A little more of the menu

Not a huge amount of time on my hands, kids birthdays to sort, life, packing for Noma next week. It's all go, and January was supposed to be quiet, ah well, never a dull day I guess.

Gareth has returned from his week at Noma, impressed by what he saw, but gobsmacked with how labour intensive running the 'best restaurant in the world' is, all the paid chefs, and some 20+ stagieres, he has retailed me with tales of pine needle prep, and his scariest job, veal threads!!! No I had no idea what he was on about either...

They were given the veal, an had to deconstruct it, thread by thread, each one no larger than a hairs breadth, hmmmm don't know whether I am looking forward to it as much now, jus' kidding. I will leave the rest of his telling to his post, which I am sure he will put up as soon as he has caught up on some sleep.

Anyway, a couple more dishes for you, got to go, need to find my travel plugs, now where are they?





Clockwise from top left
Fennel, Seville orange, almond
Olive roasted monkfish, spring onion, kale
Crisp oxtail, smoked eel, artichoke and cauliflower


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DUCK!

Just wanted to share this, will be a few more along soon.





Duck confit, pommes sarladaise, endive, duck egg.

Simple, tasty, compact.

Bit like this post really.

Back soon

Location:Duck confit, new year dishes

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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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

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.