Thursday 19 January 2012

If you look at this years AA restaurant guide, it mentions one of the dishes I served last year as "beef, seared on the plancha and served with celeriac, horseradish mayonnaise and bone marrow".

And here it is.

But, it's a little bit more as well!

First we prepare all the textures of celeriac.

Most chefs love celeriac, it's really versatile, and goes well with lots of other foods.

I remember even doing a raw, sort of pressed, gratin for Sarah's mum when they came to East Lodge for lunch a couple of years ago.

So, for the beef, we make a remoulade.

Basically it's a French salad, using thinly sliced celeriac, normally mixed with grain mustard and mayonnaise. But as I was going to use beef fillet I thought grated horseradish would be nicer , adding an English touch to the French salad.

And, anyway, I think the grain mustard remoulade goes better with pork based dishes, think ham and mustard, it's a winner.

So with our crunchy julienned celeriac ( we sometimes use parsnips as well ) mixed with some horseradish mayonnaise, we then cooked the trimmings with butter and milk to make a silky smooth puree.

This will be served hot, seasoned with truffle oil, to bring out all those earthy flavors.

We also soaked trompette mushrooms and layered them with sliced celeriac and potatoes, cooked and pressed them, into a sort of pommes "Anna".

This will be sliced and fried in butter to crisp and brown the sides.

The only thing I had to think about then was how to make it all look tidy, so we rolled sheets of bric pastry around metal moulds, and baked them until crisp.

These would be a good wrapper for the remoulade.

So, can you see, we're going to get all hot and cold and soft and crunchy!

So, with some water bathed beef fillet, unwrapped, seasoned and seared on the red hot plancha, a classic Bercy sauce, made with loads of shallots and white wine, poached rounds of bone marrow on garlic croutons and some deep fried parsley, it's simple description belies it's true complexity.



It's like this simple little terrine, made of slowly cooked duck, duck livers and ham, we served it with a chicory puree, and a little salad made with honeycomb and coco nibs.

It's not as daft as it sounds though, chicory has a slight bitterness to it, as do the coco nibs, but are sweetened by the honeycomb.

And duck glazed with honey is another great combination.

We also served a couple of little duck pies, made with the leg meat, so it's happened again isn't it?

All hot and cold and soft and crunchy!

And I just wanted to show one more picture whose description was very simple, but, was in fact quite complicated.

"Coq au vin"

I've told you about it before, but it's my favorite dish of 2011, and one Sophie enjoyed at East Lodge last year.

And I still have not forgotten about the tasting menu, I'm getting around to it slowly, I'm just waiting to sort out pictures, and wait until you see the new 2012 "Bakewell" - it's pretty cool!

Right that's it!

Oh, by the way, the 2012 AA restaurant guide also mentions that we now have three rosettes.

Which is nice!









Thursday 12 January 2012

DE = 564 x 21.13.1.13.9. = bellissimo x 100 ( todays blog) 



 So, it's all about the deliciousness!

The fifth taste, now we know as umami.

We nicked it from the Japanese, and it's one of the five basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, hot and salt.

Translated it means delicious, or "pleasant savory taste".

I think the best way to describe it is when you eat something, it makes you want to smack your lips together with all that lovely savoriness.

It's found in lots of things, like dried seaweed, mushrooms, truffles, meats, oily fish and shellfish, fermented sauces and cheese.

So, last week, in memory of Tom, who was always trying to find that big hit of umami, I made this pie.

So while Tom is spreading the East Lodge good vibes all around Europe, I was coming up with this light weekday supper!

2012 is the year that I'm going to make all my pastry at home, and I'm going to use the tried and trusted half fat to flour.

So I used half suet and half butter, just rubbed in and mixed with a little cold water.

I'll start using lard in the spring, but I will always split it with half butter. It's a forgiving pastry to use as well, and if you work quickly, it should not break up.

So, back to seeing how much umami I could pack into my pie.

A couple of days earlier I made a sofrito, using lots of garlic, onions, thyme and tomato passata. It was dark, thick and intense. I used it in a duck paella, an unusual, but, amazing dish, that I got from the new "el bulli" cookbook.

Anyway, I though that the sofrito would add a certain something to the meat filling.


So, I fried some more onions in duck fat, then added some beef mince, then the sofrito, a bottle of dark English beer, beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, a tin of beef consomme and a good blob of my new umami paste

I cooked the filling so it was quite dry, as I wanted to be able to slice the pie cleanly, and anyway, I made a gravy with some more beer and consomme to serve on the side.

And, honestly, have you seen a more beautiful looking pie!




I also thought that such a full flavored pie would benefit from a massive red wine, so I opened a bottle of 2007 Ben Marco, an absolute delight!



Decanted, to let it open up, I knew it would be perfect with all that mouth filling umami!


And can you see you light and flaky the pastry is?


So we managed about half of it, and for ages after we could still taste it.


That's what umami means to me, having the ability to still taste something, after you have finished eating it.


I'm not sure if they do pies quite like this France though!

Anyway, back to the tasting menu that I still have not got around to waffle on about, but here's a little preview.



This was one of the starters we did at Christmas.

It's pressed confit duck livers, topped with a jellied beef consomme, air dried beef fillet, fried ox tongue, croutons and truffle cream.

As all you classical music lovers will realise, its a modern take on the classic "Rossini", where the original dish uses a fried fillet steak, served on a brioche crouton with sauteed duck livers and a black truffle sauce.

And, as we are starting 2012 with our new tasting menus at East Lodge, this is going to stay on as a bouche on the eight course menu.

Oh, and I'm going to be doing a risotto topped with lardo and grated pork crackling, to go with some pork belly that has been cooking for the past thirty hours in the water bath.

I can't wait!

It's going to be mad.


Wednesday 4 January 2012

Have you seen the wind out there?

It's going mad today, all grey and cold and wet.

But these might brighten things up a bit!

And I think it would have a hard time blowing these little beauties over!

I made a couple this year, one for Charlie and Ben and one to keep all the front of house staff happy, up at East Lodge this Christmas.

Personally I think they are my best attempt yet, and I'm already thinking of ways to improve them, just in case we are challenged to any competitions this year!

The thing is with gingerbread houses is making sure the bread itself stays flat when you cook it.

And because its made with warm dough, resting, as you normally would, is impossible.

Because if you tried to rest it, it would crack and break up as you rolled it out.

So, the way to do it is, roll it out between two sheets of baking parchment. Incidentally I would always use this method to roll out any pastry, as you use less flour, and you can move the paper around, so its less likely to break the pastry.

Also, you need to roll out the pastry thinly, because if its too thick, it will be too heavy to stick together.

So, when the pastry is rolled out and cut to the desired shape, place another flat baking sheet on top, then bake.

Halfway through baking it, take it out of the oven, and working quickly, cut it again to its original shape, as it will have spread out slightly.

Pop it back in the oven for a few minutes, and then leave to dry out.

So, there you go, you will have perfectly flat gingerbread walls and a roof to build your house with.

All you need to now is go and buy loads of sweets, eat about half of them, and use the rest to decorate your little gingerbread house!

And to think that I am absolutely hopeless at DIY!

Not too sure about these little East Lodge igloos holding up too long though!

We were baking some celeriac as part of our tasting menu on New Year's Eve, and Tom and I made a salt crust.

It's a great way of cooking food as it keeps the flavor locked in, and quite dramatic too!

Made by mixing salt, some flour and egg whites to form a damp dough, all you need to do is pack it around your chosen food, roast it in a hot oven and there you are, easy really!

We cooked the celeriac for one hour, and left them to rest. They would stay warm in their little salt houses for a good couple of hours, and come service time, we just cracked them open, and scooped out the flesh.

And it was superb, served with some steamed Jerusalem artichokes, rolled in onion ash, dry cured bacon, that had been brushed with maple syrup, wood sorrel and a caramelised chicken reduction, it was my favorite dish of the night.

Simple, earthy and warming.

And, it might even be healthy for you as well!

So, after all these years 2012 might be the one where salt is now considered good for you!

Bloody well hope so!

Right, that's it.

Inspired by my very own ramblings, I'm going to make a soothing Shottle soup.

I went over to Ashbourne yesterday, as I wanted to get some pearled spelt, but Waitrose only had spelt flour, so I got a nice plump chicken instead.

I used half last night in a warming Moroccan broth, made with shopkeepers delight, preserved lemons and harissa.

So, left with half a chicken, I intend to made a chowder style soup, with diced potatoes and celeriac, chestnut mushrooms, onions and garlic, and finished with some cream, the only bright bursts of color will come from some blanched sprouts that I picked up this afternoon.

And I need all this food as the next one's going to be massive.

The tasting menu, at last!