Burgers for gourmets

There are many gourmet burgers available at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen but I generally always plump for the same one - a classic cheese burger but without the salad (dreaded tomatoes), relish (possibly more tomatoes) and definitely not the mayonnaise. And my what a fine burger it is! I haven’t been here for over a year but it’s still as good as ever. D reckons the burgers have shrunk but I still struggle to finish mine - late lunch I’m afraid! D and MC are staying with me because we’re off to Vive la France tomorrow and GBK called to us as we passed.
In the past I have tried the Pesterella, which has pesto and mozzarella and enjoyed it, but burgers for me really have to have come with some good mature Cheddar and preferably some fat chips.
And I blame my Northern roots but I really have to add the chips to my cheeseburger. That to me is burger perfection!
D and MC aren’t so faithful to their usuals and select a classic with some mozzarella and a chilli burger respectively. And we share a small bowl of fat chips between us.
One thing I particularly admire about the Gourmet Burger Kitchen is burgers is all they do. There have a good choice of them and a couple of salads but that’s it. There are vegetarian burgers, exotic burgers and chicken burgers. The meat in the beef burgers is 100% Aberdeen-Angus scotch beef and very tasty and moist and a million miles away from some burger purveyors’ wares. There are no starters and no desserts, just burgers but damn fine burgers. I’m not sure how I’ve managed to stay away for so long. A burger fork for GBK.

Big hand to Bigham's!

I mentioned way back at the end of October that I’d been disappointed to find that Bigham’s Gourmet Chicken and Red Wine pies also contained the some stealth tomatoes. This WAS mentioned on the packet but not on the list of ingredients on Bigham’s website or Ocado, where I’d ordered it from. As they had a feedback section on their site, I’d thought I’d mention it. I don’t normally go out of my way to complain but a feedback button seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
And shortly after this, I was delighted to receive an email asking for my details so their could send me a compensatory voucher. I didn’t actually receive anything from them this time, but it wasn’t as if I was emotionally damaged by the experience, I was just recommending that they adjusted their ingredients on their website so tomato dodgers like me can order their pies safely.
And Bigham’s do have many products that I really do like, especially the Gourmet Beef and Peppercorn pie and the miniature Beef Wellingtons which were used to great effect several times over the festive season. And the oven proof ceramic dishes that come with the pies were most useful when D and I made the fabulous potato soufflés on New Year’s eve.
I'd totally forgotten about the whole thing and then after the Christmas holiday I received another email saying that they’d unfortunately had some technical difficulties and lost my address details. I must admit I was really impressed that they’d continue to follow this up, I seems so rare that companies care about little things like this.
I duly replied and today I received such a lovely letter from their founder himself, Charlie Bigham (picture above) and I am really quite astounded! It’s not a “Dear Miss x, please accept our apologies for ’insert random product here’ and we’ll try to do better blah… blah… blah…” letter but a personal letter commiserating with my tomato related stress and sympathising with my struggle with extracting some of their canapés out of their baking tray and including some vouchers. And these vouchers aren’t some money off coupon to buy more Bigham’s pies, which I am more than happy to do anyway, but proper John Lewis vouchers that I can turn into anything my little sparkly heart desires.

What really lovely people down at Bigham’s!
And they make exceedingly good pies though personally I'm staying away from the tomato based one!

A black and white picture

Today I have mostly eating and thinking in black and white.

In between all those work things I have to do, I have been trying to decide what I want to conjure up for the eighteenth blog party - which is all about black and white and I need to RSVP by tomorrow . I haven’t take part in one of these events before but the idea seems to be to produce some food and drink in keeping with this month’s theme. And this month, when the wonderful Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness suggested “black and white“, I immediately thought that was totally up my boulevard. Well, if the event was only about table decoration this would just be a page from my diary but I had to think about black and white food also. And M’s suggestion to eat whatever I like and take the picture in black and white is not the spirit!
It could have whipped up some little predictable mash potato number, perhaps with some very rich beef dish (like the fabulous daube I had at Le Pont de la Tour which looked almost black) but that‘s too obvious. I guess black olives might have been a good idea, but there only slightly behind tomatoes in my revulsion list and I didn't want to prepare something that I couldn't face eating. I had considered some of my favourite scallop soup with a little caviar flourish as an exotic garnish but it seemed a scallop overload as I'd already decided to see if I could get some fresh scallops for the main feature.

And then of course it was all the decisions regarding crockery. I have black, white, black with white, white with black, black shiny both square and round, black matt, white square, round and with a variety of different rims. Hmm maybe I’ll admit to having a lot of crockery! So decisions, decisions! In the end it was espresso cup and saucer, plate then cappuccino cup and saucer. Particularly odd as I don’t drink coffee!So after due consideration, I got out the black table cloth, the white table runner and napkins, black beaded table mats, the black and white sequinned flowers and then hit the kitchen.

For my starter, with the aid of my trusty shiny Bamix I turned a neat little organic cauliflower into a pale creamy concoction. Though I didn't actually add any cream as I thought my extravagant garnish would be decadent enough. This white onion and cauliflower soup was topped with a few black truffle shavings and served in my new Rosanna “la petite black dress” espresso cups. I’d been hankering for Nigella’s liquorice espresso cups ever since Christmas but they are incredibly tiny (I still really like them though!) and thought these slightly more substantial Rosanna cups would be nice. Though, I should really mention that I don’t really approve of the shameless Franglais range name of “la petite black dress”. Obviously it should be “la petite robe noire” or “the little black dress” not a bizarre mixture of both. But that aside I do rather like these cups, each one is a different black dress and a different phrase written in script in each. I'm using the “femme fatale“ one, there’s also “c’est chic”, “bèbè doll” and again “la petite black dress”. Très chic!
The black truffle wasn’t maybe the most usual accompaniment to the cauliflower, but it was okay.

And then I had some extremely delicious scallops and black pudding on the black damask plates accompanied by a glass of Orange Muscat & Flora sweet white wine.
And in deference to the theme, in a black wine glass! It was either that or Guinness and wild horses wouldn’t persuade to consume stout. I’ve always thought that scallops and black pudding go particularly together, it wasn’t just to fall in with the theme; the translucent sweetness of the scallops is a good foil for the dramatic earthiness of the black pudding. I can assume it’s my Northern roots coming to the fore here as this black pudding came from fine Bury in Lancashire stock (some say home to the black pudding). I suppose I could kind of say “I’m a lassie from Lancashire” though I normally say "Manchester" but I been told by M I should say neither, as I’m actually from Cheshire. The problem with Cheshire is that is used to be famous for two things - one, the perma-smiled cat in Alice in Wonderland or two, the mild white cheese that’s often overlooked in favour of Wensleydale.
But now it’s all about the Cheshire set – the WAGS (wives and girlfriend of highly paid generally England footballers!) spending their days playing golf, in the gym of having their perfectly manicured nails rebuffed at ‘the’ salon of the moment. And is that me? Er no, no and no though I do tend my own talons – Chanel "Noir Ceramic" today in case anyone’s interested! So I’ll stick to saying "Manchester" unless a serious handbag habit forces me to seek a footballer of my very own!

For the finale I plumped for a great new discovery - this rather wonderful white chocolate ice cream that I studded with plump frozen blackberries and blackcurrants. I particularly liked the fact that as the berries defrosted they spread a vibrant purple streak to mingle seductively with the melting white chocolate ice cream. This was seriously fine and was served in my black and white “Baci di dama” Harvey Nix cappuccino cup.
I would never have picked white chocolate ice cream normally as I would always go for Belgian chocolate, raspberry, ginger, mint chocolate chip or strawberry. Also I’ve never been a massive fan of white chocolate per se but it works incredibly well in an ice cream, I guess the inherent vanilla characteristic of good white chocolate really shines in an ice cream.
Clearly I’ve been more than eating black and white today; I’ve also been living it. I unintentionally dressed in black and white this morning; I can only assume it was the subliminal thoughts that drew me to that selection but nevertheless am I well coordinated with my table and the food?
Thank you Stephanie for organising this; I had great fun pondering some sort of liquorice allsorts creation or cod with vanilla or even squid with some sort of squid ink sauce. Thinking of squid ink I considered making some stripy pasta. I would leave half the pasta dough plain and dye the other half with squid ink. I would then cut the black pasta width into fettuccine and then lay the strands on the rolled out white plain pasta. The resultant creation is re-fed through the pasta machine and hey presto, stripy pasta! It looks totally fantastic as say an open ravioli. But I promised to make MC and D some fresh pasta to prove that the so-called finest abomination we had on New Year’s Day is not really how fresh pasta should taste and as they’re staying this weekend, I decided to hold off.

If you want to read how everyone fared in the latest blogging party escapade, check Stephanie's round-up here.

I think my little black and white heart has been sated tonight and tomorrow I might add a bit of colour to my food again!

The feeding of the 5,000

Wow, I've had more than 5,000 visitors drop by into my little travelling fork blog and read what I'm eating, reading, watching and feeding. Obviously some of you stumbled into it whilst looking for other things (especially if like me you accidentally spelt Atul Kotcher’s name incorrectly or have a predilection for ‘ginger bells’!) and I do hope you find something to titillate your taste buds.

I only started counting visitors avidly in September and I don’t think I ever thought so many of you would pop in. And even more pleasing, some of you come back for more!

As there’s very little danger of me stopping eating, I guess I’m going to continue to have plenty to blog about. I’ve already got a few further fork forays into Stockholm, Copenhagen, Tallinn (Estonia), St. Petersburg, Gdynia (Poland), Warnemunde (Germany), Orlando and Paris planned, but not all on one trip!

Maybe some of you stop by to answer a few questions: will I ever eat a tomato? (The answer is “not ever never!”), will I ever stop buying cookery books? (Unlikely) and can some sort of potato nirvana ever really be achieved? (My holy grail will have to be to continue searching and tasting until maybe one day…)

I do so love to have you visit; I wish I could feed all 5,000 of you but my table isn’t big enough and I haven’t (quite!) got enough plates. But if you’re ever in the vicinity, I’d love to whip us up some tasty treats!

Thank you so much for dropping by.

I did it my way!

I re-watched Heston Blumenthal create his perfect steak and salad last week with the insanely catchy theme tune that peppers his show - digger, digger, ding, ding, ding, ding - and fancying a bit of steak today but I considered the wisdom of this method. It seemed to take him 24 hours to slow cook his rib of beef before finally cutting it down into manageable steaks. And Heston of course says it’s the perfect steak.

But the key thing is that I wanted a steak today, and I didn’t know yesterday that I wanted a steak today. I’m all for getting the meat out of the fridge for an hour before cooking but starting the day before? I’m not so sure about that.

Raymond le Blanc was on Saturday Kitchen yesterday and was waxing lyrical about the importance of cooking your steak in a nice bit of foaming butter and made a little jus by deglazing the tasty pan juices with nothing more than water! One of my favourites, Mark Sargeant was also on with Raymond and conjured up a verdant green broccoli puree with a poached duck egg and goats’ cheese cream. Shame about the goats’ cheese but maybe it can be reinterpreted! I know Raymond is a keen advocate of slow food, I wonder what he’d think about Heston’s day long steak cooking?

I cooked my steak rare and amply peppered in my lovely SKK pan alongside some chunks of field mushrooms and served, naturally, with some fabulous creamy, buttery mash potatoes. I didn't do Raymond's trick with the jus this time as I didn't want it to mingle with the mash but it was still very fine.
Hmmm perfection indeed!

Top-tastic table

I do occasionally book restaurants through toptable and as a reward for using their site they award me points. And when you get enough points you can exchange them for a special menu at a few selected locations. However, if you don’t use your points within the year, they expire. I suddenly realised that my points were expiring on the 12th January so I’d made a swift booking at Le Pont de la Tour and persuaded the enigmatic ZZ (or possibly soon to be renamed to ’The’ J at his behest!) to accompany me on this mission.
The meal was in the main restaurant and not the bar so we had the ’posh’ china and tablecloths and they gave us a glass of Champagne as part of the set menu.
The set menu only had a few choices but there were a few interesting options so that’s perfectly acceptable, it only becomes an issue when the chef has gone on some massive tomato and goats‘ cheese bender - fortunately, he hadn’t!
We both started with the foie gras chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche. This was extremely smooth and flavoursome and served in one of those fluted ramekins sealed with a little clarified butter. Just how it should be! We also had some melba toast to tuck into and the proffered bread basket just in case the brioche wasn’t enough.
I then selected the daube de boeuf with pomme mousseline but I did check that they weren’t planning to spoil one of my favourite French bistro classics by adulterating it with tomatoes and olives, à la Provençal if you will. I was assured by our waiter that wouldn’t dream of such a travesty. And a mighty fine exponent of the daube family this was, just perfect and if I had a spoon I would have eaten it with one to prove that I could. It was possibly the darkest piece of meat ever and I would have taken a better photograph by placing a lump of coal on a pool of black treacle. But it tasted so much better than it looked in this picture. And the mousseline; well of course this is the creamiest, softest mash ever to mop of the gorgeous meaty juices. Another worthy addition to the mash potato hall of fame.
‘The’ J tucked somewhat happily into the roast salmon, with a fricassee of wild mushrooms, parsley puree and fresh truffle. I am quite intrigued by salmon and truffle as they don’t seem the most obvious of marriages, though I guess perfect with the fricassee.
Rather unusually ‘The’ J examined the three choices of desserts - crème brulee, bowl of ice cream and sorbet or the infamous petit pot au chocolat with a warm Madeline and challenged our (now) waitress to ’surprise him’ between the crème brulee or pot au chocolat. But definitely no sorbet! I ordered the petit pot au chocolat, naturellement! But as you’ve probably guessed, they ignored The J and gave him the raspberry sorbet and mint chocolate ice cream and I had totally forgotten that they poured a gallon of cream over the pot au chocolate - sacré blue! So we swapped! The raspberry sorbet was a wonderful flavour and the ice cream was very good also, it saved me from having to send the chocolate pot back and the J got his surprise after all! This was all washed down with a bottle of Portuguese Lokal Silex 2004.
I think that this was a great meal, I like the way Le Pont de la Tour serve beautifully made bistro food but in a terribly refined environment. There is a lack of pretension to their food; you hear the gently tinkling of the grand piano in the bar and get to choose from a very un-bistro like extensive wine list ably guided towards the more ’impressive’ bottles by the sommelier. He gave me a choice of three ranging from £25, £55 or £90 but said that the cheapest was not right with our meal! Hmmm, naturellement!
Now that I’ve eaten in le Pont de la Tour restaurant as opposed to the bar and they served me such an immaculate daube and mash, I think they should get another fork. Thank you toptable for encouraging me to partake in such a delicious meal.

HP sauce

I got a fabulous new HP laptop for Christmas, my elderly Vulcan (yes, I’ve never heard of them before or since either!) was nearing the end of its little life and was staggering though each task assigned to it including my personal favourite, staying switched on.
I had a few criteria for my new flat little box of tricks - stacks of memory, Intel 2 Core Duo processor, wireless and of course, damn gorgeous! And it is! So shiny and black, chock full of memory and replete with a soothing aquarium screensaver.
The only downside is that my old one had been loaded with the Microsoft Office suite and of course you don’t just get that when you buy a laptop. I never realised how much I’d miss my Outlook, my Word, my Excel and even my Powerpoint. It’s rather sad really! I am Office dependent. Microsoft must be so proud!

Bejewelled duck

I enjoyed seeing Gennaro Contaldo on Saturday Kitchen over Christmas and was impressed with his duck and pomegranate dish. It looks quick, easy and importantly, very tasty! I had one duck breast left that was just clinging onto life and a couple of pomegranates so this seemed to the perfect recipe.

Anatra con melagrana (duck with pomegranate) and sauteed escarole
by Gennaro Contaldo from Saturday Kitchen - Serves 4

Preparation time less than 30 mins - Cooking time 10 to 30 mins

4 skinless duck breasts
salt and freshly ground black pepper
plain flour, for dusting
40g/1½oz butter
4 tbsp olive oil
4 pomegranates
For the escarole
1 escarole, cleaned and leaves separated
5 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2. Season the duck breast with salt and freshly ground black pepper and dust with flour, shaking off any excess.
3. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large ovenproof frying pan until the butter begins to foam. Add the duck and fry for two minutes on each side, then transfer to the oven to roast for 5-6 minutes, or until just cooked. The duck should be rare, but cook according to your preference.
4. Meanwhile, rub two of the whole pomegranates firmly on a work surface with the palm of your hand, then cut them in half and squeeze out the juice, as you would with a lemon, all over the cooked duck.
5. Open up the remaining pomegranates and remove the seeds. Sprinkle the pomegranate seeds over the duck.
6. Place the duck onto a plate and drizzle with the juices and seeds from the pan. Let the duck rest for 2-3 minutes then slice on the diagonal.
7. For the escarole, blanch the escarole leaves for a couple of minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and set aside.
8. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the garlic and fry for one minute, or until soft, then add the escarole and gently sauté for 1-2 minutes. Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and cook for 5-6 minutes, or until the escarole is tender.
9. To serve, place the escarole onto the plate alongside the duck and spoon any remaining pan juices over.

I couldn’t find any escarole unfortunately so instead pan-fried some mâche in the wonderful juices from the duck and pomegranate. It worked but disappeared to almost nothing, maybe I should have used all of it! I would have like more of a ’vegetable’ with this duck so I might consider some cabbage for next time. I think the crunch of a good handful of Savoy cabbage would suit this dish very well. I would never have thought of combining the duck breast with pomegranate so I have to thank Gennaro for this tasty idea.

Sprouting duck

It’s the end of all the magnificence of the dining over the festive season but I had some of D’s sprouts left over from her last organic box delivery and as a sprout believer I thought I should whip myself up a little duck, creamed Brussels sprouts with bacon and a nice handful of mâche . And very tasty it is too; it doesn’t feel like too much austerity to start the new year (possibly because it isn’t!) and it really hit’s the spot.

New Year Soup

Another bowl of the fabulous Waitrose creamy scallop soup but this time with some bacon lardons added to the Parmesan bruscettas. And of course a chance to christen by new black bowls and plates from M&S. All very tasty indeed!

Ladies who lunch in new dresses

Both D and I had snapped up new dresses in the sales. One dress contained purple and one was black with a smattering of black sequins. Hmmm, I wonder which belongs to whom? And really the only thing to do when armed with a new dress is go somewhere glamorous for lunch. Well, that’s not entirely true. D had planned a surprise lunch at a mystery location for today and it would seem rude flaunt our new dresses in magnificent surroundings. And I wasn’t disappointed!
The mystery location turned out the be The Tickell Arms just outside Cambridge and what a fabulous place it is. The outside of the Tickell Arms is painted quite a strong unusual blue and the interior is wonderfully dark, gothic and painted more of a kingfisher blue. It is very quiet, supremely atmospheric and feels like we have just stepped back in time. The Tickell Arms was famously presided by Squire Tickell who unfortunately is no longer with us but I think his infamous persona still lingers. We are seated by the fabulous Chippendale doors looking out on the conservatory and garden beyond. I can imagine this would be just the perfect place to linger on a Summer’s day. The interiors is all beautiful dark wood, some eclectic little teacups and a few candles. I can imagine that taking a few pictures may prove quite challenging in this distinctive gloom.
We are given a little cup of the tastiest spicy carrot soup and some stunning Parmesan bread which we find curiously addictive! I then tuck into a soothing flaked smoked haddock with poached egg, baby spinach and beurre blanc. D plumps for smoked wood pigeon with fresh figs and raspberry compote. And we are ’forced’ to tuck into a little more freshly baked Parmesan bread.
I’m then brought an impressive plate of pan fried venison steak with peppercorn sauce and pomme puree and D an eye-watering roasted rack of lamb with fresh rosemary, garlic fondant potatoes and vegetables. We ponder how MC would have swooned at such a rack of lamb be he had to go back to work today whilst the ladies who lunch, lunch!
The food at the Tickell Arms has done more than tickle our taste buds, it is seriously good. Clearly we were bowled over by the Parmesan bread. My smoked haddock is just so soft , comforting and delicious. The venison is really tasty with a little kick from the pepper sauce and the pomme puree is so unctuous and creamy and worthy of the mash hall of fame. And I get a few bits of vegetables, though I am not positive about asparagus in January, where has it come from?
D seems just as impressed with her wood pigeon and rack of lamb. We don’t really have any room left but are persuaded that a little of the perfect crème brulee with raspberries would be the ideal finishing touch to our ever so stunning meal. I have a utterly spectacular glass of Australian Magpie Estate “The Sack” Shiraz 2003 with my venison and an Australian Miranda “Raisened” Muscat 2003 to accompany the crème brulee.
It was right about the photographs, I don't use flash as I wish to preserve the original colour of my meal and it helps me be a little more discrete but the ambient lighting doesn't serve the stealth photographer well. So please forgive the slightly odd hues!

Thank you so much D, it was a truly wonderful surprise, a really fabulous meal and despite making me think of the amply armed orange Mr Tickle, the Tickell Arms deserves a magnificent three forks.

Oh what a year that was

Everywhere you look there seems to be some sort of review of the year, and not to miss out on the opportunity to award a few accolades and a rotten tomato or two I have decided on a couple of my own Silver Forks to award to the worthy (or not so worthy) few.

My chosen categories are:
Most memorable meal
Most delicious dessert
Best use of mash potatoes
Most extravagant table setting
Real fast food
Favourite cookery book
Best exponent of food on the box
Favourite chef
Top gadget/kitchen adornment
Best new discovery
Most overrated restaurant
Rottenest tomato

Most memorable meal
There’s so many to choose from this year, I think the short list has to be Le Cipriani in Venice for sheer indulgence and a very flash journey, the extravagant lobster fuelled brunch on the Orient Express on the way back from Venice, Juniper in Altringham for being so innovative and eclectic (and possibly with the worse plastic flowers outside of France) Tom Aikens in all his magnificence or Union Square Café with DD on my birthday in New York.
It’s very tough but I think Union Square Café tips it for just being such a perfect day. Clearly buoyed by the general excitement of it being my birthday and the fabulous surprise of sharing it with KK, my most dearest DD and I shared some really delicious food, perfect mash, yummy Kir(a) Imperial cocktails and of course, those nuts! It was just the perfect place to linger, to enjoy our last moments in New York and wonder how late we could leave it to get the train out of there.

Most delicious dessert
Gary Rhodes' Jaffa Cake Pudding will always hold a special place in my heart but I've enjoyed it several times over several years so this year's dessert award has to go straight to the ‘egg’ dessert at Le Bernardin on the eve of my birthday. It was just so unusual, so tasty and so egg-shaped! This is always a pleasing shape! (And I got to wear my tiara and clearly that would enhance any dessert!)

Best use of mash potatoes
Hmmm, the contenders. Gary Rhodes at Rhodes24 for his just stunning pomme puree (and I enjoyed it twice this year), the City Lobster’s lobster mash for its sheer decadence and lobster-iness and a late addition to the list is the various fabulous mashes I have enjoyed at D’s – with the pinnacle possibly being the potato soufflé we consumed on New Year's eve at our gothic meal.
And the winner has to be Gary, it just fills me joy and is truly the benchmark that other mash shall be compared to. Well at least until I finally taste Joël Robuchon’s legendary thrice sieved pomme puree. Maybe this year, I finally will!

Most extravagant table setting
There has been a few fantastic over the top table decorations where I have been left to run riot with a particular theme. The finalists are the duck-tacular complete with the duck table confetti (a triumph, even though they gave me blisters!), the Easter egg-travaganza with egg paraphernalia and yellow chick table confetti but the top spot has to be the Queen’s 80th birthday black tie and diamonds meal for the sheer exuberance and sparkliness of everything.

Real fast food
I am very fond of Bagel Already’s bagels and Square Pie’s pies but the Gourmet Burger Kitchen just do such fantastic burgers and are quick and excellent value. I haven’t visited since I started the blog but that’s an excellent excuse to partake of one of their fine burgers and redress that.

Favourite cookery book
Ah now this one is so tricky and I have an abundance to select from this year. The gastro porn contenders are Anna del Conte – Amaretto, Apple cakes and Artichokes, Simon Hopkinson's Second Helpings of Roast Chicken for being the sort of book you're going to keep running back to for many years and will no doubt become another classic, Tom Aikens for total slickness, Giorgio Locatelli for an stunning Italian tome that will probably take me all of 2007 to read, Jamie Oliver’s Cook for some really good recipes, Sophie Conran’s Pies for such a wonderful subject, Gordon Ramsay’s Sunday Dinners for being Gordon and of course having some top recipes and countless more. It is a very close run thing but I think Giorgio’s epic tome has to be the book of 2006, it will really make you salivate!

Best exponent of food on the box
I think Saturday Kitchen with the young whipper-snapper James Martin at the helm in favour of AWT has been improved. I did try and watch the Saturday Cooks which I think is the name of AWT's new vehicle but I found the constant adverts and extolling the virtues of some obviously sponsored expensive competition prize very tedious. I really enjoyed watching Masterchef Goes Large even if it’s just to constantly criticise the judges for their inconsistencies! I believe another series is being filmed at the moment so I guess I’ll be able to shout and the screen again soon.
I was also pretty glued to the Great British Menu, though they did spin it out rather. They recap so often I can only think that programme makers genuinely believe that we all have memories of goldfishes and need a constant reminders what we’ve just seen. But I did enjoy recreating the winning menu even though it was really hard work. Possible why the plan to recreate some or all of the Great British Christmas menu was met with the most enthusiastic response! But I think my winner this year is going to be Gordon Ramsay’s F Word, I am not particularly keen on him ritually humiliating the amateur cooks each week but I love the rest of the show. And that beef dish was stunning!

Favourite chef
My award for chef of the year goes to Marcus Wareing. I thought we had a stunning meal at Petrus and that Marcus himself was especially accommodating to H and bump. Also Marcus' dessert was a triumph at the Queen's 80th birthday and the crowning glory to our black tie and diamond event. And he was very nice when I chatted to him at the Taste of London event just after he'd cooked for the Queen.

Top gadget/kitchen adornment
I added some little beauties this year to my batterie de cuisine. I upgraded my Bamix to a shinier silver model. And they even make them in pink now. I also finally got a large SKK frying pan. I'd been having some difficulties with my favourite Woll pan and despite Woll assuring me that I could post it back to them for examination, they aren't aware of my post office phobic ways. And they rather laughingly added that said postage would only 'be a few pounds'. I'm not entirely sure what Royal Mail service they are using but with the new restrictions with size and shape etcetera, I can’t see that sending a large cast iron pan costing nothing short of a small fortune.

Despite it clearly not be a kitchen gadget per se, I feel my beloved black Leica c-lux should get a special mention for being my constant companion in the act of updating or more appropriately visualising this blog with various edible goodies.

And I haven't included any fabulous new crockery as I don't really want to tally this year's additions; I can safely say that I have an unnatural love of plates and cookbooks. If I don't become the founder member of cookbooks anonymous; it could well be crockery anonymous!

The winner has to be the latest adornment to my kitchen and that’s Nigella’s Liquorice piglets that D got me for Christmas. They will feature in their own post soon in all their delicious blackness but I need to get a ‘second’ salt to complete them and show them in their true glory!

Best new discovery
This will have to be the Zip’n’Steam bags that have revolutionised my lunch time meals in the office. I am positive that they have also successfully raised my geek status as well!

Most fabulous restaurant critic
Well thiscan only go Giles Coren for his often laugh out loud missives in the Times. He awards points for the most esotoic reasons and his prose just drips with brilliance. Though enough of the girlfriend Rachel, we know she's training to be a barrister and her oven isn't big enough to bake a pimped Jaffa cake and so many other things!

Most overrated restaurant
Ha, this is so easy! It has to be the inappropriately Michelin starred, rude staffed and extremely indifferent and reluctantly served food of Masa in New York. I still stick by my feeling that the Michelin star inspectors had their sake spiked with hallucinogens. Unbelievably average! The nearest I ever intend to be to them again is when I sail past their door on my way to an awe-inspiring meal at Per Se. If I ever manage to get a table of course!

Rottenest tomato
As an all too recent memory, I think that dreadful not so finest ravioli is a contender for the rottenest spot but it may be pipped to the post to the award by the plain nasty meal of raw duck and crucified garlic potatoes I had the misfortune to experience at the Sante Fe Grill. Possibly the only time they'll be mentioned in the same sentence as the word 'award'!

A good idea at the time!

It’s New Year’s day and we have no hangovers to nurse so we head into town for a further foray into the sales. And we’ll pick up some yummy treats from M&S for tonight. But lo, M&S aren’t open and we have to resort to a very annoying large supermarket which is collectively our least favourite place to buy food but is shockingly local. No names - but you know who you are! And they may be open but they don’t have want we fancy, in desperation as they are announcing that they are closing we decide on an easy Italian feast - some garlic dough balls and some of the ‘finest’ fresh ravioli and fresh cheese sauce (as we have some left from the soufflé potatoes). And T has his favourite pizza.
Well this has got to be the finest example of style over content, everything looked good but that’s where it ended. The fresh ravioli contained Parma ham, mozzarella and ricotta - well that’s what it said on the packet because none of us could ascertain the flavour contained within. Even the dough balls which apparently contained garlic butter were extremely sub standard. And the ravioli? - words failed me! As I plated them up one burst open and this disc of pale pink something appeared. Alarm bells should have rung at that point. It looked a little like cheap sausage or very reminiscent of cat food (not the moist stuff with gravy) but the pâté like stuff. It was just really horrible and tasted like nothing else ever. Actually it was similar to some grey unidentifiable meat D and I consumed a few years ago - I won’t name the cook, but it was made with love so I’ll just leave it at that.
So that meal didn’t go well, it does beg the question that if this ravioli was supposedly the highest echelon of their ravioli range, what does the budget stuff taste like? I promise that I never intend to find out. I am so making my own pasta next time. I have to prove to MC that fresh ravioli can be really good. Actually I often make open ravioli so the pasta and the ‘filling’ can be cooked to perfection and then assembled attractively afterwards. And it tastes probably a million percent better than today’s meal!
We finished the meal with a PUDZ pudding. These are frozen preservative-free desserts. I plumped for my first taste of the Pudz Chocolate pudding. Not bad at all, the little 'lumps' are actually molten pieces of chocolate. The dessert was the only redeeming feature of this meal. I wish we’d just gone straight to pudding and threw all of the pasta in the bin instead of just most of it. Shameful!

Dragon eggs anyone?

The original plan was a lantern-lit ghost punt along the Cam swaddled in blankets, clutching hot water bottles and sipping hot chocolate. Followed by a ghost walk through the cobbled streets of Cambridge and then back home to put on a bit of finery before round to B and C’s to tuck into B’s Chicken and Mulled Wine dish and a few glasses of something bubbly to celebrate the New Year. But that was plan A!
Everyone had been feeling under the weather to varying degrees over the festive season and tonight was no exception. D had barely recovered, MC felt the need for lashings of sympathy and B was really not feeling well enough to stay up late and toast the New Year so we had to switch to plan B.
Clearly the locusts had swooped onto the supermarket shelves already so we decided on some frozen scallops and pancetta followed by sausages and you’ve guessed it - mash!
We left the scallops defrosting with MC and the rest of us headed into Cambridge. The weather didn’t look too good, cold would be okay but I wasn’t sure a rain lashed punt ride would be so atmospheric. We had nice wide punts (fortuitous as it turned out) and professional punters though ours had unfortunately lost his pole before we’d really left the docking area. We then hurtled down stream due to a rather impressive current chased by some of the other punters armed with a few spare poles. Pole duly restored we sat back to enjoy our guide’s ghost talk. And then it started raining… really hard! The punt was furnished with umbrellas but LLcT, D and I just seemed to be sat in the place where the rising wind was at its whippiest so every umbrella we opened was instantly turned inside out, deemed entirely useless unless we considered a sail to our punt would enhance the journey along the Backs. So we just got really wet! Naturally this rather put a dampener on the traipsing through the rain-sodden streets for the ghost tour so we left for home. And we never got the hot chocolate!
So after squelching home and bidding farewell to B and C, we started thinking of our sausage and mash feast. LLcT had plans of excessive drinking so he headed forth with a plentiful supply of cider and we concentrated on dressing up, dressing the table and ‘poshing’ up the potatoes. We decided that for a change we'd make individual potato soufflés from possibly the last ever Fresh magazine. Rather oddly the last Fresh we’ve seen appeared on the shelves at the very end of October with December on the front and then…nothing! So maybe this is the last one. It’s never quite matched up to Olive and Delicious but it would be a shame if it disappeared altogether as there’s generally a couple of good ideas to try. And this, in Fresh magazines words, ’perfect posh comfort food’ seemed an excellent idea.

Soufflé Potatoes
Fresh - December 2006 Serves 6

700g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
400g carton fresh four cheese sauce
1-2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Butter to grease
6 tbsp finely grated fresh Parmesan
3 medium eggs, separated

- Cook potatoes in lightly salted boiling water for 20 minutes until tender, then drain and return to pan stirring over the heat for 1-2 minutes to dry.
- Take off the heat, add cheese sauce, mustard and season with black pepper. Mash well until lump free.
- Pre heat oven to 200c. Grease a soufflé dish (or use 6 ramekin dishes) with butter and sprinkle the base and sides with a little of the Parmesan.
- Add the egg yolks to the potatoes and beat in well.
- Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form then gently fold into the potatoes.
- Spoon into the dish, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and bake for 30 minutes until well risen and then tuck in.

We made two thirds of the mixture as splitting egg yolks always seems a little faffy and used 3 large ramekins (actually the ceramic dishes leftover from previous Bigham’s pies). I also riced all the potatoes before adding the cheese sauce. I think perhaps we should have cooked them for less as they were certainly well risen! And very tasty indeed, though they continued to cook for quite a while so it was slightly like consuming molten potato lava.
The table decorations somehow turned out extra gothic, the fabulous tall silver candles, black crockery and bizarre creation of colour changing crystals inside a ring of black feathers (looking somewhat akin to dragon eggs!) all added to the macabre appearance. It was unintentional but wonderfully dramatic!
We started with the scallops, pancetta and leaves. I thought the scallops being defrosted were a little watery, perhaps I should have floured them lightly. They were okay though.
Then of course the much acclaimed souffléd potatoes with some tasty fat musk sausages. We finished with a little Gü pot of chocolate - naturally! Not a bad New Year’s feast at all. And we didn’t get drunk and no napkins caught alight!

Oooh, new crockery!

D and I acquired some magnificent new matt-black ‘Oregon’ crockery from the M&S sale in rain soaked Cambridge today and I think it showed off tonight’s meal very finely. D had been keeping an eye on this range of china for a while so it was an extra bonus that it was reduced in the sale. Result! I would have like to buy more but was cautioned on increasing my already burgeoning crockery collection and of course I still had to get it home!
First we had a little tasting plate of the Waitrose canapés though I was quite horrified to find the mini cheese burgers came already adulterated with a tomato relish! In the end I found the most tomato free mini buns and swapped them round to spare my taste buds. The other little British favourites canapés were better behaved, there was a miniature toad in the hole, teeny weeny bubble and squeak pattie and a diminutive cheese and onion pie. T said they were horrible but ate them all anyway! Not that he's contrary or anything.
We then had new black bowls of a very colourful salad - exceedingly vibrant rare thinly sliced beef fillet, silky torn mozzarella, crispy cubes of sautéed potatoes and vibrant green salad leaves doused with Belazu balsamic vinegar. Mmm, mmm, mmm!
The deep pink of the ever so rare beef went perfectly with the table runner and napkins as well, which clearly an important consideration when planing a meal!

I'm in charge!

I’d promised D that she would not have to think about feeding everyone and that I’d try and come up with some inspiration and do the cooking. The recently wheeled LLcT was only too pleased to drive us to Waitrose so I could get inspiration in more familiar surroundings. I was considering duck (the shelves were bare) or beef fillet, maybe that fabulous Gordon Ramsay recipe with the wild mushrooms we did in August but curiously for T, he didn’t fancy it. I persuaded him to accept a stuffed chicken breast with the incentive of wrapping it in his beloved Parma ham. T isn’t crazy about chicken, I’m not entirely sure why he agreed. I think he just wanted me to hurry up, buy some food and let him get back behind the wheel - chicken or no! And whilst I was in Waitrose, I thought I’d better introduce D to the Cream of Scallop soup that I’d been raving about and grab a few of their canapés as well. There were some intriguing looking mini hamburgers, a British favourites medley and the already favourite Bigham’s mini beef Wellingtons.
As I was in charge for the night, I could pick all my favourites so I stuffed the chicken with gently sautéed leeks and some mature Cheddar. The plump breasts were wrapped in Serano ham (They only had the merest slivers of Parma) and then wrapped in foil because they were seriously in danger of spilling their ample content all over the oven. And of course, with all the choices of potato accompaniment I happened to stumble across mash potato - for a change. I know D prefers peeling the potatoes first but I thought that’s why ricers were invented. Last time D tried ricing unpeeled cooked potatoes they caused her undue stress and mess by their efforts to cling onto their jackets. But today the potato was behaving well.
The scallop soup with Parma ham trimming crisps (all I could prise out of the deli counter) and trio of mini beef Wellingtons seemed to go down well though the male contingent felt it was odd to drink it out of a cup and demanded spoons!
T didn’t mention the dreaded chicken but rather unexpectedly announced a distaste of mash potatoes. Well, this is a new one on me but fortunately he managed to force it down! How does D manage to satisfy the ravenous hoards each night? I guess that’s why pizza was invented!

Update: I've since tried making my own mini beef Wellingtons and they went down very well!

I will not ever never eat a tomato!

One of my lovely Christmas presents from D, MC and LLcT was this Lola anti-tomato mug. There is a Charlie and Lola book called “I will not ever never eat a tomato” where I believe Lola eventually eats a tomato - so not a happy ending then! But I unlike Lola will probably will never be tempted to the dark side. Great mug though and will remind those who might attempt to foist the evil red stuff on me!

Ring-fenced fish pie

Clearly anticipating some sort of bizarre delay en route D had prepared a fabulous fish pie for us to consume before (belated) Christmas present opening. The journey was surprisingly easy but I love fish pie so was very happy. And D being ever so aware of my ambivalence to the prawns that everyone else loves so much, have kindly ring fenced part of the pie to be prawn free and marked it with a parsley stalk 'J'.
I am a huge fan of fish pies, it is definitely a favourite from my childhood and M used to make a thick layer of the yummiest cheesy mash. I didn’t even realise then that she doesn’t really like potato. Perhaps I just thought that she was holding back and that it meant more for us potato lovers!
D’s fish pie was very tasty indeed and not a prawn turned up on my plate so it was even nicer!
And then we got to open our presents…

Fortification for travelling

It’s time to pack my unfeasibly large shiny black case and hit the trains again. I’m Cambridge bound for New Year but British Rail don’t feel it necessary to make the journey from Manchester to Cambridge easy so I’m actually heading for Peterborough and D and MC are going to collect me from there. Last year I made the same journey and as we drew into Peterborough station there was some issue and they kept us mysteriously lingering within touching distance of the platform for an hour. Not too bad for me as I was just stuck on a train but D and MC had to stand on a crowded platform in the freezing cold (and it’d been snowing!) I am intending this year to be considerably less troublesome. Though there’s quite a lot of the festive food left lurking in the ridge and cupboards and M is bound to stock me up so if I do get holed up in some snow bogged hole due to freakish British Rail behaviour at least I can feed everyone!
To fortify me for the journey ahead we have more of the delicious soup (in a triagular bowl, why not?) and I whip up a duck breast, mash potatoes and creamed leeks - and then serve them on possibly the large plates ever. The instructions said to pan-fry the duck for 45 minutes, I would prefer mine slightly less crispy but M doesn’t do pink so it looks rather disconsolate next to the lovely vegetables. It was very tasty though. Farewell M!

Decking the table again

Definitely a case of style over content! Today’s table layout was more attractive that our salmon and broccoli en croute so I’ll talk about that instead. I’ve been particularly taken by my metal snowflakes from M&S. They come with a magnet for easy clean-up which is a great boon as I like scattering the table with interesting themed table confetti but clearing it up can be quite a pain. I’m still finding the odd duck from when I made them for the duck-tacular back in May. And I’m fairly sure I’ve inflicted more than D’s fair share of interesting table titbits. I think she’ll like these ones better.
M&S have had some lovely tableware added to their collection this year, this is more of the M’s new Mikado crockery. The fabulous black beaded placemats, coasters and the fairy lighted Christmas tree are from M&S also. The silver snowflaked napkin rings are from Harvey Nicholls and the other bejewelled Christmas trees are from Lakeland that quiver dramatically as you eat. The table is a plethora of glittery sparkly goodies. Heavenly!

Also we have yummy Brown Brothers orange muscat and flora wine to drink. And there’s Gü for dessert, naturally!