I was struggling to decide what to do next as there are a few main courses which I have been dying to try out, and seasonally, they are perfect for these late months of winter. However, it has been a while since I did a dessert and the plums at the moment were looking too good to resist. As a result I took the plunge and decided to make this tart.

On paper, the ingredients look lengthy and the process appears complex, but in reality it only comes down to 6 components, the pastry, the frangipan, the plum puree, the plums themselves, sauce and the crumble. Sounds like a lot, but I managed to make all of the components in advance and assembled them with ease on the day.

First off was the pastry. Ahh, I must just say that I love my new toy… a brand spanking new Kenwood chef. I was debating as to whether to get a Kitchen Aid or a Kenwood and I went with the Kenwood simply due to price, and the fact that not only was it cheaper, it was more powerful (In terms of wattage) and came with a bucketload of accessories… oh, and Heston Blumenthal swears by this as well apparently. Good enough for me.

I added all the dry ingredients to the mixer and let it churn away until it had the texture of bread crumbs. I then added the wet ingredients and let it mix for a short while to combine. Once done, I took it out of the bowl and kneaded it for about a minute before covering it with clingfilm and leaving it in the fridge to chill.

The start of the pastry

After beating it for a few min

The pastry...Done!

Next up was preparing the plums. The core ingredient for the next three stages is making a stock syrup. Now I have done this plenty of times already, so I won’t reiterate how this is done again here, but suffice to say it is dead simple. Sugar and water, bring to the boil and voila… you have syrup. I halves the plumbs, took the pip out and then cut them into wedges. These were then added to the stock syrup and gently poached for a few minutes. Once done, I carefully took them out (They were on the verge of breaking apart) and let them cool in a bowl.

The stoned plums

Sliced up into wedges

Slowly poaching in stock syrup

I then diced up some more plums and added these back to the syrup and poached for a further 10 min or so. The kitchen was starting to smell very nice. I had forgotten just how delicious plums are. Anyway, once poached and now super soft, I took them out and placed them into a blender with some of the poaching liquid. This was then blitzed to a fine puree and then passed through a sieve into a squeezy bottle. The sauce was now done too.

The plum sauce

I then diced up some more plums… by now you must have guessed this was a plum related dish… and added these to a frying pan with some sugar. This was then gently fried until the plums had gone soft and started to caramelise. I added a bit of stock syrup to make it more liquid and blitzed this as well. This was then transferred to a bowl to cool. The plum puree was now done. Simple really.

Diced plums with sugar

Plum puree

Next up was the frangipan.  This was dead simple as well and involved added butter to sugar and beating it before adding the egg and crushed almonds. Once all mixed together to a nice consistency this was also covered with cling film and kept in the fridge.

Almonds before finely grinding them in my spice grinder

Almonds after grinding

Butter and sugar

Frangipan done

Lastly was the crumble. My trust Kenwood Chef was brought into action again and this was a simple process of adding the flour and butter initially and mixing this till it resembled bread crumbs. I then added the sugar and the almonds and this was now done too. The book suggests a food processor to make the crumble, but to be honest, the kenwood chef, and I am assuming any other similar mixer, does such a good job at this that I won’t be doing crumble in anything else every again.

The next day, I made a start on the pastry. This had been taken out of the fridge earlier to come to room temperature and I promptly set about rolling it out. You could already tell this was going to be a very light pastry simply by the way in which it was rolling out. It is hard to describe, but the short pastries I have made/dealt with before have all had a similar feel when working with them. I suppose it is all the butter in them.

I cut the pastry out into 10 cm circles and then lined them inside 8 cm cooking rings (I didn’t have any tart cases). I then cut out some parchment paper, and added this to the pastry together with some baking beans. These then went into the oven for about 15 min after which I took them out, discarded the beans and the parchment paper and put them back in the oven to bake for a further 5 min. Once done, I took them out to cool a bit. I then added some frangipan mixture to the top of each pastry disc, which is harder than you think as the stuff just doesn’t spread very well. This then went back in the oven for a few more minutes, until the frangipan had gone a golden colour. This was then taken out yet again and the rest of the bits were assembled on top. I started out with some plum puree and then layered the plum wedges on top of this. Lastly, I sprinkled some of the crumble on top and a touch of icing sugar and these then baked for the last time for a few minutes, until the crumble was a golden colour. Once done, they were set aside to cool.

Pastry ready for first baking

First baking done. Now to add the frangipan

Frangipan cooked to a golden colour

Whilst the tarts were cooling, I made a start at decorating the plate. This is the fun bit for me and involved melting some chocolate into a squeezy bottle and drawing a pattern on the plate. I then squeezed some plum sauce inside the pattern and pushed it around to fill the shape with the back of a spoon. It was now time to plate up. The tarts had now cooled a bit, but were still ever so slightly warm, and I simply plonked them on top of the plate in a strategic location to show off the decorative plum sauce underneath. That was it. It was time to eat it.

The final dish

I have to say that writing this post now is making my mouth water. It was a beautiful dessert. It had all the sharp and sweet notes you would expect from plums, but these were seriously intense flavours. The pastry was a delight… it snapped satisfyingly when you put pressure on it with your spoon and it melted away as soon as you put it in your mouth. Just how a tart pastry should be in my opinion. The sauce went really well with the tart and gave it much needed moisture, and the ice cream I served with it (Just plain vanilla) was a definite must have to offset the sharpness of the tart. If anything, I couldn’t really taste the frangipan as the plum was too overpowering, but this in my opinion is a good thing as I much prefer the taste of plums to almonds.

This my friends is a winner and given you can prepare most of the ingredients the previous day, I think this will be appearing on a dinner menu quite frequently.

Plum crumble tart with almond frangipan… Done!

Previous post: Salad of lobster with octopus carpaccio, roasted watermelon, baby squid and a shellfish sauce

Next up: TBC

Anyway, if you recall from the previous posts, I recently visited Billingsgate Market to purchase some supplies, and this included three components for this dish; Lobster, Octopus and Squid. I won’t go into the prep for the lobster as this has already been explained here, so I guess I will have to start with the octopus. Blergh! 

Right, so you start off by cleaning the octopus under running water to get all the slime and goo off them, as well as any residual ink… and believe me, there was plenty in the ones I happened to get. There was just a constant stream of ink coming out of them, but finally it ended and I put them into a pot together with some herbs, garlic and seasoning and then covered it with cold water, and then set it to simmer for a few hours. 

Octopus

Let me say the house did NOT smell nice at this point. I really did not like the smells coming out of this pot. It wasn’t pungent as such, it just hit my senses in a way which made me want to retch. Not pleasant, and it took ages for it to go away too. Wanna see what it looked like after it had cooked? 

Just look at the colour of the water

Yep, that is black water people! I guess there was loads more ink in the octopus still. Anyway, I took the octopus out, sliced off the tentacles which at this point were really soft, and whilst still hot I rubbed off the skin and suckers. It was surprisingly easy really. I then added the now clean tentacles to a baking tin, trying to work quickly as the book says that if they go in cold, they may not stick together. The idea was to stack them in a pile, like a pile of logs, cover with cling film and then put them in the fridge to cool and set. It was quite easy to do but I didn’t nearly have enough tentacles to fill the tin… so I had to improvise a bit. See below: 

The tentacles ready to chill

Thank God that was over. This set over night and the next day I started on the rest of the components which were relatively straight forward. 

The shellfish sauce involved sweating off some shallots in a saucepan with some butter and seasoning, and then deglazing with some vermouth and reducing this before adding some shellfish stock, and then reducing this again. Finally some cream was added and the sauce was strained and set aside in a clean pan. 

Shellfish sauce

Next was prepping the squid, lobster and melon. The squid was easy to do and involved pulling off the flesh from the body, taking off the head and then slicing the body into the classic rings we all know and love. Strangely very satisfying I have to say… 

Squid

For the squid I had to make a tempura batter which unfortunately I didn’t photograph for some reason, but was simple enough as it involved mixing flour, cornflour, salt and pepper, sparkling water and chilled beer together… and that was it. I heated up some oil, dipped the squid rings and heads into some flour and then into the batter and deep fried for a couple of minutes until golden. These were then set aside in a warm oven for the final plating. 

Next up was the melon. I sliced this up and then cut some rounds from each slice using a ring mould. I then heated a pan with some olive oil and added the lobster tail and gently fried it on all sides until lightly golden. I did the same for the melon rounds in another pan. Once cooked I set these aside in a warm place. 

Lobster tail

Melon rounds

Whilst the above was going on, I had taken the octopus out the fridge and sliced some pieces off as thinly as I could using my sharpest knife. This was no easy feat as I don’t think the tentacles had set properly which is unfortunate, but for the most part it worked okay. 

Slicing the octopus

I then laid these on the plates and proceeded to plate up. 

I have to say I find the plating up the most enjoyable experience of any dish as you can see all your effort coming together. I sliced up the lobster tail into discs, and then laid these together with the melon rounds in alternate fashion on top of the octopus carpaccio. I laid the squid rings around the plate together with some salad leaves and then finally it was done. The shellfish sauce was served on the side. 

The final dish

It did look very good I have to say. The contrast of the bright orange melon against the lobster was nothing short of stunning, and the carpaccio added a unique look to the dish. But how did it taste? Well, the octopus carpaccio, despite all my misgivings at the start of the post was probably worse than I expected. Yup, not a fan at all! I promptly scooped this to one side and carried on with the rest of the dish and it became clear to me that this is a fantastic dish, but only when the octopus is out of the equation. The melon worked so well with the lobster I feel all giddy with pleasure just rethinking the taste as I write this. It was sublime, it really was. And the squid and shellfish sauce added the finishing touch nicely. It was all melt in the mouth stuff, and before I knew it the plate was clean (With the exception of the carpaccio of course… that was going straight in the bin!) 

Salad of lobster with octopus carpaccio, roasted watermelon, baby squid and a shellfish sauce… Done! 

Next up: Plum crumble tart with almond frangipan 

Previous post: Shellfish stock

As I had loads of lobster shells left over from when I cooked Ainsley and Anthony, I figured it was the best time to make the stock. You start off by adding a bit of olive oil to the pan and sweat off the shells until they turn a bright red.

The shells

Cooking the shells

Once this was done, I tipped the shells out onto a plate and carried on with the vegetables. The normal vegetables were used for the base of the stock, carrots, celery and onion, however for this stock I also added a bit of fennel and red pepper. All of this went into the same pot and was sauteed in olive oil till soft.

Base vegetables

Once softened, I added some cold water to the pot and brought it up to the boil. Once at boiling point the shells were added back into the pot, together with a selection of herbs. Interestingly, the book doesn’t tell you to add back the shells. Given I was making a shellfish stock, I figured this was a necessity and took the initiative . GR, this is not the first time there has been an error in your book!

I then lowered the heat and then let it simmer for a couple of hours, skimming off the scum that rose to the surface every now and then.

Vegetables being cooked

Stock simmering

Once completed, I sieved out all the solids and then passed the liquid through a muslin cloth into a separate bowl to cool. I then added this to my stock containers and they were transferred to the freezer for when I needed them. Simple really. I have to point out though, that my house at this stage was smelling amazing! This stock rocks and just smells incredibly shell fishy! Well worth the effort.

Shell fish stock done

Next up: Salad of lobster with octopus carpaccio, roasted watermelon, baby squid and a shellfish sauce

Previous post: Ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon with a lemongrass and chervil veloute

I have also held off from doing this dish, as well as others involving lobster, as I was waiting for the right moment to go down to Billingsgate Market in London and procure some fresh live lobster beauties. They say that months ending in the letter R are the best months for lobster, so given it is DecembeR I figured now would be a good time to do the dish.

I left the house early one morning (4am to be exact) and arrived at Billingsgate at 5am. It was pumping already and had only been open for a couple of minutes. There were loads of restaurateurs clearly buying supplies for the day, and the lobsters were going fast. One buyer bought what looked like 10 crates of lobsters. Each crate probably had about 20 lobster in them, so that worked out to a rough total bill of £3,500 … gulp! A ’starred’ restaurant buyer methinks. Anyway, anxious that I wouldn’t get any lobster at this rate I dived in and started the haggling. The prices ranged from £20/Kg to £14/Kg. Knowing I only needed two for this dish, as well as for another dish (More on that later) I bought my lobsters from Joe, the fishmonger who looked a bit like a monk fish himself (Honestly… he was one of the ugliest guys I have ever seen) and then took my time to walk around the market to buy all the other components I needed for this as well as many other dishes coming up.I love this market. It is exactly what markets should be… bustling, loud and full of quality food. It is truly inspirational and I don’t even like fish that much! Says a lot.

Anyway, I made my way back home and after sorting out my son getting him ready for school I set out on prepping the dish. Wanna see my lobsters?

Meet Anthony and Ainsley

I started to have second thoughts. They were crawling all over the place, and their feelers were going crazy, checking out their new surroundings. I suddenly realised I didn’t really know how to best dispatch them. I chucked them back into the ice box, booted up the PC and watched a few Youtube examples. You have to love Youtube! Armed with new found knowledge, I made my way back to the kitchen, sharpened the knife and set to work. It helped that I associated each lobster with the most annoying tv chefs on the planet… Anthony Worral Thompson, and Ainsley Harriet.

That made it a lot easier.

A swift knife action later, and a chop chop here and there, I had prepared the lobsters which were now ready for the initial blanch to make it easier to get the meat out of their shells (Marco Pierre White has an excellent video on Youtube showing you this if you need an example). Annoyingly, after watching the video I suddenly realised exactly where Gordon got the inspiration for this dish from. This is pretty much Marco’s ravioli, but the condiments to the ravioli appear to be different.

The lobster pieces

The extracted lobster meat

Anyway, as you can see from the above, the meat was extracted successfully. But what a bitch it was to do this. Marco makes this look easy, but let me tell you it isn’t. The meat from the claws is especially difficult and very messy. My kitchen was covered in lobster goo by the end of it! But I was left with two perfect tails and loads of shells with which I was going to make the shellfish stock.

The shells

Next it was time to prepare the rest of the filling. I started with the salmon mousse which pretty much involved getting a salmon fillet, deboning it accordingly, adding it to a food processor and blitzing, together with some cream.

The filling ingredients

The salmon about to be blitzed

Check out the mousse!

Next, I finely chopped the rest of the salmon and the lobster tails and langoustines and left this to chill for a bit.

Ravioli filling

Once chilled, I added just enough of the salmon mousse to bind it all together and put it back into the fridge to chill again.

The final mixture

Once chilled I then then rolled the mixture into 80g portions, as per the instructions, but I have to say these looked rather big to me. These will definitely be substantial in size that’s for sure. I really can’t remember the one I had at his restaurant being this huge, but then again it was a long time ago.

The fillings

These were then set to chill overnight. There was a lot of chilling for this dish! Next was the shellfish stock. I won’t go into much detail here as this will be the subject of the next post, but suffice to say it is as easy as other stocks providing you have the shells to hand. Just fry some base vegetables, the shells etc, then add water and simmer for a few hours. Done!

Next up was making the pasta. Now I have done this before here and as such I will not re post how this is done, but it is incredibly easy. I then let this sit for about 30 min before going further with the ravioli. Whilst this was resting I then made a start on the veloute. Now this is quite a crucial part of the dish in my opinion as it is required to add much needed moisture. If I recall correctly from when I first tasted this dish, the ravioli was relatively moisture free, albeit containing soft, succulent lobster etc… it needed a sauce, and I am sure this will be no different.

I started off by chopping up all the ingredients and adding them to a sauce pan with the vermouth. This was then heavily reduced before adding some more shellfish stock. This was reduced again, after which cream was added, and reduced yet again to a coating consistency. I then sieved this and then added the chervil and set aside for later.

Making the veloute

Making the veloute

The veloute... Done!

I must just point out at this stage that this was smelling divine! Lemongrass is such a wonderful thing. Next up was the tomato chutney. This was dead easy. I skinned and chopped up tomato flesh, added this to a pan with olive oil and seasoning, and reduced.

Tomatoes

It was approaching the time to complete the dish. I added the shellfish stock to a pan and reduced this to about a quarter of its original volume. This always fascinates me as this technique produces a wonderfully complex sauce at the end, every time, provided you are working from a good stock to start off with.

Stock reducing

Final reduced stock

The result was a orangy-red reduction which was incredibly rich and sticky. Simply sublime.

I set this aside and started to fill the ravioli pasta circles I made earlier. This pretty much was a case of putting the blob of filling in the centre of the circle, dabbing the outside with egg wash, and then placing another pasta circle on top and then sealing the ravioli making sure there are no air pockets. It sounds simple, but for some reason I found it really hard. Must be the clumsy fingers. Eventually I got there with all the ravioli and they were ready for cooking.

Making the ravioli

Ravioli done

I already had a large pot with boiling salted water at the ready, and I added the pasta into this to blanch for a few minutes. Whilst this was going on, I heated up the stock reduction, as well as the veloute and the tomato chutney, and made the basil crisps. Oh, and wilted some spinach too. Once the pasta had cooked I set them aside on a warm plate with some kitchen towel to get rid of excess moisture and then set about plating.

I love this part. I started by creating a spiral of stock on a plate, followed by a little blob of spinach in the centre. On top of this went the ravioli and then on top of this went a quinelle of tomato chutney followed by a basil crisp. I served the lemongrass and chervil veloute separately.

The final dish

It was seriously good. I must admit that despite my best efforts, the pasta was still a bit on the thick side, but at least it was melt-in-your-mouth-soft. The flavours were astounding. The filling was a bit drier than I remembered it being at the restaurant, so perhaps I slightly over cooked it or put in a tad too much mousse, but when eaten together with the reduced stock and the veloute it was a thing of beauty. People, this equates to porn for your tastebuds!!!

I’d go so far as to say that it tasted exactly how I remembered it before and I am really chuffed with the result as a whole. The veloute, as expected, was necessary. It was needed to add the required moisture to the dish, but the stock… OH THE STOCK… blew my mind. It was incredibly rich, and cut straight through but at the same time complimented the flavours in the ravioli perfectly. All the components worked really well together and it is safe to say that this will be a contender for those occasions when a truly special meal needs to be made.

Ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon with a lemongrass and chervil veloute… Done!

Next up: Shellfish stock

Previous post: Scallops with sweet corn puree and quail’s eggs

After reading the recipe notes, this dish looks like it could be a dinner party favourite. Why? Well it is actually very simple and by the looks of things can be done from start to finish in less than 30 min, if you work fast. Scallops are also something which everyone else, except me, seem to value above all else. In other words, this dish is a sure winner as it is quick and easy, and has the backing of the majority.

Anyway, enough chit chat, let’s get down to it.

The ingredients

I decided to make a start on the sweet corn puree. This was such a simple process it was verging on being ridiculous. I melted the butter, added the sweet corn and slowly cooked them to soften slightly. Once they had been cooking for a bit, I then added the cream and let it simmer for a few minutes to soften like mad!

Sweet corn and butter

Sweetcorn and cream

Once the sweet corn had softened, I added it to the blender and blitzed the hell out of it. The paste was then passed through a fine sieve (Probably the most taxing element of this dish and took all of 2-3 minutes) and what you were left with was a brilliantly yellow puree of sweet corn. The smell was intoxicating. I like sweet corn, but this was intense.

Sweet corn puree

I left the puree in the pan for reheating later. Next was the truffle infused mayonnaise. Now I have a confession to make here… I forgot to take photos of this process. Doh, doh and double doh! It is stupidly easy to do however and involves making a basic mayonnaise with egg, oil etc, but also adding some double cream and white truffle oil. The result is a very aromatic mayonnaise. I was starting to get excited by this dish. The wonderful combination of smells were making me a bit giddy.

Mayonnaise

Lastly, there was the scallops. I bought these from the supermarket as I didn’t have a chance to go to the fish mongers, but they were rather handsome little scallops I have to say. Not too big and not too small. I still ended up cutting them in half so as to make the cooking of them easier, but I probably didn’t have to.

Scallops ready for the pan

Now the book says you should use a heavy based pan for the scallop cooking bit. I have never used a heavy pan with scallops before, but in the past I have really struggled to cook them perfectly using a normal pan. Do you know what? The heavy pan works a treat! Why is that? Anyway, I added some olive oil and cooked them for a min on both sides… basically until they started to firm up and looked all caramelised. It really didn’t take long at all.

Scallops cooking

Once cooked, I set them aside on a hot plate and proceeded to then cook the quails eggs. Man these things are tiny. I found the easiest way get the eggs out was to use the tip of a knife to break open the shell. I lost 3 eggs trying to open them the good old fashioned way, and the knife tip trick works a treat! I cooked these very quickly in a pan with some olive oil and once cooked I trimmed the edges a bit and it was then time to plate up.

First off, I grabbed some baby salad leaves and made a little decorative ball of them in the middle of the plate. I then added some blobs of the re-heated sweet corn puree on the plate and then put a scallop on either side of each. I added a quail’s egg to the top of each scallop and what was left was to then add some of the truffle infused mayonnaise, some drops of olive oil and it was done.

The final dish

The photo I have to say doesn’t really do it justice. The scallops I used were a bit smaller than I was hoping for, and I suspect that had I used larger scallops it would have looked better as it would have been more in proportion. I tried an alternative presentation in another plate as shown below

Alternative presentation

If I am honest I think I prefer the second. This was an incredibly rich dish and if this was to act as a starter to a main meal then perhaps one or at a stretch two scallops would suffice. Having said that though, it was delicious. I was rather sad I didn’t have a truffle available to add to the dish (The book said it was optional) as I’m sure this would have added that extra dimension. The sweetness of the scallop played perfectly with the truffle mayonnaise and the aromatic sweet corn puree. The quails egg was okay, but not something that rocked my world. If anything, I was craving something salty to balance it all out. There was too much sweet going on. Perhaps a slice of black pudding would add the required ‘wow factor’ that this dish needed to catapult it into the exception dish league? In any case it was lovely, albeit very rich, and I would happily make it again.

Now that I think of it, black pudding would go really well with this!

Scallops with sweet corn puree and quail’s eggs… Done!

Next up: Ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon with a lemongrass and chervil veloute

Previous post: Vegetable stock

The main reason for this is because I am going to be cooking a birthday dinner for my dad this coming weekend. It shall be a full 4 course meal, with the amuse bouches and palette cleansers etc, naturally, as one does, and one of the dishes will be a delicious cep risotto. You may remember it from here.  Vegetable stock is needed for this, and I figured now will be a good time to make the stock from scratch rather than buy it from the shops.

As with all stocks, you start off with your base vegetables of carrots, onions, leak, garlic and celery etc and sweat them off in some olive oil till softened.

Base vegetables

This was then swiftly followed by about 2 litres worth of water and then left to simmer for about 20 min.

Now with added water

Once the 20 min were up, I then took it off the heat, added the wine and the herbs, stirred once or twice and let it cool completely. This was so quick and so easy I had to go back to the book to make sure I had done it correctly. Surely this wasn’t it? It was.

Stock done, and cooling

 Once cooled I lined a fine sieve with some muslin cloth and then spooned in the stock… out came a wonderfully fragrant vegetable stock than once and for all proved that you can do so much better than shop bought stocks. I bottled it up into some spare Waitrose stock containers (You see there is method to my madness… I knew these containers would come in use at some point) and then froze those bad boys for a later date. I kept one out and used it for a risotto that evening and it worked a treat!

Final product

Vegetable stock… Done!

Next up: Scallops with sweetcorn puree and quail’s eggs

 Previous post: Pear tarte tatin with Gorgonzola ice cream

The ingredients

I had to start with the ice cream unfortunately and as you can see from the photo above there is not a lot to it. All the usual suspects were there, as was the dreaded Gorgonzola. I don’t even like soft pongy  cheese like this. Why is Gordon making me do this?

I started by adding the cream and milk to a pan and slowly brought this to boiling point. Whilst this was heating up I added the egg yolks and the sugar to a bowl and whisked together until it became virtually creamy. So far so good. Once the cream and milk had heated up to boiling point I took this off the heat and slowly dribbled this over the egg yolks whilst whisking furiously to prevent the eggs from scrambling.  Once it had all been incorporated I added this back to the pan and gently heated it until it coated the back of a spoon. At this stage I opened the Gorgonzola, gagged, and added some of this to the ice cream mixture. I stirred till dissolved and then set aside to cool completely.

Milk and cream

Eggs and sugar

The ice cream mixture, complete with dodgy cheese veins

See those green bits? That’s pure cheese vein baby… how tasty is this ice cream going to be huh!?

Once cooled I put it through my trusty ice cream maker and stored the ice cream in the freezer. Done.

Next was preparing the pears. Now you have to do these a couple of hours in advance to ensure most of the surface moisture has evaporated before adding them to the oven. I simply peeled and cut two pears length ways down the middle, cored them and then using a paring knife gave them a nice shape. Once done, I put these on some kitchen paper to dry out.

Pears drying out

Next was to make the pear crisps. This involves making a lemon infused syrup and then dunking some thinly sliced pears into this and then baking them till crisp. I got to use my mandoline again, so I was chuffed. The syrup was easy and all I had to do was dissolve the sugar in water, squeeze in some lemon juice and then set aside. The pear slices were dunked accordingly into the syrup and then laid flat on a silicone mat. This was then added to the oven on a low temperature for a couple of hours.

The syrup

The pear slices ready for the oven

Once cooked, I transferred them to an air tight container for later. Next was the walnut cream. Simple simple simple. Heat up some cream and sugar, add it to some walnuts in a food processor and blitz. This was stored in the fridge for later as well. It was time to chill out and relax.

When it came time to cooking this dish all that was needed was to make the caramel, add the pears to it and once these had achieve a lovely golden colour I then transferred these to the tarte tatin tins, covered this with a disc of puff pastry and then added it to the oven.

Making the caramel

Pears cooking in the caramel

It didn’t take long to cook and the whole house was smelling lovely and sweet. I was ready for this dish, and then I remembered the ice cream. Hmm. Anyway, it was time to plate up … wanna see?

The final dish

Right, it didn’t look too bad did it? Unfortunately the ice cream had not set properly which was a shame but the tarte tatin turned out very well. I couldn’t help but start to get very hungry. So how did it taste? Well it was awesome. The tarte tatin itself with the walnut cream was sublime. It really was a serious success. And the pear crisps added another nice texture which was needed. It was both sickly sweet as well as very moreish. It was also bizarrely very light as well. And did Gordon convince me on the Gorgonzola ice cream???

Nope, it sucked. I hated it actually. Give me a simple vanilla ice cream any day, and for this dish that is all you need in my opinion.

I will be doing this again, but without the Gorgonzola ice cream that’s for sure.

Pear tarte tatin with Gorgonzola ice cream… Done!

Next up: Vegetable stock

Previous post: Navarin of lamb with buttered vegetables, celeriac puree and thyme jus

As mentioned in my previous post, one of the components of this dish, the lamb jus, applies to a number of dishes within Gordon’s book so I had already made this. What was left therefore was the lamb itself, the vegetables and the puree. Sounds simple eh, so I got cracking on with it all.

Lamb jus

The first hurdle was the lamb. One of the components for the dish was a little disc of confit lamb shoulder which required slow cooking the lamb shoulder in fat for a couple of hours, shredding it, rolling it into a log, chilling it, cutting it into discs, and then re-heating. Now here’s the thing… I had a lamb shoulder ready to be used in my freezer already. Once thawed out, it became apparent that I couldn’t use it. It was freezer burnt to hell and back which was a shame, not to mention it was quite pungent as well. I’m pretty certain it would have been okay to eat, but just in case I decided not to use it. This was a bit of a bummer as I had planned to do everything needed for this dish, and the first thing I set my sights on didn’t happen. Still, it was only a small component of the dish (You are only talking about a disc the size of 50p coin at most) so hopefully not too much of an omission.

I then focussed my attention on the pesto. The dish requires a dab of pesto here and there but the recipe calls for a humongous amount of pesto to be made. It seemed overkill to be honest to make so much pesto, but I figured it could be used with pasta etc later on in the week anyway. This was simple to make really… I added basil leaves, toasted pine nuts, olive oil, garlic and parmesan to a food processor and blitzed the hell out of it until a paste had formed. This was then transferred to a container and kept in the fridge till later. It smelt wonderful… so aromatic and verging on being intoxicating. I’ll be making that again!

Preparing the pesto

Final pesto

Next up was the celeriac puree. Bizarely the title of the recipe calls for celeriac, but the recipe itself refers to turnip. A typo me thinks Gordon. I went with the turnip as this sounded better for the dish and happily sliced up some turnip and added this to a pan with some cream. This cooked away until softened after which I added it to a blender and blitzed this to a fine puree. This was then passed through a sieve and what was left was a ultra smooth, distinctly peppery turnip puree. I kept this in a separate pan in a warm place for later.

Cooking the turnip

Next was the vegetables.  A variety of veggies are used for this dish, including baby carrots, a fennel bulb, beetroot, onions and turnip. I couldn’t find baby onions, so shallots had to to. I couldn’t find baby turnips, so diced turnip had to do. Such compromises are needed when you live out in the sticks. I quickly blanched each vegetable in a large pot of salted water, cooled in iced water and then set aside for cooking with the butter closer to the time of plating.

This really hasn’t been a difficult dish at all so far, just a series of separate components which I suppose is what most dishes consist of really. Next was the thyme jus. Now the jus had already been prepared in a previous post and all that was needed was to reduce this a bit further with some added thyme sprigs. Whilst this was reducing I sliced up the lamb loin and then added this to a hot pan with olive oil to get some colour. Whilst this was cooking I added the vegetables with the exception of the onions to another pan with some butter and gently cooked these as well. For the onions I added some butter and sugar to an oven proof pan and then baked the onions in the oven for a few minutes, rolling the onions in the sugary-buttery mixture every now and then. I heated through the turnip puree and it was ready. This I suppose is where things get tricky, having to get all the components together at the same time, and for this dish there are a lot of components.

Vegetables in butter

Onions caramalising

It was time for the plating. I started off by adding some puree to the centre of the plate, and then using a scatter approach simply scattered the vegetables and lamb discs on the plate. Well when I say scatter there was some order to it all, but it was certainly not a precise plating like some of the other dishes I have done so far. Oh and a couple of dabs of pesto were added and I then spooned over some lamb jus and finally chopped up a few herbs (Chives, chervil and tarragon) and scattered these on the top. It was done.

The final dish

Wow! This is a good dish. It really is a fantastic dish and to be honest I feel I have cheated as it wasn’t really that difficult either. The lamp was stupidly tender, and the tarragon complimented it perfectly. In fact the turnip puree with it’s pepperyness also worked wonders with the lamb as did the beetroot with it’s deep earthy flavour. It was all good. This will become a classic in my household as I can already foresee this being a popular dinner party dish.

Navarin of lamb with buttered vegetables, celeriac puree and thyme jus… Done!

Next up: Pear tarte tatin with gorgonzola ice cream

Previous post: Lamb jus

I have decided to cook the two lamb dishes in the book simultaneously as they share a large number of the ingredients and cooking methods. Also, as is the case with most of the ‘mains’ in the book, each dish consists of a number of components which can be prepared individually and stored until ready to use for the final dish. I figured that to break down the common components into individual posts will give you a better understanding of the work that is required for some of these dishes. I find you tend to summarise things so much in the individual posts that some of the technicalities/difficulties of the individual components get lost.

Hence this post.

In both the lamb dishes, lamb jus is required and I figured it would be a good idea to have a separate entry for this similar to the individual posts on chicken and veal stocks. It is essentially the same thing really and prepared in a similar manner.

I had a rack of lamb ribs in the freezer for a while that were calling out to be used and once defrosted I drizzled some olive oil over them and roasted these for a couple of hours till golden. Whilst these were roasting I whipped out the stock pot and began to gently fry some carrots, onion, garlic and celery in some olive oil until softened.

Gently frying the base veggies

Once done, I then added some white wine and reduced down to virtually nothing before adding some tomato paste and chicken and veal stock.

Second reduction of wine and tomato paste

By now the ribs have finished roasting.

Roasted lamb ribs

I drained these of excess oil and then added these to the pot. This was then brought to the simmer and kept like this for a good couple of hours.

Left to simmer

Once it had simmered for the required time I took it off the heat and let it cool down. I have to say that at this stage the entire house smelt wonderful. It was a real lamby smell, but in such a good way. It wasn’t overpowering at all, it just smelt wonderful. It is really hard to describe, but I could already tell this was going to make one hell-of-a good sauce for the dishes. I took out the bones and strained out the veggies and what I was left with was a teeny tiny cup of probably the best lamb jus I have ever made in my life.

Lamb jus

I had to taste it, and dear readers I can confirm it was simply divine. It was so silky smooth and incredibly lamby in flavour that I reckon now I will need to stock up on lamb ribs and do this more often. In fact, for normal lamb roasts this would be a sure winner and given you could do this well in advance and freeze it, it would take a lot of the agro out of a roast dinner. After all a roast is nothing without a good gravy. This is a guaranteed sure fire winner and I can’t wait to taste it in combination with the rest of the dish.

Oh by the way, as I am sure you know, lamb is incredibly fatty and you can already see the fat rising to the surface in the photo above. After freezing, this is easy to remove as it forms a hard disc on top of the jus which you can simply lift off and discard leaving the good stuff behind. Top tip from yours truly.

Lamb jus… Done!

Next up: Navarin of lamb with buttered vegetables, celeriac puree and thyme jus

Previous post: Chargrilled monkfish tail with confit duck, red and yellow peppers, courgettes and red wine sauce

Hmm, I am still not too sure about monkfish. I’ll be honest and say I am not a huge fish fan at the best of times, mostly preferring smoked fish rather than fresh, however monkfish just looks wrong. I mean when it is alive it is possibly the ugliest fish on the planet (Google it, I swear it is looks like something has eaten a large scaly fish, and then thrown it up, and then called it a monkfish) and when filleted, it looks all slimy. It’s just wrong wrong wrong.

I understand monkfish is called the poor man’s lobster, and I like lobster, so perhaps there is potential in it yet. The recipe combines the fish with confit duck (Check – I like that too), peppers and courgettes (Okay – sounds good) and a red wine sauce. All in all, I was prepared to enjoy eating it and made a start on what ended up being a very lengthy food preparation exercise.

I started off with preparing the duck. I got two duck legs and added these to a pyrex dish added the herbs and salt and then filled it with duck fat (Hence the confit bit). I then slapped it in the oven for a couple of hours to slowly cook and hopefully become meltingly tender.

Preparing the duck

Whilst this was cooking away I made a start on the chicken mousse. This again was simple and involved dicing up some chicken breast and then blitzing this in a food processor together with some cream, seasoning etc

Making the mousse

Now this grosses me out a bit actually. I don’t know why, but the thought of making a mousse out of meat just feels a bit odd. It could be due to the texture of the chicken itself, but I have to say I did feel a bit queasy doing this part. Once it had all mulched up (Blergh) into a paste the time had come to then spread it into a thin sheet. I wrapped some cling film around a chopping board and then started pasting the mousse onto it. It took ages and with hindsight perhaps I should have added a bit more cream to loosen it up a bit more as it really was quite difficult to spread thinly.

The mousse

The mousse spread thin, sort of

Now the time had come to wrap the monkfish fillet with the mousse. You wanna see the fillet? Of course you do…

The monkfish

I placed this onto the chicken mousse lined cling film and then wrapped it up. It was pretty simple actually and then tightened the ends and put it in the fridge to set.

Next was the peppers bit. This was dead easy and simply involved cooking a base tomato mixture on the stove top until it had reduced down nicely. In the meantime I chargrilled some peppers so as to make it easier to take the skins off and then I cut the peppers into diamond/square shapes for the final plating. Once the base was ready I added the peppers and then took it off the heat to warm through later.

The peppers

Reduced down

So far so good. The timer went off and it was time to start shredding the confit duck that had been cooking for a couple of hours. Once shredded as finely as possible I laid the shredded pieces out on a new sheet of cling film and then retrieved the monkfish from the fridge. This was then carefully laid out on the duck and then rolled up again using the same technique. This time of course adding a new layer to the fish… so now we have a layer of duck, then chicken mousse, then fish. This was then popped back into the fridge to set further.

Shredded duck

The fish, chicken and duck roll

Whilst that was setting I made a start on the red wine sauce. This has been done before so I won’t go into detail again here but needless to say it is a doddle and pretty much features in some form within most of Gordon’s recipes.

Finally, after what felt like hours (That’s because it took hours to get to this point)  it was time to cook the monkfish. You start by poaching it in water for a bit and then chargrilling it afterwards.  First the poaching…

Poaching the fish

Once this was complete I then unwrapped the fish ‘log’ and chargrilled it for a bit. Whilst this was going on I sauted some courgettes and heated through both the red wine sauce and the pepper mixture.

Chargrilled and ready to slice

It was time to slice up the fish and plate up, which I dutifully did and the result is shown below. I started out by spooning some peppers in the middle of the plate and then laid slices of the fish on top of this and then  scattered the courgettes around the outside. This was then followed by the red wine sauce which was dribbled in a sort of cheffy style around the plate as well. Check it out…

The final dish

It looks rather classic in terms of plate design and not too bad if you ask me. But how did it taste? Well I have to say it didn’t blow me away at all, and in fact I really was quite disappointed by it all. The only really tasty part of the dish was the pepper concoction which is a shame since it is not the main element of the dish. The monkfish taste was totally dominated by the duck and the chicken mousse, probably due to the fact that I couldn’t spread the chicken mousse thin enough. The mousse actually dulled the palette somewhat taking away what little flavour the monkfish had to give.

Nope, this was not a winner and after all the preparation was a serious let down.

Chargrilled monkfish tail with confit duck, red and yellow peppers, courgettes and red wine sauce… Done!

Next up: Lamb jus

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