PdT

I am still on a cloud from eating out on Friday night at a well known, two starred restaurant on Charlotte Street.

The gent knows the Head chef, and also that he is leaving at the end of the month, hence our hurry to eat here this month. The magic started with being sent a glass of champagne, compliments of the chef. And didn't stop. We chose the tasting menu of 9 courses with the 'Decouverte' choice of wine matched with each course.

I made a big decision beforehand: I remember things so much better if I make a few notes and take photographs - and I really wanted to remember every bite of this. However, I also find it distracting to document sensations, it rather impedes enjoying them. So I left my camera at home. Although I have impressions of it all, the details are already fading. Here are some of the highlights.

Before we ordered anything, three or four tiny, delicious things were presented on a glass tray - including a filo-pastry and foie gras sandwich, balanced in the prongs of a silver, handle-less fork. A siren bread-boy kept trying to seduce us with his wares: luckily we had been warned that the bread was so delicious it would fill us up too soon, so we stopped our ears with beeswax and waved the boy away. The minx.

From the menu description I was sure I would like the fallow venison best. Or the yellow fin tuna. After the scallop and chicken oyster dish I was sure that was the best of the night ... but in the end, it was the pan fried foie gras that took my breath away. Yes, I realise I am gushing, but I think it the only reasonable response.

Before each course came a glass of wine. Where the food was described as the waiter placed it before us, the wine was presented only with smiles. We tasted, we speculated, the gent made educated guesses. Then, after the food was cleared, a Val Warner-alike advanced with the wine bottle and revealed its true identity, along with some choice descriptions and why he thought it complimented that particular course.

As we sipped an espresso, our senses bedazzled and overwhelmed - taking solace in a rack of petits fours - a waiter carried a chair to place next to our table and Chef himself came to see how we had liked the meal. He will be next at a certain restaurant in Bray, Berkshire for two weeks, then off traveling. Just as well, I was trying to work out how I could afford to come back to eat here every month. After 10 glasses of wine I might be excused such an idle thought.

An aside. One of my ongoing mini-obsessions on enjoying a meal, is what to wear. Not in the fashion sense, but rather, what enables you to enjoy eating to the maximum? I blush deeply to admit to my former, trouser-top-button-loosening (which I thought a discrete manoeuvre until more than one person mentioned it), and am trying to move on from HG's 'eating pants' reference to my restaurant-dressing. I have now firmly pledged my allegiance to the roomy frock. Friday night's was a particular success with the gent and, my vanity is pleased to report, he didn't see the beautiful draping as tummy-concealers, nor the soft jersey fabric as comfortably stretchy to allow the waist to expand with each course. In short, I think I got away with top comfort whilst, crucially, not being reduced to undressing in public.

I believe the other option is to leave a little food for Mr Manners on your plate. I can't imagine that happens often at Pied a terre


http://www.pied-a-terre.co.uk/
Head Chef, Nino Brullmann
Chef Patron, Shane Osborn


25/01/10

Persian orange chicken stew #2

The Persian stew rematch was set for 19th January, and Seville oranges bought. The result? A subtle difference, which I entirely agreed with, however next time I think it would be better to add in the segments of another orange. Although a slightly sharper edge, it was not quite as orange-tasting as I remembered. Seville's are so full of pips that it was almost impossible to free the segments intact from the pith, pips and skin: instead I had a mush of tiny pieces. It also seemed to result in less orange and juice than when we did this with sweet oranges.

The preparation was less jolly with no gent to chat to, however I prepped a fair amount the night before so that the next night there was just the fine slicing of carrots - and the rest of the stew is downhill after that! It was, as before, a lovely light, sustaining combination and seemed to go down well with my 'North London girls' who were as appreciative as they were cheerful and chatty. Perfect guests.

We followed this with some Seville orange ice cream I had made, which is possibly the least effort you can make whilst reaping maximum rewards. That the tub is now empty, barely a week later, with only one un-careful lady owner, speaks for itself.

What else can I do with these beautiful, bitter oranges?

How the Gouda tasted

Is 265g Gouda cheese in 24 hours, too much? I just ate a whole block in two sittings and am not sure of the health benefits or drawbacks. Lots of calcium long term, weighed against a mucousy short term future. The taste benefits I can testify to, though. Yesterday I paired it with a sharp little British Braeburn apple and some shortbread: today, eyes glazed, I just ate it slice by slice. The warmer it got, the better it tasted.

Last night I was surprised to come across 'Kombu' in my local supermarket: a Japanese ingredient of dried kelp, with which 'Dashi', a kind of stock, is made. My younger sister lived in Japan and she told me about it when I visited her there. I didn't purchase any, but instead came away with some sweet miso, which I mixed with water and simmered, then dropped in noodles, then the following, thinly sliced: chestnut mushrooms, leek and sprouts. After just a few minutes I decanted it all into a large bowl, added soy sauce and chilli flakes and lowered my face into the magic. It wasn't udon, there was no tempura or dancing fish flakes... but it was pure Japan on my tastebuds. Oishii!

addenda...

I was chuckling over this Pork, knife and spoon blog - found at the height of my pork obsession when I don't seem to manage a day without sausages or bacon - when I found it was linked to this really good Gluten-Free Girl blog. I don't need gluten free food, but I can never pass up a recipe, and these cinnamon rolls look really wonderful.

virtual feasts

How very exciting. Do you see I have a comment from another venerable blogger? It fired me up to see the excellent Turmeric and Saffron blog. It also reminded me that although I save food-related bookmarks to delicious, I haven't updated my list of links here (on the right of this page) so have set to sharing some new favourites. Many have been recommended by Bert whenever she sees a good recipe to pass on.

I recently tried 'Stumbleupon', a website which directs you to recommended - and therefore, generally the best of the internet - websites, on topics you specify you are interested in. It is terrifically easy, and with great serendipity the first website I stumbled upon was 'Tastespotting', a veritable treat : a sort of epicenter of food blogs. A place where all good food blogs are sucked into and each displayed via one hungry-making picture. A place where one loses all sense of time as you click on the 'dirty kitchen secrets' link, or the picture of a gingerbread-house-garnish to perch on the edge of your festive hot chocolate mug. The cheesecake brownie is the best one to have caught my eye, though. A snug fit for HG's birthday cake if ever I saw one.

I also spend a lot of time looking at the Guardian 'Word of Mouth' food blogs - and reading comments from the legion followers - but have missed it off the list. For the same reasons I don't have the BBC good food, Times Online archives of Giles Coren or AA Gill, or any other of the big ones I enjoy to read: you already know about them. I also omitted Nigella Lawson's website, but only because I already devote too much time to (re)reading her books. Or maybe the pink heart background puts me off a little -?

I have a couple of very exciting library-related finds which will have to wait until January for further investigation.

light fan-Tas-tic

It is said that 'energy breeds energy', to mean that the more you exercise the more you want to: in the same way, I think good food breeds good food. Today's good breakfast led to a wonderful lunch... who knows what will happen this evening!

Fearing a breakfast slump of the type only experienced in 2007 (dark days indeed), I decided to perk up my morning with some savoury muffins and fried sausages. I was so excited that I actually woke up at 4 or 5 am, worried I had over-slept, and feeling as I had years ago on Christmas mornings when my sisters and I were so impatient to start the day. Oh for that enthusiasm now!

I had measured out the dry ingredients the night before, so in the morning I just put together the wet ingredients, grated some cheese, mixed the whole lot together and dolloped it into moulds. I chucked chipolata sausages into a frying pan and went to get dressed while the gent kept an eye on everything and made coffee. A shower later and all was ready. Given how gloomy the morning was, this was the best possible start to the day: hot, salty calories and a cooking smell to rouse even the laziest of appetites. The muffins were more heavy than sweet muffins, not at all the same texture, but welcomingly so. A couple of these were quite a defence against mid-morning hunger.

In fact, their only rivals for top-savoury-bake this year would be the watercress scones I found at a Saturday market in Alton - truly scrumptious, as the song would have it.

Lunch at Tas was fantastic. I went with work colleagues and we shared around seven meze dishes with wonderful, fresh flavours; then I had a main dish of 'kalamari', perfectly, crispily cooked, and served with a walnut sauce. I'm not sure these are flavours that I would choose to put together again - a squeeze of lemon was sufficient for me - however, the walnut sauce was beautiful in its own right, and would be pretty amazing with pasta. Next task: try and re-create the walnut sauce at home!

http://www.tasrestaurant.com/


7/12/09

Perfect Persian

The first recipe cooked from my Persian cook book was chicken and orange stew. I found myself itching to fiddle with the ingredients - as always - but decided to cook it as suggested, then make changes next time. I think it only fair to give a recipe a fighting chance on its first outing. Hard as it was, I didn't even add cardamom or otherwise mess with the ‘plain boiled rice’ suggested to serve alongside.

Despite having few ingredients, the stew took a surprisingly long time to prepare. I was sorely grateful to the gent who quietly set to julienne-ing the orange peel and carrots whilst I got on with the rest: without him there would have been fluster and hunger. The orange peel is boiled and drained several times, presumably to remove some of the bitterness, but which creates a gorgeous marmalade fug in the kitchen: as Seville oranges are not in season, the book suggests to use sweet oranges and add lime juice to achieve the required sourness.

The outcome was a very delicately flavoured, thinly juiced stew. It wasn’t as sour as I expected (or hoped) so I am keen to try again with Seville oranges, as the recipe calls for, when the season arrives. The tangle of bright shredded orange peel and carrots was visually beautiful as well as adding the sweet/sour flavour, and the pistachio and almond nut garnish added a fantastic contrasting texture. In fact it seemed to crown the dish and make it doubly beautiful.

Although labour-intensive with some fiddly stages, the ingredients for the stew were not expensive or difficult to source. As such, I think it a perfect January weekend dish for when there is time to potter in the kitchen, and the bitter oranges are bountiful. I hope to find a few more treasures of this sort in the Persian book; dishes that have a sense of ceremony in the making, are a notch above average when cooking for friends, and yet not be elaborate to the point of onerous. Curious but, I sense, curiously addictive.