Rowley Leigh's Fig and Goats Cheese Tart... discuss.

Ooh er, missus - I burnt my nuts

My neighbour Mike gave me this recipe from the FT. It looked just up my alley. A savoury tart that includes figs just about fits my 'everyday ingredients treated differently' philosophy. I like vegetarian starters, especially ones that can be repurposed for mains. I like Rowley Leigh's attitude to food. I remember his inclusion in a book of young chefs about 30 years ago; all are household names now. However, I have to report some small failings in the recipe and so, I believe, some improvements.

The basic idea is sound. This is a great combination of sweet and savoury and the pastry is a lovely, buttery crisp. It's a pretty thing too; rustic, charming in that... Sunday supplement, Gideon and I just happened to have some figs left over and a bit of cheese from our friends in Wiltshire who make it between oil painting and high finance so we bunged it all together... way. Gah!

Firstly, he tells you to push the pastry into place, including up the sides of the tart tin. Sod that for a game of gravity defying soldiers. It's polenta pastry so quite friable, yes, but the solution is to roll it out when cold between two sheets of baking paper.

You don't need a kilo of figs, unless your figs are the size of acorns. That's just over 500g up there. How would you get more in?

Thirdly, he doesn't include nearly enough goats cheese (goats' cheese/goat's cheese - still not sure) in the mix. He suggests 75g mixed with 150ml of double cream; I did 120g but I think it needs at least double - maybe 200g mixed with 250ml of cream. Also, season the cream. It needs it.

Worse, he tells you to bake it and then flash grill it. He neglects to mention that you need to leave the tart to cool for at least an hour else you get tarte aux fig-wet-with-the-memory-of-goats-cheese, leaving you weeping at the sight of your expensive chèvre draining away like lactose lava.

Finally, a disagreement rather than a criticism, I found honey too sweet a glaze (and mine was a special live honey brought back from Borneo by Fabian). I'm thinking of a fruit glaze of something tart/sweet like redcurrant or maybe gooseberry.

And do watch it like a tart watching hawk when it's under the grill. High fat nuts and pastry will blacken fast (see above!).

I served this with a simple rocket salad dressed with lemon and balsamic. I'm toying with a rasher garnish of crispy pancetta to but at my gathering of friends I was in a minority of one on this.

So this will be featuring on a menu near you soon (well, near me) but wearing slightly different shoes to this.

And finally... Daisy and Sally... when are you going to 'get your arses in gear'? Soon would be good.

Tomato jelly with basil oil and black olive 'twigs'

I feared I was sitting on my laurels. I've only really ever served two different amuse bouche(s?): mushroom and truffle velouté and tomato crisps with basil oil. The crisps are great in the summer being light and fragrant but now autumn is here I wanted something more substantial. As I am growing my own tomatoes it made sense to use them in glut.

I think this looks like a detail from the Death of Marat.
I won't tell you what my wife said it looked like!

So, take a lot of tomatoes and blend them. Put in double muslin on a sieve and allow to drip. IF you wait you will be rewarded with a near clear liquid that tastes intensely of tomato. HOWEVER, if you are in a bad mood and squeeze  said bag you will get a cloudy soup which still tastes good. Guess what I did?

Reduce the liquid and season. Much salt. While still warm add some pre soaked sheets of gelatine. Sizes vary so check the packet for instructions. Bear in mind though that when gelatine people say 'set' they seem to mean 'like frickin' rubber'. You want the jelly just set. I use shot glasses.

What would I do without my KitchenAid?
It is a little poorly now. I need to find a service centre.

To make the black olive twigs mix 200g bread flour with a teaspoon of salt, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, some black pepper and about 110g of water. You might need more. You want a fairly dry dough mix. Knead this by hand or in a machine until elastic. Now add 100g of black olive puree, made by pureeing 100g of pitted black olives (someone in the back asked!). This makes a sticky goo that you will struggle to roll out but struggle you must. Thinner the better. I do it between two sheets of floured Silpat. Then sprinkle over more finely chopped black olives, at least another 100g, pressing them in with the rolling pin. Because I'm serving these with my tomato jelly I want these salty so I also sprinkle over some Maldon.

A sod of a job

Yeah, we've come to the fun part: cutting the wet, snag prone, sticky dough into fine strips. I struggled with this. It took me four attempts and I think I've cracked it. Use a rolling pin and a pizza cutter. Cut against the side of the rolling pin, roll and cut, roll and cut. The pin keeps the dough down and the rolling cutter stops snagging. Maybe you can do it with a knife but you'll be a better man than I (and very likely with sharper knives).

Bake at 180°C for around 12-15 mins. Keep a close eye after 10 though. Crisp with a slight lamination is ideal.

Now I don't like black olives but I do like these. I think the heat burns off whatever chemical
compound it is that makes the olives taste like a Bic biro has burst in your mouth (remember in school?).

When ready to serve, float a little basil oil over the jelly, place a basil leaf in each shot glass and serve with at least one olive twig.

Danny and Natalie II

Natalie and Danny's second time with us. Great crowd; lively and appreciative (sadly no dancers though - I did try). This was the first group to try my new amuse bouche: tomato jelly with basil oil served with black olive 'twigs'.

Braised Beef Shin

Been known to have guests weeping with pleasure.

Our most requested dish, braised beef shin is simple but laborious to prepare and needs a good five hours of cooking, plus another 30 minutes to make the port gravy, plus three hours to make a litre of good beef stock. No apologies: good food takes time. You're not that busy. Are you listening Masterchef? 

Ew!

Shin is a tough mother of a cut. It looks unattractive; a big piece of well worked muscle. There's a lot of sinew and cartilage, but there lies the magic. Cook it slowly and gently and you will persuade the gristle to melt, releasing flavour and lubricating the meat. The end result should be spoon-cuttable.

Allow about 300g per person. However, I wouldn't bother with anything much smaller than 2kg. It's one of those volume/surface area things. You need a decent bulk. It's a meat you can reheat (with possibly some improvement) anyway so none will waste.

You'll need a big heavy casserole dish with a lid. In a thin sheen of very hot veg oil brown the meat on all sides. This is for flavour and appearnce. All that stuff about sealing meat is impossible guff. Remove the meat and set aside. That's one of those recipe phrases isn't it? 'Set aside'... instead of what? Remove the meat and defenestrate?

Sweaty veg

Anyway: In a big knob (snarf) of butter sweat off the following:

coarsely chopped 3 carrots, 2 onions, 1 leek, 2 celery sticks, a clutch of thyme, a bay leaf. Actually, not that coarse,nothing bigger than 1cm say. You want some colour in the veg but no burn. This might take 30 minutes, maybe 45. Don't skimp. Now add a bottle of red wine. No need for Petrus but don't put in anything you wouldn't drink in a glass. Lots of crap mixed up doesn't make a non-crappy meal! Reduce the wine by half. Now add the meat. Fill with home-made beef stock to three quarters full. You could just use water but then, you could stay in bed all your life weeping at its pointlessness... I choose not to. Bring to the boil and place in the oven for at least five hours at 150°C (an hour more if it's a 3kg+ joint).Turn it at least once in the liquor to ensure juiciness. Once it's so soft you can easily fork it, either remove it from the oven or lower the heat and wait for guests.

Good beef stock.
Very good actually.
You think you can do better?
Yeah? Go on then.

While that's cooking, reduce a half bottle of port to a quarter of it's volume. If you can do this with some fresh rosemary stalks, so much the better.

About 30 mins before you want the meat, ladle off a good quantity of the cooking liquor which will now include much meatiness. Fine strain this and reduce. Season and add the port reduction to taste (probably most of it). If you like a sweet edge, also a spoonful of redcurrant jelly. I thicken the whole with beurre manis. This makes it glossy too, always good in a sauce. Season again. You'll prob want more salt. I use dark soy sauce instead for added colour too.

Porty, beefy goodness

I invariably serve the beef in clumps on a bed of wilted and buttered spinach or chard (as above). Beetroot puree is excellent with this. Perhaps some deeply roasted shallots? You'll also want a crisp but yielding carb: maybe glassy roast potatoes or a roast onion flecked polenta fried until golden. There's always the featherlight Yorkshire pudding of course. You could go noodles but you'll be no friend of mine.

On The First Year...

Some random thoughts and reflections after running a home restaurant/supper club for a year.

0. Use a timer.

1. Still can't decide what to call it. Home restaurant sounds like a clinical business idea but supper club sounds too effete; trying too hard to be cute.

2. Men are rubbish at eating out. I don't mean at the food to mouth bit, I mean the arse to table lark. Of the dozens of bookings we've had only five made by men. You see it in restaurants too: lots of mixed tables and groups of women but almost never men together (OK, maybe in Indian restaurants post pub). Why is this? Men like eating. I've seen them.

3. If you wear glasses, wait for the steam to clear when you open an oven door. Yes, I am new to glasses.

4. If something is burny hot, try not to touch it with your fingers. I know, I know, you'd think...

5. I am most frequently asked if I mind having strange people in my house. Well, firstly, I'm a good deal stranger than most but more importantly even strange people are invariably well behaved. We've had hundreds of guests, many are now friends, not one of them did anything untoward. No one was rude, disrespectful or dishonest. No damage either. Well: one glass was broken, one napkin slightly charred.


6. Guests love the little between-course surprises. Veloutés, granitas, sorbets, tomato crisps,home made truffles; all were well received. The single most talked about item I've served is my cheese and onion eclairs. I have plans to build on this. I want to continue to play with this sweet/savoury inversion and produce a whole 'roast dinner' dessert, with some kind of chocolate marquis masquerading as beef, with chocolate 'gravy', sweet roast carrots, sweet Yorkshire pudding (think featherlight clafoutis)... you get the idea.

7. Salmon en paillote and braised beef shin were the most popular dishes, being served twelve times each. Both are great for large parties. The beef is cooked for five hours so is very forgiving of latecomers. The fish takes only 15 minutes in the oven so is also easy for timing - you put it in just after serving starters. I was going to put a link in to my beef shin recipe only to discover that I've never posted it up. My most popular dish too! Epic fail! I will do soon.

8. I'm surprised at how many people are still afflicted with childhood food aversions - and delighted at the few I've overturned. Fish, peas, beetroot... all have been poked at with muted hostility and narrowed eyes... only to be consumed and enjoyed moments later. You have to keep trying things. Taste does change. I'm making some progress with lamb. Also with black olives. Time was when I couldn't touch one to my tongue.

9. Don't buy cheap kitchen equipment. Obvious really. Those pans from Ikea will not do. Even more so cheap appliance. It'll be awful to use until it breaks. I don't mean inexpensive, I mean cheap. Pressed steel tongs are still my choice - much less costly than plastic/carbon fibre/teak 'designer' nonsense but so much more effective.

10. If you use a mandolin... just be bloody careful. It's hard to cook with your fingertips missing.

11. Lighting is tricky. No one wants ceiling mounted bright light but you do need to see your dinner. Candles are good but an expensive way to go. I've lately invested in some Philips Hue bulbs, wifi controllable LEDs. Only available from Apple at the moment. I'm hugely impressed with these. Any colour you want with fingertip control (that's assuming you've been careful with the mandolin) from my iPhone. I always wanted 'brown' light. Now I have it.

12. Always use a timer. Yes, this again. You maybe a cooking god but even he misplaces things (like Lucifer, honestly. Look) Use several. You will forget and those forgotten five minutes will ruin hours of work. USE A TIMER.

More later. My oven is peeping. See!

Had the braised beef for family dinner tonight so I took a picture. Also seen are my roast potatoes (the secret is to roast them with lots of onions) and beetroot puree. The beef is served with a rich reduction of port and the cooking liquor (beef stock and red wine).

I'm in love with a German (or, how CDA suck)

Look at it. Isn't it gorgeous? Let me list the ways (apols to WS). And yes, ahem, that is a Pizza Express American Hot in there. I don't bake every day!

Mmmm, sex!

Firstly, it's a compact oven but the internal dimensions are bigger than my old, full size Neff (seen below). This means I can use full size E1 baking trays and Silpat without the potch of inverting my racks (invariably when hot and invariably burning my fingers).

The other WOW is: with a press of a button I can see what the actual oven temp is. This is wonderful. 

The thing just works. The timers and alarms are logical.  I'm so glad I ditched the never-worked-properly CDA nonsense. I tell everyone not to skimp on essential tools and then I did. An oven should last 20 years. You really don't want to be regretting your purchase for all that time.

What was wrong with the CDA? When it arrived the 'Temp Rising' light would never stop flashing. I couldn't tell, therefore, what temp the oven was at. Kinda critical with baking. Also, (but not a fault apparently) once the timer had gone off you couldn't simply reset it or add a few minutes more - because why would you ever want to do that right? You had to turn the oven off and on again! 

Bollox to that.

I called CDA customer services and requested the unit be swapped out. They insisted that the guarantee was repair only. Not true. They told me the purchase date was from the day I ordered the oven. Obviously not true. CDA acknowledged the Temp Rising fault and told me to ring their service people: DOMEX. Called. The engineer was booked for the next available slot: a week later!

Sex close up.

Now it gets fun. The engineer turned up late at 7pm. He looked at the oven and told me he wasn't sure if the Temp Rising indicator was a fault after all. He wasn't sure about 'all the details'. I explained the non-logic of a light that always flashed (same as one that never did) and assured him that he was there only at CDA's behest. It didn't see it that way. Anyway, he didn't have the parts. "So why are you here?" I asked him. He didn't seem sure. He had to leave and write a 'report', to see if the fault was a fault. That would take about five or six working days. So two weeks after buying a new oven I still wouldn't have one that worked as advertised. 

Bollox to that too.

I went back to the shop and told them to take back the CDA. When I buy an appliance I buy a relationship with the manufacturer too. If my oven breaks, I want it fixed FAST. If they don't understand that or can't value my priorities then I don't want to work with them.

DOMEX finally rang me today to see if they could send an engineer around NEXT THURSDAY! That would be 27 days after I bought the thing. 

CDA and Domex. Avoid.

First Birthday (part 1)

I have a Casualty script deadline to meet this weekend so I can't be sitting here writing about food cooked, people met and lessons learned. I'll make do with some photos and post some further updates mid-week. These will include:

A year in... food, people, experiences etc

My second new oven in a week

My new lighting - seen below

But for now, many thanks to Enfield's own Emma Rigby for bringing her party of eight.

  

An additional oven

It couldn't have come too soon. The death of our microwave meant we had a hole in our units. We only ever used the microwave to cook soup or peas so I jumped at the opportunity to install a 'compact' second oven.

I like to slow cook my restaurant food. All good, apart from when you need to heat up something else. Having one oven and a piece of shin that needs six hours at 150°C is a real bind when you have some something else that can only be prepared after 10 minutes at 180°C. And it's such a relief having an oven set to low so that things can be kept snug, things that might otherwise sit on the hob, with all the attendant burning potential. 

I didn't have much choice in my choice. The aperture was set. My budget was severely limited. None of the Germans seem to make an oven only version. Bosch, Miele, Neff, Siemens etc all insist on adding a microwave function. This both doubles the cost and gives you a shoe-box size interior. So I now have a CDA SV430SS (for the stove spotters among you), an Italian brand that's new to me.

But!! I've had to book an an engineer already. The temperature light keeps flashing so the only way I know the temp of my interior is with a thermometer. (You can see it in the picture.) I do hope this isn't an evil harbinger CDA. If it is I will be blogging and Tweeting loudly.

Children in the restaurant?

"Is it OK for us to bring the children?" Asked Sarah. "Of course." I replied. And then a thought. "How old?" They were 3, 5, 5 and 7. The first minors to dine at the NRR but I hope not the last.

Yes, there were a few challenges to chef's eardrums: the not at all annoying electronic-65th-birthday-cake-singing-candle (cheers Grandfather!) being removed from a highly indignant fist, was the most memorable. But I also got to enjoy the heat of high praise. I am, apparently, THE best chef in THE world. That's not all. My raspberry pavlova is THE best thing that guest had EVER eaten. The fact he was five years old is immaterial. It was a valid opinion.

They look happy don't they? They do.

Of course choice of food is an issue with children. I detest the notion of children's menu. Yes, detest. All part of the chicken-nuggetisation of our world. Not a phrase I bet you thought you'd read today. I'm a fan of taking kids to eat out. Forget dinner, too late and too expensive and peopled with young lovers, diners who have a notoriously low threshold for the all too audible broccoli protest. Talking of which, I have found, ahem, that one way to get your kids to try a new vegetable is to present them with a Michelin starred version of it. Not an everyday option I know but the parents get to have a nice meal too and there's the possibility of getting a bit tipsy in the early afternoon. But no, do lunch. Often it's a set price and set much lower than evening fare.

OR... just to tout for business for a mo: home restaurants are an ideal way to take young children out to eat. There are no other diners to worry about. They can play away from the table, and best of all, we have our own naughty step!

The best food in the whole world! No really.

This is Sarah, wot booked the gig.

And this is her Mum. Happy Birthday.

Birfday Pavlova being lit

The Rhubarb Tumble

It's very, very hard to create a new cocktail. It's easy to mix a new drink yeah, but is it original... everywhere? Probably not. Anything that can be mixed has been mixed already, many times over. All the good ones have been claimed and written down.  Within minutes of a new spirit/liqueur/mixer arriving in the shops, cocktail people the world over will be fervently combining it. Actually, scratch that, invariably the manufacturer will have employed a PR to get a known mixologist (hate that word) to create a whole array of cocktails using said ingredient to feature in magazine puff pieces, lifestyle articles etc.

However. I've not seen this mix anywhere else. And yes, I have really searched (the internet) so I think I can put my flag in it. I like the Britishness of it. Pink rhubarb is a national treasure and it's a damn shame that the liqueur I use is French!

In 2006, I was making a D.N.A. (a gin martini style drink with apricot flavouring) when my youngest son Etien asked what would happen if I replaced the apricot with the rhubarb liqueur I'd taken delivery of that day. You may ask why a five year old is showing such a keen interest in, and knowledge of,  his father's spirits but that's how we roll in Palmers Green. I made the substitute, and a few more changes - vanilla sugar syrup and vanilla vodka - and the Rhubarb Tumble was born. Like all good cocktails it's a balance of sweet and sour with a strong base. It is a mix of sweet vanilla and sharp rhubarb.

I've not yet met anyone who didn't like it.

Before you make it, you'll need some vanilla sugar syrup. This takes about a week, so I hope you weren't thirsty. There is no substitute I'm afraid. 

Take equal weights of water and sugar and slowly bring to the boil until the sugar has dissolved. Once cool, decant this into a bottle with a screwcap/cork. Now push in at least six vanilla pods. You can also use the deseeded pods from cooking. Leave this for at least a week in the fridge, shaking occasionally. The resulting syrup will be deep with flavour. It's a handy thing to have anyway. I have six home-made syrups in the fridge... but that's for another post.

You'll also need rhubarb liqueur and the ONLY ONE worth bothering with is Rhubarbe by Giffard. You'll probably have to web buy it. I've not seen it in the shops. All the other commercially available rhubarbs are bobbins (yes, I love that word). Trust me, I've tried them.

To my palate, Stolichnaya make the best tasting vanilla vodka. Get it if you can but the Absolut isn't at all bad and is in most supermarkets.

I'll give you the ratios here. 1 measure would normally equal 25ml, that's one bar shot.

1 of lemon juice,
1 of vodka, 
1 of vanilla vodka,
.75 of Rhubarbe and
.25 of vanilla sugar syrup. 

You can add a hint of a dash of grenadine for colour; it depends how gay you want it to look. Shake or stir with plenty of ice, strain and serve in a small martini glass or champagne saucer.

Contains about 2.5 shots of alcohol, about the same as a pint of strong lager... so be careful. Or not.

Orange almond tuile (baskets)

One I made earlier

I think that's so fetching, like edible lace. Why would you want to eat lace? No idea. 

I've been experimenting with ways to serve my poached peach with the tuiles. I've balanced the tuile on top but that looked like a bloody baseball hat. I've made C-shapes that the peach anchors at the bottom (no, anchors at the top! Duh) but that was prone to droopage, especially in our new heatwave (30°C). So finally I settle (until I change my mind) on the old basket.

The tuile here is a version of the Escoffier paste tuile - something like a brandy snap. Crispy, buttery, the perfect foil to soft fruit. This is Michel Roux Snr's recipe  one I've used for many years. This are quick and they are easy PROVIDED you have certain bits of kit. Let me spell these out:

1. A good, flat baking tray. One that won't warp. If it does, the tuile mix will tilt and pool and be all obnoxious.

2. Silpat. No matter how good your nonstick, a warm tuile will still stick to it like (insert pithy epithet here)... like sticky stuff to stuff that shouldn't stick, but does.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Mix 125g caster sugar, 40g plain flour, 65g flaked almonds and 50g soft butter with the grated zest of an orange. Add to this 50ml of strained orange juice. Spoon (or pipe) blobs onto the Silpat covered baking trays. Either circles or lengths. Leave lots of room for expansion. Now leave some more. Press down with the back of a fork to ensure an even thickness.

Now... Mr Roux Snr is a very great chef but his printed timing for this recipe is bobbins! He says 4 - 5 minutes. After this long at that temp, you will have pale, insipid tuiles and that won't do. I've found it needs between 8 and 10. They have to be a proper deep golden brown when they come out or they will never crisp when cool. Do one or two single tuiles to see what works in your oven. Stand on oven guard for those last few seconds else a bitter mouth party awaits.

When the tuiles are at the right colour, remove from the oven. Then remove the silpat from the hot baking tray. Then, leave them alone for at least three minutes. If you try and slide a palette knife under them now they will snag and pull into some unsightly sculpture (and still be delicious and very edible, but one for the family maybe and not paying guests). 

They should be this colour. Any lighter and they won't crisp properly.

After the mentioned minutes, test an edge, it should now be firm(ish). Slide the palette knife under and waggle it. The flexible tuile will lift. You can mould it on a rolling pin for that traditional shape or, in this case, over the top of a pudding mould for a basket. You can also twist, tear and stretch them into some abstract obscenity if you so choose. Whatever, they will take some abuse while still warm. It's only when they've cooled that you have to be VERY careful. Remove them from the mould when the shape is set... a matter of minutes. They are very buttery so this isn't usually difficult.

Keeren's School Outing

I know I've used this shot format many times before  but unless I ask my guests to move and pose I think I'm stuck with only a few angles. I definitely need a deeper depth of field. Keeren's there at the end and she's barely in focus. What a way to treat my host.

This was the first group ever that didn't seem to like my nuts. I must find out why. 

Anthony Webb came to dinner

Palmers Green's premier estate agents benefitted from a recently modernised pea bavarois, an original roast pork loin with tomatoes and black eyed peas and a newly developed poached peach dessert. There was ample parking and easy access to local amenities (the bathroom). Irrigation opportunities were excellent.

This was taken while they were all still sober. For details of what happened after that, please ask them.

Small Potatoes

Well, I'll be scaling back the plans for self sufficiency, to be sure. That's it! Four potatoes from one plant. That's exactly half of Farmer Jason's potato harvest 2013. But picked fresh from the ground, gently scrubbed clean, barely boiled and rolled in Lescure butter and Maldon sea salt... were they delicious? No. They were bloody awful; very floury.

However, all is not lost (yet). Take a look at the rest of the raised bed. 

It does look messy. I can't pretend this is what I wanted. But then, I am very much the neglectful grower; hoping that if I leave it, it will grow... and grow beautifully. That turned out to be bollox. Didn't notice any pests though. I expect they're all underground, getting it all nice and homely.

The weather, of course, has been bizarre this year. We seemed to bypass spring completely, then a largely grey May and June was followed by heatwave July. It's been 32°C here in Palmers Green. Maybe this is bad weather for potatoes? During the non-spring, at least one fox gained access and dug at the roots for some reason, so I lost at least one plant; can't remember what it was. My peas shrivelled and died. I mean, they didn't even try.

However, the tomatoes are there, still green and the courgettes are flowering. But, best of all, success with strawberries. I put in at least six varieties to see a. which would be most fecund(!) and b. to ensure a longer fruiting season (that's what the man with the flat cap and the gillet in the shop said). They are fruiting and the fruit is sweet. The wild strawberries in particular are wonderful. Although tiny and clustered with seed, they taste almost perfumed.

Pea bavarois and mint sauce. The perfect summer starter?

Perfect? I think so. This is summery and sweet and savoury. Essentially a chilled mousse, this is, of course, posh mushy peas and vinegar. Like all fine food, the roots are in the soil. Bavarois is a pain in the arse to pronounce. The French just slur the whole word, of course. But, as I am in possession of a slightly soft 'r', mine comes out something like 'bumble-waz'. However, this is one of those cooking words for which there is no english equivalent. Mousse it isn't. Bavarois (meaning Bavarian in French) is a puree of fruit or veg, folded with whipped cream and set, in the fridge with gelatine (or some modern chemical that doesn't involve the 'murder' of the innocent - ahem).

This is a joy for dinner parties as you only have to turn them out from the moulds and make pretty, in my case with pea shoots, bacon, Jersey Royal potatoes, a mint sauce and a garnish of onion crisps...

Ah yes... onion crisps. One of my first posts ever was about my difficulty making crisp, delicate, desiccated onion slice. In fact, I didn't ever finish the post, probably because I had to admit defeat then. I suppose it shows that I have learned something these past nine months that I forgot that I didn't know how to make them and just got on with it. But first the Bavarois recipe.

This is enough for eight starter servings (of the size in the pic above). Finely chop 1 large or two small shallots. Gently fry this in 25g of unsalted butter until soft and translucent. To the pan add 300ml of milk and bring to a simmer. Add 500g of frozen petit pois. Don't use garden peas as they are not as sweet. Simmer the peas for two minutes until just tender. Now blend well and pass through a fine sieve. Soak two leaves of gelatine (four small ones) and mix in with the warm puree. Vegies can use about four teaspoons of agar agar powder (boiled in water as per instructions). This will change the texture though, giving a firmer set.

Whip 150ml of double cream to soft peaks. You know they say 'don't over-whip, invariably without qualifying what over-whipping looks like? This is one occasion when it's important. Over-whipped cream is when it stops being cream and starts being butter: it gets claggy. I can't say 'whipped' any more without thinking of Stewie and Brian in Family Guy. Anyway, mix the pea puree with the cream. Taste and season. It will need salt and maybe some white pepper.

Oil some dariole moulds or small pudding moulds with a thin coating of something neutral tasting, like grape-seed oil. Fill the moulds with the pea mix and chill for at least two hours. No harm will become if you leave them for a couple of days in the fridge. 

To release, dip the moulds in hot water for a few seconds and then bring the mould down sharply on the plate. They will ease out. Serve soon afterwards; a warm room will bring about their collapse.

These benefit hugely from a little minty acidity. I add crispy bacon and onion crisps for crunchy contrast and small potatoes for carbo-bulk.

So... onion crisps. Fine slice some onion with a mandolin  On Silpat lined trays, bake at 80°C for two hours. Remove. Raise the oven to 120°C. Brush the onion carefully with a little oil, sprinkle a little Maldon from a height (a couple of feet, no need for the ladders) and return to the oven for a few minutes. Don't wander off! Stay with the oven and watch these mothers. You want a tasty gold. In unwatched seconds they will go a bitter brown or a binnable black and then you've wasted all that effort.