Wednesday 19 June 2013

Honey Honey!

Right then, this ones all about Greece.

Inspired by my love of kebabs, this dish is all about those smashing flavours, of a Greek taverna, things like taramasalata, barbecued squid, beautiful fresh fish, char grilled vegetables, tomatoes and olive oil.

And summer in Oxford.

But before that I'll tell you how nice it is in my new kitchen at The Randolph Hotel, and that having a big kitchen brigade allows me to do things like this.

Order loads of fish for a start, so we've got some wild brill, John Dory and squid, they are both for the "honey honey" dish and some, rather large, quite lively cock crabs.

I wonder who would win in a fight, a lobster or a crab?

I think the crab, they have massive claws, which, when cooked provide me with loads of nice white meat.



So all I had to do was get one of brigade to crack all the bodies, make sure he reserved all the brown meat from the bodies, and then pick through it all.

It's the first dish I changed at The Randolph, and it's going really well, as summers perfect for crab, and because of the rubbish start to the year lobsters are a bit too expensive to use at the moment, but we are getting our monies worth as we use every last bit of the decapod.

With some of the brown meat we blend with softened butter, salt and pepper, and that's it.

That's to go on the warm toast, some more brown meat is mixed with thick, homemade mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and Tabasco sauce and lemon juice.

This will give the white meat a nice, creamy kick, which has been dressed, very simply with just olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

And the bashed up shells are quickly roasted in a hot oven, and then added to a soup base that has sweated down leeks, garlic, onion and carrots, tomato puree, white wine, herbs and saffron.

Covered with chicken stock, and simmered for a couple of hours, I'm left with a beautiful crab broth.
This could then be clarified and served as hot consommé, or set with gelatine for a cold jelly, or blended with some agar for a warm fluid gel.

I'm keeping everything nice and simple at the moment though, and just reduced it a bit and finished it with a touch of cream and a knob of butter, foamed it up with the bamix, and there you go.

A few compressed cucumber balls, caviar, little lemon segments and a flower!

We serve a lot of these, but it's all Ok, as most of the preparation is done in advance, and the presentation is quite simple, so at the moment it's not too stressful for all my new chefs!

So the next day I ordered in some summer truffles, bone marrow, sweetbreads and girolle mushrooms, although at that point I had different plans for all of them, but in the end I didn't have time to sort out all the new dishes, but I needed a meat starter for the menu, so just as luck would have it, all those ingredients work perfectly together, all I had to do was work out a way to serve them all.



Now I think sweetbreads are absolutely brilliant, and as these were veal, it made sense to serve them with beef, deep fried in breadcrumbs, to add another dimension of temperature and texture to my carnivore's delight.

I'll tell you all about preparing them when I get back to my original plan for serving them, along with suckling pig belly and morels.

It's great being in Oxford!





But back to the emergency dish, and a steak Tartare was needed, of course, topped with some egg yolks that had been cooked in the water bath, seasoned and then whisked with a touch of truffle oil.



Bone marrow was prepared in the usual manner, and just warmed in a little bit of red wine sauce, the girolle mushrooms were pickled with Champagne vinegar, olive oil and herbs, along with blanched salsify and very thinly sliced sweet white skinned onions.

There're expensive though aren't they?

Yes they are!

And I'm using them, a lot.

A few breakfast radishes were sliced, along with my summer truffles, and the rest was simple, a bread wafer, some picked tarragon and pea shoots, the seasoned, chopped sirloin of beef, warm bone marrow and hot, crisp sweetbreads.

Easy!


And, as it turned out a real success on the menu that night.


So back to the Greek inspired fish dish.

I managed to procure some smoked cod's roe, which, is, of course, used for making taramasalata.


Ever so simple to make, it is just the cod's roe blended with milk soaked white bread, that was been squeezed out of excess milk, some onion juice, lemon juice, a tiny bit of grated garlic and olive oil.


It's best to use a milder olive oil for this as it might end up overpowering the delicate smokiness of the roe if you're not careful.

So, just a couple of minutes of blending, and there you go, homemade taramasalata, or as it's now referred to with my international kitchen brigade, "pink stuff"!

It would be a perfect partner for the John Dory that arrived that day.

I blackened some onions under the grill, ground them to a powder, as this would add a nice barbecued effect to the Dory.

A thick piece of courgette was char grilled, seasoned with thyme, salt and pepper, while the green skin was cut into julienne and blanched.

Fish stock was reduced with a clove of crushed garlic and then squid ink was whisked in.

Plum tomatoes were peeled, quartered, seasoned with salt, sugar and olive oil, and left under the hot plate lights to semi dry out. Not too much though as I wanted their juicy, intense flavour and slightly chewy texture there, and if they are left too long they go like little bits of hard, red rubber.



Potatoes were cut into rounds, and cooked, very slowly, just like fondants, but I used olive oil, some thyme and more garlic, as I didn't want any butter near this dish.

The cleaned baby squid was seasoned and put on a red hot ridged cast iron pan, as I was still trying to get those slightly burnt, charcoal elements into the assembly.

The Dory was steamed at 60oc in one of the Rational's for eight minutes, seasoned with Maldon salt and lemon juice and then a dusting of the burnt onion powder was all that the fish needed before plating up.

A couple of baby onions and micro basil are the finishing touches, one of my first in Oxford.

I, of course, enjoyed some more proper Greek food that night, on the way home, from the Kebab Kid, and I loved it!

Right that's it!

Tasting menu starting next week, and I'm changing all the desserts as well, but before that I'm just going to wander up into Oxford, to meet Sophie from work, take her for a drink and decide where to go for dinner tonight!

I'll tell you about my new, improved, Coronation chicken starter next time, and if I've got away with ordering some very expensive, new white plates for the restaurant!

Today I recommend that you listen to "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thice feat.T.I and Pharrell.

We're loving it down at OX4.