodies/chefs in the UK, not that it bothers me cooking for any of these guys, but outside catering for that number, those people, if cocked up could keep my cooking well and truly ‘under the radar’ for the rest of my career.

“calm down, its only for 80-100 of them, guests invited by Visit Denmark”, a slight calm came over me, but still quite a daunting prospect as Rene was one of the invited guests. My mind was still saying ‘don’t do it’.

The brief was to canapé up, traditional Danish dishes, and as my club is home to the Danish Club of London, began to think about the flavours and combinations we could offer them, after all for a Welsh boy in London doing a VIP canapé party for the Danish ambassador, Rene and guests, still very daunting. I thought I would consult my Danish chef and see what her thoughts were, and what ideas we could garner between us.

When she arrived to work a short while later, I explained what had been asked and her quiet, calm answer was ‘I know.’ It was only then that I found out her husband was the director for Visit Denmark, and that this had been a home discussion between them for some time, bugger everyone is conspiring against me!!!

So I drew up the first menu draft:

Maple smoked quails eggs, sel rose

Traditional Gravadlax on rye bread

Pressed oxtail and potato terrine, style bikesmad (a traditional Danish fry-up or hash)

Plaice and remoulade, cubism with golden breadcrumbs

Roulade of ham, flavours of salad Russe

Boiled egg, mayonnaise and caviar

Kransekage – biscuit of almond paste

Chocolate dipped marshmallows

And off it went, I was told I still had to wait a couple of days for the go-ahead for the menu, so creatively was in limbo not knowing whether we would get the gig or not, foolishly I announced the opportunity on twitter to raptures of ‘good on ya chef’ and ‘excellent chef, great opportunity’ before it was even confirmed, and as it wasn’t confirmed felt I shouldn’t just order food in to test my ideas until the ok was given, not to mention I have a kitchen to run too, not sure if the guys would be so understanding of me doing canapé R & D for an event we may not do. Thankfully I only had to wait till that evening for the email saying they would love me to do it, so order sheet in hand and first squiggles on paper, set to develop my ideas that were only words on paper at this point.

Over the next few days I wrangled with a few ideas, the menu gradually falling apart with every test, amazing how nothing ever pans out on the plate as it does in your head, any way further down the line and a few more squiggles added to the list, I had dishes I was happy with and set to the process of logistics, we had a visit to the hall the week prior and started to flap as it is a gorgeous venue but a complete barn. We allocated our areas (kitchen & bar) and started to plan. I must point out at this juncture, that the small kitchen at the hall I have over to the bar (completely inadequate in size for neither man nor beast), and took the hundred foot hall to myself.

Prep continued and gradually I started to finalize each evolution of each canape.

On the day, the alarm went off at some horrifically early time; I stumbled out onto the train and wended my way in, nerves starting to increase.

First job on the day was to finish the Parma ham roulade, upon testing the carrot hadn’t come through enough, so decided to cut slightly thicker to add flavour and a little much needed crunch to the canapé, big mistake, upon trying to roll the previous days preparation, my first roll happily slid off the cling film and all over the bench and floor, please note I did NOT take a picture at this point. Legging it through the kitchen my staff being knocked in my wake, proceeded to strip all of the carrot off the prepared pea mousse and start again(unplannedjob,panicsetting in). Cracked this out quickly applied carrot and tried again, success!

I wish I had more tales of rescued cock-ups (now the day is over) but to be honest, whilst pushed the rest of the prep proceeded without a hitch, my sous chef Ricardo finished the last of the detailed garnish work, A friend Ben turned up mid morning and dove in with prep and slowly everything came together as planned. We loaded the car and moved to the site.

Upon arrival, we got into the room to find Phaidon staff, Rene and his team working through some details, this finished as we were off-loading and everyone dispersed. Rene had a pep-talk with his guys, and feeling a touch star-struck barely managed a nod as we discovered we had no tables to work on, on top of that the Noma guys also had nowhere to work and set their gear up on some chairs, hmmmm organisation… NOT. Took a wee while, but G managed to locate and shortly started wandering in with trestle tables we could work from.



So we set to work, 2 hours to go and 1000 canapés to plate on teeny royal Copenhagen china. Trying to take as many pics as possible as we went. Whilst finishing the garnish on the bikesmad I see a figure in the corner of my eye and it’s the man himself come over to introduce himself and his team, and happily and thankfully he is one of the most down to earth guys I have ever had the pleasure to meet, he took a little time for each of us and explained What he had been up to whilst in the UK, the guys with him were equally open and brought wondrous food at intervals such as pickled rose petals, amazing.

We plodded through the preparation and service began, thankfully all the canapés were well received and as Rene was busy catching up with life on his laptop, delivered him a few bites throughout. We spoke a little about doing a small Stage which he very quickly agreed and am very much looking forward to spending a week in his kitchen in January, which I guess should bring a many parted post in itself.

(Pictures:)

Classic gravadlax, mustard, lemon, fennel

soft boiled quails egg, caviar mayo, sel rose, shallot and rock chive

Smoked sea rout, jerusalem artichoke, apple and horseradish bubble, lemon balm
I will not write about the night itself, as this has been covered ad nauseum by far better wordsmiths than myself. One such article is HERE one perk of doing the party for Visit Denmark was the seats me and my team were allocated were front row next to the stage, the presentation itself was quite incredible Noma’s philosophy delivered clearly and concisely with insights into the thought process that drives the ‘best restaurant in the world’

Thank you for your time in reading this, I guess I probably wont be posting again this year as business (and family) will keep me far to busy, but I thank those of you who take the time to follow and read my blog, and all I will leave you with is that I have plans for the new year, including finally revealing the method and technique for the ‘anything fondant’

Take care, enjoy life, and eat well. And if I don’t get the chance to say again this year, a very merry Christmas to you all.

Alex.

Noma, a time and place in nordic cuisine

I know I have taken my sweet time with posting anything....

And now that I am, it is simply to inform you that a post is on its way

and not a usual post about new ideas and thoughts, but a reflection on a panicky couple of weeks and a great day and evening at the UK launch of

I was invited to do a canape event for Visit Denmark, which after quite a few trials and tribulations, turned into a great day. now its done and dusted can reflect on hits and near misses, the event went as I'd hoped with happy guests, time with the man himself and a great demo to finish the day off.

am in the process of cleaning and preparing the pictures taken throughout the preparation and service of the event, and am going to keep this hanging a day or two more.

Be back soon !!!!!!!

Holidays, apologies, the written word. Oh and a dish with lamb and carrots

Summer has been and gone, a much needed holiday in Cornwall was very welcome from the whole family and now we are back, re-charged and rearing to go.

Kind of...... sandy beaches........great surf.........

Sorry, sorry & thrice sorry. Body has returned, but the brain is taking a little longer.

Apologies for lack of posts, something which we will be addressing as our season warms up, lots of new ideas, thoughts and projects happening over the next few months so should become a more interesting read.

Now for the central piece of this posts heading, I have had a number of comments about the blog through the blog and also on Twitter regarding the food, and none negative, I thank you. however reading between the lines of a few comments probably the best I have had for the written word is 'interesting' and here I feel the need to explain a little about myself.

I left school not the most academic pupil, social life had taken a complete hold on me and the only thing that mattered was Friday and Saturday nights, consequently my grading was unclassified in English language, a well deserved mark for my efforts (or lack thereof). this I am sure is reflected in what I do on here. I have very little writing experience, but am quite well read and have a vague eloquence with the language of my birth. However I am open to constructive suggestion for improvements, after all I am writing this from my experiences and it is for you the reader, If I am not fulfilling the culinary aspect then you will depart, so help me fulfil the written role, should I not be clear on something, or digress too far then tell me, so as I can improve, so will your experience here, and perhaps you will all spend a little more time here. Thank you.

Finally and the reason you clicked your way here in the first place is a dish I conceived a few weeks ago, I wanted to do a simple lamb and carrot dish for a while, but had no clue where I wanted to go with it. The first port of call is usually to look at the main ingredient and see how many different ways it can be cooked and presented, then I had a though to do this with the main garnish.

so whilst the lamb, is a lovely sample of the animal from (ironically(ish)) Cornwall

the carrots are broken down into:

Carrot puffs

Carrot puree

Clear carrot jelly

Warm 'old school' carrot terrine

And a carrot 'anything' fondant

The puffs are pure juice, whipped with methyl cellulose and finished in a dehydrator, similar to a profiterole and could be filled if required

The puree is a traditional one, cooked in clarified butter, as the carotene does not appear to be soluble in the fat so the puree is a purer flavour, with a more vibrant colour.

The carrot jelly is a seasoned juice, agar filtered and set.

For the terrine, I cooked a selection of naturally coloured carrots (not the modified Dutch thingies we all know as carrot), these I set with standard carrot juice with a little agar-agar and gelatin

Finally the anything fondant, a recipe I am still not quite ready to give away.

The dish ate beautifully and with the small addition of a little (totally out of season) asparagus for a break in colour and a simple lamb jus, finished the plate off well I feel, and it seems my guests agreed as it sold very well for it's short 2 week lifespan on our menu.

Ah well that post turned out to be much, much longer than I anticipated, sorry about that. I will stop apologising now and get on with working on the new dishes. See you soon

A spoon-full of sugar (or chocolate in this case) helps the medicine go down.

It all started out with the simple idea of making a simple refreshing fruit cocktail and serving it in a sphere to capture the explosion waiting to happen when it bursts in your mouth.
I decided on the cocktail 'strawberry kiss', four simple ingredients - strawberries, cream, amaretto and rum.
Sounds refreshing, appetizing and to me like something everyone would like.
I went about mixing it up, reverse spherification style, garnishing with a  few chopped strawberries, white chocolate powder and a single leaf of micro basil.

Everything ended up how i imagine, nice burst of flavour, followed a fresh hit of basil and fresh strawberries.

I set up the tasting spoons for the canape party and left for the day......

The next day,
Half of them are still in the fridge???  didn't make sense. Turns out after speaking with the waiting staff the guests were scared of them. Ok maybe they were a bit older and not yet made it into the 21st century.....

but annoyingly it happened again, twice. hmmm. No one wants to put balls in there mouth it seems.
Not wanting to give up on this cos I was happy with them, I decided to be a little devious and camouflage them....

Next time I gave the sphere's an extra minute in the aglin bath to give them a little bit more strength, for all the extra handling they were about to get.
Once 'cooked', I drained them, dried them carefully and when rolled them in a mixture of finely grated dark chocolate and cocoa, then carefully picked them up again and dusted off the excess and then lastly into the tasting spoons ready to go.
 Rather delicate work, It was a good thing a had quite a few spares.



Well, the camouflage worked and the guests licked the spoons clean. Finally.


Not one to make my life easier, I'm gonna stick to the triple handling chocolate rolling method. It gives the canape another dimension, texture and in the end and more importantly... happy customers.


This week I've got a chefs choice canape party where I'm going to do a liquid chocolate bon bon,  I'm just changing the center to a dark and milk chocolate liquor and rolling in the chocolate powder mix. In all 4 different types of chocolate.

Just wondering where I can take this to next......

National chef of the year 2010

Have given this a go a few times now, but never with any true confidence in the dishes I have put forward

organised by The craft guild of chefs this competition is one of the largest in a chefs calendar.

Every time there is a brief which has not suited my frame of mind, my mojo as it were, was missing.

This year though, although the competition is divided into geographical categories (not sure how a french dish can be weighed up against a noodle dish from Asia, but time will tell), I had the mojo, the confidence and also importantly the dishes to put forward.

These categories are:

Modern British/Irish

Asian/Oriental

European (Continental, Central and Eastern, Scandinavian and Mediterranean)

◦Africa, The Americas and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand)

After some deliberation (basically cos my main was British and my dessert a bit French), I have chosen the modern British category

The brief for this years menu is

Canapés – 3 varieties of canapé - 4 pieces of each, 2 hot and 1 cold

Main Course – a chicken dish with appropriate starch and vegetable accompaniments

Dessert – a dessert using fresh lemons, served hot or cold

 

so for canapes my cold is based around what is accepted nowadays as a traditional ploughman's

The base being the celery, a cheddar mousse, pickled vegetables and onion and bread crust

My two hot canapes are 1:

Kedgeree, classical curried smoked haddock, egg yolk and white, sauteed mushrooms with fresh parsley and curried rice, this I have puffed for texture and for ease of release from the shell which it is served in.

And 2:

And an old childhood fave of mine, York ham, new potatoes and parsley sauce

For the main, I reverted back to an earlier post HERE and tweaked the dish to use the whole bird in one shape or form

Here we have, poached chicken breast, crisped skin sitting on hasty pudding, and to the side, carrot puree and a 'cottage pie' of the chicken leg, finished with a Madeira jus

Lastly the 'Frenchish' dessert

 

A lemon Cambridge burnt cream (English name for brulee) with blackberries (gel, puree and fresh macerated), mint pesto and lemon sorbet

I have everything crossed, judging begins this week and we will find out end of this, or beginning of next week, so here's hoping!

New menu(s) a couple of bits

Not much writing today, busy service awaits so will leave you with a couple of snaps

Duck and cherries, chicory and fennel

Eton 'Tidy'

And one from our new canape menus

Foie Gras doughnut

No more time, will be posting my Chef of the Year entry menu soon, so until then

Later

And now the real McCoy, Salmon and Lamb

Tricky week, 1 chef on holiday and business has doubled, fun fun fun

So this week I had to actually work, hmm no sympathy? Ok fair enough

The doodles did make it into dishes, happy enough with both of them, well received by my guests which is the most important aspect, however i feel they are missing a little je ne ce quas. So a little more playing required

Anyway the Salmon, as I said in the previous post would explain why the loin and belly, I hadn't really given it any thought before until I read This. As to why do we not consider a side of fish for different cuts, after all we would never quick roast a side of lamb and expect it to tick all the boxes, there is a huge variety in texture and tastes from each region of the animal, but whilst this does not ring true in fish, there are certain qualities we should perhaps not ignore when planning our menus

I took the side and separated the loin from the belly, and whilst I didn't give it the activa treatment they did, I did trim the shape and roll the belly tight to get a somewhat cylindrical shape. This I then cooked sous-vide at 48C for 8 minutes, and chilled down ready for service.

Whilst the loin piece is roasting, I just simply drop a piece into some seaoned lobster butter which sits on the passe at 50C for about 5 minutes.

The rest of the dish consists of some braised fennel, wilted spinach, confit fingerling carrots and an orange & fennel fluid gel, it ticks all the right boxes as far as a 'dish' goes, but as I said.... Missing a little I don't know what!!

Then the Lamb, not quite the visual food porn I was hoping for, but to eat takes comforting food to a new level, would love to be able to do this dish with lamb loin for the menu, but then I would sell none due to the supplement I would have to charge

'Tis a very simple affair, the lamb leg is Denham Castle lamb, with production like this I do not need to mess around with anything, the rearing has given all the flavour I need, to cook it all I did was to double bag each leg, with a few sprigs of thyme, rosemary and a little olive oil, this was then cooked for 24 hours at 55C, this produces a perfect medium rare throughout, I chilled the legs briefly and scorched the outer fat with a blowtorch which gives a wonderful roasted not to the flavour without over-cooking any of the meat.

The mash is scented with the smoked garlic I made a couple of weeks ago, which we pureed and stored under vacuum, grilled aubergine, and a fine ratatouille.

Will have a couple of desserts next week, but the pictures are over exposed (still trying to get the hang of my camera)

Time to start thinking towards the new menu, where did I leave that mojo?????

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Salmon and lamb, this weeks doodles

Hee hee, this is fun

glad I never discoved this as a kid, my mum would have done her nut, drawing on plates, really brings the kid out in me, and the look of shock from my daughter and wife yesterday as I grabbed a plate from my kitchen and a pile of marker pens and doodled away.

They didn't think they were dry wipe and I forgot (kind of) to tell 'em

ah well the look on their faces was priceless, but anyway enough of my childish amusement, just thought I would share a couple of doodles with you ahead of my menu change tomorrow.

first: Salmon

Currently going to be roasted loin, confit belly (will explain more when the dish is finished), confit carrots, roast fennel, orange fluid gel, and a couple of other bits not worked out yet

next: Lamb

Slow roast Denham castle lamb leg, sous vide at 55C for 24 hours, smoked garlic mash, baked aubergine, fine ratatouille, the purple thing should be the sauce but not sure yet, the designs are bound to change before they get served.

best get cracking with the prep, later

Everything but the squeak, a tribute to Denham pork

From doodle to degustation

Earlier in the week you saw the scribble as we planned a dish I have had in mind for some time.

Even then it rarely makes it to the plate quite like that

Any way with porky bits cooked and raring for action, off we went

From front to back

pork loin studded with truffle

slow braised pork belly (60 hours sous vide)

black pudding

pigs head terrine, crumbed with crude pork crust

pork tenderloin roasted

pigs ear again pork crust coated

To this we added a small amount of pea puree, feves, split beans and peas

a slim Anna potato, some pea shoots a drizzle of pork jus and we are ready to serve

almost as sketched, beautiful plate of textures and tastes, a real celebration of one of the best farms in England Denham Estates

Also this week a coupl of dishes we have running are a simple chicken and peach salad with almonds, a small toast to benzaldehyde

And simple plaice and asparagus, which a few fillets are 'glued' together with Activa, then simply breaded and fried, with asparagus, remoulade and a parsley beurre noisette the reason for glueing is to give the piece of fish more substance and to retain more moisture to improve the eating quality

Also thought I would pop in this week's best seller though, being a club a lot of our membership are traditionalists and love the following dish, I don't believe I will ever be able to remove from the menu, and why not everyone loves a good calves liver and bacon, we serve ours simply on a bed of sage crushed potato and a little onion gravy.

Menu changes again on the 28th (or there abouts), should have more menu gems for you then, next I am hoping to show off a few little gems in my garden, providing the kids haven't been foraging too much.

Time for lunch methinks with Chef1 from The Staff Canteen

a wee taster

I know usually my 'short' posts are far from that

this time though

a quick show of a plate design of a dish on the current menu

dish is called

"Everything but the squeak"

a celebration of pork

the last step as each element is cooking