A taste of Pisces

Piesces is a restaurant in the Madinat Jumeirah resort in Dubai; it is only one of 28 restaurants in the resort and my first dining experience. Below is their tasting menu.

I am treating myself as I am once again stuck in a foreign country by myself on a Saturday night. My meetings have gone well but I'm still alone for dinner and I must say that it's a bummer that we and the Middle East can't agree on when is weekend. So I'm planning to compensate by overindulcing on good food. Ten years ago I would have had a burger and hit the nightlife until I found company but I can not be bloody bothered anymore.

So here goes:

Apple wood smoked Salmon with White aspargus mousse, truffled quail egg and beluga caviar:

I'm afraid this one goes into the "trying way too hard" category. The basic problemn here is that it is a good idea let down by crap ingredients. You would need propper wild salmon to make this one work because farmed salmon is just too fatty and tasteless to carry a dish like this. That being said the mousse and quails eggs where excellent it is just that the whole thing did not work. There was beluga as well but I don't think two fish eggs really count as an ingredient so including them in the description was just a tad misleading.

Pan roasted scallop with Lobster sausage and white aspargus tarragon emulsion:

Now this was a truly inspirational dish although I'm not entirely sure why they lead off with the scallop as the main ingredients. Not that it was'nt perfectly coocked it is just that it was the lobster sausage and the sauce that made this dish. I have no idea how you make lobster sausage and not ruin the meat. They however clearly do because the sausage was as good as fresh lobster except crispy on the outside which added a je-ne-sais-pas-quais that I've never had before. The sauce was basically a liquid aspargus mousse heavily flavored with tarragon. But boy what a combination.

They also served the dish with a kiwi gewustraminer that was both excellent and very complementary to the tarragon sauce... Something to keep in mind gewustraminer and tarragon.

White grape sorbet and apple jelli as pallet clenser; very nice.

Confit of grey snapper with White aspargus risotto, king crab ravioli and lemmon beurre blanc:

I expected this dish to be way busy but in fact everything worked perfectly together. Maybe the crab was a little overwelmed but that is small change compared to a perfectly executed dish. The snapper was freesh and just right i.e. firm bust still moist. The risotto was al dente and the rather gentle taste of the aspargus very much apparent. Lemmon beurre blanc; what an idea to dump that on top of everything else but one that paid off handsomly. Possibly at the cost of drowning out the crab but this is actually a dish I"ll remember for a long time.

Pre dessert of strawberry icecream and vanilla mousse. Sounds good but because the mousse was actually made from yogurt it was great. Mmh

White chocolate mousse vanilla poached aspargus and rasberry sorbet.

Very good but I won't remember it next week

Espresso...

... Have to go to bed.

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Dubai

I spent all of last week in Dubai in meetings with bankers and other business partners. Although, the place looks like it sprung up mushroom like out of the dessert I am overall extremely impressed with the quality of what I found. I stayed at the Emirates Towers which is just about the nicest “business” hotel I’ve ever stayed at. The only hotels I’ve visited that beat the Emirates Towers on comfort and service are old style Grand Hotels such as the Oriental Bangkok and Plaza Athene in Paris. In addition to great quality the place has a buzz about it as does all of Dubai that you get in dynamic places.

There is also a huge amount of kitsch going on. Dubai is the sort of place that would really have liked the ’80 and the ’80 would have liked it back. The buildings are not built for practicality they are built to show up one neighbour. And since you and your neighbour are likely oil sheiks there are some magnificently pointless buildings going up. Same goes for the malls, which are magnificent, they are massive and every conceivable luxury brand is present as is every conceivable trendy seller of jeans and T shirts. There is simply no way that the relatively small population of Dubai shops enough to keep all of these shops going. I suspect that a lot of shops have been set up by franchisees that can afford to loose $$$ on the venture.

I also vent to the most massively kitsch ’80 party ever held. It was the launch of the Pallazzo Versage Dubai i.e. the developers where inviting potential investors for a party to draw attention to the latest luxury development in Dubai. Nothing special about that except that the MC was Cindy Crawford (still absolutely yummy although she’s a big girl) and the DJ was Boy George (also a big girl). The decorations where a mixture of commercial material for the Pallazzo and displays of Versage’s most outrageous designs in dresses. Tell me, what could possibly be more ’80 than, Versage dresses, a supermodel made rich and famous for being pretty and a coke snorting cross dresser!

In any case this is my food blog. The food in Dubai was uniformly good and in some cases great. The best meal I had was actually at a private house. We where invited to dinner at the house of some wealthy Iranians who put up a traditional Iranian meal all made in house. Unfortunately they also served copious quantities of wine so there will be no lengthy descriptions of the grub as I don’t really remember in sufficient detail. Basically, traditional Iranian food but unusually good.

I also went to a chop house, a Chinese dim sum place, a Japanese yakitory place, an Indian curry house, an Iranian restaurant and the Buddha Bar Dubai. The chop house was called The Chop House and served a perfect veal chop with some lovely pinot noir. What I call a perfect veal chop basically means caramelised on the outside and pink in the centre. They did that. All of the rest where good but not fab except the food at Buddha Bar which was much better than what you get at the original in Paris. The Buddha Bar Dubai is also much, much bigger than its Parisian parent.

I’m staying at the Mina A' Salam hotel when I go back to Dubai on Friday. It is from the same Jumeirah chain as the Emirates Towers but apparently more of a tourist destination. The hotel describes itself thus:

“Nestled on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, Mina A' Salam is the 'harbour of peace' - and gateway to Madinat Jumeirah, The Arabian Resort of Dubai. Offering a unique escape into a world rich in culture and faithful to time honoured values, Mina A' Salam is a grand boutique hotel of exquisite style”.

I am rather looking forward to this!

Menu Sunday 29 April 2007

1. Caviar Versailles
2. Portobello Truffle Soup
3. Brandade aux Mojo Rojo
4. Red Deer W/Polenta Fontina
5. Chocolate Nemesis;

I used the last of my Russia caviar loot make Caviar Versailles as per menu on 24/02/07. I will have to bribe some of my Russky friends to restock me. This is still the best way of serving caviar. I don’t care if the blini and cream and scrambled egg and charlotte are more traditional this is simply unbeatable. It is also just under a trillion calories per bite so not to be had often.

I skipped the vodka this time served with champagne.

The Portobello Truffle Soup is an invention of mine that I am not too happy with but which my guests liked a lot so it can’t be totally useless. Basically, you make chicken stock by simmering chicken pieces (brown and white meat), garlic, bouquet garni, an onion, carrots and whatever else is going off in your veggie drawer for about 1.5 hours. For six people you will need about a litre of stock.

When the stock is ready, put the liquid through a sieve, throw away the vegetables and all but about 100gr of chicken meat. Put the chicken and stock into a blender and whiz up until the chicken is totally obliterated put aside.

While the stock is simmering chop and fry about one Portobello per person in olive oil. When the mushrooms are done, in about 10 min, put about 80% of them in the blender with a single black truffle. Whiz up until the mushrooms are quite finely chopped but not a mush. Add to the stock with the remaining mushrooms.

Just before serving add about 50 - 100 ml of double cream and if you are feeling generous another black truffle finely sliced.

At this point we changed to Planeta a Sicilian chardonnay that I’m partial to.

I made a basic Brandade, see below, added a couple of tablespoons worth of double cream and filled one ramekin per person. I then covered the Brandade with parmesan cheese and heated in an oven with convection and the grill on at about 200 degrees. When the olive oil starts to bubble the Brandade is ready. Cover with Mojo Rojo… This really is a fantastic combination that will reappear on other menus.

The Polenta I made from about 200 grams of polenta as per instructions on the packet but instead of adding butter at the last moment I melted about 50 grams of Fontina cheese into the polenta. I then poured the polenta into a square oven proof form and let it set for 30 minutes. 15 minutes before serving the meat I put the polenta into the oven under the grill at 200 degrees.

To make the sauce I first made stock from the bones of the red deer. Essentially, I make it like any other stock. You start by grilling the bones with a bit of oil and then boil the hell out of it with veggies and herbs. I thickened the sauce with a bit of maisana before working about 50 grams of Fontina into about 300 ml of sauce.

The Red Deer was shot by my friend James somewhere near the Scottish border a few months ago and froze it after aging it a bit. What I was serving was the back fillet cut into about 1.5 cm steaks. I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and flash fried in a very hot pan for just one minute per side. This is just about as good as red meat gets. It is extremely tender, gamey in a very delicate manner and just fantastic. I would compare this to any of the speciality beef types such as Kobe.

Served with Frans Haaz 2004, a pinot noir from Alte Aldige that is excellent with game.

The Chocolate Nemesis is taken straight from the River Café cookbook and consists solely of chocolate, butter, sugar and eggs. The recipe goes as follows:

Ingredients:

1. 675g dark chocolate (70% cocoa);
2. 450g unsalted butter;
3. 10 eggs;
4. 675g caster sugar;
5. Crème fraiche or mascarpone, to serve. It is also quite good to whip up some yogurt with honey as a somewhat healthy alternative.

Preparations:

• Beat the eggs with 1/3 of the sugar, until the quantity quadruples;
• Dissolve the remaining sugar into a syrup with hot water. You really need to make sure that enough of the water has evaporated so that you have syrup. Too much water and the cake won’t settle;
• Place the chocolate and butter into the syrup, and combine over heat;
• Allow to cool slightly before adding the chocolate syrup to the eggs;
• Pour into a cake tin, and bake for 40-60 minutes in a bainmarie;
• Allow to set completely before turning out. Serves 10-12;

The cake is astonishing. It has no redeeming features other than being just incredibly good.

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Halibut with Fennel Risotto

I like halibut cut into 2 cm steaks, seasoned with salt & pepper and fried in olive oil 2.5 min each side. That’s it! Anything else detracts from the fish. You can put sauce over it, e.g. beurre blanc is very good, but this is an extremely fatty fish that in my, not overly humble, opinion does not react well to more involved cooking methods.

Fennel Risotto on the other hand is a dream for cooks that want to indulge in multi step recipes:

Ingredients:

1. 200 gr. Arborio Rice;
2. 1 Leak finely sliced;
3. 3 Garlic cloves chopped;
4. 1 stalk Celery finely sliced (optional not sure the celery adds much);
5. 1 Spring onion finely chopped;
6. 1 Medium Fennel;
7. 1 litre Vegetable broth;
8. 25 gr. butter;
9. 50 ml olive oil;
10. 100 ml Vermouth;
11. Salt & Pepper to taste;
    
12. 75 gr. Grated Parmesan.

Preparation:

• Cut the tops of the fennel and slice finely. Reserve any of the beard like leaves and add to the risotto at the same time as the parmesan. Cut the remaining fennel bulb in two and reserve half for the broth and slice the remainder into fine slices.
• To prepare the broth either dissolve good quality vegetable bullion in hot water or make your own which I generally can not be bothered to do. Add the remaining fennel half and let simmer for at least 20 min to allow the fennel taste to leach into the broth.
• In a very hot heavy bottomed pan heat about 15 ml of olive oil. When the oil is smoking add the sliced fennel and fennel tops and fry stirring occasionally until the fennel starts to caramelise. At this point lower the heat and add the remaining oil and butter and allow to melt before adding the leak, garlic, spring onion, and celery and allowing them to fry until soft.
• Off the heat add the Arborio Rice and turn to coat in the oil and butter mixture. Put back on the heat and start adding the broth a ladleful at a time. The idea is that there should be enough broth to just about cover the rice. Allow the rice to absorb just about all the broth before adding more. Repeat until the rice is “al dente”.
• When the rice is al dente add the Vermouth, and allow it to be absorbed before mixing in the parmesan. Season and serve immediately.

Razor Clams in White Wine Sauce

I am generally not much of a fan of shellfish i.e. I will happily eat it but won’t seek it out. The one exception is Razor clams or Atlantic Razors that I tasted for the first time at the house of a friend in Rapallo on the Italian Riviera. These guys were an absolute revelation and I’ve eaten them at every opportunity since. One thing that always intrigued me is that the Razors in Italy where much smaller than what I get in the shops and restaurants here in the UK. This even though I knew that most of the European Razor clam catches are in fact in Scotland.

The explanation for this turns out to be two separate subspecies of Razor clams, Ensis siliqua and Ensis. Arcuatus. The former gets exported to the Far East whereas the latter is exported to continental Europe to cater to different local tastes. For some reason us Londoners get the siliqua variation which is much larger than its cousin.

I like Razor Clams as simply cooked as possible as per the recipe below.

Ingredients:

1. 8 Razor Clams;
2. Half a stalk of leak finely chopped;
3. A large clove of garlic chopped;
4. 100 ml white wine;
5. 15 ml olive oil;
6. 15 gr butter;

Preparation:

• Buy these things cleaned if you can but otherwise you need to start by cutting of the entire “beard” and soak the clams in plenty of cold water. Razor clams are basically long cylinders that live covered in sand on sandy ocean floors and as a consequence the first thing to do is to get them to spit out all the sand inside them. By putting them in fresh i.e. non salty, water they basically think they are suffocating and start to spit out their guts. Drain and dry well;
• Soften the garlic and leak at high heat in the olive oil and butter add the clams and turn to coat in the mixture;
• Pour over the wine and let boil covered for about 3 – 4 minutes;
• The clams (if they are alive) will open up during the cooking so you can use them as a container for the sauce. Lay them out on plates and scoop the sauce into the clams and serve.

The recipe above is as simple a recipe as possible but I have tasted a variety of different recipes. Simply replacing the wine with lemon substantially changes the taste without subtracting anything from the clams. Another simple addition that I’ve had and liked is a small quantity of Soya sauce. This changes the “type” of taste because the sauce becomes much more tart and salty but does not overwhelm the clam taste.

Plokkfiskur

In writing the Brandade recipe yesterday it occurred to me that one of my favourite dishes growing up was what could be described as Icelandic Brandade, namely Plokkfiskur. The name literally means mashed fish and that not surprisingly is exactly what it is. Iceland when I was growing up was a place where fish was dirt cheep and, thus, the basic food and Plokkfiskur was the standard method of dealing with fish leftovers. These also meant that Plokkfiskur was made from any type of fish and believe me some are better than others. Catfish for example should not be made into Plokkfiskur under any circumstance and to be fair I don’t think I had it more than once.

Nowadays fish is no longer inexpensive so people do not typically have very many leftovers so fresh fish is bought for Plokkfiskur. Typically, you would use haddock in Iceland but I prefer cod. For some reason that I’ve never quite understood Icelanders historically do not eat much cod. We love haddock and eat it where other nations would use cod that they’ve usually bought from us.

I called Mum to get her recipe for Plokkfiskur and got a clear demonstration of from whom I inherited the inability to follow recipes. Her recipes are all about using a little bit that and if you like a little bit of this. It is a good thing she’s a naturally talented cook because otherwise we would have eaten some real rubbish when I was growing up. In any case this is Mum’s Plokkfiskur recipe (proportions are mine):

Ingredients:

1. 500 gr. cooked haddock or cod, (if using salted then soak the fish first) cleaned of bones and skin and flaked;
2. 200 ml warm milk (it is not a bad idea to warm the milk with a bay leave in it);
3. 30 gr. Butter;
4. 1 onion, finely chopped;
5. 30 gr. Flour;
6. 500 gr. cooked cubed potatoes;
7. Freshly ground white pepper;
8. Salt (if using fresh fish);

Preparation:

• Soften onion in butter over medium heat;
• Work the flour into the butter and onion mix while stirring continuously until you have a roux or dough like mixture;
• Slowly add the warm milk to the roux while stirring and bring to a boil. Let simmer for about 5 min;
• Add the fish and potatoes to the milk and mash them up with a wooden spoon or a potato masher. The idea is to get a very coarse paste like substance;
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon onto a plate and eat with buttered rye bread. If you are very skinny or 10 years old you can also add a knob of butter at this point! Mum always served this with tomato wedges and dressed with either chives or parsley.

This is Mum’s classic Plokkfiskur recipe but apparently what she now does, she may be 83 but that does not stop her from experimenting, is mix the fish, potatoes and onion with an egg and olive oil in a food processor. She then gratinates the whole thing in the oven under the grill, sometimes with a cheese topping, before serving as per above. Done that way it sounds an awful lot like Brandade.

I typed Plokkfiskur into google and found two excellent English language sites devoted to Icelandic food. The first one belongs to Jo who is apparently an English lit major who put up the website as a labour of love and the other belongs to Gestgjafinn an Icelandic gourmet magazine. They both have Plokkfiskur recipes that are substantially the same as Mum’s.

In Iceland you don't often see Plokkfiskur on the menu in restaurants but there is one restaurant that has made a speciality out of this unassuming dish. That place is called 3 Frakkar and I usually go to have their Plokkfiskur whenever I'm in Iceland.

Brandade De Morue

I first had Brandade de Morue (or baked salt cod) in approximately 1978 in Brasserie Lipp on the Boulevard St Germain in Paris and I was not especially impressed. Problem was that I was a teenager from a country where you have fish for every other meal at least and having fish in a restaurant was a wasted opportunity to eat meat as far as I was concerned. I returned to Brasserie Lipp about four years later and found that I loved the stuff. As a matter of fact to this day I return to Brasserie Lipp for no other reason than to have their Brandade.

Everybody seems to agree that the dish originates from Nimes in the South of France but there are a number of stories as how exactly the dish was invented and why it originates in a region that does not fish cod. The most likely explanation as far as I’m concerned is that Bretons traded salt cod with the Provençales in exchange for salt from the region. Local cooks then developed the dish over time to incorporate local ingredients and to adapt it to local tastes. Over time they then grew to love the taste.

My favourite tale of the origins of Brandade de Morue is that it was invented by Benedictine monks who decided to stretch their insufficient stock of Bacalao (Provençal for salt cod) with potatoes when faced with the sudden and unannounced appearance of an important visitor for lunch. This story, which I’ve come across several times, rings true (i.e. all the ingredients are what a Provençal kitchen would contain as a minimum even if they are broke) and the dish is sometimes know as Brandade de Morue à la Bénédictine. Unfortunately, things almost never happen in such an exciting manner and the more probable explanation is that years of trying to make a foreign food palatable was how we came to have this excellent dish.

The recipe for a basic or if you will classic Brandade is as follows:

Ingredients:

1. 750 gr. Salt cod;
2. 1 large potato;
3. 2 garlic cloves;
4. 250 ml olive oil;
5. Freshly ground black pepper to taste;

Preparation:

• Soak salt cod at least 12 hours in cold water in the fridge, make sure you change the water at least 3 times preferably more often to remove excess salt. There is no consistency to how salty the cod is when sold so the time it takes to water the fish will vary. The idea is that the fish should be slightly more salty than a fresh fish that you’ve cooked covered in salt;
• Put the cod in a pan of cold water and bring to a boil. Lett simmer for about 10 minutes;
• Drain cod, and place in fresh water for 10 minutes;
• Boil potato, remove skin and pass it through a sieve;
• Flake the cod to remove any skin or bones;
• Pound the cod and garlic to a paste in a mortar and combine with the potato;
• (or you can just put the cod, garlic and potato in to a food processor and wiz it into a paste but where is the fun in that)
• Place the cod paste in a sauce pan over low heat and combine, slowly, with the olive oil while stirring constantly;
• Season with pepper to taste.

That’s your basic homemade Provençal Brandade but as far as I’m concerned this is where the fun starts. There are literally a million variations that start from this point. The first variations are to add herbs (bay leaves, thym) and/or vinegar (white vine) to the soaking water. Depending on how you are actually planning on consuming the Brandade this will give a little added flavour to the dish.

It is for also very common to replace the oil with warm milk or to mix milk or oil with warm cream. I’ve even seen recipes with cream only but that is way rich for my tastes. Lemon juice as seasoning is also very common as is mixing in parsley.

The next step is in serving the Brandade. Brasserie Lipp gratinates the Bradade with cheese (I think they use Cantal) before serving it with a small salad. Another classic is to drizzle olive oil, bread crums and paprika on top before warming the Brandade up in the oven.

This weekend I intend to serve Brandade warmed up in ramekin and covered in the Mojo Rojo I discovered in the Canaries. I figure that if the Mojo Rojo made regular potatoes excellent then potatoes and salt cod should also benefit greatly from the mixture.

A Meal to Remember

Tasting Menu

07 April 2007

Rivisitazione di fichi e prosciutto di parma

A fig mousse served with whole figs pan-fried in Port served with

Parma ham and drizzled with a reduction of Anghelu ruju

(a fortified Sardinian wine)

Coulis di patate e porcini tartufate

Cream of potato and porcini with a hint of truffle

~

Gnocchi di patate con radicchio e bottarga

Home made gnocchi served with a sauce of radicchio and dried mullet roe

Risotto ai calamari e miele di Corbezzolo con calamari ripieni

Risotto of squid and honey topped with baby squid

stuffed with carrot and spinach

~

Filetto di branzino con salsa di olive verdi e sambuca

Fillet of Sea bass in a sauce of green olives, Sambuca and

tomato concasse served with pan-fried spinach

~

Sgroppino all’arancia e basilico con Grand Marnier

A taste breaker of orange sorbet, basil and Grand Marnier

~

Petto di Pollo con salsa all’arancia

Chicken breast cooked in burro chiarificato (clarified butter)with an orange

infused sauce and served with a compote of aubergine, courgette,

cherry tomatoes and pine nuts

~

Mousse bianca di caffe con caramello

A white coffee and soft caramel mousse

I really do not think anything else needs to be said about this menu except to say that it was just as good as it sounds! The chef is 23, he'll be absolutely awesome by the time he's 30.

Barrafina

Frith street Soho,
(Lunch 12/04/07)

Catalan style tapas bar from the owners of Fino in Fitzrovia. This lunch was slightly bigger than intended but we were having fun sampling the menu. I highly recommend this place as the food was of the highest quality without being overworked or falling into any of the other traps that chefs fall for when serving simple food.

We had:

1. Mixed meat (lomo, jamon de jabugo, Chorizo etc great quality)
2. Tomato toast (essentially white toast rubbed with garlic and butter covered in a tomato sauce, a classic dish but unusually good)
   
3. Totilla Jamon and Spinach (very nice combo, would like to know how they make it though as the tortilla was like a container stuffed with the other ingredient as opposed to everything being mixed up together as is more usual)
   
4. Deep fried red mullet (fresh red mullet, deep fried with a lemon on the side, what could be better)
   
5. Tellines (tiny little clams that have been fried with butter and olive oil. this was the only disappointment as they had not put them in cold water to spit out any sand i.e. the clams where gritty)
   
6. Chorizo on toast w/aioli and rocket (mmmm)
   
7. Green salad (need that at some point!)
   
8. Morcilla w/Piquillo Peppers (essentially black budding. Served on a simple boiled potato with a relish of the peppers. Did not really work for me as the morcilla/pepper combo was not really strong/sweet/rich enough to cope with the potato)
   
9. Cotelleta (lam chops done the Spanish way, simple beautiful)
   

We had a bottle of Red with all of this a Mas Donis 2005 from Montsant (Garnacha and Tempranillo) recommended by the patron!

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Bacchus

177 Hoxton Street
London N1 6PJ
(24-03-2007).

I made the trek out Hoxton for my birthday with friends two of which where either about to or had just had their birthdays. We had read about this restaurant but never been however, as the chef was rumoured to have trained at el Bulli in the Costa Brava near Barcelona we were very exited about the prospect of avant garde food. The restaurant has received mixed reviews but based on our experience they have either fixed the negatives or the criticism was uncalled for.

Our table of five had a very competent waitress that appeared not to be serving other tables so was always available when we needed something. One of the more common criticism had been that the staff was clueless but this was not at all our experience. Same goes for the food. Innovative and excellently executed was how I would describe the experience overall.

We had the nine course tasting menu which consisted of:

• Sardine, rhubarb puree, citrus, rosemary-sake spray (excellent particularly the puree which totally made this dish)
• Scallops, hon shimeji mushrooms, dashi, mint (No recollection)
• Artichoke and honey-wine soup, pine nut ravioli, eringe, yogurt (again excellent never had artichoke in a soup put this really worked)
• Pork jowl, black radish, langoustine, leek puree (good but unremarkable)
• Free range egg cooked at sixty five degrees, dashi, chicken skin (yes, I loved this. I have not managed to read up on what exactly happens to egg at sixty five degrees but the egg that Bacchus served had a very unique consistency somewhere between gelatinous and hard boiled egg. With the saltiness of the dashi and chicken skin this was a very unique and satisfying dish.)
• Salmon belly, black olives, date and hazelnut puree, pate de brique (a bit boring)
• Lamb shoulder, figs brulee, hijiki paste, hot coffee (I have seen this dish much criticised in reviews but I think this undeserved. The lamb has been cooked for 36 hours using the sous-vide method and in my opinion the resulting bitterness is very attractive. A very unique taste to be sure but it worked for me. I was a little unsure about the ground coffee beans but the rest worked.)
• Black olive financier, roasted pear ice cream, pine nuts (I have also seen this dish criticised but I found the combinations of salt (on the ice cream) and sweet perfect.)

I have to admit that my recollections are a little hazy as between the champagne at my house before leaving for the restaurant and the Bacchus Bubblebath cocktail before dinner I was quite drunk. This explains why there are only eight dishes on the list above - I will just have to go again! The restaurant gave us the cocktail recipes and my bubblebath consisted of apple puree, simple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, apple juice, Thai basis, vodka (loads) and lemon grass. The other had a Bacchus Bloody Marvellous a “twist on a classic bloody mary” that was made from lime juice, lemon juice, orange zest and juice, ginger and tomato juice (all strained), sweet basil soy sauce, Worcester sauce, chilli, pepper oil and loads of vodka!

After dinner Nuno Mendes the chef owner, came to speak to us drunks and we found out that his stay at el Bulli was in fact only three months but he appears to have picked up a lot in his time there. He did in fact give us a concise version of his CV that was quite extensive for a young guy but I unfortunately don’t remember it except that he started out with Jean Georges in New York and has done some stints in Asia. I think there should be more of a buss about this restaurant than there is at the moment. It is not as good as the Fat Duck but it is very good and for me a welcome source of innovative food.

The Grill at the Dorchester

Park Lane,
London W1K 1QA,
(28-03-2007)

Went there yesterday for dinner, was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and service. I started with pan fried scallops served on white truffle risotto. The scallops where perfectly cooked but what really made this dish was the risotto. Velvety, light stunning. We had a Louis Latour, Puligny-Montrachet 2002 which was excellent and almost good value at £79.

Main was a fairly unremarkable rib-eye with black pudding. Good but nothing more although the cooking again was perfect. The vine however was a Châteaux Palmer 1990, Troisieme Cru Classe de Margaux I did not see the price but I imagine we paid something like £200 for it. I love Margaux and I particularly love Palmer and 1990 was a very good year. I think Parker gave it 92/100.

I will definitely have to explore the rest of the restaurants at the Dorchester after this experience. Particularly, China Tang’s that looks very promishing.

Mojo Rojo

My mother and her sisters, well two of her five sisters, spend most of March in the geriatric capital of Europe Gran Canaria. Specifically in the holiday town of Maspalomas. I decided to go over and spend last weekend with them and drive the old ladies around the Island as I suspected three octogenarians would not be terribly mobile on their own.

My memories of Gran Canaria are all from annual visits to Playa del Ingles made with my parents when I was a kid. I think I stopped going with them when I was eleven on the basis that hanging with my parents for a month even if the weather was good was not that much fun. I remember the place being touristic but as a kid I really did not appreciate that the only reason there even where towns where we were staying was so that Northen European tourist would have somewhere to stay. The place is simply horrific and completely artificial with not a vestige of local culture visible anywhere. And the food is indescribable.

Normally I know I am in the wrong restaurant when the menu is in German or even worse in one of the Scandinavian languages. This usually means the restaurant has decided to focus on fleecing tourists and not on food. As a matter of fact I generally do not go into restaurants that display anything other than local language menus out front. If is says tourist menu then I actually switch sides on the street to avoid contagion. Imagine what I felt like on discovering that having the menu in Icelandic is the norm in Gran Canary.

I had one all right meal of baccalo or salt cod in a hotel restaurant in Playa del Ingles but the rest of the culinary experience was pretty depressing. I will never go back other than to play driver for my mum. The only good food experience came in a little town called Tejeda in the centre of the island.

This town looked different and more prosperous than any other I have seen on the island and the restaurant on the town square looked authentic. It looked authentic in a worn way that suggests its been there a long time and been used up by the locals. Upon sitting down on an outside table (the weather did not disappoint even if the island did) the owner came and told us in surprisingly good English about a seven course menu that they where serving that lunch time. It contained all sorts of goodies but what caught my attention was what he said was local speciality of lamb and potatoes.

Basically, what it is is various pieces of lamb quickly grilled at high heat with just salt as spice served with local potatoes covered in a sauce called mojo rojo - literally red gravy. The effect of grilling the lamb at high heat means it closes up quickly and becomes very nice and caramelized on the outside. What really makes this dish however is the mojo rojo and the wonderful canary potato. They are very proud of that potato and rightly so because it really is amongst the best potatoes I've ever had. The mojo rojo is the real find. According to the towns own website (they have a website!) it is made by maciating the following ingredients in a mortar:

• Garlic;
• A small amount of sea salt;
• Cumin seeds;
• 2 tomates;
• Hard bread (they call it pan duro I have not really worked out what that is);
• Olive oil;
• Vinegar;
• Sweet paprika;
• Water.

Simply magnificent, almost turned my opinion of Gran Canary.

On the website they also have a recipe for mojo verde or green gravy. In that case they replace the sweet paprika with parsley (cilantro) and then claim it is great sauce for fish, which I don't doubt.

Carrot Salad

I have started making this salad again after being bored with it for a long time. I prefer Carrot salad as simple as possible i.e. grated carrot, best quality balsamic vinegar and olive oil plus freshly grated black pepper and sea salt. I sometimes replace the balsamic vinegar with lemon or sherry vinegar. I sometimes add raisins or chopped dried apricots but the variations to this simple salad are astonishing.

I googled Carrot Salad and got 1.5 million hits with a really wide selection of methods for preparing the salad. A lot of these where for cooked carrot salad whereas I like raw carrot salad and for variations on the classic French bistro salad whereby they add remolade to the grated carrot. While I love the remolade method it does appear slightly besides the point to lather the carrot up in mayo if I’m trying to eat healthily.

Basic ingredients:

• Grated Carrot;
• Best quality olive oil (really do use the best this is a raw salad and you will taste the quality of the oil);
• Balsamic vinegar (same comment with regards to quality applies);
• Freshly grated black pepper;
• Sea salt;

Potential additional ingredients:

• Dried apricots (finely chopped);
• Raisins;
• Celery slices (very finely chopped);
• Apples preferably grated;
• Coarsely chopped almonds;
• Roasted pine nuts;
• Chives;
• Shallots (let them marinade in cold water for 5 min to cut the bitterness of the shallot);
• Grated white turnips (finely grated is important for turnips);
• Peas and/or beans;

Potential additional dressing ingredients:

• Lemmon or lime (instead of balsamic);
• Sherry vinegar (instead of balsamic);
• Walnut oil (just a dash into the olive oil);
• Soy sauce (with lemon or lime not balsamic);
• Yogurt;
• Mustard preferably Dijon or mustard seeds;
  Worcestershire sauce (¼ tsp);
• Ground ginger;
• Fresh mint or flat leave parsley or coriander;
• Ground cumin;

And I can go on and on. A lot of recipes contain sugar and or honey but I think that’s unnecessary as the carrot is quite sweet enough as it is. One variation that I’m quite exited about but have not tried is to cut the carrot lengthwise into 5 mm think sticks and roasting them before making the salad as before. Will be trying this soon.

BBC on Icelandic Food

Found this excellent BBC Food article on traditional Icelandic food.

St. JOHN

26 St John Street,
London, EC1M 4AY
(07 March 2007)

This is one of my favorite restaurants in London for its eccentric food offering. The food at St John basically is very simple but uses ingredients that we’ve gotten accustomed to never seeing e.g. offal and bone marrow. I love this kind of stuff having been raised by a mother who bought animals whole (she outsourced the actual killing but only because the authorities would have objected to her slaughtering animals in the garage) and then proceeded to use everything. And I mean everything with the possible exception of the trotter. At my house we made sausages from stuffed sheep’s stomach, blood sausage and we ate the heads of animals. Offal was served the Italian way with loads of onion.

We went to St John on the spur of the moment because we had gone to see Peer Gynt at the Barbican and it was so bad we walked out during intermission. I have no idea why anyone would go see a play by Ibsen. His plays are dull in a mind numbing way that only manic depressed Norwegians (and possibly Swedes) can manage. I only went because it was a performance by the National Theater of Iceland but I would never have gone back home in Reykjavik. The acting was superb but you can not sustain yourself on good acting alone for almost three hours. It is like watching someone masturbate; you can admire the technical excellence but you’ll never get anything out of it yourself.

Having, escaped Ibsen we tried getting a table at St John which is hopeless without an reservation but were offered a table in the bar area. They have a slightly scaled down menu there and by 9.30 when we arrived where out of most things. Nonetheless we managed to have a very good meal of smoked eel, Welsh Rarebit, roasted bone marrow with parsley salad, chicken and garlic soup and chocolate cake.

It was all very good and their bone marrow is one of my favorite dishes that I have every time. It is roasted bone marrow served with sea salt and parsley salad all of which you mix together on a whole bread toast. The soup was so heavy on the garlic that my stomach is still complaining twelve hours later but it was good. The force de resistance was the chocolate cake. It is one of these spongy chocolate cakes but so heavy on the chocolate that it becomes runny like a mousse. They serve it with a crème fraise that is much more sour than normal and just works perfectly with the cake.

BEURRE BLANC

Beurre blanc is a hot butter sauce made from a vinegar and shallot reduction to which butter is added. Apparently, the origin is that a chef in the Loire Valley forgot to use eggs and Tarragon when making a Béarnaise sauce for a fish dish he was serving at a dinner held by the Marquis de Goulaine. The sauce was an instant hit and was named beurre blanc on the spot!

Ingredients for a Basic Beurre Blanc:

• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar (can be replaced by the juice of one lemon)
• 2 tablespoons dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon minced shallots
• 1 to 2 sticks unsalted butter, cold
• Salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan combine vinegar, wine and shallots. Over low to medium heat reduce mixture to about 1 tablespoon of a jam like substance. Over low heat add cold butter in a spoon size at a time while whisking continually. Continue to add, butter quickly, barely allowing for previously added butter to melt. Whatever you do, work quickly and pay attention to the temperature. Overheat the sauce and it will separate, leave it too long and it settles and instead of frothy you get flat.

If you are looking for a fine sauce strain the beurre blanc but I quite like getting the shallot with the sauce. You can at this point serve the sauce over asparagus or almost any fish. There are however, loads of methods of making beurre blanc more interesting. Dijon mustard is a classic recipe as is truffle and cream. Muscadet instead of white wine is an Anjou version and in Nantes it is made with fish stock.

Beurre Blanc Genovaise is this rather interesting version:

• 4 shallots, very finely chopped
• 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 250 ml water
• 250 ml dry red wine
• 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh chervil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons anchovy paste
• freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 2 sticks unsalted butter

You make this exactly in the same way as the basic sauce but obviously with a lot more ingredients. I had this in the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva over Salmon and it was excellent.

The Temperance

74-76 York Street,
London W1H 1QN
(06-03-2007)

New gastro pub in the neighborhood, Marylebone. Went there with a mate to try out the food. My general feeling with gastro pubs is that when they try too hard to be French bistros they fail. This place is more Victorian classics than bistro and was very much to my liking. The décor is simple with faux gilding on the wallpaper and a rather sweet Swedish (this is the Swedish quarter after all) waitress which together made for a very homely experience.

The menu changes constantly depending on what is in season and available but follows a theme of serving up traditional fare with a twist. I had scallops with some totally forgettable sauce but the scallops were perfectly cooked. They had been pan fried just long enough to brown the sides but no more. My friend had a rustic vegetable soup (velute) that was very heavy on the cumin but again very simple worked very well.

For mains I had Venison & Cumberland sausages with black pudding mash and he had haggis with whiskey jus. Both dishes where firmly in the sort of comfort food that is delightful if done correctly i.e. simply. Here the Temperance did not disappoint and both dishes where excellent. I was particularly found of the black pudding mash as that is a completely new variation on mash as far as I’m concerned.

We finished with Gooseberry & rhubarb crumble w/butterscotch ice-cream which again was very good in its simplicity. In short no complaints although £80 for the two of us with one bottle of vine was a little steep but hey they’ve got to pay London rents like everybody else.

Pied à Terre

34 Charlotte Street
London W1T 2NH
(28 February 2007)

Tasting Menu:

• Pepper Seared Tuna with Chive Crushed Potato, Black Olive and Cabernet Sauvignon Vinaigrette, Baby Sorrel
• Panfried Scottish Scallops with Squash and Vanilla Puree, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds and Beurre Noissette Sauce
• Roasted Foie Gras, Salsify Puree, Red Onion and Red cabbage Marmalade, Bayleaf Foam
• Panfried Zander with Ragout of lentils, Snails and Root Vegetables, Parsnip Puree, Curly Kale and Bacon Oil
• Roasted best End of Salt Marsh Lamb with Caramelised Endive, Shallot Puree and Oregano Sauce
• The Cheese
• Mango Coulis with Coconut Foam
• Bitter Sweet Chocolate tart, Macadamia Nut Cream and Stout Ice Cream
• Coffee and Petits Fours

Mmmh. We had a lovely Sancerre with the fish and an even lovelier Chevry Chambertin with the meat course and cheese. The menu really speaks for itself although the most memorable dish was the Zander and least memorable was the foie gras.

This was a closing dinner for a deal we did before Christmas so we started with a champagne reception at the bar. The best dish of the day was actually one of the canapés that they served in the bar. It was a foie gras foam sandwiched between two very nice home made crisps. Spetacular.

Tinola (Philipino chicken soup)

Love this recipe and mess about with it constantly. This is partially because I can usually never get the sayote as it is mostly sold in Oriental stores. My local Lebanese stores, usually very helpful in selling all things Asian, do not have it so I have to go to Chinese or Thai stores in other neighbourhoods. The defining elements of this soup over other chicken soups are the use of ginger and fish sauce. The only reason the Pinoys use sayote is that it is abundant and cheep in the Philippines. In any case from what I've read the real tradition is to use raw, i.e. unripe, papaya but that is not exactly widely available in London either.

I have replaced the sayote with various forms of kale, courgette, and even root veggies. It all works. I have also replaced the onion with leeks, shallot and even celery although I must say that did not quite work. I have also read Pinoy recipes (e.g. Pinoycook) that use pork which does not excite me all that much. Pinoycook does however discuss cooking a chicken liver in the broth and making a dunking sauce with it which does excite me. Must try that next time.

Ingredients:

• 2 onions peeled and quartered;
• 6 slices of ginger peeled (1-2 inches length);
• 1 chicken;
• 8 or so new potatoes peeled;
• 2 sayote (Chayote, Christophene, vegetable pear) peeled and sliced into big chunks;
• Sili leaves;
  
• water;
• salt, pepper;
• Thai (or if you can get it Phillipine Patis) fish sauce;

Saute onions and ginger in vegetable oil then add chicken, skin side down. (2-3 pieces per person and use the backs for more flavour). Turn chicken it doesn't need to be very browned. Then add water and season with salt, pepper and fish sauce.

Simmer over low heat with cover for about 40 minutes. Add potatoes when there is 10 minutes remaining. Add sayote about 5 minutes after potatoes. Then let cool and scrape off the fat from the top.

Serve with rice

Beetroot Tartar

To prepare blend together:

• 1 Cornition
• 1 tbls Capers
• 1 Shallot
• Red vine or cherry vinegar
• Worcester sauce
• Tabasco
• Salt & Pepper
  
• Home made majo to taste
  
• 2 Beets

All finely chopped but not pulped. Serve on toast or cheese.