Jamie's Magic Poached Egg

I love poached eggs - I got to try this:

60 seconds to a magic poached egg with brilliant, bright egg yolks - high in vit D! On Jamie's Super Food @Channel4​ 8pm last one tonight x pic.twitter.com/pMG0HhsDTd

— Jamie Oliver (@jamieoliver) 18 November 2016

Sourdough Bread for Home Learning

Today I am very proud of my son Alexander. One of his options for home learning was to bake a bread and he came and asked me if we could do a sourdough bread together. Watch the result on his YouTube channel:

Well done my son!

Fake Cheese on Toast and the Ultimate Sandwich (in my humble opinion)

I have just posted a quick video filmed during today's lunch. Maniac as I am, this is a cheats version of cheese on toast and a double cheese on toast bacon sandwich. I just love it...

Let me know what you think ;-)

A Glut of Tomatoes with Sirloin, Mozzarella and Home Baked Focaccia

Well, despite having planted our (2nd generation) low yield heitage tomatoes (Noire de Crimee), we are having a bit of a glut this year. The original plants came from Sarah Raven, but this year we just used the seeds we got from last year's harvest. You just keep some seeds from the tomatoes you are eating, dry them on a piece of kitchen roll and plant them early spring.

So, what do you do with lots of tomatoes??? Well, you get some Mozzarella - of course ;-) I got this one from Waitrose and it is from Campania, the best region for it (in my humble opinion).

Now, apparently you don't use Balsamico in Insalata Caprese, but I like it - sorry.

So then my wife asked how that would make a meal for dinner. Well, that of course is a bit of an issue... So to start with I thought that a nice Focaccia would make a good filler. Delia Smith's Summer Collection got a really nice recipe for that. The only thing I do different is to mix plain flour and strong flour 50/50. For this one I mixed roasted onions into the dough and topped it with rosemary and salt.

Another lovely Italian dish I came across on my travels is a piece of fillet (or trimmed Sirloin in this case) thinly sliced and seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper. No idea what it's called but it is half way between a roast and Carpaccio.

Seeing as it is close to a good old British roast, I quite like to use some off cuts and an onion to make a cold gravy. I'd say that anything goes as long as it's full of flavor.

So, bringing it all together, this is what we ad for dinner tonight. We loved it, me, my wife and the kids. Light, satisfying and full of flavor.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Am I watching too many food shows on TV???

Just started watching the new series of "Great British Menu" on BBC2 and I actually recognised Adam Handling from when he was on "Masterchef, The Professionals" in 2013... Should I be worried?

Salmon with Green Beans, Cherry Tomatoes, Black Olives, Anchovies and Basil

This is one of or family staples. We got it originally form Jamie Oliver's "The Naked Chef" (page 97). Believe me, that page is showing some serious signs of wear. However, these days we don't even get the book out anymore for this recipe, it is delicious, simple, we have made it so many times and we adjusted it slightly to our taste.

To start with, the idea of the original recipe is that all gets cooked in the oven on just one plate and when we were cooking just for my wife and me that worked fine. However, four salmon filets and the veg for four work much better on two trays.

In our version the veg tray goes in for about 25 to 30 minutes at 180C and the salmon tray joins them for 10 - 15 minutes depending on the size of the filets and how you like your salmon cooked.

for the vegetable tray we mix some olive oil with finely grated garlic and mix it with the green beans, the tomatoes, the basil and the black olives. Actually, before mixing the tomatoes in we pierce them with a sharp knife as the juice coming out of them when baking is creating the sauce for this dish. Distribute the mix over the tray and drape anchovy filets over them. We then add salt and pepper, but be careful with the salt as the anchovies already provide saltiness.

For the salmon I like to used individually vac-packed filets from Regal. The come fresh and suitable for home freezing and that is what we usually do. You can then simply choose how many you need at any given time and you know that you have a really good quality ingredient. They don't pay me to say things like this, I simply like what they do. However, they have asked me to put together a few recipes for them, so watch this space...

Back to the salmon, grease the tray, sprinkle the filets with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Unlike the original recipe we then cover the salmon in tin foil, so technically the fish steamed rather than baked.

Not the best looking plate ever, but it's full of flavour!

Guess the fish

Yesterday we went to the Golden Retriever gastro pub for a family meal. We like the Golden Retriever as they have good, solid pub food and they are only 5 minutes walk from our house. All in all we had a lovely evening, but one element went a little wrong. My wife and I both ordered the fish special.

Halibut should be strong enough to stand up against the robust flavors of chorizo mash. Unfortunately by the time the dishes for all 9 of us arrived the halibut had turned into a sole.

The sole was perfectly cooked and the mash was lovely, but the poor little fish didn't stand a chance against the mash. I was quite upset as we were all hungry and therefore a change was not really an option.

To be fair, they apologised immediately, admitted that it was their fault, took a good chunk of our bill and gave us our desert / cheese board for free.

As I said, overall we had a lovely evening and we will certainly continue to go the the Golden Retriever. Mistakes can happen anywhere - the question is how you deal with them.

Team BBQ

Every last Saturday in June I have been inviting my team for a BBQ for the last 5 year. So now it's the 6th Team BBQ. I am planning to pair red cabbage sauerkraut with shoulder of lamb done initially sous vide and finished off on the BBQ. The idea of the red cabbage sauerkraut is to mesh up the UK tradition of pickled red cabbage to go with lamb with the German sauerkraut tradition. I think it's an absolute winner.

I hope I'll find the time to post details. Either way, I am looking forward to Saturday.

For now a picture from my last test on this...

Back at the Gingerman...

...and this time with the my wife and the kids for a father's day treat. Well, technically it wasn't father's day as it was yesterday, but with food like this I won't be picky over the date.

In case you want to have a look, you can read about the last visit at "Ginger is the New Black"

Considering that it has only been about a month since the last time, I was really lad that the tasting menu had moved on. Don't get me wrong, I would have happily eaten last month's offerings again, but it was nice to taste something new.

I started the evening again with my new favorite drink - an Espresso Martini, while Rhona, my wife chose the Kir Royal.

Then there were olives, lovely breads, the honey and truffle butter and a plain, but lovely butter.

Before the starter we had a pithivier packed full of flavor with walnut mousse and beetroot mousse.

The chilled beetroot soup was amazingly intense with flavor and the Creme Fraiche Sorbet worked beautifully with it while the candied walnut provided crunch and the dill oil rounded the whole thing off. The looks reminded me of Heston's Red Cabbage Gazpacho, but while both taste super, they clearly are very different. Talking about Michelin stars, I think the Gingerman deserves one. I believe the guide's criteria was that one star signifies that the place is worth stopping for. Well, we drove one and a half hours to get back there, so that certainly qualifies for me. But then I am not a Michelin Guide inspector. (But I do recognise food I like!!!)

Next was the Pigeon with Scotch Egg and Nettle Puree. Delightful.

The crab was stunning and the pouring of the gazpacho provided a little theater. The kids just loved it.

The main was lamb again. Normally I am a pink-lamb-man, but the caramelised Ballotine was the show stopper on this plate. 

The desert was the only item unchanged from last month's menu, but why change perfection. Neither Anna, nor Alexander (13 and 9) had had a proper souffle before, and seeing exited kids eyes is the best father's day gift ever.

Again, a brilliant evening. Now we just have to convince these inspectors....

Venison Steak in a Crushed Juniper and Pepper Crust

A half and half mix of Juniper Berries and Pepper crushed together makes a beautiful crust for Venison Steak. I salt the staeks first then cover them in the crushed spices and dry fry them. I then leave them in the oven at 50C for about 10 minutes.

This goes beautifully with steamed Broccoli and Jersey Royals.

Sea Bream with Gochujang Chili Paste Rub

This is super yummy! First I sprinkled the Sea Bream with salt for about ten minutes and then rinsed and dried them. This helps to firm up the flesh. I then rubbed the flesh side with a little Gochujang and let that marinate for about half an hour. A quick dusting with seasoned flour and then they got pan fried.

Here the Sea Bream is served with charred baby leak, jersey royals potatoes and a quark and dill sauce.

Another poached egg

This time with Sambal Oelek and sprouting Beet Root ... I just love poached eggs!

Loved tonight's dinner

We had an amazing dinner tonight - Sirloin Steak with Baby Spinach, English White Asparagus, Jersey Royals and a home made Sauce Hollandaise. I rendered out the fat from the Sirloin and mixed that with the butter for the Hollandaise. It was delicious! (Even if I say so myself)

Ginger is the new black

As you might know from my earlier bog post, my brother and I are in Brighton for a couple of days. Obviously we did a little research on our way there, so we decided to try the Gingerman's tasting menu for dinner - we nearly walked passed it.

Before I go any further I have to declare that I forgot to take a picture of the main course. But more on that later...

To start with we had a cocktail each (not part of the tasting menu). My brother had a G&T with Brighton Gin. The guys at the restaurant asked how we knew about Brighton Gin and we had to admit that the whole of our knowledge was based on an advert we saw on a bicycle...

Either way it was great. When I was having dinner at the Kensington Quarter, I got introduced to Espresso Martini, so when I saw that this was available, I had to go for it...

Both were a great way to start the evening... (I am enjoying the "..."s today)

But then it got serious. We started with an "off menu" appetizer of a Salmon Fish Cake with a Wild garlic Veloute.

At that point we started to be impressed - we just loved it.

Next was "Frozen Goats Curd with Beetroot & Orange"

Well, I am no fan of goaty things, but this was lovely.

Next was a "Crab Roulade, Beignet, Charred Sweetcorn, Avocado, Cucumber, Quails Egg and a Bisque:

The flavors were amazing! The only down side was that mine (not my brother's) had a little shell in it. But honestly, not only did the flavor make up for it, the "front of house" guys, Jamie and Faye, dealt with it beautifully.

To follow was the Sea Trout with wild asparagus, Jersey Royals, sorrel, broccoli puree and a hollandaise sauce.

The fish was cooked perfectly and the whole dish was a joy to eat. My only comment would be that the wild asparagus was kind of hidden. I think it needs to be shown, so I did a separate picture of it.

And now to the main course of Saddle and Balllotine of lamb, Tabbbouleh, Asparagus, Broad Beans and Mint Oil. I had two problems with this, but they came with two solutions.
The first one is that it took a little too long to arrive, but Jamie topped up our wine when the dish arrived, so we were happy.
The second is that I was then too keen to devour this delicious dish, that I forgot to take a picture of it. The solution to this is that Faye suggested to mail me a picture of the dish. I will update the post when I get the picture.

The last course was "Raspberry Souffle with White Chocolate Ice Cream". Well, I am no great fan of deserts and I really do not like White Chocolate, however, I just loved this. The souffle was super light and tasty and the pairing with the white chocolate ice cream was brilliant.

It just shows that tasting menus challenge you to try things, which is always a good idea. We finished the evening with an Espresso.

All in all we had a super evening. Thank you to Jamie and Faye - they even didn't mind (too much) posing with my brother for a finishing snap shot.

What a great find. The Gingerman is now firmly on my "must visit" list for Brighton.

Afternoon Snack - Scallops in Brighton

Lovely afternoon snack in Brighton...

Seafood always tastes best at the sea front!

Lovely little french "Bar Del La Mer"

Cape Hake with Jersey Royals and a Parsley and Bacon Sauce

I haven't done any cooking with Regal's great fish products since December, so it clearly was overdue. Last nights dinner was Cape Hake with a Parsley and Bacon Sauce. According the the kids the fish was perfect and the sauce was "mega".

I simply steamed the fish in a parcel of aluminium foil in the oven with a little olive oil, lemon juice, four bay leaves and a couple of parsley storks at 180C for 20 minutes. Whenever I steam fish like this I salt it to firm up the flesh. It only takes a few minutes and really makes a difference. You sprinkle salt evenly on both sides of the fish and let it stand for about 10 minutes and then rinse the salt off.

for the sauce I chopped two slices of bacon and fried them off in a sauce pan with a little olive oil. I then took the bacon out, making sure the olive oil and bacon fat mix stayed in the pan. That is then the perfect base for a white sauce. So I added flour to make a rue and the I added half a pint of milk and half a liter of vegetable stock. At this point I added the finely chopped storks of the parsley and half a finely chopped onion and returned the bacon. Once this had come through the boil I let it simmer for 10 minutes. I did this quite early in the, so I just took it off the flame and covered it with cling film. If the film is directly on the sauce it prevents it from forming a skin. Letting it stand for a few hours allows the flavors to mature. Just before the fish was ready I re-heated the sauce and at the last minute I added the roughly chopped parsley leaves.

Seeing as the Jersey Royal season has just started they just had to be used. So I served with Jersey Royals and steamed asparagus.

Ketchup Leather the Experiment

Following on form my last post:

http://marcsfoodadventures.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/ketchup-leather.html

I have now done the experiment and I think it really works! Have a look at:

https://youtu.be/IMQIMXUPPdo

Lovely stuff - let me know what you think

Ketchup Leather

I just found this on the web page of the German broadcaster ARD:

http://www1.wdr.de/verbraucher/ernaehrung/ketchupleder-100.html

Sounds absolutely brilliant - basically you spread ketchup (normal commercial version or self made) about 2mm thin on a silicon sheet and dry it out in the oven for 3-4 hours.

The result can be used in in burgers and slightly melts with the heat of the burger releasing its intensified flavor.

The idea is from Ernesto Uchimura of the Plan Check Restaurant in LA. He developed the Ketchup Leather to stop burger buns from getting soggy.

I've got to try this! I am sure the kids won't mind testing ;-)

EDIT: Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMQIMXUPPdo

Wow - this is different

Well, as you might remember, in February I had a go at doing my own Sauerkraut. The other day we did some red slaw and had some red cabbage left over, so I thought it might be worth a try to treat that in the same way.
Obviously for Easter it's a great idea to have lamb and so we did. Here in the UK is is customary to have pickled red cabbage with Sheppard's Pie. So I thought that 'Red Sauerkraut' would work as well and it certainly did! We loved it!!!

Home made Macaroons

The company I work for is headquartered in Paris, France. As such I go there quite frequently and the family love it when I bring back Fauchion Macaroons.
You might have worked out from this blog, that we do love our food. The eating and the making. My wife kept on saying "I wonder how you make these". We live near Windsor and when we had a trip to the Windsor Daniel's department store, I found a cheap copy of Stephane Glacier's DVD "macaroons".

Ever since it has been a family joke to ask Rhona (my wife) - "when will you do macaroons???".

So when our 9 year old son was pushed for finding a Mother's day gift, he searched on Amazon and found Mad about Macarons! by Jill Colonna (obviously macroons and macarons are supposed the same thing -  let me know which spelling you prefer).

Now Rhona really got the bug and after reading the book a few times, she gave it a go. Apparently the quick reference section at the back of the book giving you the measurements for different quantities numbers of macro(o)ns was incredibly helpful.

In her own word, Rhona's piping skills need improving. So the sizes of the macaro(o)ns in her first attempts were varied. Practice no doubt will help on that, but we all agreed that (particularly for a first attempt) the result was a triumph from a flavor and a texture point of view.

I just can't wait for the next few tries...

Confused Sushi Dinner

The family have been complaining that I hadn't made sushi for ages, so I was press ganged into changing that. While writing this my wife is asserting that no press ganging was required - anyway... we had sushi for dinner last night.

We had Inari Sushi (seasoned pouches of fried tofu pouches filled with sushi rice), Igiri Sushi with prawn, konbu cured hake and tuna, and Maki Sushi with spiced tuna tartar and salmon roe.
With the sushi we had  Ebi no Suimono (dash based soup with prawn and spinach), Tosa Sauce and and a scallop.

The scallop was Peruvian and looked stunning. I found them yesterday at Waitrose and could resist adding them. Rick Stein got a lovely recipe for scallop with a hazelnut and coriander butter (you can find that on Foodie Couple Blog). I adjusted it to be a soy sauce and chili paste butter.

So why did I call this "Confused Sushi"? Well, the spiced tuna tartar and the spiced butter for the scallop, both used Gochujang, the Korean Chili paste, which is hardly authentic Japanese. However we loved it.

Mother's Day Dinner Inspired by Heston

We had a lovely Mother's Day - at least in my opinion. However, Mrs M seems to agree.

Dinner was actually based on two separate ideas. A few years ago my wife got a book on light eating and one of the ideas was Venison Steak with a black pepper and Juniper Berries crust.

The other inspiration was based on Heston Blumenthal's roasted artichokes dish.We had a a lovely dinner. However, when we explained that venison an deer are the same thing, it would have helped if we wouldn't have seen Bambi's relative  on our walk through Swinley's Forrest

It wasn't really a problem though and dinner was a real success.

                                                                                                                                                                    We had venison steak in a crushed black pepper and juniper berry crust with steamed broccoli, sauteed mushrooms and artichokes, based on a recipe from Heston Blumenthal's "Fat Duck Cook Book".

 

Gluten Free Challenge - Roast Chicken With All The Trimmings

This week was my daughter's birthday - the tricky bit about her sleepover was that one of her friends must have a gluten free diet and the plan was to do roast chicken with all the trimmings. I never realised how much gluten stuff we use. Flower for thickening the gravy, breadcrumbs in the stuffing, sometimes even a dusting of flower for roast potatoes. So this is what we had:

Actually the stuffing is missing in this picture, but we'll get to that. So here we have crispy Black Kale, Butter Bean mash and roast chicken.

To do the chicken I create a spiced "butter" based on butter, olive oil. garlic powder, salt, pepper, some mushroom powder and paprika.

The butter bean mash is based on a recipe idea of Jun Tanaka. I sweated off some garlic, shallot, thyme and rosemary in olive oil. I the added 3 tins of drained and rinsed butter beans and pureed the lot and re-heated it just before serving.

The crispy kale is following an idea of Ian Garten's. You simply rip it into shreds, and rub it in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and give it a about five minutes in the oven at approx 200C.

As to the stuffing I actually forgot to serve it initially, which is why it's not in the picture. I mixed a bunch of parsley, with rosemary, thyme, salt pepper, one egg, Heck's Fair & Square, and quite a few chestnuts that we froze after last year's chestnutting.

When doing the gravy I remembered reading in one of Heston Blumenthal's books that you can use Xanthan Gum to thicken gluten free sauces, so that's what I did.

Everybody loved it and had seconds and my daughter's friend especially loved the idea of being allowed to eat the stuffing for once.

Home Made Sauerkraut

Back in November I posted a "German Dinner" article. For that we simply used shop bought sausages and Sauerkraut. At  times it can be quite difficult to find a nice Sauerkraut in UK shops. Browsing the Internet I found "How To Make Homemade Sauerkraut in a Mason Jar". They claim that you simply shred one white cabbage, rub salt into it, add Caraway and let it ferment for a week. My first thought was that is surely cannot be that simple, but then I am always keen to try things out. So I did and tonight we tested it out:

It was absolutely delicious! Everybody had seconds ;-) Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Earle by Simon Rimmer

 Last night I went to Simon Rimmer's Earl in Hale with some friends. We kicked the evening off with an Espresso Martini - just to get thing started...

For starters we had Chicken Liver Parfait with Pork Scratchings

and King Scallop with Baby Squid.

Both were excellent and the squid was the crispiest I have ever had. For mains we had pan fried Cod Fillet, Leek and Potato Terrine, Crispy Baby Leeks, Roast Salsify, Crispy Pancetta, Cockle and Dill Citrus Cream Sauce...

...pan fried Sea trout, Roast Cauliflower Puree, Crushed New Potatoes and Peas, Citrus Creme Fraiche, Roast Cauliflower, Samphire, Spinach and Cream Sauce...

...and lastly pan fried Venison, Jerusalem Artichoke Puree, Roast Artichoke, Fondant Potato, Pickled Cauliflower, Balsamic Pearls, Crispy Smoked Bacon and Roasting Juices

All super delicious!

For desert we shared Raspberry Cheesecake, Eton Mess, Mini Meringues, Grated White Chocolate, Citrus Raspberry Gel, Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream...

...Salted Chocolate Tart, Caramel Sauce, Salted Caramel Ice Cream...

...and Artisan Cheeses, Handmade Biscuits, Carrot Chutney, Grapes and Celery.

Absolutely everything was perfect without being over the top and the staff were super observant, charming and professional. All in all a great night out.