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So, here I am, just lounging around at home, wondering what I should put on the menu tonight.

I'm off work for a few days, and thinking of new menu ideas, I thought I'd cook Sophie a nice little mid week five course tasting dinner.

And I wanted to try out my new Persian blue salt crystals, and as I'm such a rubbish bloke, I hardly ever take Sophie out to eat, so I could kill two birds with one stone!

Asparagus was always going to be on the menu somewhere, and I thought that some nice, young tender Derbyshire lamb might be nice as well.

A couple of fish courses and a classical French pudding and we would be sorted!

Luckily for me some people in Derbyshire are still enjoying fine food and wine, well at my house we are.

So, as usual, I'm a little bit in it.

First things first though, and I'd managed to get my hands on some nice, plump chicken wings.

Now I love wings, but just cooked like that would  have been far too messy for the meal I had in mind, so what I did was just chop them in half at the joint, as I was going to use the middle section.

And that means I can fry the knuckle ends off tomorrow night and have them with some scampi in some sort of Mexican themed delight.

All I had to do then was salt them for a couple of hours, just to start the seasoning process, and it will draw out a bit of moisture, making them go nice and crisp when I fry them off later.

Right that's one element of one course done!

Next I had to sort out my fish courses, and as I wanted to serve them both cold, it means that most of the preparation had to be done in advance.

With a nod to Japanese sashimi I got a couple of mackerel, whipped off the fillets and pin boned them.

A pickling liquor was made by dissolving some sugar with horseradish cream, yuzu juice, which has a nice, sharp, citrus flavour, wasabi powder and some cracked peppercorns.

This was going to poured, warm, over the mackerel, to take away some of the rawness.

You can do this and leave the fish in the marinade for longer, and fish will keep for longer, so it's a great way to plan in advance, as the longer you leave the fish in the pickle, the more it will "cook", so it doesn't taste raw at all.

A piece of salmon fillet was skinned, pin boned and 

trimmed of all it's fat.

And I mixed equal amounts of caster sugar and smoked Viking salt together, as I wanted a background smoky flavour, but don't have a smoker at home!

Left for a couple of hours, and then washed off it will work well with the other oily fish as a starter.

But as it's also quite rich, we need something to cool it down a little, so cucumber was peeled, deseeded, and chopped into pretty diamonds.

These will be marinated in a splash of white wine vinegar and a pinch of salt, just to make them nice and crunchy.

So, the salmon is ready to be washed off, but I'm just going to blot the mackerel fillets on some kitchen paper, as I want to keep the horseradish, and anyway there was not much salt used in the cure so I don't need to.

A couple of Jalapeño chillies were sliced, as were a couple of red radishes, and then the easy bit.

Plating it all up.

On my new Himalayan salt blocks!

Which, in truth, is the reason for this first dish!

It was alright actually, a bit of a kick from the chillies, cool cucumbers, the nice juicy salmon and fatty mackerel, and I sprinkled on a few more drops of yuzu juice and finally some blue Persian salt crystals.

Now the next course was a nice easy one.

First thing was to sort out a potato salad.

And, as with most French dishes, a couple of shallots are required, these are just peeled and chopped, covered in white wine vinegar and then reduced, until almost dry, as if it's not reduced enough the finished dressing will be too sharp, and then finished with some olive oil, that's the dressing sorted.

Now I first learnt how to do this salad at Le Ritz in Paris, and

it's brilliant, as it goes with so many things, but then we served it, warm, with soft poached eggs, Morteau sausage and black truffles.

It's quite simple in a way, but it's important to get everything just right, or it can be a bit of a mess.

I was checking out the hotels website yesterday, but they are closed for a two year refurbishment, so I'm sure it's going to be stunning when it reopens.

And I'm going to take Sophie!

Now what I should have done is cook the potatoes in their skins, and while still warm, peel and slice them and then put them in the shallot dressing.

But I didn't, I just sliced them and blanched them quickly, and that's why you need waxy potatoes for this as they are less likely to fall apart when they are cooked.

Easy, eh!

So that can be cling filmed, and left at room temperature ready for the next course.

Now I know I'm in the middle of Derbyshire but I still wanted another fish course, and I've found out about this company called Seafood & Eat It, which sells this amazing fresh white crab meat, so I picked some up from Waitrose in Ashbourne and course number two is just about there.

All I had to do was season the crab with a touch of lemon, some salt and pepper and olive oil and away we go.

I added a julienne of salami to the potatoes salad, quartered some sweet cherry tomatoes and chopped a bit of parsley.

And that's it!

Sorry about the fuzzy picture, and maybe I should have used a different plate, but it was delicious, really light, and as I'd served some potatoes with it I didn't need any with the main course.

And how easy was that, it's not really cooking at all!

Right the next one does involve a bit of cooking, and I wanted to try out my new Japanese Agemono - Nabe cooking pot.

It's actually meant for deep frying but I think it's

a bit small, so I intended to cook my asparagus in it.

English, of course, and all I had to do was put a healthy amount of butter, a splash of water and a pinch a salt.

Lid on, and then put on a high heat, the water would start steaming the asparagus, emulsifying with the butter giving it a nice glaze, and it's easier than blanching it and then reheating it, as it saves on washing up, although now we are moving to a house with a dishwasher I 'm going to find out just how pots and pans I can use for one dinner, for two people in Oxford!

Quite a lot, probably.

So, I've washed off the chicken wings, covered them with some duck fat, and I'm going to gently poach them.

Only about thirty minutes, or so, and then, all that was needed was to de-bone them.

And you have to do that while they are still warm, as if they get too cool the flesh starts to harden up, and you might rip the skin, and that, darling, would be a disaster!

Just a bit of gentle pressure and the bones just pop out.

What I might do, when I start using these as a garnish in the restaurant is stuff the cavities with some herbs and bacon, and then I've got some little stuffed chicken thingies for a new tasting menu.

Right, they're going into a nice hot pan to brown them off, and these things make the most superb nibble, it's impossible to stop snacking on the hot, salty, crispy little pieces of poulet!

I had some thin slices of Parma ham that I was going to use as well as it's another great match with both chicken and asparagus

So, that's course number three out of the way, and it can't have been easier, smooth Parma ham, roasted chicken wings and some asparagus, what a spring time delight, and there was no work involved at all, I think anyone could knock up this dish, easy!

Ok, so with a nice bottle of red wine decanted, it's time for that lovely

lamb.

And as so many lucky people will be enjoying Italy this summer, I thought I'd do Sophie an Italian inspired main course.

Bagna Cauda.

Lamb.

Cauliflowers.

Wild garlic, from my garden.

Home made, warm focaccia.

And a jus!

And an onion, or two.

One rack of lamb should do.

And all I've done is remove the skin, cleaned the bones and cut it in half, diced up all the meat from between the bones, that will be browned off and turned into a stock, and then reduced for the jus, scored the fat on the four bone rack, and I'm going to dice up all the fat and render that down to whisk back into the sauce.

You see I'm going to use every last bit of the lamb, wringing as much flavour as I can from it.

So into one pan goes the lamb trimming, and a lamb stock is on the way, and by dicing up the lamb fat and then cooking it in water, we can render all the lamb fat out.

Now this is very important as lamb fat has a delicious taste, and it seems such a shame to waste it.

Think of dripping on toast, well that's all this is, only served in a liquid form, and it's going to become a classic "jus gras", gras meaning fat in French.

At work we have tub of this on hand, just to melt into hot lamb stock, so that it splits out on the plate, giving a massive lamb hit to the sauce.

And because fat coats the mouth it will linger on the palate for longer, making the dish taste even lovelier.

The focaccia was started in the normal way of a bigga ferment, well fermenting, then being mixed, by hand, with more pasta flour, warm water and olive oil.

This was easy as all I had to do was, every thirty minutes, or so, just lightly knead it with some more oil, no bashing around or heavy mixing, a final prove, and then baked in a red hot oven for twenty minutes.

And because the oven was cranked all the way up I had cook our lamb "en cocotte".

I like cooking like this, as it's browned off, with a couple of crushed garlic cloves and rosemary, the lid is placed on, but slightly ajar, so the steam can escape, and I've just turned the lamb around every few minutes.

I have been known to forget about things that go in the oven sometimes, so this way, it's on top of the stove and I can carry on enjoying my wine without any fear of overcooking the meat!

Rested for half an hour, it's going to be perfect.

So then Bagna Cauda.

It's an Italian delight, but really easy and as anchovies and lamb are such great friends, I thought that along with some wild garlic, blanched cauliflower and nice sweet roasted onions it would be spot on.

Especially as I had some warm, soft bread to mop all those lovely lamb juices!

Basically it's just olive oil warmed with crushed garlic, salted anchovies that will melt into the oil, and then some butter is whisked in, so it's a warm dipping sauce, normally raw vegetables are served with it, as a sort of crudités, Hayden I hope your getting all this, and haven't forgotten my Italian lesson the other night - now repeat after me "Ti amo mi chica bella"!

And as cauliflower is also so good with anchovies, everything would marry beautifully.

So the lamb was carved into nice thick chops, the warm cauliflower was dressed with wild garlic, crushed anchovies and a touch of lemon, the focaccia was sliced, the onions sprinkled with sea salt and there you go, Italy on a plate.

Right we're just hopping back over the boarder now for pudding, and it's another dead easy one to knock up, as long as you have some eggs and sugar you're there.

So, whites in one bowl, yolks in another.

And then a classic creme Anglaise was prepared, just by warming milk and cream with a split vanilla pod, then whisking it over the egg yolks, that had been already whisked with caster sugar, poured back into a pan, it was then cooked very gently until it started to thicken.

You have to be careful when you do this, if it gets too hot you'll end up with some messy scrambled eggs.

Strained through a sieve, and covered with cling film, all I had to do with it was cool it down.

If I had an ice cream machine all I would have to do then is churn it, and then hey presto, vanilla ice cream!

Meanwhile the egg whites are whisked with more caster sugar and turned into a classic meringue.

Now, everyones got different ways of doing it, but I think the best way is to start whipping the whites and then start to add all the sugar, quite quickly, and then just let the machine do it's thing, and you'll end up with thick, glossy, stiff meringue.

Now this can be piped out and baked in a low oven, but I'm making some "iles flottantes", lovely little light poached meringues for our pudding.

You see, poor old Simon's only got one oven at home, and as it was getting super hot for the bread I had to come up with a pudding that could be done on top of the stove!

So, using two dessert spoons, I shaped the meringues, and poached them in a mixture of milk and water until they were firm to the touch.

If the milk is too hot they will inflate and souffle up, but when they cool down they will deflate and look all small and sad!

I'm going to try steaming some at work and then baking them, I think they might go all crunchy on the outside, but stay nice and soft in the middle.

But for this dessert the crunch will come from a dark caramel that is poured over the cold Anglaise and poached meringues, so that it sets and goes all crisp!

A bit dangerous to do, its just caster sugar and a tiny bit of water, boiled to a dark caramel, you have to watch it mind, as in a second it can go too dark and then its ruined.

A handful of raspberries cut through the rich custard and sweet meringues.

I know it looks a bit homely, but I'll tell you what, it's a great way to end a five course dinner.

Right that's it!

Dinner at my house, and all because I'm such a rubbish bloke, and never take poor little Sophie out!

Although I've got a feeling that's all about to change, because I've heard there is one of the finest Chinese restaurants in Oxford, oh aren't we lucky!!

Next time I'll tell you how Sophie blagged two birthday dinners, and I discovered the world's best drink!

Todays music choice "I can see clearly now" by Jonny Nash, it's all down to my amazing vision you see!

Food, glorious food!
Hot sausage and mustard
While we're in the mood
Cold jelly and custard

Oh food
Magical food,
Wonderful food,
Marvellous food,
Fabulous food!

Right then, I think you get the idea now.

This one's all about what I ate last weekend.
At my house.
In my kitchen.
At the table.
With Sophie.
And Agnes.
And a case of red wine.
And some white as well.

So, I'd purchased my meat, and all I had to do then was wait.


Just for a few hours, as I had to salt my pork belly and duck legs before cooking them.

A head of garlic was smashed up, some thyme was sprinkled over, black peppercorns crushed and sea salt mixed in.

Rubbed all over, it will remove water from the flesh, and make it juicier to eat.


Don't ask me how, it just does, that's all you need to know.

But it might be because the salt alters the fibres of the protein in the meat, allowing it to hold onto more moisture, or something like that!

Next time I'll tell you how the universe started as well.

The skin was removed from the pork belly, as I had another use for that later, but the duck leg skin remained in place.

And don't start worrying about all that salt giving me a heart attack, it won't.

Most of it is washed off, and it's done it's job of removing loads of excess water from the meat.

This is how we can make food last longer, think of anchovies, olives and capers.

They are all just salted, and left in their own brine.

Good idea, eh?

And, while on the subject of salt, I've just ordered some Himalayan salt blocks and Persian blue salt crystals to vajazz a couple of new dishes that I'm playing around with.

How gay is that!

The duck legs and pork were cured overnight, washed off and dried.

So the first stage of Friday night's dinner was sorted.

I was going to poach the duck in duck fat to make a classic confit canard, as it's a vital part of a cassoulet, or French baked beans if you prefer.

So, after two or three hours the duck legs should be super soft and melting, in fact a pin or needle should be easily able to go through the flesh, just to make sure.

Which is pretty much all this supper was.


A one pot wonder, full of lovely, rich, warming, fatty, moist,

meaty joy!

It would be perfect for tonight actually, as now I'm stranded in Shottle, with a blizzard kicking off outside, ah well "c'est la vie".

Dried white haricot beans had also been soaked, in water, overnight, and all I had to was simmer them for a couple of hours, just to start the cooking process.

A couple of carrots, onions and herbs go in along the reserved pig skin.

If I could have got my hands on a smoked pork Morteau sausage that would have gone in as well.

Because even though this is a peasant, country style dish, it will still have bags of flavour, and because in Europe they have access to lots of different cured pork produce, just by putting a piece of smoked sausage or ham in will really improve the finished dish.

Try it yourself, you'll see what I mean, if when you're making a tomato sauce you put in a couple of chopped up slices of smoked streaky bacon in with the onions, the finished sauce will taste much richer.

I was shown once, by an Italian chef, I worked with in London, how by getting hold of some beef bones, just roasting them and cooking them very, very slowly with lots of herbs, tinned tomatoes and garlic, in a covered pot, for about ten hours, he would end up with the nicest tasting, rich, beefy tomato sauce ever, and it didn't even have any beef in it!

Some pasta, Parmesan and that sauce, it was all you needed.

Anyway back to my simple dinner dish, the belly is cut up, and is going to be browned off, in some more duck fat, then it was simmered for a couple of hours, again to get it nice and soft, ready for the final cooking process.

It's got to prepared this way as there are too many different cuts of meat, and they all have different cooking times, so perhaps one would be overcooked and some other undercooked.

And, anyway, what else did I have to do?


All different sorts of meats can go into a cassoulet, such as goose, pheasant, lamb or wild boar.

It won't be long before someone tries sneaking some horse or donkey in to it, just to be a bit different!

Those sneaky French eh, but they don't know we've been eating all that exotic stuff for years, at Ikea mainly!

And at The Taj Mahal, down on the A 4567.

I also had a small French "meat" salami that I was going to dice up and cook with the beans.

Now, this a dish from France, so apart from horse, and snails, and frog's legs, they eat tons of onions and garlic.

So that's what I did, chopped up about five sweet white onions and another whole head of garlic was crushed.

This was going to be sweated down, in yet more duck fat, ready for the final assembly.


And remember the piece of pork skin that I cooked with the beans, well I diced that up, nice and small, and it was mixed with breadcrumbs and chopped parsley, ready to be sprinkled over the cassoulet.

All that was left to do now was put it all together.

A big cast iron pot is best for this, so with the onions and garlic nicely soft, a couple of spoons of tomato puree are added, now there is a difference of opinion as to whether this should be added, but I like it in mine, it adds some sweetness to the dish, and it makes it even richer.


With the part cooked beans, confit duck legs, poached pork belly and diced salami it was a nice lazy Friday night dish.

But, with all those soft textures it need a bit of texture, and luckily that's exactly what I had.

When you bake pork skin you get crackling don't you?

Well that's what I had on top of my baked beans, mixed with the herb breadcrumbs, was a delicious, crunchy, pork scratching sort of topping.

Easy, and as I've used some of the cheaper cuts of meat it means tomorrows dinner can be something a little bit more extravagant.

This should do.



A nice bit of sirloin, some of Derbyshire's finest.

Now I managed to blag a few marrow bones as well, and as these are just about my favourite thing to eat in the whole world, I knew exactly what to do with them.

Now it's very fashionable to just roast them as they are and scoop out the marrow, spread it on some toasted sour dough, a pinch of salt and away we go.

And jolly good it is too!

But I wanted to make it easier to eat, so all I did was boil the kettle, and at about three at a time, put the marrow bones in the hot water for about thirty seconds.

This will loosen the marrow and then all you have to do is push it out from the bone.

See, easy.


And now you know how to do this you can you use it with so many things, it's very good stirred into a saffron risotto with grated Parmesan, or breadcrumbed and deep fried it's a good garnish for a braised beef cheek dish along with some spinach, or as I intend to use it this summer with some scallops, Jersey Royals and caviar.

On a long, crisp butter puff pastry tart.

That is, of course, if summer ever arrives, but anyway back to my bone marrow.

Luckily for me I had everything I needed to make my life complete.

Shallots, capers, some herbs,anchovies, gherkins and all the other condiments required for my steak tartare, now I won't bore you with how to make a perfect tartare, and anyway, it's quite a personal thing, depending on how you like it, maybe with extra Tabasco, or with no anchovies, or whatever you like really.

Once I had it sitting by Lake Geneva where it was prepared, correctly in my opinion, at the table, where the maitre d' could ask me if I wanted extra capers, or less shallots.

Although I just left it to him and it was superb!

But mine was pretty good too!

Some sour dough was sliced and toasted, the cold steak tartare was spooned on top, and then a slice of hot bone marrow to finish off.

A sprinkle of smoked salt and we were done.

I still needed something to go with the rest of the beef though, and as it was still snowing outside I wanted something nice and rich, and as I've never really got the idea of serving mashed potatoes with steak, I   decided to do a macaroni cheese.

This is also great with dark, sticky, red wine based dishes, like a slowly braised haunch of venison with lots of black peppercorns and bacon, and left overnight in a very low oven.

Actually now I think about it, hopefully there might be just one more weekend of snow, so I can try that one out!

This was the end of my road last week, but as you can see, Sophie and myself were never really in any danger of going hungry.

So, a quick cheese sauce was made, it's easy, all you need to do is boil up some milk and cream, chuck in a load of grated cheese, whisk it up, and then thicken it with some cornflour.

Much easier that doing a roux and it works really well.

Mustard and garlic can be added if you want to liven it up a bit, but I didn't as I'd had enough garlic the night before and I knew that the next nights dinner was also going to pretty garlicky.

The steak was cooked in the usual way, plenty of salt and pepper, nice hot pan blah, blah, blah, you know by now don't you.

As you can see it's been well rested, and carved into nice fat slices.

The macaroni has been baked, warm sour dough is ready for the tartare, I quickly cooked some spinach and I dressed some chicory and radishes in a mustard dressing.

We do sometimes have something heathy!

So, there you are, Saturday night steak at my house.

Easy, and pretty damn good as I remember!

And now on to our Sunday roast.

This is a prototype of a dish I'm planning to do for Sophie's birthday a few weeks time, and as it's such an important day, I'm taking personal control of the entire menu.

And, that, of course, means lots of testing, and eating!

And I can't wait to start the cocktail and punch development!

So a half shoulder of lamb was sorted, but this time i actually wanted the blade end, so I could whip off the neck fillet, and serve that nice and pink, while the rest was cooking in the oven.

I peeled loads of garlic, added some salt, and crushed it to a paste, then the same amount of peeled, grated ginger was mixed in.

Along with some other, top secret, well actually I've forgotten what they were, Indian spices, this marinade was rubbed into the lamb shoulder.

I'm sure some yoghurt was in there somewhere as well.

I sliced loads on onions and these were cooked down, in lots of ghee, until they were starting to blacken around the edges, tinned chopped tomatoes and red chilli powder were also involved, as I wanted to end up with a really dark, rich sauce.

The marinaded lamb shoulder was placed on top of this, then I covered it with a lid, and into the oven it went.

The neck fillet was coated in more red chilli powder, cumin and various other delights, and that would then be ready to be pan fried a bit later.

I boned out some skinned chicken thighs and diced them up.

This was going to be for the biryani.

I wanted to have a pop at this as it's something I could do a bit in advance, and even though I just sealed the pot with pastry, if I do end up cooking it I will cover the whole pot with some raw bread dough, so it will be a bit like a pie!

And I'll mix in some onion seeds and cracked pepper to give the bread a bit of a boost!

So I fried off the chicken with some finely chopped onions, more garlic and ginger paste was added and then about twenty different spices, and also some chopped up Indian pickles.

This was a great idea, as it gives the dish a nice salty and spicy kick, more yoghurt was stirred in at the end, not much though, this should be a dry curry.

Basmati rice was cooked in water that had been flavoured with cloves, turmeric, cassia bark and green cardamon pods. I made sure the rice was just a little bit under cooked, as it was going to finished in the oven.

With the chicken curry on the bottom the fragrant rice was spread over the top, lid on, a bit of egg wash, and a strip of pastry was stuck around the edge.

This is so nothing escapes, and when the dish is presented, and cracked open, all of those mouthwatering aromas can be enjoyed at the table.

The lamb neck fillet is carved, and I made a little salad with some cucumbers, tomatoes and red onions, and I know it's a bit naughty, but I got some asparagus and stir fried that with a bit of lemon and garlic, although in fairness, it was a trail for the party remember.

And it was Ok, but by then English will be bang in season so I'm going to do something with that, and it will be spot on!

A couple of chapatis and naan bread were warmed up, and that's it.

Sunday night dinner, all with Sophie in mind!

Although we have loads more things to taste and try, but, some how I think we'll get there in the end!




Right that's it!

A brilliant weekend, doing what I love most, cooking, eating, dancing and being snowed in with Sophie!

And now, finally it's over.

TB, BW and SAB, and everyone else who was part of the E.L.B.M.C for the last five years, it's been mental!

Nearly had a couple of heart attacks over the last half decade, but we always got there, so thank you all for making it all so much fun!

Tonights musical delight - High by the Lighthouse Family, Francois K vocal 12" mix, parts 1 & 2.