A lot has happened recently so I just wanted to post a really quick update whilst I write up individual posts in more detail.

Last Friday I also worked a day at Roganic, one of London’s best restaurants, a two year pop-up in Marylebone by Simon Rogan of l’Enclume with the obscenely talented and young Ben Spalding at the pass. The experience, as with my time at Viajante, was highly inspirational. Their kitchen is almost laughably small for the kind of food they produce, but testament to their skill and the level of organization required at that level.

Sadly, it was just a single day there but I hope I’ll have a chance to go back soon and I definitely want to try the food from the either side of the experience.

I then spent three amazing days in Seville with Emma over the weekend, which was exactly what I needed. I’ll be writing up the holiday over the next couple of days, once I’ve trawled through the absurd quantity of photos I took. The weather was flawless and I returned to London recharged. I feel it’s a sign I’m doing the right job when I can come back from a trip like that looking forward to go back to work.

Immediately after getting back I had to cook my competition dish. Recently the company has been hosting an in-house competition between the chefs, based around lamb as an ingredient which was run at the beginning of this week. Most of the chefs presented their dishes on Monday, because I was still in Spain I did mine the following day.

There were a lot of things that worried me about my dish. I hadn’t cooked any single element on it previously, so I had no idea what it would taste like together. Also, the sauce I was planning to use didn’t work out because of logistical issues so I had to adapt and come up with a new one on the day as well. In short, I had my concerns.

The dish I cooked was pan roasted loin of lamb with a smoked cumin jus, spiced lentils and a green olive puree. Despite all the issue I was pretty pleased with it as I plated it, I then had to present it to one of group’s directors, the executive chef and my sous chef – easy. Getting positive feedback from them was definitely rewarding and when they announced the winner later I’m proud to say I won.

Rather than do that typically English thing and feel faintly embarrassed about doing well I have to say I’m really happy. I’ve spent a lot of time working for free, reading religiously about food and talking incessantly about cooking and I’m relieved that it has paid off at least in part. It’s a small step but a really satisfying one nonetheless. There’s going to be a larger competition this summer amongst those who placed 1^st and 2^nd across the company’s three restaurants so watch this space…

To the future, I’ve got some really exciting things lined up. I’m looking to organize a stage with a chocolatier to boost my fundamental pastry skills, I’m cooking up canapés for 200 next week and there’s something much bigger and very exciting looming on the horizon as well, so I’ll keep you posted.

I also wanted to say thanks to you guys as well. Recently, quite a few people have mentioned that they’ve been reading the blog and I really appreciate it. I feel it’s improved a great deal in the past few months but, as ever, I’m pushing for it to be better and better. Thanks for taking the time out, I’ll try and give you more and more reasons to procrastinate as we go.

I have read an awful lot about Ferran Adria, I own many of his books, and today I was lucky enough to be at a talk he gave about the ‘Art of Cooking’. It was, illuminating.

Looking through my notes shows how eclectic his answers were to questions:

-        ‘I am a cook, not a painter or sculptor’

-        There are 2500 varieties of citrus fruit

-        ‘We provoke’

-        Ask why. Why is the difference between El Bulli and 99% of other restaurants.

-        A mandarin is Chinese but few Chinese dishes use citrus.

-        ‘If you think well, you create well’

-        A crab is a spider

-        ‘Cooking on TV is not really cooking’

-        We know nothing about food

-        Water is unique, no colour, no smell, no taste

-        ‘When someone buys a book on architecture it is not so that they can build a house’

Answers to questions spilled from him, changing tangent seemingly at will. A lot of his answers came back to what he described as his ‘theory of relativity’ in the kitchen, which is a convoluted analogy for the power of perception.

A crab appears normal on a plate, despite being a descended from spiders. Wine is not ‘natural’ any more than El Bulli’s food is ‘unnatural’, it is only perceived as such.

He seemed an avuncular figure on the stage, always very animated in his answers. Though he spoke little English I felt that little was lost in translation, even with such high concepts being thrown around. He spoke with a good deal of humour and a rather wry wit about art and his own accomplishments, it did feel like you were a part of the conversation.

What is it that I am trying to capture in this post? I’m not sure I have a coherent answer to that. Being able to see how Adria’s mind worked in the smallest way and understanding the depth of his passion and love of food was something which will stay with me.

I haven’t had my greatest day in the kitchen and I was pretty disappointed in myself. At the end of the talk I asked him what advice he would give to a young chef, ‘patience’ he replied. That helped give a context to today which eased my disappointment. I’ve been cooking seriously for four months, things will go wrong, I know patience and hard work will get me where I want to be.

My friend Mike came into work last Friday and kindly demoed some cool techniques to the guys, spherification and cavitation. It was really great to see the interest it generated with everyone in the bar, with people crowding round and trying the different things. For me it was a brilliant example of what food (and drink) has the ability to do. At the end of this week we’re having a session in the bar where we are going to test out our ideas for a new cocktail menu so this week will be all about testing these ideas.

It’s a bit of a departure from what I’m used to. I don’t have the knowledge of the fundamentals in cocktails that I do in cooking so my approach is not as grounded as I would like it to be. I can only hope this gets filled in as I go along.

I don’t have a specific drink or agenda for this week but I’ll be testing different elements I think might work as I go so I’ll update them on here as individual components. I’m looking at ideas like Bloody Mary infused celery, a trio of Martinis in one drink, possibly smoked drinks and new ideas for serving drinks (Aviary-inspired ‘in the rocks’). I’d like to see some interesting non-alcoholic drinks in a new menu as well, as someone at work rightly pointed out, most people who don’t drink typically get shafted with boring options.

These ideas may or may not be started tonight but they’ll certainly be movement on them during the next week and a big post on Sunday with some of the finished articles.

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I don’t think anything can beat that, the joy of growing, cooking and eating great produce.

The fact that it is only being posted on here now is because a friend of mine had asked for a relatively complex recipe for an online student journal he runs and I gave him this one a while ago. However, the photos I sent alongside it didn’t really show the food in the best light. To compensate for this I took it upon myself to remake the dish and photograph it this morning.

Thank god that Sainsbury’s have a very different attitude to seasonality from me, otherwise getting stuff like pea shoots would have been a real ballache.

It’s a dish I really like and one which is surprisingly quick to make. It also gives the impression of being more complex than it actually is which is always a bonus.

I love wrapping the mackerel in bread, I saw Kenny Atkinson do it on Great British Menu a year or two ago. It is an elegant means to give a real crisp outside to the fish without overcooking the flesh. It does have the downside of hiding mackerel’s beautiful tiger stripe skin though.

The dish was cooked in a bit of a and if I were going to do this for a full dinner I’d certainly consider marinading the fish. I also want to add a sauce, but I wasn’t happy with what I’d got so far. I imagine it’s a dish I’ll come back to, reassemble and tweak next summer.

This is also the dish in a previous post that I plated and replated to experiment with different styles, below is the recipe.

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Mackerel

-        Fresh mackerel, 2 fillets

-        White bread, 2 slices

-        English mustard, a pot

Pea Puree

-        Frozen peas, 250g

-        Cream/Stock, optional

-        Truffle oil, optional

Baby gem lettuce

-        Baby gem lettuce, 2

-        Chicken stock, 200ml

-        Shallots (diced), 1

Grilled courgette:

-        Courgette, 1

Garnish:

-        Pea shoots, 1 punnet

Mackerel:

1. Using a pasta machine or a rolling pin roll the bread as thinly as possible, set this aside.
2. Make sure there are no bones in the mackerel. A common problem is that your fishmonger has been a cretin and hasn’t remove the central line of bones. It takes far too long to do this yourself to be honest so I cheat and cut down the line of them on either side and just remove them.
3. Season the fish with salt and pepper.
4. Using a pastry brush or just a spoon and a (clean) finger coat one side of the bread in English mustard.
5. Place the mackerel in the middle of the bread and wrap it around the fillet, don’t use all the bread if you don’t need to, just enough to make sure it is covered in just one layer of the bread.
6. Wrap tightly in clingfilm and set aside in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Pea Puree:

1. Cook peas.
2. Blitz with chicken stock until smooth.
3. Pass through a sieve.

Baby gem lettuce:

1. Sweat the shallots on a low heat until translucent.
2. Add the chicken stock
3. Cut the baby gem lettuce in half and add to the stock, cook for about 10 minutes.
4. Remove from the pan, you can keep these in the fridge and just pop the back in the braising liquid before serving to heat them up again if you are doing this in advance.

Courgette:

1. Cut the courgette into rectangles about 5x2cm.
2.  Drizzle with oil and season then put it under the grill at a medium temperature for about 2 minutes before turning it for another 2 minutes.
3. Reserve.

To serve:

1. Unwrap the mackerel
2. Heat a pan with some vegetable oil and butter in to a high temperature.
3. Warm the baby gems and the courgette in the braising liquid
4. Warm the puree in a pan
5. Place the mackerel in the hot pan, cook until the bread is golden brown (about a minute) then turn over and cook for a further minute or so.

Plate:

1. Dot a little of the puree on the plate and place the courgette on top of it, this prevents it from sliding around.
2. Spoon some of the puree on the plate.
3. Place the mackerel fillet on top of the courgette
4. Place the baby gem next to the mackerel
5. Spoon round some of the braising liquid
6. Garnish with pea shoots
7. Eat

Presentation is so important for food, and for some that is where food starts being ‘artistic’. Chefs talk all the time of the plate being a canvas and I really went to town on mine today. I wanted to try some different styles of plating and I ended up with about five different variations. Some chefs have a very distinct style, a place like Noma is heavily naturalistic where Eleven Madison Park is elegantly simple. Developing my own is very much a work in progress, as you can tell here.

I have to say that it was a fun morning, but probably not one everyone would want to spend an hour doing this. I’ve also being trying really hard to deliver some good photos and I’m pleased with what’s been going up recently.

Here is kind of a photo essay of my morning. Enjoy.

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Getting caught in the ‘weeds’ is the phrase we have for when you get lost in your orders, and tonight the weeds claimed me. The calm before the storm had lulled me into a false sense of security, I was actually looking forward to the night’s service; how naïve I was.

It started slowly but then orders rushed in like a flood, sweeping me into the weeds. I had literally no idea where I was, I could barely have told you my name if you’d have asked. Every new ticket was like another wave crashing over me, again and again. Every now and then I’d snatch an item to put on, like a breath of air before being pulled back under.

At my station I don’t have the tickets in front of me, so if I miss what Chef calls out then I am pretty much screwed. This happened a lot. My brain kind of switched off, probably in an effort to prevent damage to any higher functions.

If there was a visual equivalent for the Oxford English Dictionary, next to ‘Overwhelmed’ you would have found a picture of my face tonight.

More than anything I was just pretty pissed with myself, I felt I had reached a point where this wouldn’t happen. Unfortunately, it seems not to be the case. Asking for help sucks, but ask I did and eventually the storm passed.

The only thing to do is learn from it, quite what I can I don’t know. I guess that next time it happens I’ll be a little better prepared, a little faster.

Here’s to tomorrow.

After my first day in the kitchen at Viajante I left, without a shadow of a doubt, inspired. When I first made it into the kitchen I had to suppress the strong urge to giggle with glee. I felt like I had somehow duped them into letting me into their restaurant, and that at any given minute I might be discovered for the fraud I was and ejected from the premises.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the people I would meet, horror stories from starred-kitchens are commonplace. Contrary to those tales, everyone who I met was genuinely friendly and willing to show me what they were doing, explain why and tolerate a stream of questions from me. This attitude of sharing and openness is one of the strongest (and best) trends moving through kitchens across the world. The old-school system of hierarchy and hostility seems to be dying and I’m grateful it does so as I move further into that world.

The food at Viajante was simply stunning. Reassuringly, I understood a lot of what people were doing, the processes and ingredients they were using. There were some things which were still totally new to me but I was relieved that the hours I’d spent reading and learning about food hadn’t been in vain.

The roll call of incredible restaurants that people had worked at was amazing – Mugaritz, Arzak, WD 50, Maze – these were some real culinary heavyweights. Needless to say, it put my own accomplishments into such sharp perspective it was almost comical.

I left after my first day determined that I would one day rank up there with those chefs.

Preamble aside, the dish that this post is partly about was born out of that experience. Nothing I saw in the kitchen features in the dish yet it came from that spark of inspiration which lit a sizeable bonfire in my brain.

I’m quite pleased with this dish in this form – it was my first run at it. It’s a comforting plate, one inspired by the thought of the bananas we roasted with chocolate on bonfires during trips to South Africa as a child.

The peanut brittle was there to add a crunch and a slight saltiness that really lifts the combinations. I love the brown butter puree which is from the amazing Ideas in Food book, whose recipes rarely fail – BUY IT.

After first eating, I felt the puree didn’t stand out enough but I realized its role is really to hold everything together, providing the nutty, warm background that all the elements share. The coffee and chocolate ganache also requires careful balancing or it will overpower the banana. It is water based rather than cream, so it has a wonderfully intense flavour.

Having shown it to the guys at work the suggestions were to roast the bananas and add some acid. This version in the photos features the banana roasted for 6 minutes in a hot oven having been coated in sugar, it really helps boost the flavour and texture. The ideas weren’t a surprise, I had original made a lime and basil fluid gel to balance the palette, I screwed up the process though so it didn’t make it to the plate.

I was worried that overall the palette might end up a little dull (by which I really mean brown) but I was pretty pleased with the end result, the basil garnish draws the eye to points and is critical to add bursts of freshness.

I’m quite pleased with the photos too, they came out really well and are unashamedly influenced by those in the Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook. I hope the extra effort on them that I’m putting in will lift the blog into what I want it to be.

Lots more coming up soon. One of my resolutions is to be more disciplined with this blog so come back soon.

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Chocolate and Ganache

-        400g  dark chocolate (finely chopped)

-        300g water

-        50g strong, tasty espresso (use instant coffee if you need to, obviously adjust to taste)

Boil the water, add the espresso, then pour over the chocolate. Cool over an ice bath whilst blitzing with a hand blender. When the ganache reaches ribbon stage transfer it to a container and chill. Even if it doesn’t reach ribbon stage (mine occasionally doesn’t if I don’t have an ice bath) just blitz it til well incorporated and chill, it will just be slightly denser.

Having already done 9 shifts this week and road tested a new dessert (a post on this soon) I found myself back in the kitchen testing further. I had already started the process, making a micro chicken stock but suddenly felt pretty deflated, tired and slightly pissed off. The stock was fine, given what was available, but I could barely be bothered to test the agar clarification I had made it for.

I finished the whole thing in a hurry and left it to chill, I went upstairs to watching something crap on iPlayer. When I came back down for a drink I strained the stock and saw this magically clear stock appear in the bowl. I couldn’t help but punch the air with excitement.

It was like someone had thrown a switch and suddenly I couldn’t help but go a step further with the process. I took that clarified stock and made the base for a brown butter puree. This was something I used in my dessert earlier this week, and is usualy sweetened and loosened with agave nectar and water. I used the clarified stock instead to make a savoury version.

The result was quite sublime, but it’s definitely showing promise. I think I need a more concentrated stock, the brown butter notes dominate too much at the moment.

The real point isn’t the success or not of this test, but how little it can take to change your mood. The smallest success, something so basic really just reminded me why food is so exciting. It also means that I never need to go through the ballache of an egg white raft to clarify anything. It was just so envigorating.

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Agar Clarification

Ludicrously easy. Take your base liquid, weigh it. For every litre of liquid add 2g of agar, heat to a simmer for a minute. If you don’t want to heat whatever it is, juice, etc, then hydrate the agar in some water and mix this into the base. Chill it over an ice bath for 30 minutes and then break up the gel that forms with a fork/whisk/finger. Strain through 3 layers of muslin (I used jaycloths). Stare with joy at your clear liquid.

Credit for this technique goes to the wonderful team at Ideas in Food. If you don’t have their book you must buy it immediately.

I will post an explanation about why this process works when it’s not 11.30pm.

Miraculous

That aside…

A couple of weeks ago I cooked a little dinner for myself and the girlfriend, it was an impromptu affair. I was pretty happy with how it all went, the dessert in particular, which was apple in a few different forms. Good though it was I wanted to try and push it further so this is the dish I’ll be working on for the next week or so.

Originally it was served set in a glass, with an apple parfait at the bottom, some apple brunoise, granita, a caramel film and a quenelle of crème fraiche to top it. It ate well, but the balance of the dish was off, both flavour-wise and aesthetically. It needed more colour in it as well as some warmth to it.

The caramel film didn’t come out how I had expected it to, it was a Laiskonis recipe I scaled down, a decision which rarely pays off. In the incarnation today it was absent, I had intended to replace it with a caramel gel from the Eleven Madison Park Cookbook but I screwed up the process because I was impatient.

I think it looks better for being on a slate, the black offsets the pale nature of the dish to good effect. I’m still unhappy with the general composition though. I’ve been playing round with a few different directions to take it in.

I might look to make the parfait into a sphere and then freeze it and dip it into a gel made from apple skins to coat it. Obviously the aim is to recreate the look of an apple on the plate. I’d keep the granita, but I’m not sure where it leaves the rest of the dish. I might work caramel into the gel to coat it so that the warmth is there as a background note, maybe with a few spices to add some depth to the dish.

This may be as far as this dish goes though. For some reason I don’t feel as attached to it as others I am currently looking at working. Next in line may well be based on raw cake batter… Watch this space.

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Apple Granita

100ml stock syrup

250ml good apple juice

Cider vinegar, to taste

Mix in a container and freeze, scrape it with a fork when you want to serve it. I made mine deliberately very tart and it worked really well, making it much more refreshing on the palate. Play around with it until you’re happy with it though.

Open the box, remove them all, unwrap each, slice 2cm line at the base of the stem, gently tear open a hole in the flower, remove the stamen, stuff with a piece of cheese, close hole, twist top and lay flat. Repeat.

To make it worse the courgette flowers are a fragile and expensive ingredient which will happily fall apart in your hands if they feel you’re being too rough with them. Balancing speed and efficiency with precision is a constant battle in the kitchen and this task was my first introduction to the struggle. Shortcuts can be found, but only ones which don’t compromise the final product. Sometimes the only solution is just to work faster.

If I lose time on this job then I’m rapidly falling behind on my prep list for the morning, this is a Bad Thing. The list might be longer or shorter depending on the vagaries of service, prep all week, the person on the station the day before. A long prep list and a delay on the underground and it’s an uphill battle all morning.

The feeling is similar to the one I had whenever I went to a tutorial at university without having done enough work. That sense of panic, scrabbling around for answers, dodging questions as best you could whilst desperately suppressing the feeling your head is going to explode. The problem is that in the kitchen you can’t just make up a tub of prepped cuttlefish, it’s either in the fridge or it isn’t.

The desperate scramble as your brain gently fries along with the scallops in the pan, as the orders fall out of your head whilst you try and remember where you put the bloody sliced fennel. Redemption lies only in ploughing on, and each service gets easier.

There is a flip side to this of course, as with everything. The feeling of coming into the kitchen and powering through the prep list, starting lunch or dinner with a fridge packed full of everything required and dominating service is truly satisfying. Totally in control, the station becomes a pleasure and the dishes get banged out just how they should be.

As ever, most days tend to fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Sometimes you’re lucky and no one orders that egg dish when you know all the pre-poached ones you did in a rush weren’t really ideal. Sometimes you get shafted. That’s part of the fun I guess, the unknown, though that definition of fun which also includes ‘sweaty, pressure-filled work’ in it.

Four minutes are crucial, get it wrong and you’re already sliding into a bad day.