Saturday 30 April 2011

So a weekend of weddings and so far its all going great!
Good choice of canapes and food today at East Lodge.
One of the canapes served was steak tartare with duck liver parfait on black pudding wafers.
A bit of a play on the classic "Rossini". A fantastic dish using beef fillet, foie gras, truffles and Madeira sauce.
Named after the composer its a very rich dish and nowadays most chefs use seared duck liver, however this is incorrect.
It should use a pate of duck livers, with the beef served upon a brioche crouton.
I like it with braised endive, its bitterness cuts the richness of the dish.
Main course was loin of pork. I thought we would cook it in the water bath today.
I stripped it of all its fat, cooked for it for an hour and it was perfect. We scored the skin and baked it in the oven, cut it into strips and baked it again to produce perfect crackling.
Normally I wouldn't cook pork loin like this but it really helps for a wedding as I have more control over keeping the meat moist. Our guests often like to take their time getting to the dining room, and with todays weather I don't blame them!
With a garnish of celeriac puree, a saute of Jersey Royals. girolles and celery leaves it was a nice spring main course. I was going to roll the pork in mushroom ash but I'm still working on that one!
Restaurant Noma has a lot to answer for!
Ok its our most popular wedding pudding - an assiette of British summertime. Its a Pimm's jelly with cucumber and mint, chilled caramelised rice pudding tartlet with raspberries, a little clotted cream and red fruit ice cream and Eton mess parfait.
Its fun but I'm going to swop the ice cream for a small summer pudding.
I think there is too much ice cream on the dish.
Ok thats about it.
Sunday tomorrow and we won't be using the water bath at all, just a very hot oven, some of Derbyshire's finest meat and lots of beef dripping!

Right, Dirty Harry is on, where is my glass of claret?

Friday 29 April 2011

What a wonderful day!
And as I'm so patriotic I'm going to tell you about our Bakewell Pudding dessert.
I think the colors are quite fitting, don't you?
It was, I think, made by mistake, at the now named Rutland Arms Hotel.
It sounds a bit like France's "tart Tatin". This was named after the Tatin sisters who dropped an apple tart and then served it upside down, with the caramelised apples on top.
Quite difficult to make correctly, as I found out when I was working at the Ritz, it is also brilliant in it's simplicity!
Anyway back to sunny Bakewell.
Down the road at East Lodge we tried to recreate the flavors of this lovely British pudding but giving a new, rather sexy, look and presentation.
We serve warm almond sponge cakes, that are made with hazelnut butter and apricot jam, which gives them a wonderful chewiness. An almond milk sorbet is made by infusing ground almonds with milk and stock syrup and then churned.
We make strawberry juice and then set it with gelatine and also reduce some for a glaze.
An iced vanilla custard parfait is made in the classical way, frozen, cut into rounds and then rolled in ground almond praline powder.
Disks of butter puff pastry are rolled ultra thin with lots of icing sugar, pressed and baked between baking sheets until nice and crisp.
I'm faffing around with our new de-hydrator trying to make some strawberry crisps for another garnish as well.
A couple of mint sprigs, some thin vanilla custard and chopped pistachios complete the dish.
Gosh I'm worn out now, think I forgot how much went into this simple taste of Bakewell.
Wait until you hear about my new sweet tomato dessert! Perhaps if I mess it up it will become a classic as well.
I'm off for a glass of Champagne now!

Wednesday 27 April 2011

The Easter Bunny!
Seems rather fitting at this time of year doesn't it!
You need whole rabbits for this one, we use French ones.
Taking off the legs and shoulders and salting for 8 hours and then cooking at 82 oc for eight hours in duck fat.
 Some people call this a "confit", so would I by the way, but some people get a bit shirty because a true confit is cooked in it's own fat.
Actually I think anything cooked slowly in fat can be classed as a "confit".
The meat is shredded, seasoned an mixed with some duck fat and pressed.
Boned out rabbit saddles are stuffed with a chicken mousse, fattened duck liver and tarragon, rolled in bacon and poached. We use a water bath and to be honest if people want to recreate restaurant dishes at home then they should get one.
Garnished with some crispy fried rabbit belly, spring vegetables and a little truffled rabbit trifle!
This is cold sweet corn cream with a chilled rabbit jelly and a warm truffle sabayon on top.
Grated frozen broad beans and a Parmesan biscuit complete the dish.
It is, I think, our most popular starter!
And I'm in a good mood now as a case of rather fine claret arrived today, so I'm having a bottle!

Sunday 24 April 2011

So I was trying to find out what dishes were going to be served at the Royal Wedding Breakfast on Friday, but no-one is giving anything away!
But I'm not sure if they planned it for the food but it's a great time of year.
Up in Derbyshire there are lambs everywhere, just waiting to be roasted for an Easter Sunday delight!
Asparagus is in full swing and there is plenty of wild garlic so thats their main course sorted!
I'm using Suffolk Down lamb with wild garlic puree at East Lodge at the moment.
We bone a short saddle, trim it right back and cook it in the water bath at 61 oc for 15 minutes. Ik keeps it very pink and juicy.
We dice the trimmings and mix with lambs kidneys and blanched sweetbreads. Rolled up in a suet pastry and steamed at 85 oc for five hours this is my world famous lamb "roly poly". We also braise, very slowly for twenty four hours, lamb breast. This is then pressed overnight, cut into cubes and breadcrumbed, ready to be deep fried.
The lamb is served with a smoked onion compote, blanched sweet pickled onions, whole roasted round shallots and glazed spring onions.
Textures of the onion family you see!
We finish a reduced lamb jus with some rendered lamb fat with gives an excellent fullness to the sauce, parsley and chopped shallots.
With a spoon of wild garlic puree it makes a nice Easter dish. I might start using some young carrots in a couple of weeks to make a lighter gernish.

And just think that is only one dish that I have to remember - never thought I had it in me!

Sunday 10 April 2011

Saturday dinner

Right these "spicentice" Indian curry packets are the best.
We don't bother going to Akbar's anymore, even though it is the best Indian around.
But I have changed the recipe a bit!
We got a new season lamb best end and boned it out, I added the lamb trimmings to the chopped onions when browning them and left the lamb fillet to marinade.
I roasted the lamb and served it pink on top of the rogan josh.
It made the dish a bit lighter and I think more interesting, although we were both stuffed at the end of dinner. Prehaps the corriander chicken wasn't such a good idea!
But Sophie is in for a treat when she eats the leftovers - curries always improve after a couple of days to let the flavors mellow.
Oh yes don't add as much water as the recipe says unless you like your curries a bit watery.

Friday 8 April 2011

Friday Night

Ok started watching Avatar and soon thought it was a bit rubbish.
So thought I'd start this.
The point of this blog was to improve my typing and tell the world about the thoughts going through my mind about food.
And what ever else takes my fancy!
The new lamb dish is pretty cool - we made a lamb "roly poly". Lambs kidney and sweetbreads rolled in suet pastry and steamed at 85o c for five hours. Cooled and sliced it went with some fried lamb breast, saddle (we changed over from best end) and onions prepared in various ways.
I'll tell you about the rabbit trifle next week.