Steak, Swordfish and Cinnamon

Posted on August 12, 2012 by robmcdonald49

It was a pretty quiet weekend from a food point of view, too much sport to watch!

Carpetbag Steak
My sister often claims this is her favourite dish, so as a special treat I rustled it up. I’ve never seen it on a menu anywhere, and only learnt of it from a South African boss at a previous job. The origin of the dish is a bit murky, some people claim its Australian, others South African, but either way it’s delicious. Steak and Oysters are a classic British combination, certainly during the Georgian period, so it seems only logical to grab a nice thick steak, hollow out a pocket and fill it with oysters before sealing it back up with a cocktail stick. As the steak cooks, the rich, creamy seafood flavour permeates the steak. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Cinnamon Loaf

I’ve got a bit of a thing for cinnamon buns, Chelsea buns, basically anything in the baked cinnamon genre. Fitzbillies in Cambridge sets the bar for sticky cinnamon goodness, but occasionally you need something that doesn’t need a secret recipe and several rises. This recipe, from the lovely people at Outsider Tart, provides the same hit in a little under an hour.

The result is a lovely cakey slice that is just begging for a nice strong coffee and a lazy afternoon.

Swordfish, Monkfish, Tuna
When your fishmonger runs out of enough swordfish to feed two people what do you do? Buy his sole remaining piece (pun intended) as well as some great tuna and a lovely monkfish tail. Normally attempting three fish would be suicide, trying to get them to fry evenly without overlooking is just impossible. With sous vide it’s very easy, dump them all in the water bath, give them 30 seconds to colour in a hot pan and enjoy the results! I’ve never tried a medley like this before and it’s very effective, it accentuates the differences between each fish and gives them a real chance to shine – try it sometime!

Bangers, Brownies and Beaujolais

Posted on August 5, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Having thoroughly enjoyed making sausages for the BBQ I decided to have another go, though with a more traditional method.

Sausages
My previous attempt used a kit from Lakeland, with dried beef casings and a premixed seasoning/filler. This time I wanted to use traditional natural hog casings and an organic breadcrumb filler.

The natural casings came pre-spooled and just need a little rinsing before threading them onto the sausage stuffer, they’re far more flexible than the Lakeland ones and stuffing went much smoother. I got the filling and spices from Weschenfelder, whose ‘Gold’ mix is gorgeous, lots of nutmeg and sage. I used a dried organic breadcrumb filler which gave a beautiful moist texture.

I decided to just fry them rather than giving them a spell in the sous vide or poaching them first. The skins held together really well and browned in to a far crispier texture than the beef casings. The result was great, porky, rich and with a subtle savoury hint. Next time I’m going to try some more interesting flavours – pork and apple beckons.

Sausage Rolls
I made a large mix of sausage meat so I decided to make some rolls as well. Having never made puff pastry from scratch I thought it would be fun to try making it from scratch. The results are great, a lovely light savoury pastry with a yummy moist filling.

The Sampler
A colleague told me about this fantastic little place just behind South Kensington tube station. It’s a pretty comprehensive wine merchant, with an excellent champagne selection, but the real selling point? Wine vending machines. You get a little card which you can charge up and then use to sample around 80 wines which rotate every couple of weeks. It’s a great chance to try some more unusual wines and sample some very expensive ones. I was delighted to discover they had a coupe of vintages from one of my favourite producers – Domaine de Pegau, its very hard to find! They also offer swanky nibbles and a cheese board – ill definitely be back to sample that!

Brownies

The perfect brownie is a bit of a minefield – some people like it dense and cakey, others want an airy sponge and thick rich fudge is also popular. I’ve done several recipes recently but my sister said I had to try these.

It’s a Good Housekeeping recipe, which really takes the ratios to the extreme – 550g of dark chocolate to 75g of flour. It’s pretty dense! Judging when it’s cooked is very difficult, it’s forms a thin crust very quickly so you need to keep prodding it with a knife to double check. The verdict?

Fab – really really good. I like a little more ‘cake’ to it, but this is an excellent recipe if you want something slightly airier!

Blueberries and Burgers

Posted on July 22, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Blueberry Traybake
With a glut of British blueberries in the supermarket I decided to whip up a batch of something yummy mid-week. Both Serious Eats and Outsider Tart had recipes for an American style ‘coffee cake’ using blueberries. (Erroneously named – no coffee in sight, the idea is that it’s consumed with coffee). I combined the two and this is the result!

The cake mix has a sour cream base – this works beautifully with the sweetness of the blueberries and gives it a creamy lightness. The ‘streusel’ on top adds a light crunch and stops it becoming too bland. The touch of cinnamon makes the cake smell amazing. The only thing I’d change is to coat the blueberries in flour to stop them sinking so much.

Home-made Sous Vide Burger
With a barbecue pending next weekend, I was keen to sort out a really good burger – I got out the mincer attachment and made a mix that was mostly chuck steak, with a bit of ribeye thrown in. I aligned the strands, Heston style, sliced off the burger shapes and cooked it for 2 hours at 52 degrees before searing it. I made a ‘Fake Shack’ sauce, which is just mayo, mustard, tomato, gherkin, Tabasco, garlic salt and paprika. The result was amazing – really beefy, very moist and slightly crunchy from the sear. Next time out I’ll use a slightly different cut to add more fat – brisket has a lot of potential!

Quiet Weekend

Posted on July 16, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Onion Marmalade

It’s no secret that I love cheese – one of my favourites things about Christmas is a good excuse for a truly outrageous cheese board. Good crackers are important, but the final part of the wonderful cheesy trinity is condiments. Chutneys, pickles, jams, fruit cheeses and onion marmalade.

Having always had a serious weak spot for onion marmalade (it’s incredible with a super stong cheddar like Montgomery) so having neglected my preserving pan for a month or two I decided to have a shot at it.

It was a surprising amount of work – peeling a chopping around 25 onions takes a while! The reduction in volume is incredible, from a full pan of raw onions to the thin layer of deliciousness that was left at the end. The flavour is gorgeous – exactly what I was after. I could have happily eaten the entire batch out of the pan with a spoon. It only really filled three large-ish jars, so I’ll definitely need to make another batch when I’ve got some swankier glassware!

Sous Vide Salmon, Crushed New Potatoes, Bois Boudran Sauce

This is a Heston recipe and a great showcase of how something quite simple – fish, potatoes and tomato sauce – can be tarted up beautifully. The sauce is gorgeous, a kind of tomato relish that packs a real umami punch, I’m looking forward to using up the left overs! It was the first time I did a meal for several people with my sous vide and it worked beautifully. Timing everything was much easier and being able to use just a couple of frying pans for browning the finished products really kept the washing up down. Result!

Gin poached Venison
Venison and juniper berries is a classic combo – one of the major ‘botanicals’ in gin is juniper, so surely it’s a logical combo? After a bit of snooping I couldn’t find anyone else trying it in a sous vide, so I’m claiming this one as a ‘Rob original’.

Obviously, without a sous vide this would be rather expensive and wasteful – with one it needed just 50ml of Hendricks to cover the meat. I drew a blank at Borough market when I went in search of venison, so I had to settle for Springbok…. it’s pretty close!

The flavour was gorgeous – very subtle and not as bitter as I’d feared. It just needs a little sweet acidity (lemon mayo?) and it would be away.

Sous Vide Spectacular

Posted on July 8, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Well I’ve had my setup for almost a week now and it’s been hard at work. I’ve done a great mix of foods, most very simple, trying to highlight what makes it different to conventional cooking methods.

Poached Egg

Slow poached eggs have been around for centuries and are very common in Japan. The texture is very different to a normal poached egg. The white is very soft and velvety, the yolk creamey and light. But the best bit is the presentation. You serve your guests the egg – still in it’s shell – which they then break over the salad/toast/scallops and out slides a perfectly cooked poached egg. It’s a brilliant party trick.

Salmon

Fish is a really popular sous vide dish as it’s so hard to cook perfectly. All the guesswork is taken out, you pick your temperature and put it in. A few minutes later you have a beautiful piece of fish that just needs a quick brown (with a blowtorch or ripping hot pan). The texture is very different – soft, fudgey and delicious.

Chicken

Everyone who I’ve spoken to about sous vide has said I need to try chicken. Everyone’s had the same dry chewy disasters before – sous vide chicken is out of this world. Freakishly moist and tender it blows away anything else I’ve tried. Brilliant stuff.

Scallops

The scallops were good – not incredible – just very nice. There’s two methods and I went for the quick (60C for 10 minutes rather than 50C for 45mins or 40C for two hours) I’ll experiment with a different one in future.

Duck

The duck was an absolute winner, the sous vide created a very soft texture, deeply ducky flavour and rendered the fat beautifully. A few seconds in a red hot pan crisped the skin and a quick sauce made with the juices from the bag finished it off perfectly.

Scrambled Eggs

One of Hestons recipes, this was a very easy breakfast. Because its all cooked in a disposable bag, there’s no washing up – just break the eggs, milk, cream and seasoning into a bag, moosh it around and cook for 15 minutes before pouring onto a plate. Simple! The texture is very smooth, almost custardy.

Cod

Another recipe from Heston – the cod cooks very soft, making neat plating a nightmare. Next time I’ll use a cranked spatula! The texture is lovely, far smoother than you’d expect and the sous vide takes all the guesswork out – its almost impossible to overcook it!

Steak

This is the big one. I love steak. I’ve eaten steaks all over the place and I’m very particular. The sous vide should allow me to perfectly cook very thick steaks before quickly searing them in a red hot plan. How does practice match up to theory? Superbly. One of the juiciest steaks I’ve ever eaten – perfectly cooked. If anything, 54°C is a tad to warm, I’ll try 52°C next time.

Pears

One of the few areas where sous vide is underused, desserts are still pretty experimental! The poached pears were delicious, the sauce is sugar, honey and vanilla, I was a bit worried about the quantity if vanilla but it actually works really well. Next time out I’ll go for some alcohol too – whisky/brandy would be amazing.

Burgers

A lot of internet sites rave about sous vide burgers – I was keen to give it a try! I used some bog standard burgers from the supermarket, and the results were very promising. The paleness is a little off putting, it needs a very very hot pan. I also had the water a little warm, I’ll go for 54°C next time. Even so – it was incredibly juicy, great barbecue potential!

Pork Belly

This is the longest recipe I’ve cooked (outside brewing/fermenting). A 24 hour salt/sugar/herb cure. 30ish hours in the water bath. The result? Amazing – rich porky taste, the aromatics did a great job on the inside, the texture was lovely – not too soft. To get some texture on the skin you have to essentially deep fry it – putting a big joint like that into a wok of hot oil is an experience!

Carrots

Carrots are always amazing when they’re not boiled – the flavour molecules are soluble in water, so boiling is not a great idea. These were awesome straight out the bag, but a quick glaze in a hot pan transformed them. Fantastic side dish.

Conclusion
As you can see, I’ve been quite busy! The sous vide is an amazing tool, but like any it needs to be used properly. There’ll always be a place for a quick fried steak. But certainly if you’re entertaining, it takes out a lot of the stress and offers some huge benefits.

When I get a chance I’d like to try cooking some more unusual items – I think game would be amazing. I also want to try poaching in unusual/expensive liquids. Chicken poached in truffle oil? Steak poached in whisky? Yum.

Busy Weekend

Posted on July 2, 2012 by robmcdonald49

This weekend wasn’t as food filled as I might have hoped, but I still managed to fit in a fair bit of it.

Kazan
I’ve been meaning to try out this Turkish restaurant for quite some time, specialising in Ottoman cuisine. They were quietly busy for a Friday evening, but we were able to eat immediately without a reservation.

To start we had a couple of their ‘mezze’ dishes, some gorgeous basil wrapped prawns and feta parcels. Very tasty and a great way to start the evening. The staff were helpful and attentive despite the frankly ridiculous amount of time my sister took to choose.

For my main I ordered their Ottoman grill, and mix of their various meat offerings. Lamb kofta, cutlet and steak; marinated chicken breast and poussin. The marinades were far more delicate than I expected and the grill was hot enough to give them a gentle smokey flavour.

My favourite bit, weirdly enough, were the chips. They were coated in a spice mix that was gorgeous, smokey paprika and something else. Yum.

Project
A large part of my Saturday was spent pursuing a little project I’ve been thinking about for some time. It’s not quite finished yet, I need a couple of parts which are turning up today. There’ll be a full write up and lots of recipes in due time – until then, here’s a sneak peak!

Baked Goodness

Posted on June 23, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Hummingbird Bakery

Hummingbird is synonymous with the huge use in popularity of American baking over the last few years. Their books have sold like, well, hot-cakes. But how good are the offerings at their many London shops? In search of unusual sugarwork ingredients I popped into their South Kensington store to find out.

I went for a mix of their signature cakes: a red velvet cupcake, a black bottom cupcake, a chocolate whoopie pie, frosted brownie and the daily special, a Jaffa cup-cake. The boxes are great, especially if you were buying them as a gift for someone.

Red Velvet – Less chocolatey than I was expecting, the frosting is impressively light and doesn’t have the lactic dairy ‘tang’ you often get with home-made versions.

Frosted Brownie – Very interesting, fudged and rich but without a heavy texture. Very gooey frosting, not easy to eat daintily!

Jaffa Cupcake – Chocolate + Orange = Awesome. Great cake, very simple, no orange flavouring in the frosting or sponge.

Whoopie Pie – They make several varieties, but on the advice of the staff I went with the chocolate one. The same frosting as a red velvet, with a much darker chocolate flavour. The texture was slightly firmer than I expected and the edges were almost crunchy.

Black Bottom – Dark chocolate, creamy vanilla cheesecake blobs. Very nice, but it’s crying out for some fruit – cherry or raspberry would have made it.

Bitter Chocolate Macarons

After several complaints from my colleagues about the lack of baked goods I took advantage of the excellent chocolate available at Whole Foods to make a macaron that could really showcase it. I used two top chocolates:

Willie’s 100% Cacao (Peruvian Black – San Martin) – This pure cacao has a rich, fruity flavour. It’s very dark and very bitter.
Valrhona Guanaja – Valrhona is the gold standard for artisan chocolate. Pierre Herme and Christina Tosi both swear by it. This is their 70% and it avoids a lot of the flat bitterness you get with cheape alternatives.

I have to admit to being a little nervous baking macarons again after a month or two off. Thankfully it went swimmingly and the results are perfect – deeply chocolatey and very rich. At some point in the future i’d love to get the milling attachment for my Kenwood so I can grind my own almonds, trying to find fine enough ones is a bit of a challenge! Hopefully my workmates will appreciate them!

American Adventure – Update 8

Posted on June 1, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Well I’ve been getting very behind with the blog updates, testament to how busy I’ve been! This set brings it bang up to date. I’ve no idea what’s on the schedule for food tomorrow, so this may well be the last update!

I had a very chilled last day in LA – a late start saw us getting to Malibu for around 11:30am, so a late brunch/early lunch was in order.

The Reel Inn
Situated across the PCH from Malibu beach, The Real Inn is a huge surfer hit. Full of boards, plastic fish and laid back vibe. The concept is deceptively simple – a chiller cabinet full of fresh fish, pick your variety, have it grilled/sautéed/cajuned and served with two sides. Magic. The tuna was fantastic and the potatoes delicious. Top value.

Umami Burger
After a hard day of checking out Santa Monica and Venice, I was in need of a pre-flight top-up. Umami burger is a small chain, with a legion of fans. They specialise in modern burgers, taking the American classic to the next level. Their signature dish is the Umamir burger – a generous beef patty, Parmesan crisp, shiitake mushrooms and a mushroom ketchup – incredible. Umami is a pretty rare flavour and getting a hit of it this strong with the beef is amazing. Pure savoury. The sweet potato chips are pretty awesome too!

Magnolia Bakery
A rough red-eye flight left me in need of sustenance. Magnolia, like Hummingbird, has become a big deal. They serve a dizzying array of freshly baked delights. I had their cinnamon sugar muffin, which was superb – great way to start the day!

Five Guys
Lunch came courtesy of Five Guys. A small chain that’s really popular in Washington D.C. They serve burgers and hotdogs with a huge array of toppings, all available at no additional cost. Ordering a burger with ‘everything’ would be a mistake. The ‘dog itself was great, split grilled so it’s nice and crispy and served with bacon and cheese. Great stuff.

Keen’s Steakhouse
Having sampled the best of San Francisco’s, I owed it to New York to see what they could bring to the table. The best steak in New York is a fiercely debated topic – Luger’s in Brooklyn is widely respected, but it’s a bit of a trek from Manhatten, which left Keen’s. Founded in the 19th century it’s been serving big hunks of meat for years. The interior is akin to a country club – comfy leather armchairs and wood panelling – like Harris it totes a live pianist and house aged meat.

The 26oz t-bone was an imposing sight. Big and very juicy. You could certainly tell it had been dry aged, but it didn’t have the flavour of some British beef, despite being grass fed (finished on corn). The staff were excellent and more than happy to accommodate a lone diner at an odd hour. In a straight fight between Harris and Keen’s, the New Yorker just edges it, but they are very similar!

Shake Shack
When Heston Blumenthal came to New York in search of the perfect burger, one of the places he stopped was here. Based on a similar vibe to In n Out, they sell simple burgers, with great ingredients, all freshly made. The shack burger was rich and incredibly juicy. The chips were average, but the milkshake was the real show stopper. Made with their own recipe for frozen custard – its wonderfully rich. They also offer ‘concretes’, somewhere at the milkshake end of the sundae spectrum. There’s a couple of branches around Manhatten and the queues can be staggering. Go early.

Momofuku Ssam Bar
This is a tiny restaurant with a huge reputation. Take a look at the photo below, it’s on the corner of a largely residential area, it seats around forty people, mostly at the bar and dinner for one, including drinks cost under $50. What’s all the fuss about?

Just that it’s the 37th best restaurant in the world according to the San Pellegrino rankings (which are a big deal) – it beats out the French Laundry by five places. Yeah.

So are the plaudits justified? Absolutely. If you wanted an example of gastronomic value, this would be it! It serves Asian fusion, with a heavy focus on rare breed pork. I had the pork buns, the BBQ bun and veal sweetbreads. The pork in the buns was amazing, soft, textured, crunchy round the edges and so porky flavoured you expected it to oink. The veal sweetbreads were gorgeous, so nice you overlook the fact that it’s brains. The texture combinations, gentle flavourings and presentation all hit top marks. The staff were attentive and laid back. I loved the fact they offered beer pairings, as well as wine. If you visit one restaurant in New York, make it this one.

Blue Smoke
As I mentioned in a previous post, barbecue food is an up and coming trend in America. People are taking the backyard staples and combining them with the best ingredients and the most traditional approaches. One of the places that’s been doing this the longest is Blue Smoke. Situated a couple of blocks from the flatiron, it was quite a trek from my hotel, but completely worth it. Their menu is an homage to smokey goodness. I had their rib sampler (Texas, Memphis, Kansas City) and they were great. Big, juicy and very very tender. The service was friendly and the vibe lively. There’s live Jazz most nights and the staff know their stuff if you have any questions. They have an frankly dizzying selection of beers, wines and spirits, so some time at the bar is a must. Great find

American Adventure – Update 7

Posted on May 28, 2012 by robmcdonald49

Today was a very special foodie day – exploring the north end of LA. Breakfast was a hastily grabbed bagel but lunch and dinner more than made up for it.

Lunch – The Ivy
The Ivy is an LA icon. Set in the centre of Beverley Hills, amid the eye wateringly expensive fashion boutiques. The array of cars awaiting valet parking (a Ferrari, Lamborghini and a Rolls) gives you some idea of the local taste. In terms of celeb spotting we clocked a celebrity chef and someone who looked an awful lot like Tiger Woods.

Starter – Native Oysters
Oysters are a big deal in California and most menus offer them. The Ivy’s were on the smaller size and one had a few chips of shell in it. Otherwise, the cocktail sauce was gorgeous and the oysters themselves were lovely.

Main – Seafood Risotto
The Ivy has a strong line of Italian dishes and their seafood risottos reflects this influence, packing scallops, clams, prawns, squid, mussels and crab into a gorgeous mound. The serving was very generous with a great seafood/rice ratio. The rice was perfectly cooked, with he tiniest hint of a bite amid the creaminess.

Dinner – The Bazaar
After watching the sunset from Griffith Observatory, we meandered down the slopes to the SLS Hotel. José Andrés creates an exciting modern take on tapas. Pulling on Spanish tradition, using incredible Californian ingredients and the latest techniques of molecular gastronomy is a potent mix. Hottly tipped by many review websites I was very excited to sample it. After a brief waist we were seated a the chef’s bar, where you can watch the team prepare the orders as they come in. (And ask them geeky food questions as they work) The tapas format works perfectly with the ultra-modern cooking as it gives you the chance to sample lots of different dishes. We had:

Oxtail Sandwich – Based on a Chinese steamed bun, these tiny bite sized spheres contained incredibly tender beef with spring onions, radish and seasoning. Stunningly moist and flavoursome, I think the bread was infused with a beefy flavour too.
Caprese Salad – The traditional tomato/mozzarella combo is really superb, the tomatoes appear to have been soaked in a tomato consommé to create a super rich taste, the mozzarella balls are stunning, constructed from mozzarella, cream and the mozzarella water they are solid on the outside, molten in the middle.
Cotton Candy Foie Gras – Exactly what is says on the tin and as exactly brilliant as you might hope. I have no idea how this works, but it’s very delicate, I was told it’s a very time sensitive process. It’s not like it was going to hang around long anyway!
Philly Cheesesteak – Served on ‘air bread’ this is a light crisp dough, puffed and filled with a cheese foam. The ‘bread’ is topped with wafer thin slices of ‘blue’ wagyu, raw in the middle, caramelised on the outside. Heavenly.

The Bazaar isnt just one of the best restaurants this trip, it’s one of the best I’ve eaten at ever. Incredible food, cunningly executed with unique twists in a friendly and exciting atmosphere. Absolutely worth a visit.

American Adventure – Update 6

Posted on May 28, 2012 by robmcdonald49

After a final trip to In-n-out burger, it was time to fly down to LA. Gorgeous weather greeted us and we set off on road trip down the pacific highway to Manhattan, then Newport beach.

Brunch was at a little Italian cafe in Manhattan, overlooking the ocean. Very nice French toast with fruit and decent coffee (a rarity in the US!) Lunch was spectacular though, a Lonely Planet ‘Top Pick’, the Oceanside Grill in Newport Beach resembles a private yacht club, overlooking the marina. A tasting of oysters identified our favourites (Baja) and six more were duly brought out, including two of the largest I’ve ever seen, palm sized monsters almost three inches across.

The main was a superb swordfish, very fresh and stunningly cooked on a charcoal grill giving it beautiful caramelisation, I’ve not had one nearly as nice before. Highly recommended.

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