Masterchef Weekend 2008...

Well, first blood on Friday evening went very definitely to the Technical Department and his Grand Marnier Soufflés. Superb! Show-stoppingly good, in fact.
Notwithstanding the unforeseen difficulties encountered by the rest of us with the first two courses, there was no question but that the dessert was head and shoulders the winner for the evening...

And the difficulties? Oh, nothing major (hollow laughter) : when I came to retrieve my squid from the fridge in order to stuff them, it was only to discover that the fishmonger had not only cleaned them, but had then proceeded to cut the cleaned sacs neatly into small pieces, making any idea of stuffing them quite impossible - and so the dish was re-born as a Squid and Porcini ragu instead, stewed in white wine, with piselli. And Jennie's minor obstacle... was the discovery half way through prep that her recipe (Pork with Fennel & Almonds) in fact had a Page 2 to it, that she'd omitted to photocopy and bring from London. We're still wondering what in fact the 'pinch of.......' should be, which gets added just at the foot of page one, even before the rest of the recipe unfolds. And so, while she and I were consoling ourselves with the fact that our recipes were unarguably completely unique and never-before-produced, since we'd had to make them up on the spot, we took the first mouthful of Grand Marnier Soufflé and just fell silent. There was really nothing further to be said...

Here's the recipe (taken verbatim from the TD, so not set out in my usual format) :

Souffle au Grand Marnier

This is eaily the best souffle recipe I have come across. It is an adaptation of Alain Ducasse’s version. The souffle mix is just custard and sweetened egg white. The flavouring is added by burying a thin slice of liqueur-soaked cake in the souffle. This gives a better flavour hit. If you don’t have Grand Marnier any other interestingly flavoured liquer would do as well – Sambuca, Madarine Napoleon, Cointreau, Anisette or Pastis or, even, Ouzo, Framboise, Poire, well the list is endless. You can buy the cake – or if desperate use a thin slice of white bread – once it is loaded with liqueur the difference is small. If you want to make the cake, here’s the recipe.

Biscuit base

180g Egg white
110g Icing sugar
100g Egg yolk – about 6.
65g Corn Flour
65g Plain Flour

Whip the egg whites until firm and incorporate the sugar and then stir in delicately the yolks with a spatula. Then gently fold in the sieved flours. Spread the mix thinly( 6-8mm) on a Silpat sheet or greaseproof paper laid on a baking sheet. Bake for a few minutes at 200C until just coloured. Leave to cool on a grill.

I use souffle dishes which are 10cm dia. x 6cm. The quantities here make four.

Pastry cream base

25cl Milk
8g Powdered milk
15g flour
50g sugar
50g egg yolks – about three but check.

Make a custard in the usual way. Bring the milk to a boil and pour over the other ingredients mix together with a whisk. Return to the heat and keep stirring until the mixture is thick and hot (80°C). Or use a Zimmertopf to heat the blended ingredients. This is enough custard for 15cl of egg white and 75 grams of sugar.

Assembly

Butter and sugar the moulds. Cut an 8cm circle of cake, 1 cm thick or less, for each dish and dribble Grand Marnier on the slices until nicely sodden. Whisk the pastry cream until smooth. If the cream has been kept in the fridge, you will need to warm it a little first, otherwise it will be too thick to blend with the egg white. Whisk the egg whites, blend in the sugar, whisking until firm. Then fold in the pastry cream. 1/3 fill the moulds, add the liqueur soaked cake and fill the moulds to the top with more mixture. Run a finger tip around the circumference so that none of the mixture is touching the rim.* Bake on a metal sheet for +/- 12mins in a pre heated oven set at 220C – you may need to adjust the cooking time. Souffle is an egg dish and all egg dishes are cooked by ‘eye’ not by time. Dust the surface of each souffle lightly with icing sugar and serve at once.

* Once assembled the souffles can stand at room temperature, or slightly cooler, for up to an hour with little loss of volume.

It is superb!

Last night's dinner was a starter of Tomatoes and Gorgonzola Piccante on a flaky pastry base, followed by Involtini, stuffed with artichokes, served with deep-fried zucchini flowers, and then we finished with White Chocolate and Raspberry tarts, in Dark Chocolate pastry shells. The jury's still out on the winner, as TD thought the first course was technically perfect, while I thought the dessert had the greater flavour-hit-wow-factor... and since Jennie had made both of them, she sat by and let the conversation take its course. Which was still not concluded by the time we were researching macaroon techniques (Hermé in comparison with Ducasse) in order to produce a batch as a way of passing the time this afternoon between lunch and supper. (Delicious! Flavoured variously with Lime, Praline, and Balsamic Strawberry....)




Tonight's Menu:

Sage Leaves deep-fried in Batter, with Aioli (TD)

Pasta with a sauce of Nepitela, Capers, Parsley , Garlic and Tomato (TD)

Trippa all Parmigiana (Me)

Zucotto (Me)

Back to work.....

A Fruit Salad....

...of a week. Much tearing of hair about the fact that the internet connection has been haywire for the past ten days - ever since FastWeb (who provide the line) turned up, uninvited, to make a couple of 'little tweaks' to the setup, as a result of which nothing has been Fast, and for much of the time there hasn't even been any Web! Since I'm in the middle of about five projects currently, all of which require web access, I've spent much time round at the Internet Cafe in Viccolo Tinto, and in the process discovered where all the tourists in Pisa spend their time when not actually posing for photos at the foot of the Leaning Tower...

The weather has been glorious, and every day I've basked and wilted for half an hour or so in true Mad Dog style beside the old well in the centre of the garden, where such breeze as there is catches the leaves of the Cacci Tree, and I've soaked up sun and kir over a book - mostly Gillian Darley's biography of John Soane, who was an unpleasant old bugger, by all accounts (as well, IMHO, as being really rather an indifferent architect).

Attempts to address the Basil Mountain have continued, with the discovery of a most delicious recipe for a sorbet of Oranges, Lemons and Basil Leaves (2 Oranges; 6 Lemons; and 24 Basil Leaves, along with a syrup base made from 630 ml of Water and 320 gm of Sugar). The flavour of Basil is surprisingly subtle in the finished product, but the taste overall is spectacular, and perfect to be served in a small glass as an interlude in the middle of a sweltering afternoon!

Otherwise, I've finally got around to making pasta once more, since the disappearance of Claudia's fresh pasta business at the beginning of the year has left us without a really first-class supplier nearby - the shop in Borgo Largo is OK, but frankly I can do as well myself, and so why not? I made a batch of black pasta at the start of the week ( 2 US cups of tipo '00' Flour; 3 medium Eggs; a teaspoon of Olive Oil; and a sachet of Nero di Seppie), which I then divided in two, and used half to make linguine for one evening (which we had with heated-up potted shrimps - simple, and very good) and rolled the remainder the following day to make black ravioli, with a filling of Spinach and Ricotta, along with some Anchovy and Parmesan. The amount of pasta worked perfectly, and the consistency of the dough was that wonderful mid-point between being silky and leathery - I might take some '00' back to London with me, since it works quite so well.

Michelangelo (The Technical Department) has been toiling away with restoring the paintwork on the Loggia ceiling, and every so often I go along to be Papal, and cast an eye over progress. It does look rather splendid, and is now very nearly complete. The earlier painting dates from when the house was last re-fitted, in the middle of the nineteenth century - and so of no great age - but in the process the TD has uncovered the remains of earlier paintwork in azurite, which look as though it dates from the same period as the painting on the ceiling beams in the Salone, which is probably two hundred years earlier.....

Jennie arrives this afternoon for Masterchef Weekend 2008, so the kitchen will be in full use for the next three days. I'm taking the opportunity to knock off some things I've been meaning to do for years but have never got around to (so, this weekend tomorrow finally comes...) : Squid stuffed with Porcini; Trippa alla Parmigiana (I've never actually eaten tripe, let alone cooked it - but how bad can it be?) and Zucotto....

Watch this space!

Tonight's Dinner:

Squid Stuffed with Porcini, braised in White Wine (Me)

Pork with Fennel & Almonds (Jennie)

Individual Grand Marnier Soufflés (TD)

Basil Risotto

It is high summer in Tuscany. The air is hot and still, and although we don’t yet have the washed out feel of August, already you can sense that people are trying to move around in the heat as little as possible. Town is quiet, right through until the sun goes down early in the evening, when all around there are the sounds of the place slowly coming to life once more…voices calling from balconies, the occasional noise from a passing Vespa, and the sound of RAI Uno on somebody’s distant TV…The perfect backdrop to a glass of chilled prosecco and a handful of roast hazelnuts, sitting beside the lily pond, and watching as the last rays of the sun catch the façade of the Palazzo Ruschi, just visible over the top of the garden wall.

At this time of year, the pots of Basil on the terrace are enormous, and in need of almost daily haircuts to keep them in order. A perfect time for this recipe, which calls for a generous cup or so of fresh Basil just before the final mantecare

For four.

Ingredients: 2oz Butter; 1 small Onion, peeled and chopped small; .one and a third cups of Carnaroli Rice; 2 pints of good Chicken Stock; 2 cups of fresh Basil leaves; 1 cup of grated Parmesan; Seasoning.

Method:

1. Heat the stock over medium heat, and add half a dozen Basil leaves to it; let steep for fifteen minutes or so, then remove the leaves.

2. Melt all but half an ounce of the Butter in a sauté pan and cook the chopped Onion over medium heat for five minutes or so until it is soft and translucent.

3. Add the Rice; stir to coat it thoroughly with melted Butter, and cook it over medium heat for a minute or so, then start to add the Stock, a ladleful at a time. Follow the general steps given in Risotto Techniques as you continue to add more Stock as each ladleful is absorbed by the Rice.

4. After twenty minutes or so, start to test the Rice for done-ness. It should certainly be ready by the time thirty minutes has gone by. As soon as you judge the Rice is about ready, quickly chop the remaining Basil leaves finely, then add them along with the grated Parmesan to the risotto and stir well.

5. Off the heat, add the remaining Butter and stir it in as it melts in the heat from the Rice. Add Salt and Pepper to taste, and serve.

Leftover Lamb....

This is a dish which is good enough to merit cooking the lamb anyway, even if you don't have any left over from a previous dinner. If you do have leftovers, though (or have planned ahead and made sure to cook more than you needed first time round) then with very little effort it is possible to produce a result which is surprisingly sophisticated, elegant and seriously delicious. I first came across this in a little country restaurant several miles outside Carcassonne in the middle of winter, about fifteen years ago, when we were taking the four-footed of the day to visit Barcelona. On that occasion the recipe gloried in the name 'Célestine d'Agneau', and I committed it to memory to re-create subsequently at home: flavour-filled packages of meat and tiny diced vegetables, neatly bundled inside a crêpe, served with a rich and delicious sauce. I've never come across it anywhere else, or really anything very close to it- although at a stretch I suppose you could think of italian agnolotti as a kind of first cousin...As with so many dishes, the success lies in the density of the flavours, and here it is important to retain as much as you can of the cooking juices from when the lamb was originally roast to use as a sauce just before serving.

Following a no-show at a dinner party earlier this week, I had a roast lamb shank left over, and this was the result for supper a couple of days later. Ten minutes to make the crêpes; the same amount of time to prep the mirepoix , and then elapsed time while it cooked down, when I could concentrate on other things. It's very quick and easy....

For two.

Ingredients: 1 lamb shank, roast, with its cooking juices; Crêpe batter made from 1 egg, 4 fl oz milk, 1.5 oz plain flour, and a pinch of Salt; 1 Leek; 2 medium Carrots, peeled; 2 Portobello Mushroom caps; 1 oz Butter (or Duck Fat, if you have it); 1/4 cup White Wine; Seasoning.

1. Set the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Blend all the batter ingredients together, and make 4 x 9" crêpes (I never bother to let the batter rest, I don't see the point; this amount of batter will make more crèpes than you need, but it's difficult to reduce the quantities any further - I always refrigerate or freeze the surplus crêpes for future use). Cover them with clingilm once done, to prevent them from becoming leathery as they sit.

3. Melt the Butter or Fat in a large frying pan. Dice the Leek, Carrots and Mushrooms very finely to make a mirepoix, and sauté for about ten minutes or so. Once the vegetables have all satisfactorily collapsed, add the wine, raise the heat and reduce the liquid to nothing. Taste, and correct the seasoning.

4. Carefully scrape all of the lamb jellified cooking juices into a small pan, and then remove all of the meat from the shank and cut into approximately 1 cm pieces. Give the bone to the dog.

5. On a greased baking tray, put two metal serving rings, also greased - I use some which are about 2" tall, which are perfect for this. If you don't have appropriate rings, then large ramekins, greased, would probably work pretty well, too.
Into each ring, lay a crêpe so that it lines the ring and hangs over the sides, making it easy to fill it. In the base of each crêpe put a generous spoonful of mirepoix, followed by half of the diced lamb, then finish with the rest of the mirepoix. Fold the edges of the crêpe in and over the filling, to make a neat parcel.

6. Over the top of each Célestine put a square of aluminium foil, to stop it from drying out, and then put them into the pre-heated oven for about twenty minutes. Meanwhile, heat the reserved sauce in the small pan.

To serve, remove the foil and carefully invert the Célestines onto heated serving plates, and spoon the heated sauce over the top.

There's nothing new...

....under the sun. And certainly nothing new, it seems, in people vaccuously pontificating about how everybody else should organise their kitchens and their cooking arrangements. He may not have been Scots, or called Gordon, but it looks as though Messrs Brown and Ramsay were forestalled by 150 years or so by somebody called Charles Elmé Francatelli, who was laying down the law already in 1852 in a natty little tome he'd produced called ' A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes'. Taking as his starting point that 'every day it would be possible to feed a thousand families on the food which is wasted in London' - and where have we heard that, more recently? - Francatelli proceeded to explain the process of producing culinary delicacies such as Bubble & Squeak and broth made from Cow's feet - ok - as well as something called 'Sheep's Pluck' (sounds nasty) and a 'Pudding made from Small Birds', which to my tin ear just sounds uncomfortably crunchy.

We have to hope that Francatelli was more practical in the kitchen than he ever was as a would-be social reformer, since he appears to have blithely ignored both the literacy levels of his intended audience, as well as the inability of their purses to stretch to purchase of either the book or the ingredients! Actually, it may be that he wasn't in fact that much more practical in the kitchen as, although he is generally heralded as the 'Chef to Queen Victoria', he was only in royal employ for less than a year. Maybe he didn't match up to Albert's teutonic standards of efficiency - or maybe they just got fed up with picking the remnants of small birds out of their teeth, and stepping in discarded pieces of Sheeps Pluck on the Aubusson?

Should we be holding our breath for a 2008 updated version from the Heathcliff of modern politics, with all the wit and culinary wisdom likely to be found within its pages? What an appalling prospect - I certainly hope not!

Tonight's Dinner:

Cold Beef Salad, in Horseradish Cream.

Irish Sausages and Pak Choi.

Sorbet of Passionfruit & Banana.

Recipe: Vanilla Ice Cream...

Two thoughts struck me in the process of contemplating vanilla ice cream.

Firstly, that so much to do with cooking is about demystifying apparently complex techniques - sometimes because of splendid insights from others, and many times because you work out for yourself that actually a lot of what is published in recipe books is complete nonsense. So it was for me with roasting, and the discovery of Mrs Kafka......and with making pasta... and Gaston Le Notre and his techniques for puff and choux pastry....and so it is with the process of effortlessly producing rich and delicious ice cream.
When I first made ice cream, it seemed to be all about complicated temperature measurements at various different points along the way, and the absolute necessity to have a custard base of exactly the right 'coating consistency' , and it all seemed rather fraught and definitely unrelaxed. These days, I don't bother with any of that, and essentially just make an enriched Creme Anglaise to which I add whatever flavouring ingredient seems appropriate, let it cool sufficiently and then bung it into the pre-chilled machine and start the paddle working. Yesterday evening was a case in point: with some apple slices which had been sauteed in butter and an equal quantity of caramelised orange segments (both leftover from making Andalusian tarts the day before), I decided to make some Vanilla Ice Cream to have with them rather than just serving them with cream on its own. It took twenty minutes to make the custard base, whch I then left to cool on the windowsill as I turned the machine on to chill; the mixture went into the machine and started to churn just as we sat to the first course, and was exactly the right serving consistency at the moment when it was required...

And the other point? Well, it seems to me that vanilla has received an unjustifiably poor press over time, such that now it has come to be synonymous with 'plain' and 'pedestrian' and 'dull'. Why is that? Vanilla is a fantastically complex flavour...sensual and luscious and sophisticated and wonderful. A true food of the Gods, it is long overdue for rehabilitation...!

My preferred Vanilla IceCream Recipe:

Serves Four.

Ingredients: 250 ml Cream; 250 ml Milk; 1 Vanilla Pod, split; 50g Sugar; 6 Egg Yolks.

Method:

1. Combine the Milk and Cream in a double boiler or Zimmertopf; scrape the contents of the Vanilla Pod into the combine Milk and Cream, and simmer gently for ten minutes or so (I generally include the ppod itself at this stage, for added flavour, and remove it before adding the flavoured Milk/Cream to the Yolks and Sugar).

2. Meanwhile, whisk together Egg Yolks and Sugar, until the mixture is pale yellow and leaves a ribbon behind the whisk.

3. Add the simmered Milk/Cream to the beaten Yolks and Sugar, stri together thoroughly, and return to the double boiler. Simmer for a further five minutes or so, until it has thickened to a good velvety consistency (don't worry if it has some slight lumps in it - the paddle in the ice cream machine will sort those out).

4. Return the thickened custard to the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to cool down for half an hour or so; during this period, turn on the chiller element in the ice cream machine.

5. The longer you leave the custard to cool, the more quickly it will churn. Once you're happy that it is cool enough (half an hour is probably about the minimum length of time you can leave it) then pour it into the pre-chilled machine and start the paddle going.

As soon as it is ready, serve!

London Times....

Sunday morning, and a trip to see the Queen's botanical drawings that George III appears to have brought into the Royal Collection as the result of an ill-advised purchase at a garage sale sometime around 1762. Many of them almost psychadelic in appearance - presumably because he thought better of it as soon as he got them home, and they've spent much of the last 250 years still in their box - the display was diverse and impressive....in a way....but I'm afraid I couldn't really get onto the right wavelength to do them justice. Many were the work of a dutch lady artist, who seems to have devoted her life to painting the eighteenth century fruit and insect inhabitants of Surinam in vivid day-glo colours. It takes all sorts, I suppose....I confess to having been sneakingly more interested in watching the tents being erected in the back garden of the Palace, in readiness for this week's garden parties, at which the main botanical specimens in evidence will presumably have been Umbrellicus Giganticus along with Hattae Floribundiae (drowned Rattus) .

And drawings of deformed vegetables were followed by platefuls of the real things, as we tried out a new Dim Sum restaurant in Wilton Road for lunch. No great shakes, I'm afraid - the dim sum were bland and sticky, and everything else that followed tasted of coconut milk and little else. Mind you, I defy anywhere in London to rival CCK in Wardour Street for the general excellence of their Dim Sum - let alone the overall experience of the place - so it was hardly suprising that Wilton Road got a bit of a thumbs down. Amongst many others, an enduring memory of CCK was one occasion when we took a swiss friend there, and in the middle of his chatty explanation that even Indian food was a little exotic for his swiss palate, the lid was removed from the first dim sum basket set before him, and he was confronted by a tangle of large and eminently chewable duck's feet. He was so agitated at the sight that he lost the thread of his story and proceeded to spill a large glass of wine all down his front.....

Which I suppose takes me neatly onto the subject of wastage and the latest nanny-state nonsense to be handed down from Downing Street....since apparently we're now all deemed incapable of successfuly confronting the dual challenges of food shopping, and of managing the contents of our fridges. Mr Brown is instructing us to write shopping lists, and not to buy more than we need so that we don't up end having needlessly to throw half of it away!

How mind-bogglingly patronising can you get?

Who are all these witless cretins who apparently wander the aisles of supermarkets the length and breadth of the kingdom, fecklessly taking things from shelves, only subsequently to let them rot and moulder at home before being chucked into the outgoing rubbish? They certainly aren't to be found in any supermarket round here, where people can be seen pretty much 24/7 resolutely working their way down tightly written shopping lists, with military precision.
Wastage, Gordon, generally happens where large numbers of people are being fed at one time, and not within a domestic kitchen. I know; I've done it. Catering inevitably involves throwing away quite a lot of uneaten food....it's the sort of thing that happens in government canteens, and in preparing school dinners.....oh, and when you're knocking up an eight course banquet for a gathering of World Leaders.

How about putting your own house in order before you start telling the rest of us what to do with our's? (And what is it about pontificating Scots called Gordon, generally past their sell-by date, who have a tendency to lay down the law for everybody else.....there are rather too many of them about for comfort!)

Tonight's Dinner:

Scallop Mousseline with Watercress Sauce.

Lamb Shanks, double roast, with Roast Celeriac.

Andalusian Tarts, with Creme Chantilly.