The War On Cookbooks

The Front Line Food Diary (7 course tasting menu for Helen's birthday)

Helen's Birthday tasting menu.

If you're doing a tasting menu for only 2 people you may as well (except for maybe the washing up) do it for 10. It's a phenomenal amount of work for one person to do and I don't recommend it unless you feel like punishing yourself. Also taking into consideration the fact that the guest lives with you and they are not supposed to know what your cooking there are countless other problems that can arise.

So mission one is getting girlfriend out of the house and 2 is to cook as fast as possible. 

Still all this said I did get to enjoy what I cooked and drank lot's of wine while cooking (maybe a little reflection of the small mistakes in my last two courses...only little ones mind)

Starter 

Insalata Caprese

A basil sorbet, spherification of mozzarella, 

roasted cherry tomato and balsamic and olive oil crystals.

This was essentially an experiment in temperature and texture using traditional flavour combinations. The Mozzarella sphere bursts into a sauce for the rest of the dish and is seasoned with the crystals. I need to work a bit on the seasoning balance but it works very well. 

The great thing about the temperature variances is that it delays the flavours in your mouth so you taste everything one after the next all in one mouthful.

Fish Course

Fish and Chips (A French Laundry rip off)

Pan fried red mullet, a garlic palette, parsley coulis and a salad of milk blanched garlic chips and shallots.

The palettes are made from blending lots of blanched garlic with hard boiled egg yolks and butter. You then freeze them, cut out circles and pan coat them in panko breadcrumbs using cream and flour. The garlic chips are blanched in milk to make them less bitter and the coulis is self explanatory. 

You can get the full recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook.

This is the only recipe that wasn't mine. I did it mostly out of curiosity and also because Helen likes fish and chips and she'd already eaten all of my variations. 

It turned out beautifully and not bad looking either. The only thing that didn't look like it was supposed to was the palette. It looked great on its own but without 40 staff at my side to help me plate up and by the time I had done everything it had melted a bit with the heat and weight of the fish (The fillets

were also way too big portion wise but what was I going to do with the rest ?). 

Amuse Bouche

Scallop sashimi with balsamic and strawberry hearts.

Simply some very nice scallops from atari ya sliced and plated with some finely sliced strawberry hearts( I say hearts because I only uses the middle cut of the strawberry, otherwise is didn't look as cool with all the veins and stuff) and a balsamic reduction. Also drizzled with small drop of very expensive (Seriously I must have been drunk when I bought it) balsamic vinegar. Dressed with some watercress and fresh basil.

I served this with some sparkling sake at the table. It was all very nice as expected. There really is no way to go wrong with this so I wont bore you with any tasting notes.

First Meat Course

A Chicken, Bacon and Avocado Sandwich.

The surprise star of the show for me. I had based this dish on 

Helen's favorite sandwich which as it turned out she luckily 

didn't have for lunch that day. As far as experiments go this 

was pretty last minute. I honestly had never practiced this 

nor did I have any idea if it would even work.

The dish is composed of a sandwich of poussin (cooked at 

56oC) and loin of pork (also cooked at 56oC) with the loin 

sandwiched in between two breast cuts. I have to admit I 

did want pork belly for this but I didn't leave myself enough 

time in the end to cook it well.

The meat sandwich is then wrapped in the whole poussin

skin and is pan fried in deep hot oil and 

butter until it's crispy.

It's served with an light avocado sauce made minutes 

before plating.

The lightness of the sauce with the fatty skin and the 

texture of the meat inside was surprisingly good.

I do want to try it again with belly though. I think 

that would be top notch.

Main Course

72 hour cooked Veal with a thyme butter sauce.

I do have a picture of this but it is so out off focus and 

burry its not worth looking at. This could 

have been a result of the fading light outside or the volume 

of wine we had both drunk by this stage. It is more likely 

some sort of combination of the two.

The shoulder of veal was cooked at 56oC for 72 hours 

in a water bath. The reason for the long cooking 

time is because of the way the collagen breaks down 

at lower temperatures than normal and the effect it has 

the meat during this. Apparently it actually tenderizes 

the meat. I don't know if any of this is true or not but 

what I do know is that Alain Ducasse cooks it this way 

and the veal I had in his restaurant in paris was the best 

thing I've eaten in my whole life...'nuff said I think ?

Whatever happened it was like butter. I simply pan fried 

it with some enoki mushrooms and plated both. I then 

browned some butter in the pan, to which I thew in

a few sprigs of thyme at the last minute and poured over 

the veal. I then garnished with some deep fried shallots.

It needed nothing else. If you get the veal cooked right 

the butter is enough of a compliment. Simple and 

perfect. 

Dessert

Chocolate honey sphere with a toblerone sauce.

Once again no picture, but this time I am slightly 

annoyed. It looked really good.

I made four chocolate half circle moulds using some 

egg poachers. I also made some honeycomb and a 

honey ice cream.

I placed a ball of ice cream and some honeycomb 

inside one of the half circles and places another

half circle on top. So what we had was a chocolate 

football filled with the ice cream and honeycomb.

I then heated a sauce of melted toblerone and 

cream and served it so as when you pour the hot

sauce over the ball it melts it and reveals what is 

inside.

It looked good...honest.

Petit Fours

Cherries and Almond

Chocolate coated cherry fudge, a profiterole filled with 

kirsch cream patisserie and covered in boiled

fondant, some caramel coated cherries and a shot of 

Disaronno.

We ate these much later on that night and we were 

feeling a bit full and sick straight after the meal. 

I also ate some the next morning with my hangover, 

which I don't recommend.

+ The Wine

A chef's eye view of The Loft (London's not so secret, secret supper club)

The ironic thing about secrets is that it usually the things that try to keep themselves secret that end up being the most well known. All the marketing campaigns in the world can't top our human craving for letting someone else know that you know something that they couldn't possibly. God forbid that guy in your office knows anything about it. You know, the one with the hair and the bad teeth...no way he could know ?

... or does he ?

This probably didn't occur to Nuno Mendes , (ex el bulli, Bacchus ) when he decided to set up his experimental dinner party kitchen for his new restaurant in Bethnal Green, before it opens next year. It probably didn't occur to him when he decided to host it in his own flat that a few months later practically everyone in london would know where he lives. He probably didn't think it would attract journalists, chefs, food writers and become the new found holy grail of the london foodie omniverse. 

But it did!

I first head about it from Ms Marmitelover's  awesome food blog and read about it again when london's now most important food critic,  Marina O'Loghlin ate there and gave it five stars.

I had read quite a bit about Nuno since Bacchus, which sadly I never got to visiting before it turned into a bog standard gastro pub, and I have been fascinated with his cooking style ever since. 

Nice then that he agreed to let me work at the loft with him over the summer. All it took was a little e-mail and a nice word or two on the phone. There is a lot to be said for a person that not only lets complete strangers into his own home two nights a week but also lets complete strangers into his home to work with him and cook along side him. And its mostly for that reason that I'm turning down other work to be there.

So the other night I took some photos when plating up. I didn't capture all twelve courses, mostly because I was either to busy or I couldn't get a decent shot (also I have a massively mangled finger right now from a fruit knife incident, which I also burned that night in hot milk and now have a blister the size of a Denmark. So I also had bad case of monkey bastard hands ) . I did get some nice shots though. Some of them you might notice I was massively in the way. Nobody hit me or swore at me once...which was nice.

Anyway the food...

Reverse cooked egg yolk with macadamia.

Marinated bass with frozen ponzu and apple puree

Trout with a spinach puree

Prawn and watermelon.

Squid ink porridge, pan fried squid and yuba (Milk skin)

Thai chicken broth and quails egg with crispy chicken skin (skin obviously missing from pic)

Slow cooked filet steak with mushroom caramel.

If you get the opportunity do go. It is very very good. Everything is cooked in a domestic kitchen and its all open plan. So you can come up and talk to Nuno and the other staff if you like and watch things being made. 

Just don't tell anyone I sent you.

Cause it's a secret, ok ?

The Front Line Food Diary (Salmon Fillet with an Orange and Ginger Risotto and a Carrot Puree)

Sous vide Salmon fillet with an orange and ginger risotto and a carrot puree.

Helen's first dish on the front line diary. I didn't make this but I did eat it and it was lovely.

My girlfriend has always made lovely food, but this is the fist time it has looked as good as it has tasted. I'm sure she'll have a few more up here from now on.

I'll let her explain how it was made if she want's to comment.