Right, it's going to kick off.

I was watching a youtube video of Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago, doing an El Bulli inspired tasting menu.

And it all looked fantastic.

So, I watched another.

And it all started going a bit wonky.

The chef's came out into the restaurant, rolled out a mat on the table, and started putting food on it.

Pudding, I think it was.

So, after behaving like a chimp at a tea party, they let the guests tuck in. Can't really see that sort of behaviour taking off in Derby, but here is my own El Bulli inspired dinner.

Served in Shottle.

It's been said that all you should leave behind when preparing a duck is it's quack.

And I agree.

So, I'm starting by making my sofrito.
It's a basic Spanish preparation that uses garlic paste, onions, tomato passata, herbs and olive oil.




Great to have some in the fridge, it will give a real umami boost to certain dishes.


Crushed garlic is sweated down, then lots of onions go in, picked thyme, more olive oil and a pinch of sugar. Easy.


Right, so that can cook down, until just golden and I'm going to push on with the duck.

I've got a whole one, so I can use all of it on two different dishes.

I'm actually in the process of trying to come up with a mini tasting menu, using one chicken, and serving it in four courses. But that's another story.

So, the duck has been dispatched. I've taken off the legs and boned them out, removed the wishbone, scored the skin, but left the breasts on the bone, as this will keep them moist and stop them shrinking, and chopped up the bones for my stock. The heart will be fried, and eaten, as a chef's treat.

Right the onions are ready, Malcolm McLaren's "Double Dutch" is playing and the wine has been opened.

So a packet of passata goes in and that can be left now, to cook, uncovered until it's all nice and thick and jammy.

I've browned off the chopped duck bones, added the onion trimmings and a glass of white wine to make a duck stock. This will be used to cook the rice. You see, I'm going to use all of the duck.

The duck's heart is at the bottom left of the chopping board, by the way.

Now, because I was thinking ahead, I left some of the crushed garlic in my bowl, all I need to do is add some chopped parsley, olive oil and toasted chopped hazelnuts. But I don't have any, so I used some almonds instead. It's funny but it sounds like a Spanish pesto to me.
Wonder which came first?
This will be mixed into the rice later.

See, all about the mise en place.

So the chopped up, boned, duck legs are being browned off now.

Listen, it's going to spit hot fat everywhere, but that is good.

It's show's the pan is hot enough, and I want to really caramelise those duck legs because they will impart a delicious roasted flavour to the dish.



So moving on to the main course, I've peeled a couple of oranges.

I thought this made perfect sense, as duck goes very well with oranges, and remember this blog is all about El Bulli


So, the oranges are sliced, sprinkled with thyme flowers, Maldon sea salt, olive oil and honey.

It would be nice as a little pudding with some dark chocolate and pistachios, and a sorbet.

And, it wouldn't be too bad with some nice fatty, fried confit pork belly.

But, I digress.

I mean, have you seen how nice it is out there, it's like I'm in Spain at the moment.

Except there are no riots going on at the moment in Shottle.

Although the bongo's haven't arrived yet!

Ok, back to the duck legs now.

I've added a couple of spoonfuls of the sofrito, and I'm going to let that reduce down with the duck legs.

And now it all going to get a bit hairy.

Bomba paella rice is added to the duck legs, and the hot duck stock is poured in.


Right, that's it.

I can relax.

Well, sort of.

This is not a risotto, so I don't need to worry about stirring it. In fact the slightly caramelised bits on the bottom of the pan are a delight!

So, now I'm nicely relaxed I can start worrying about the rest of the duck. A nice hot pan is required, and I've salted the duck as well.




You really need to brown the duck in a pan, to render the fat, and as I'm only going to roast the duck for 10 minutes, it will not get enough colour in the oven without some help from me.

See.





Looking good eh?






The nice thing about this dinner is if the timings right, and everything peaks at the same time, it's really easy to sit down together and enjoy it.

And, that's the whole point of dinner.

So, the rice has absorbed all of the stock, and all I'm going to do is stir in a couple off spoonfuls of picada, that's the parsley and almond paste,  and we're off!

First course sorted.








And it's superb.

And now for the breasts.

As you can see, by roasting on the bone, and leaving it to rest, the flesh is nice and pink and juicy and rare and a perfect rich foil to the sweet honeyed orange slices.

So, there you are.

Dinner, inspired by the worlds best ever restaurant.

And we even used plates.


















Right, that's it.


Some of the first English asparagus and Jersey Royals are coming over tomorrow, so that's my Sunday lunch sorted.

Wonder what they would be like in a sandwich?

Perhaps I'll have a  think about it.

Simon's song choice tonight - Dr Feelgood (Groove Junkies Rockin'Dub)

Oh, and this time the pictures look a little less wobbly!

Over easy sunny side up poached fried boiled scrambled smoked green middle back streaky fried slice mushrooms oat cakes tomatoes tinned fresh baked beans black pudding brown sauce tommy k toast butter marmalade jam marmite porridge honey brown sugar cream kedgeree eggs benedict florentine smoked salmon smoked haddock fruit salad prunes grapefruit orange juice bloody mary bucks fizz tea coffee fried haslet

It takes a lot of work to come up with an award winning breakfast!

And how it can be a bit of a complicated serve!

But it is easy though, and as long as you bag some top quality bangers, bacon and eggs you're half way there.

Enough has already been said about the Great British Breakfast, but it is delicious.

And as I love it so much, I wanted to start off the new spring tasting menu at East Lodge with a good healthy fry up.

Well, sort of.

As a good breakfast should be the start of the day I figured I could start the tasting menu with the same sort of flavours.

So, we have bacon, ham, black pudding, fried bread and eggs.

It took quite a while but it all ended up looking a  bit round, and I also wanted to see if I could get the black and gold colours of East Lodge on the menu, and I have!

So here it is.

East Lodge Breakfast 2012 Bradley Style.

Quite simple really.

All we do is slowly poach some ham hocks with onions, carrots and herbs.
When the bone can be easily removed we know they are ready.
It's important to let the hocks cool down in their liquor, as this will keep them moist.
The meat is then removed from the bones, and half is shredded and the other half minced.
We reduce a small amount of the reserved poaching stock and melt some duck fat, and mix with the cooled meat.
What, you didn't really think I would do a fat free fry up did you?
It's seasoned and rolled into balls, ready for the next stage.
The rest of the ham stock is strained and infused with grated black pudding overnight.
It's then clarified, using egg whites, protein and vegetables.
I did try the ice filtration method but the yield was pretty pathetic, so I gave up on that one.
Strained again, we end up with a beautiful, black, shiny stock.
It's weighed and softened gelatine is added.

We place the chilled pork balls on a cooling rack and melt the black pudding jelly.

This is then ladled over the breakfast.

A lot of times.

So, thats the easy bit sorted.

It does, of course, have eggs, bacon and fried bread with it.

Remember it is, after all, a full English!

So, we cook East Lodge egg yolks in the water bath, then cool them down, and whisk them up.

I love this garnish, it tastes so eggy and rich.

White bread is grated and fried and mixed with crispy chopped smoked bacon, chives and grated pork crackling.

And that's it, breakfast, my way.

I'll tell you how a Sunday roast has also made it on to the tasting menu next time.

Right that's it.

I'm off to eat some pasties now, on the way to hang around a petrol forecourt.

And, tonight, due to overwhelming success, starting around 6pm, another extreme blog will take place!

It's going to be quackers!!

Oh, and just one picture, it's of our new white chocolate and rhubarb dessert.

I know it's a bit left footed, but it is quite pretty, eh Jake!

So after having a chat with Matt today about how many bloggers there are out there, and listening to some ice T, I thought I'd start a new craze.

Extreme blogging.

Pretty radical,eh!

Slight problem though, as you will see from the pictures.

So what on earth is extreme blogging then?

Discovered in Shottle around spring 2012, in involves cooking a dish, photographing and writing about it at the same time.

Oh yes, and drinking white wine.

And playing with a mad cat.

So all I've done is joint a chicken, roasted some red peppers, caramelised some onion wedges and potatoes, deglazed with white wine, added some thyme and braised it on top of the stove for twenty minutes.

Although its important not to put too many pieces of chicken in the pan at the same time as they will not brown quickly and may just start to stew in their own juices, and that's a bit rubbish.

I've also added the bones, chopped as well, so I don't have to do any more washing up, and it makes it's own sauce as well.

All I did then is strain off the cooking juices and reduced them.

On the right you can clearly see the red peppers that I pan roasted and peeled.

Now a lot of cook books tell you to rinse off the charred skins under running water, but would you wash off a slightly charred piece of toast, no, thought not.

All you do is wash away all their flavour!

Some thick wedges of onion will impart a nice sweetness as well.

So, there you are.

Extreme blogging.

Remember where you heard it first!


And here it is, the finished dish.

All done in real time!




So, there you are my little blogonauts the first ever extreme blog.

And eaten in real time too!


Right that's it!

New tasting menu at East Lodge tomorrow, so I'm pretty sure there will be no extreme blogging there.

And I'll tell you all about my new bongos then.

Can't wait!

It's been seven hours and forty days, since I last wrote a blog.

I work every day and sleep all night, since I had no time.

Since I've been busy, sorting out my mac book pro,

But now it's back,

I can start again,

'Cause nothing compares to apple,
Nothing compares to apple.

So, there you are.

Now, at last, I can talk about intelligence, and how, I think I might have a little bit.

Unlike Sir Jonny, who. as head of design at the world's biggest company, could not be bothered to make a white wine proof mac book pro!

So, with my new, dry, apple ready, and continuing the Irish theme, I'm going to talk about clever cooking.

As you know we make truffled goats cheese butter at East Lodge, but I wanted to make some of my own butter, from scratch, just to see what is was like.

And I was bored.

Quite easy actually, just over whipped cream.

In fact, any idiot, including me, can do it.

So, what happens is, after whipping the cream, it will split, and leave you with the butter, and also some buttermilk.

After seasoning the butter with Maldon sea salt, and patting it to remove any remaining buttermilk, it was ready to be served.

Which was great, but after thinking about it, wondered what to do with the milk.

Well, well, well!

I thought!

How about soda bread.

I've never actually made it before, but I knew it needed either yoghurt of buttermilk, and as the proud owner of some, thought I'd put it to good use.

It's so easy as well.

Plain flour, some salt, sugar, bicarb and buttermilk.

No boring kneading, just mix to a wet dough, pop in the oven, and job done.

We served it on Saturday night with some of our smoked salmon and a Guinness gel, as a surprise course, to our chef's table guests.

And it really was good, but, you know, most things with warm bread and freshly churned butter are pretty good!

So, there you are, clever cooking.

Here's another example.

It's one of our lunch menu dishes, that saves on washing up, keeps all the flavours together, and is a perfect restaurant dish for cooking a la minute.

A perfect way to cook fish, it keeps it moist, makes a sauce and warms the veg!

We use salmon at the moment, but any fish will do. And by preparing some green vegetables, blanching turned new potatoes, and chopping herbs, it's all ready to be finished when called away.

So, poach the fish, then remove, and keep warm.
Reduce the poaching liquor and add the blanched vegetables.  We also add some sliced tiger prawn tails, but scallops or caviar would be a nice addition.
Finished with a good amount of butter, a drop or two of lemon juice,  and there you go.






A nice, intelligent fish dish, proving that there are, just a few, clever chefs out there!



Not too sure about these two though!



Right that's it.

Next time I'm going to tell you about how my new bread knife is making me put on weight, and if this new mac book pro is red wine proof!

And how a full English breakfast has made it on to the East Lodge Spring tasting menu.