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

Ridiculously expensive, considering what it is

Very quick drop in today, just finalizing the new menu post for this week just thought I would run this by you as it startled me last Friday

I recently re-vamped my banquet menus, lighter and fresher for the summer months, I usually try to work with the seasons but, and I will probably get hung for this, I am not blinkered by them, weather is different all year round, seasons vary in different countries, there are economies that rely on our occasional ignorance of seasons, just think about that next time you see french beans on a menu and you can be happy that a hard working Kenyan farmer is able to feed his family a little longer. Also in the past seasonability was sensibility as the price of a perfect local product was so low you would have to be stupid to ignore it, nowadays as the bandwagon is very full with conciencious chefs screaming pure seasonality, that the price in season is often similar or even higher than out of season.

Anyway, as usual I am digressing, the dish in question is one of my vegetarian offerings, not my strongest suit I admit, I am still perfecting the 'anything' fondant which will expand the vegetarian offering hugely, but until then I have a small repetiore of tried and tested dishes, one of these which appears regularly is a paella of garden vegetables which is chosen from the veg growing in my own garden at the time of cooking, I dont pick from my own garden, but I keep an eye on my garden and order accordingly, this year I chose to pair this with a rocket pesto and a saffron tuille, this brings me finally to the point of this post.

I like food to smack of the flavour that is mentioned, you should be left in no doubt that is what you ordered!

maybe for once i went too far

the recipe was, 1gm saffron threads, 500ml mix of veg stock, simple syrup, noilly prat. then rduce with strands in. once a teaspoon is reached I mix in a little malt extract, maltodextrin, flour. when I reached this point my concern began. there really didn't seem to be very much in the bowl.

so I got my silpat, scraped my usual shape and 3 tuilles later i was out of mix!!

not worrying about cost (a failing of mine), I cooked them thinking, wow these will be great, dramatic size tuille and intense colour and flavour.

a few fennel seeds, a little fleur de sel

let the cool, break a little off and taste

OH MY GOD, beautiful rich saffron taste, excellent crisp, lightly puffed texture

one small issue was I got all that impact from a piece about as bit as your small fingernail, here I have a tuille 10cm X 4 cm, so a change was required, 3 small bits dotted in the rice, lost it's impact but am happy with the flavour

the point of the post, food cost for the paella, vegetables, pesto and everything required to make the rice dish. £1.75., cost of the tuille if i kept to the large size £1.45

Oops!!!!!

Baked potato skins, the ultimate by product use up

On the The Staff Canteen site, a question was raised at the end of last month from a chef who does his mash the baked potato method, he asked if anyone in the forum had any ideas for utilizing the skins beyond the deep fried tater skins and dip route, I had a little (very little) time on my hands, and a tray of potatoes in the oven already cooking so thought I would give this a little thought and see what I could come up with.

Armed with my baked potatoes, I set to work to try a couple of different ideas. the 3 thoughts I cam up with were:

A) A baked potato milk ice cream

B) Baked potato skin mash (after a concerned comment about the colour), had to give it a go just to see for myself

C) Basic mash, infused with the flavour of baked potato skins

I took the skins, some milk, cream, multidextrin, glucose, thyme, garlic and bay leaf and set them on the edge of the stove to infuse without boiling, from these I passed one completely for the ice cream, placed the skins from another into a pacojet beaker and covered (just with the milk) and in the 3rd placed the potato scooped from the skins, with enough milk to again just cover.

the 3 beakers then were frozen for 24 hours, happy with the current flavours, just not quite ready for what the next day would bring.

The following day, I removed A), B) & C) and churned. I will now begin by dismissing C) as the starchiness of the mix damn near broke the pacojet and the end result was vile.

B) this however whilst struggling to churn due to a reasonable high starch level came out a reasonable colour and had good flavour, unfortunately due to the starchy nature of the product felt like eating a frzoen mashed potato, not great, I left this to defrost and set to churn the milk. This was to prove to be the revelation I was hoping for.

Once churned, I had guessed the glucose and multidextrin levels accurately and it churned through the machine beautifully. the end product was a great textured, herby flavoured potato milk and began thinking of applications such as a parmesan risotto with the ice cream and other thoughts. I then defrosted this alongside B) to see what results I would get hot.

The milk defrosted into a rich creamy liquid, the skin mash just defrosted, to this I added a little butter and proceeded to warm it through in the traditional method, whilst this was heating I heated the milk with a little xnathan and agar to creat a fluid gel for a creamy mash texture.

The skin mash had a nice earthy colour and good flavour, however the texture was that of wallpaper paste and was ridiculously gloopy, so back to the drawing board I go with that, however the milk fluid gel worked very well served hot and again a number of different applications spring to mind including using spherification to create a jacketless jacket potato?? Hmmmm

Anyway, this is how I have whiled away my time this week, does anyone have any thoughts on what common by-product that normally lines our bins that we may be able to get one or more dishes or garnishes out of?

left to right: milk gel, skin mash potato, plain mash (great, bad, bad)

Menu change, 16th April 2010 a new blog item

I was thinking today about what to write about next, have had fun lately with some nice ideas translating into some equally nice dishes, however as you may be aware these can be sometimes spread apart, but I tweak my menu weekly generally, and we photograph EVERYTHING, much to our waiting staffs annoyance, they have to wait around whilst 3 chefs get cameras and phones out to catalogue our dishes.

So I though I would include a somewhat regular slot of some of the more interesting tweaks we do to our menu as and when it happens, not every change though as sometimes the dishes are quite simple, or we simply do not have the time to take any decent photographs.

Lets start with 'Coquille Saint Jaques'

my commmis Tom has been running away with dish ideas over the last few months with a great emphasis on foaming and jellying and losing touch with the basics that make a dish great, so I set him the challenge of recreating this classic dish. I was first concerned that I hadn't shortened the leash enough when I started seeing tuilles being made out of breadcrumbs and balls ready for spherification in his mis-en-place.

Thankfully on this occasion he pulled it off and the dish is pretty as a picture and eating quality is excellent

scallop, button mushroom, duchesse potato, bread tuille, vin blanc spherification

the sphere itself is great fun, just warm enough to burst on the plate with just the right amount of sauce, the lemon puree adds acidity against the vin blanc and the duchesse.

the spheres waiting for an order

up close and personal

Next, I gave Ricardo, my sous chef, a similar goal to recreate something a little more classical and he chose a traditional portugese meat platter, translating this down was quite a task but, like Tom, pulled off only what can be described as a fantastic dish, has everything going for it, balance of flavour, texture and whilst it is a handsome portion, still leaves you wanting more at the end of it. Well done.

Poached chicken

sausage meat with choizo and black pudding

crisp pig ear

beef fillet

carrot puree

potato

turnip

chorizo oil

(and missing from this shot) Savoy cabbage

drizzle of jus and micro parsley

Herb wrapped balotine of salmon, wye valley asparagus, new potatoes

does exactly what it says on the box, the only tweak is glueing the salmon together with activa, other than that it is designed to show off new season English asparagus (and from Monday, Jersey royals) to their very best, simplicity is key to this dish.

Sea bream, fricasse of vegetables, sweetcorn veloute, popcorn cream and chicken popcorn

The bream is simply steamed, vegetables warmed in the veloute then a splash of popcorn bubbles and for texture a few pieces of popping corn I have popped in chicken fat and seasoned whilst hot. straightforward and nice and light for this lovely weather.

Last (but in no way least) G has produced ANOTHER Rhubarb and custard variation, the versatility of this combination and how it can be presented is incredible. With this incarnation he has introduced a little bitterness in the form of a yogurt coral cake and yogurt ice cream. Oldie but goldie and our guest do not tire of it any more than we do not tire of showing off this great combination in anyway our imagination takes us.

Anyway, hope this will help keep this blog more interesting to read, we will continue with the random other things we post about, but this should lessen the occasional drought of posts that we are guilty of having more than we really should.

Thanks to the guys this week for making my life much easier by coming up with such great dishes.

Duck, Rhubarb, Apple

Doesn't matter how many different foods I cook with and discover, I will always revert to duck. I have come to the conclusion that it simply has to be my favourite meat in any guise. I love the tenderness and moisture from a well cooked and rested breast with the fat rendered to nothing but the thinnest crisp skin, to the unctious quality of a superbly confited leg. the fat itself is a great transporter of flavour and handled with care the carcass can be used to make a wonderful deep jus. And finally the liver is just enough for me on toast with a little marmalade whilst contemplating the rest of the bird.

As forced rhubarb is something quite special at the moment thought the pairing would be essential cooking for our menu this week. Wanting to introduce some spice without turning into an asian interpretation so began by making a few pickling liquors, one for the rhubarb, one for the compressed apple, and a dry rub for the duck itself.

The rhubarb was marinated under vacuum for 6 hours then poached in the bag at 70C for 12 minutes until it just starts to give under my fingers

The result was perfectly tender, the strings of the skin were present but break down easily in the mouth and no need to artificially boost the colour. The apple was cubed and soaked in an acidic pickle then compressed at full vacuum, the trim of both with a little of the rhubarb pickle I used to make a simple puree.

The duck breast, I dry rubbed with a combination of spices and left to dry cure overnight, then placed skin side down in a cold pan and brought up to a high heat to render off as much of the fat as possible from the very finely scored skin. this was chilled and bagged, we then cook this sous-vide for 1 hour at 60C, and then allowed to rest for a further 20 minutes.

As this softens the skin, we then return it to a cold pan and bring up again to render the last of the fat and crisp up the skin, it is then carved and the plate arranged.

Duck breast sous-vide

Rhubarb

Compresse apple

Ruhbarb/apple puree

Roasted Bok-choi

Gingerbread puree

Duck and apple reduction

sorrel & coriander

Foie gras jelly, caramelized just one gram off

just one more gram of Agar, and this one will be ready to go.

Foie gras jelly

next the ballotine to go with it

Classic Fondant well nearly.........

I love it when a thought becomes something lovely at the first attempt

especially when that is so rare

CELERIAC FONDANT

and the proof of the pudding is..........

as Hannibal would say, I love it when a plan comes together. now just the beet jus and the beef elements left to go

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