Masterclass - Heston Blumenthal's Hamburger, Triple Cooked Chips and someone else's Baked Alaska

Every now and then, I have the dubious honour of holding a 'Masterclass' either at our house or a friends house, where I de-camp most of our kitchen to set it up in their kitchen.  About 6 weeks ago, Sheila met up with Sarah, a good friend of ours, and between them they came up with the idea of me teaching Sarah how to make hamburger and chips.  Sounds OK, right?  Add in the fact that this is Heston Blumenthal's Hamburger and Chips and all of a sudden it becomes a little daunting!

Please be aware that this blog entry is long!  Read it in passages, re-visit it over a couple of days or gobble it all up in one go.  The cooking process for this dinner involved about 8 distinct processes and took in the region of 7 hours to complete.

So, unto the breach, as they say in the classics!

The long and short of it is that Heston's burger is made from scratch...  The roll is made from scratch, the meat patty is made from scratch, the tomato sauce is made from scratch and finally, so is the cheese slice.  The chips are triple cooked to add a little more adventure into the dish, as if it needed anymore.  I searched for a recipe on line, found one and downloaded it.  When I printed the recipe and ingredients list, using Arial 10pt, it printed across 4 pages!

The decision was made to have Baked Alaska for dessert.  Because the hamburger was all consuming and required lead times of 24 hours to make, I chose an easy, very lush sounding recipe for the dessert.  To tantalise you a little, the recipe included chocolate sauce, amaretto, chocolate brownies and lashings of ice cream. 

It all started on Friday evening when I made the pre-ferment dough for the brioche 'bread roll'.  Easy enough...  I added 200g plain flour, 1/2g fast action yeast and 200ml water into a mixer, mixed it all together into a very liquid batter then plonked it all in a bowl which I covered and left overnight on the window ledge in the kitchen.

The next day felt like a road trip.  We packed the 4 bags of groceries into the car (thanks Ocado for the Thursday night delivery), one cooler bag with the beef and ice cream plus our deep fat fryer, Kenwood Chef mixer and the mincer attachment. We also had an overnight bag, because we planned to drink a reasonable amount of wine so driving home was out.  To prove it was a road trip, we had in time honoured tradition forgotten to pack something. We had to turn back after having just left the house because Sheila had forgotten to pack her squash shoes for Sunday.  One hour later at 12pm, we were lugging all of this kit up three flights of stairs to get into Sarah's kitchen. 

First things first and we salted the 300g chuck and placed this in the fridge for 6 hours.

Next, Sarah chopped 600g Ribeye and 300g Brisket into rough chunks which we then passed through a mincer using the 3mm plate attachment.  This was passed through the mincer twice and then the meat was placed into the fridge to get as cold as possible.  I'm happy to say that Sarah had great fun with the mincer and enjoyed this new experience.

Once the meat was resting in the fridge, we moved onto the dessert as this would need sufficient time in the freezer to get nice and solid.  Sarah added 100g butter, 100g sugar and vanilla seeds to a bowl and placed this on the heat to melt the butter and combine all the flavours.  This was the first time that Sarah had worked with a vanilla pod and she found it interesting scraping out the seeds from the sliced open pod.  Once the butter had combined nicely with the sugar, 125g 70% dark chocolate was added to the mix along with 75ml water and 1 tbsp cocoa powder.  Sarah's expression of pure joy watching the chocolate melt and form a beautifully glossy sauce was something to behold!

After taking the sauce from the stove to cool, Sarah grabbed the chocolate brownies and started layering these into a bowl to create an external shell.  This is something Sarah enjoyed imensely and her puzzle solving skills came to the fore as she cut and molded the brownie into every little nook and cranny.  Once the bowl was lined with the brownie, 2 tbsp Amaretto was drizzled over the sponge to soak in.  Next, about 4 tbsp of the chocolate sauce was spooned into the bowl on top of the brownie to create a lovely rich chocolate layer above the ice cream.  Spooning in the vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice was a tad messy as we wanted it a little soft so we could mould it into the brownie shell to create two distinct layers of ice cream.  Lastly, Sarah layered the bottom of the Baked Alaska with more brownie before it was covered and placed in the freezer.

Next we moved onto stage one of the triple cooked chips.  Sarah spent a good half hour peeling potatoes and then cutting exact chip shapes, all equal width and similar lengths.

Next, the chipped potatoes went into simmering unsalted water.  It is important not to boil the water as this will damage the chips when they eventually got soft.  When the chips were cooked and a knife was inserted and slipped out easily, we removed the chips from the water, placed them neatly onto a tray and allowed them to cook before plaing them in the fridge for an hour or so.  This is to allow them to cool and dry out before cooking stage 2.

Finally time to try out the cheese and tomato sauce part of the recipe.  We halved 12 tomatoes and spooned out all the seeds and flesh and placed this lot into a wire mesh strainer.  We then spent the next 15 minutes or so pushing all the tomato through the strainer to obtain a thin tomato juice.  This juice went onto the stove and was allowed to reduce by about half.  It created a beautifully rich tomato concentrate that was enhanced with a little twist of sea salt.

The cheese proved to be tricky tricky tricky!  We brought to the boil 375ml sherry with some peppercorns, garlic cloves and fresh thyme.  Once boiling point was reached, the heat was turned off and the liquid was left to infuse for 10 minutes.  Following this, the liquid was strained to remove the garlic, peppercorns and thyme.  Now we added 12g citric acid (E330).  This might have been our first mistake.  The recipe calls for sodium citrate which is E331 but all I could find was E330.  According to the oracle (web search!) both these products are antioxidants.  The citric acid was whisked into the sherry and so far it was fine.

The problem came when we added the 450g grated gruyere cheese.  We started stirring the cheese into the sherry in small amounts, however the first handful didn't melt, so we turned the heat up.  This was probably the second and most telling mistake.  After adding another couple of handfuls of cheese, the cheese curdled...  mmm...

After all the cheese was melted into the sherry, we poured the cheese into a tray and then into the fridge to set.  It was supposed to set like burger cheese so we could slice pieces out and use on the burger.  After a good hour or so, it still hadn't set so I placed the tray in the freezer for a couple of minutes.  It set then, however upon tasting the cheese, it was very grainy and we made the executive decision not to use it.

The tomato sauce, however, was lush! Beautifully rich, savoury and just yum.  Just a pity there was not alot of it.  Next time I will use very ripe tomatoes and use more of the flesh to create more sauce.  Sarah planned to use all the potato and tomato left overs in a soup.  Good idea!

Time to finish off the brioche.  The prefermented dough was added into the mixing bowl and to this I added 100g egg yolks and 30g of water, specified to be 20˚C!  This was beaten together until the mix was smooth and liquid, about 4 minutes.  All mixing is done on medium speed.

To this mix we added 200g flour, 50g sugar, 35g skimmed milk powder, 7g salt and 7g yeast.  Mix it all together for another few minutes, then add 30g melted brown butter, 15g grapeseed oil and 18g trex.  Once again mix until fully combined.  Turn machine off, allow to rest for 10 minutes then beat again for 4 minutes and finally cover and refridgerate until use.

Right! Onto the second cooking of the chips.  We heated the oil in my well travelled fat fryer to 130˚C and removed the chips from the fridge.  I very gently placed half the chips (to cook in 2 batches) into the basket and lowered them into the oil.  The idea here is to gently fry the chips to remove yet more moisture, however you do not want to colour them.  Out of the oil, back onto the plate and into the fridge.

The brioche was now removed from the fridge and 5 x 85g portion of the dough was spooned into foil rings made specially by Sheila for the Brioche.  These were allowed to prove for almost 2 hours.

Burger time!  The time had arrived to do the final mincing of the burger meat.  Firstly, I set the mincer up with the 8mm plate attachement and then I laid out plastic wrap on the counter were I could lay out the mince as it came out of the machine.  We combined the salted chuck with the already minced ribeye and brisket.  This went through the mincer only once and as it was coming out the nozzle, I was collecting it gently in my hands and laying it out on the plastic wrap.  Once all the mince was through the machine, I rolled the plastic wrap into a tight sausage and twisted the ends closed.  Yup, you guessed it, into the fridge it went!

Finally, the brioche went into the oven at 225˚C. There was a little water placed into the dripping tray in the bottom of the oven to create steam in the oven to reduce the chances of a crusty top on the brioche.  After 7 minutes, we removed the brioche from the oven, applied a little egg wash to each one, a good sprinkling of sesame seeds and then back into the oven for about 5 minutes.

Naomi, Sarah's sister, finally arrived!  After telling all of us that she would be at the house by 3pm, she eventually arrived at 5pm.  We had all taken out friendly bets on when she would arrive and Sheila won having predicted 4:30pm.  Naomi set out to redeem herself by making the starter.
The starter was a ceviche of tuna with avocado, chilli, ginger, lime juice, soy and coconut milk served with a rustic toast.  Well, that's roughly what I remember going into the dish. 

The dish was yummy, so successfully redeemed me thinks!

All of our elements for the burger was complete, so now it was down to assembling them.  A tablespoon of the tomato concentrate was spread onto the base of each bun after we had sliced it open.  Sliced tomato, fried onion and lettuce was added as traditional accompaniments and these went into the buns to get them ready to simply add the cooked patty once these were cooked.

The burger 'sausage' and the twice cooked chips were removed from the fridge in preperation of the final shove for the finishing line.  The oil was heated to 180˚C for the third and final plunge of the chips.  Having spent a while in the fridge, they were now cold, dry and quite firm.  Just perfect!  In they went, and whilst they were bubbling away in the oil, we sliced the 'sausage' into 5 equal portions, still with the plastic on.  Keeping the plastic on kept the burgers nicely shaped during the cutting. 

Next, I removed the plastic and patted the burgers flat, to about the diameter of the buns and about 3cm thick.  These went into a hot frying pan until browned nicely and then we placed them into the oven to finish cooking.

Finally onto plating the dish and tucking in...

Main and starter out the way and we all decided that a break was needed following the large half pound burger.  More wine was poured and we chilled for about half an hour chatting about things tipsy mates chat about. 

I eventually got up and added the 5 egg whites to the mixing bowl, added about 30g of sugar and turned it on high.  After a little while, the eggs stiffened up and started transforming into a beautiful glossy white meringue.  I added the remaining 45g of sugar and continued beating the meringue until stiff peaks had formed.

We removed the Baked Alaska from the freezer and turned it out onto plate...  well, tried to!  It took a little effort, but eventually the dessert popped out and sat triumphantly on the plate.  We spooned the meringue onto the chocolate dome and evenly spread it around.  Instead of putting the dessert into the oven as suggested by the recipe, I pulled out my gas torch and had a little fun!

Thoughts?

Was it all worth the effort? Yes, I think it was.  It was definitely a fantastic experience and loads of fun creating these dishes.  The brioche tasted great and was slightly sweet against the rich meat.  The burger itself was fantastic.  The only seasoning in the meat was the salt, no herbs, egg, breadcrumbs or pepper but this didn't change the reality that the texture, flavour and tenderness of the patty was amazing.

The chips were also brilliant although I will cook them slightly longer next time during the 3rd cooking to create a more even golden colour and crispy texture.

The Baked Alaska was tasty and very decadent, especially when more chocolate sauce was added.  I reckon I'll make Baked Alaska again, however maybe a different version of the dish.

Will I do the burger again?  Yes, especially the meat patty.  It was a sublime tortoise version of 'fast' food heaven and the 7 hours of kitchen time proved that a little extra effort makes all the difference.  The chips were just scrumptious, fluffy and crunchy in the same mouthful!  Whether or not I make the cheese, tomato sauce or buns again is debatable.

All in all, we had loads of fun preparing everything and I hope Sarah learnt a little something.  We've already planned the next couple of Masterclasses...  Indian dishes and making sausages from scratch.  I believe duck, plum and spring onion sausage was the inspiration...  

Picture update from my cooking competition...

Just a couple of pics from the competition I took part in last week.

Me in action...

Rolling the rice paper rolls for the starter...

Sprinkling on the Matcha Powder onto the Green Tea Tiramisu...

Fresh Summer Roll with Chicken in Plum Sauce and Dipping Sauce

Chilli and Coconut Chicken Stirfry with Jasmine Rice and Thai Green Chilli Flatbread

Green Tea Tiramisu

And that's all, folks!

Cookbook Lottery #4 - Brian Turner's Leek and Cheese Pudding with Panfried Beetroot

Today's recipe comes out of Brian Turner's Great British Grub.  As soon as I opened up the recipe page I had two immediate thoughts.  First was 'Oh God, that looks yummy!' and the second was 'Bugger, it's a vegetarian dish'.  I then realised that I could use this dish as the carb and vegetables on the plate and still serve some meat with it.  Sorted!

When I showed Sheila the recipe, she asked why did we want leek in a pudding?  It took a little while explaining that pudding did not nessesarily always refer to a dessert but could also refer to a main course.  Think of Steak and Kidney Steamed Pudding for instance.  The word pudding originally referred to a grain (flour) product and binder (egg, butter, etc) encasing either a sweet fruit or meat filling which would determine whether it was served for dessert or as a main course.  Puddings can then be baked, steamed or boiled.

Sheila hated beetroot for the longest time but this started slowly changing when a friend of ours served up a beetroot, caramelised onion and goat's cheese tart at a braai (BBQ) we held recently.  I was curious to see how Sheila would handle a large portion of stand alone beetroot on her plate.  Her next question to me was, 'What happens if you open the page in a future cookbook lottery and it is something neither of us like?'  I said that I would cook it as it is part of the rules... The whole idea of this challenge is to expand our food horizons and explore potential new tastes and cooking methods and styles.

Shopping for this recipe was easy.  Everything is readily available in the supermarkets and a quick 5 minute run round secured everything I needed in my basket.  Remember to get fresh breadcrumbs and not the Paxo cheap crumbs.  I halved the recipe as I was only cooking for 2.

Step one: pre-heat oven to 160C.

Next, I prepped the 225g leeks and cleaned off the outer leaves and as much dirt as I could.  Leeks are notorious for being full of dirt because as the leek grows, it can trap soil near the top of the outer layers of leaves.  The leeks were placed into boiling, salted water for 5 minutes.  It is not explained in the recipe why pre-cooking is required, but I'm guessing its to soften and release some sweetness in the leeks before baking in the oven.

Whilst the leeks were boiling, I grated the 110g cheddar.  Bing! 5 minutes up so I drained the leeks in a colander and refreshed them with a little cold water and flushed out a little more dirt I could see.  Transferring the leeks to a board, I chopped them into 1 cm width slices.

Select a suitable sized dish to hold all of the ingredients plus a little room for rising and butter it using the butter from the recipe.  I only used about half the butter suggested, about 10g.  I sprinkled a little of the grated cheese into the dish, then layered the sliced leeks and 90g crumbs till all was gone.

Seeing as I am a little health concious, I used only skimmed milk for the liquid instead of milk and double cream as suggested.  Personally, I imagine the dish will be extremely rich if double cream and milk is used in equal measures.  Also, I reduced my quantity of milk by 30%. 

To make the milk 'custard' mix, I mixed 2 eggs with 200ml of milk, then added a sizeable pinch of both cayenne pepper and nutmeg.  I grinded some salt and pepper into the mix and whisked it all together.  Finally, I stirred in the remaining cheese.  This mix is then poured slowly over the leeks and crumbs trying not to disturb the layering too much.

I plonked the dish into the pre-heated oven and set the timer to 40 minutes.  Right, 30 minutes to chill and do something else.  Read a book?  Watch tv? I know! I'll go annoy Sheila...

Half an hour gone and it's beetroot time!  

I placed a frying pan on the stove and turned the flame on.  The bright juice running from the cut open packet of beetroot looked like a scene from the movie SAW and made me smile a little.  It also reminded me of the several occasions in the past when I had accidentally cut myself whilst learning knife skills...

I sliced the beetroot into 1 cm thick rounds and then tossed about 30g butter into the hot pan.  The beetroot followed and was allowed to heat through whilst absorbing all the yummy buttery taste.  After about 5-6 minutes of frying and turning, I splashed in a little white wine vinegar, swished it all about and beetroot was done.

I cooked off a couple of lamb chops to go with the meal as I felt the lamb and beetroot would complement each other well.  So, three pieces of beetroot on a plate, spoonful of the leek and cheese pudding on top of the beetroot and served with the medium rare lamb and mint sauce and we were ready to eat.  Quick mention of how good the leek pudding smelt.  It was making both of us salivate thinking about dinner.

Thoughts?
As mentioned earlier, I doubt I will ever use cream in this dish.  I just think it'll make it too heavy and too rich.  Without the cream, the leek and cheese pudding was still scrumptious, so much so that Sheila insisted she wanted to make it herself for a friend visiting on Tuesday evening.  She even overcame her beetroot fear and ate it all!  This dish will definitely become a regular addition to our household meals as it is cheap, very easy to make and totally yummy.  I am even considering adding it to the recipe database at work for inclusion into the school menu cycles.  The kids will love it!

Evening out at Benares...

Sheila and I were lucky enough to be treated to a night out at Benares in London last night.  Walking past an Audi shop, then a Landrover shop, then a Jaguar shop and finally spotting a Rolls Royce and a Bentley shop next to the restaurant doorway definitely spoke volumes about the area we were in.  Thank goodness I put my clean shoes on!

Benares Restaurant is the brainchild of Atul Kochhar and serves Traditional Indian cuisine in a very English way.  The restaurant was opened in May 2003 and earned its Michelin Star in 2007.  The main reasons behind the star are the high quality, impeccable Indian food, the exceptional service and general dining experience.
  
I approached the front doors to be greeted by two burly doormen.  It almost felt like I was going into a trendy night club in the West End, except these guys smiled at me and opened the door.  The young lady at the front desk took my jacket, handed over the ticket and then walked me up the dark wooden stairs to the bar area.  On my left at the top is a tranquil under lit pool with water lily's floating in it.  Everything is dark wood and cream and quite peaceful.  No shouting managers or clanking crockery anywhere.

We enjoyed a beer in the bar whilst perusing the a la carte menu.  From visiting the restaurant's website, I knew that they had a grazing menu and I asked for this which was immediately presented.  We all decided to go for the grazing menu with the Premium wine selection.  At £124 per person, this worked out at about £5.60 per meal item and £9 per glass of wine.  I personally didn't think this to be bad value at all when considering the quality of the food, wine and service we received plus the effort involved in creating the wondering morsels on our plates.

And what I loved about the wine list is that two of the chosen wines are South African.  Brilliant!

First to arrive at the table was the Amuse Bouche along with the Sauvignon Blanc.  The Amuse Bouche was interesting to say the least.  The exterior 'balloon' was very thin and very crisp.  I have no idea what it was made from or how it was made.  Inside the balloon was a bit easier to decipher. Micro Coriander, Lemon Zest, Chutney and Dal (a lentil thick soup or stew).  Pop it into the mouth and let everything combine.  The crispy balloon was a surprise as it had loads of crunch and then the flavour of the dal and chutney came through.  An interesting blend of spices lingered on the tongue... don't ask me to guess, we all know of Indian food's love of spice and a vast number of each being used in most recipes.

The first glass of wine was delivered with the amuse bouche and I found it slightly fruitier than I expected a Sauvignon Blanc to be. Still, it was lovely and refreshing and went really well with the spicing the amuse bouche.

Next to arrive was the starter, ladies first and always set down from the right.  Every course came with three service staff.  The waiter to place the dishes on the table, the porter carrying the tray with the dishes on it and the somelier with the wine.  Every course was explained by the waiter and we were also told the best way to eat the plate in terms of flavour balance.  Then the somelier jumped in and told us all about the wine and what to expect from it.

On the plate in front of us was, from the left as we were advised to eat it, was the Curry Leaf and Tarragon Infused Lobster Rillet, Prawn Pickled with Indian Five Spice and Confit Duck Terrine with Orange Jelly.

Eating from the left was to allow our palate to benefit from the flavour combinations in each of the little morsels.  The lobster rillet was beautifully fresh and very light and I loved the taste of the tarragon and the lobster but I struggled to find the curry leaf flavour.  The prawn with its five spice was tasty and succulent.  Indian Five Spice traditionally consists of fenugreek, Nigella Seed, cumin seed, radhuni or celery seed and fennel seed but I think this pickled prawn used different spices as I'm sure I tasted a curry powder of some sort in the pickle. The confit duck was yummy as all confit duck usually is.  I think the orange jelly could have packed a bit more punch though and the pickled onion and line of cumin spice complimented the duck nicely.

A honeyed naan bread was served with the starter and caused many sticky fingers which just had to be licked clean.  We were provided with hot cleaning cloths presented in a unique way.  The waiter placed a little platter in the middle of the table with four white discs on it.  He then poured hot water onto the discs and they expanded up into hot towels for wiping.  Very theatrical! 

The Italian Soave "La Rocca" Peiropan proved a surprise to my nose.  I had just finished the Sauvignon Blanc and compared to that, the La Rocca was more robust and I got spices and melon from the bouquet.  Thoroughly enjoyable with the starter.

The second course arrived with the usual fanfare of three servers and flourish during presentation of the plate in front of you. From left to right again, Tandoori Salmon Trout Spiced with Red Chilli and Garlic, Wood Pigeon Breast with Beetroot Puree and Mustard Marinated Chicken Tikka. 

We received no advice in terms of eating order, so we just tucked in.  The salmon was beautifully light and juicy with wonderful flavour.  The mustard marinated chicken tikka was very tasty and you could definitely taste the grill on the chicken, however with this came the slightly tough flesh you almost expect from kebab cooked meat.  The wood pigeon and beetroot was awesome.  I loved the gamey flavours and soft rare flesh.  Add to this the sweet beetroot puree and I was in heaven.  We were warmed by the waiter that occasionally bird shot is found in the meat of the pigeon but it was rare.  One of our party was 'lucky' to find two pellets!  All part of the experience.

The wine with this course was the South African Journey's End Chardonnay.  I don't usually enjoy Chardonnay because of the strong woody flavours, however this wine was fantastic.  Is that because it was paired brilliantly with the food in front of us?  I must admit by this stage that I was one beer and two glasses of wine into the evening and I wasn't worrying about analysing the food and wine much any more.  I was just having a really good time!

Next to arrive was our main course of Pan Fried Sea Bass with Kerala Curry, Southern Spiced Prawn Biriyani and Roasted Lamb Cannon with Kidney Bean Casserole.

Exquisite, is all I can say.  The sea bass was beautiful with delightfully crispy skin, the biryani was light, fluffy and very tasty with a large perfectly cooked prawn tail hiding behind the ostentatious gold leaf and the lamb was incredible.  Soft, soft, soft without the overly lamb taste found in cheaper cuts.  I asked Sheila if she had ever eaten gold leaf before and I received a skew look. "Of course," she answered, "in tequila!"  Enough said...

Naan bread was served with this course accompanied by a bowl of dal and a bowl of yoghurt and mint raita.  The raita was gorgeous, creamy and smooth and just lovely on the naan bread. The waiter followed after the course with the lovely little hot towels.  Made me smile again!

The wine with main course was the Muddy Water Pinot Noir from New Zealand.  Spice and berries is what I remember from this wine. The mild heat from the biriyani really brought out the flavour of this wine and I really enjoyed following a mouthful of biryani with a sip of wine.

Following main course, our table was cleared and scraped to remove all crumbs.  Bring on dessert!

On our beautifully presented plate was Basil Sorbet, Zested Lime Mousse, Lemon Thyme Jelly and Lemon Curd.

Wow, did the basil sorbet pack a punch! The waiter suggested we eat the sorbet first to cleanse our palette and this it did in bags.  I might suggest it was too overpowering, yet I found myself finishing the whole lot quite quickly.   I then moved onto the lemon curd which just zinged in my mouth following the sweet crunch of the little meringue on top.  Finally I peeled off a spoonful of the lime mousse.  It was smooth, creamy, very morish and was crammed full of lime, sweet and not at all bitter.  The lemon thyme jelly was the contrast on the dish with a very subtle flavour and melt in the mouth texture.

The wine with dessert was a South African Late Harvest Riesling by Paul Cluver.  I got loads of lychee and honey when drinking this.  All the reviews state lime, citrus and honey flavours (where'd I get lychee from?) which suggests why this wine went so well with the dessert.  Our whole table found this wine beautiful!    

Onto coffee and petit fours and after three hours of excellent food, wine and service our evening came to a close.  

I would recommend Benares to anyone, everyday of the week if asked.

My competition entry...

Yesterday was an eventful day.  It was my company's chef of the year competition and I was taking part again following the fun I had last year.  This year, however, the RAF chefs had entered...

We recently won the contract to provide the catering service for the RAF across the UK and we inherited all of their chefs and service personel. I knew these guys would be good as they are professionally trained chef's who cater for officers mess's day in and day out and are extremely experienced at what they do.

My entry was simple as I planned a range of dishes that were slightly adventurous yet could be put into our business the next day.  Apologies, but no photos asthis was not allowed during the competition...

My menu was 4 plates each of starter, main and dessert within 2 hours.

• Fresh Summer Roll with Plum Chicken
• Chilli and Coconut Stirfry Chicken with Jasmine Rice and Thai Green Chilli Flatbread
• Green Tea Tiramisu

I started out with having to butcher a fresh chicken.  This involved removing the breast and leg and thigh from the carcass.  The carcass was put aside along with the drumsticks and wings.  I used the breast for the stirfry where I removed the skin and excess fat and sliced against the grain.  The thighs were de-boned and minced for the summer roll.  

I had just finished the butchering, made the marinade for the stirfry and mixed the minced thigh with the plum sauce when I glanced at the clock.  30 minutes had gone!  Good grief, I'd have to get a move on.  From somewhere I found an extra gear and even started multi tasking a bit.  Yes, I realise this is hard for a boy... 

The summer roll (unfried spring roll basically) consisted of shredded lettuce leaf, chopped basil, mint and coriander leaf, bean sprout, cooked vermicelli rice noodles, julienne carrot and cucumber, whole chive and diced chicken thigh cooked in plum sauce all wrapped in rice paper.

A dipping sauce made up of 150ml water, 50g sugar, 50ml palm vinegar, 35ml fish sauce, a little grated carrot and diced shallot accompanied the summer roll. 

I fell in love with this dish when we first experienced it in Cambodia whilst on honeymoon.  The dipping sauce is vital as it adds the salty vinegary tang required by a very fresh and light starter.

To start the main course, I added 100ml Coconut Milk, juice of 2 squeezed limes, 1 chopped chilli, 2 cloves chopped garlic and 15g sugar to a bowl.  To this I added 2 chicken breasts, sliced into bite size bits and followed up with a twist or two of salt and pepper.  The bowl went straight into the fridge to marinade for about 30 minutes.

To prepare, I added one red onion, sliced into wedges, 1 chopped chilli and a crushed garlic clove to a heated wok.  After a couple of minutes, I removed the chicken from the marinade and added this to the wok.  I discarded the remaining marinade.  Once the chicken had sealed, I added the remaining 150g chopped red pepper and 100g sliced mushrooms. 

When the pan was sizzling away and the red pepper was a little soft, probably a wait of about 3-4 minutes, I added 300ml Coconut Milk, 150ml Chicken Stock and a little corflour to thicken.  I left the wok to bubble away for about another 3-4 minutes, I then tasted and adjusted the seasoning and I was ready to serve.

During all of this mayhem, I made the flatbread.  I added a cup of plain flour to a bowl plus a third of a cup of water and 2 tablespoons of Thai Green Chilli Paste.  Both hands in and I mixed it all together, adding a little flour as required to remove the stickyness of the dough.  Once I was happy with the consistency of the dough, I added a little olive oil to a frying pan and heated it up.  I formed the dough into a ball and flattened and stretched it out to the size of the pan and then added it to the hot pan.  After a couple of minutes, I flipped the bread and cooked the other side.  Once done, this was cut into portions for serving.

The rice was easy.  2 cups of Jasmine Rice into a rice cooker along with 3 cups of water.  Salt to taste, turn the cooker on and let it run its course.  I put the rice on about 30 minutes earlier than required as I love the texture and fluffyness of rice when allowed to steam for a while after cooking.

To garnish the chicken stirfry, I zested a lime (before juicing) and mixed this with some dessicated coconut.  A pinch of the mix on top of the chicken looked fresh and appetizing.

The dessert was a little tricky purely because I was whisking by hand.  This wasted time and I won't make this mistake again!  Two eggs with 60g caster sugar in a bowl, beaten till slightly stiff and when the whisk is dragged through the mix, it leaves lines.  To this I added 250g mascarpone cheese and then I folded in 100ml whipped cream.  This mix went straight into the fridge to cool.

Each ramekin was layered with sponge finger biscuits, broken to fit, then followed by a couple of spoonfulls of strong green tea to soak into the sponge and then a layer of the cheese mix to just cover the sponge biscuits.  I sprinkled on the Matcha powder and repeated the layering.  To garnish, I sprinkled on a few chopped pistachio nuts and called, 'Desserts away!'

I was done!  With 2 minutes to spare of my alloted 2 hours... 

Even though I didn't win or wasn't placed, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and to top it all, I have another competition chef's jacket to add to my collection!

On a side note, seeing the finished dishes, I can confirm that the RAF chefs are really really good... 

Birthdays and Goodbyes

It was my cousin George's 18th birthday last week.  He has also been accepted into the Royal Navy and starts basic training in early December. 

Because of these two facts, his mum, Maria asked Sheila and I to bake him a cake showing both these occassions in one.

We toyed around with various ideas and Sheila came up with the idea of two hats.  A birthday hat and a navy hat.  I loved the idea and we began baking...

The best moment with this cake was when Maria first saw it, she burst into tears.  Man, if only everyone reacted with such emotion when presented with the food we prepare for them! 

Cookbook Lottery #3 - Spaghetti Vongole

This weeks recipe proved to be interesting.  I was never a huge fish lover, however, thanks to Sheila, this is changing.  I was introduced to sushi early on in our relationship and promptly fell in love with the sticky rice, succulent fresh fish and salty spicy combination of the wasabi and soy sauce.  This week I got to cook clams, another product I have never cooked with before and I was looking forward to expanding my fishy horizons.  This recipe came from Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite.   

The Clams were difficult to find.  Waitrose could help, but needed 48 hours notice to order them in for you.  I eventually found them at my favourite food shop..  you guessed it.  Korea Foods!  The rest of the recipe was very straight forward.  I did however amend it slightly.  I halved the clam portion (just in case we didn't enjoy them) and I doubled the wine for the sauce.

So, to start, I washed the clams in running cold water, to try remove as much grit as I could.  I then cooked off 150g spaghetti in salted boiling water.  Half way through the pasta being cooked, I poured 2 tbs olive oil into a pan and added 2 whole peeled garlic cloves, 1 red chilli, quartered and de-seeded, a handful of basil stalks and one roughly chopped shallot followed by all the clams.  I plonked the lid on the pan and allowed the clams to steam for 4 minutes.

I then turned out the clams into a colander and allowed all the juice to pour through into another bowl. 

The strained juice was then added back into the pan along with 75ml white wine and 2 tbs chopped parsley. 

The sauce was allowed to reduce for a minute or two whilst I strained the spaghetti.  I then added the clams to the sauce on the stove, dumped in the spaghetti and tossed it all together for a minute.  I didn't want to cook it too long as I was scared the clams would over cook. 

So, within a maximum of 20 minutes, including prep time and photographs, dinner was served!  I dished the pasta up and served it with torn pieces of fresh baguette, as suggested by Gordon, for dunking in the sauce and of course accompanied by a glass (or two) of yummy peachy Viognier.

Thoughts?

I found the clams good and probably could have finished off a quite a few more than the half portion I dished up.  The dish was, disappointingly, dryer than I would have liked even though I doubled the wine as suggested by the recipe.  Once again my desire for saucy pasta rears its ugly head.  Gordon's suggestion of bread to mop up the sauce proved misleading as there was a mild condensation on my plate pretending to be sauce.  Thinking about it now, if I had steamed a full portion of clams, would the moisture generated have been more for the base of the sauce?  Both Sheila and I plan on enjoying this dish again, so next time I will cook a full portion of clams for us and see if there is a difference in the sauce quantity following steaming.  The Viognier, as always, was awesome.