Baggy

Maybe this isn’t quite the same, but here goes. Whenever we used to order carry out food at our local Chinese restaurant, we could never get recognition that we don’t like egg in the egg fried rice. The solution – order of ‘egg fried rice – no egg’! Worked every time. And it’s not just ethnic restaurants. Ordering fish without chips (fries), only works when the order is ‘fish and chips, no chips’. Then we always have to confirm at least three times that we don’t want fries. I imagine, when everyone orders the same thing a hundred times a day, the wait staff are in automaton mode (but then, tips used to be paid before, not after, a service is provided). On menu terms, the precision of the English language often trips up menu writers, especially if the style is to use no punctuation: Egg fried rice (can eggs cook?) Fried cod balls (Chinese restaurant) Chicken with lemon, saffron rice, vegetables balls (airline menu) Half fanned ripe avocado (was it hot and exhausted?) Organic, matured, grass-fed rump (far too graphic for my sense of humour) Puke warm cocoons, simmered chives, calf knobs in cream (we didn’t try this one)

Devlin – way to go! Sourdoughs are like wines; you know you can finesse them any way you choose. French like their sourdough with no tang, SF like the sour to strip your teeth. Do you have a simple formula to stop your sourdough going sour or is it the way you make up the dough?

I can appreciate that many village bakeries in France produce pretty poor quality bread, but I suspect that 9 times out of 10 it’s because they are buying cheap flour. Outside of the towns and cities, many of the bakers are family and buying-in bread would be totally unacceptable. Often you find two bakeries even in a small village; one that everyone uses because the bread is good, and another that might have a better location, but sells bread that no one will buy. As to pain vigneron, the only reference I can find is in L’Art du Pain by Gérald Biremont (this is one of my favourite French bread books). According to his formula, you are right that it is a levain-based dough with around 10% added rye. The rye explains the colour. As you indicated it is a boule. In Prof. Biremont’s formula the bread has hazelnuts and raisins added – presumably this is why it has the ‘vigneron’ label. Do you remember if the loaf you bought had any fruit or nuts? Otherwise it might have been one of the many local variations that often are based on levain and rye flour.

I agree – good bread is hard to find in any country!

Hey, Max Frank, purely by coincidence, I’m going to be in Paris in a couple of weeks and staying around Bastille. Do you have any experiences or recommendations to feed back?

I’m not sure that everyone likes pickles,nduran, so why should everyone like sourdough? What I think is great about sourdough, is the foods that it matches with. The sourness often lifts sweetened foods (a bit sweet-sour). It’s my impression that, generally, food in the States both purchased from the supermarket and bought in restaurants, seems to have more sugar and pairs well with the sourdough taste. I am less taken with sourdoughs in the UK as the food – bread pairing doesn’t seem to work so well. As I hinted at in an earlier post, sourdoughs are technically necessary for rye breads, but for other bread made from wheat flour, it’s a personal choice and I love the variety.

I’m sure someone with intimate knowledge of French bakeries can inform us properly. But as I have heard, small typical village bakeries make up their baguettes by hand. Almost everyone has a mixer these days – which is a big advantage. What I love about French village bakeries is that when the bread is sold, the baker shuts up the shop! Logical, but frustrating that because of limited oven/prep space they don’t have room to make a second batch and, with bread prices being so low, there is no scope for making a second batch just in case a few passing visitors come by. In larger towns with industrial bakeries, machines are often used for making up baguettes. Usually these bakeries also wholesale to restaurants and patisserie/bakery outlets to get enough volume to pay the capital investment. I believe that there are specially adapted machines for rolling the fragile baguette dough, giving a good tension, but without damaging the bubble structure. You can find these machines in the US and UK, but without comparing side-by-side with the same dough make-up, I have no idea how comparable they are in making up baguettes.

Dessert recipes: Roast Plums, Honey and Yogurt Ice Cream Chocolate and Griottine Clafoutis Bitter Chocolate Tart, Parsnip Ice Cream White Chocolate Mousse, Raspberry Milkshake Citrus Soufflé, Hot Chocolate Ice Cream Panna Cotta with Raspberries ‘Rhubarb and Custard’ ‘Strawberry Shortcake’, Balsamic Ice Cream Tarte Fine of Peach, Pepper Ice Cream Tatin of Pear with Roquefort and Pickled Walnut Ice Cream I have only tried the soufflé recipe from the dessert section and, in case you wonder, the ‘Hot Chocolate’ is not hot, it’s drinking chocolate. It was relatively simple to do. The soufflé rose as smoothly and evenly as could be hoped for, only I probably overcooked it by a couple of minutes as the texture was just very slightly rubbery on top. The dish had a great taste and looked great on the plate. The hot chocolate ice cream is really unforgettable (in a good way). As with all the recipes in the book, most of these have multiple ingredients and are restaurant dishes. The photos are helpful both in illustrating the techniques and the final presentation.

Unfortunately, the mustiness of corked wine is because of mould growing in the cork. It means wines of all ages can suffer when a natural cork is used. Of course, using a synthetic cork or screw cap avoids this problem, but has other issues. There is no ‘best method’ of sealing a bottle of wine. Correct me if I’m too far out, but vintage can mean a whole load of different things. Unlike cars, where vintage is just another word for ‘old’, vintage means that the wine is from an identified year. This seems to be the only element in common across all wine-growing regions. More than that seems to depend on local wine regulations/customs. For example, for some French AOCs, vintage is only applied when the growing conditions and, therefore, the quality of the grapes meets the required high standard. So with champagnes, there are vintage years and non-vintage years, with vintage champagnes only being made with grapes from the specific vintage year. I suspect it gets more complicated than this…

I would also add that a bottle with a stained label, especially stained with wine and with a sticky cork, is likely to be damaged. You might want to pass on these.

Having lived in a hot climate for a few years, I can only sympathise with your situation. The wine used to be imported by ship, sitting in giant containers on deck and exposed to all weathers, direct sun and up to 50C heat. About 20% of bottles were completely ruined with no discernable taste left and often a slight brownish colour, even in a relatively new wine. To get reliable wine, we had to know the importers and check that they transported the wine with some climate control. It’s also not fair to say that the English cool their wine. I cool wine in the same way as the French – young, lighter reds and rosé is often better chilled as it takes the edge of the acidity. Heavier wines, such as Bordeaux, don’t take well to chilling as it can lead to tannins coming out of solution making it ‘bitty’. I would suggest that if you have to cool red wines to get them to room temperature, that you do it slowly (iced water would be a desperate measure). Most white wines are improved by chilling, but again ice temperature may be refreshing but only goes to mask the flavours. I think there is much more personal preference as to the best temperature for drinking whites (but they still have to be cellared at the right temperature 10-12C to keep well).

For the atmosphere and good prices Smithfield is ‘tops’, go early for the authentic experience as the market is all but closed up by 9am. Just choose the one that has the most appeal (and has an empty seat). Best time is to try around 7am when the market is starting to run down and the night shift at the local hospital is ending. For quintessential, but not cheap, try any of the luxury hotels around Oxford Street – Ritz, Savoy, Connaught, Browns, and many others. Don’t overlook the Wolseley restaurant for a good breakfast experience (it will probably set you back £20, rather than the £30-35 for the hotels). You might also try one of the many small cafes – the experience of sitting in a cramped booth, with a large plate of egg, beans, sausage, bacon and toast (and pasteurised OJ) is something you won’t forget. Strong, brewed tea is the best accompaniment. It’s heavy, and you may want some exercise before lunch. Looking at the menu card is helpful as many places serve ‘fry ups’ (and all-day breakfasts) even though the main dishes served throughout the day are Italian (it’s a history of the West End thing!). There’s a nicely run place in a side street opposite Selfridges called ‘The Lucky Spot’ in Audley Street (don’t know what time they open). And if you’re headed over towards Covent Garden there’s a place in Chandos Street (just behind Charing Cross police station), which I believe is called Porky’s Pantry. It’s often overlooked and not being on a main thoroughfare, not always so busy. Let us know where you go.

I’m sure there’s going to be a strong view on this, but if you don’t grow your own tomatoes, making tomato paste is an expensive folly. I worked out that (at UK prices for plum tomatoes), that it costs almost x30 more to make your own as compared with buying it from a supermarket. And, supermarket paste has a deeper taste (and nothing else added). Seems a much better approach to buy it and then add wine and herbs to get the thickness and flavour.

I went through a few of the recipes in the ElBulli books covering 1994 – 2004. The peak for croquant seems to be in the earlier periods with fewer in 2003/4. I don’t have the latest volumes (yet). I had to give some thought on how best to represent the recipes, given the large number and wide range of ingredients (there are probably 50 or more savoury and sweet recipes). Also sometimes the ratios change, so I hope this works for you: Originally up to 1998 the ratio of fondant:glucose was typically 53:47 by weight (no isomalt). In 1998, isomalt is added to give a ratio of fondant:glucose:isomalt of 50:25:25 (said to less affected by humidity). From around 2003, the croquant mix omitted fondant and changed to glucose:isomalt 75:25, but the ratio sometimes varied a few points towards isomalt. The most recent recipe in 2004, goes back to fondant:glucose:isomalt 50:25:25 The target temperature for making up almost all croquants is 165C. The amount of ‘taste’ ingredient, bacon, corn, beetroot chips, dried artichoke, ceps, black olives etc, typically is around 60% of the total weight of croquant, although this varied from 6% in the case of dried nori seaweed to 114% for Doritos. In each case the ingredient was added dry. The timing/temperature of when to add the ‘taste’ ingredient depends on what’s being added to the croquant. Forming the final shape is in an oven set at either 160C or 170C, and seems to depend on season rather than anything to do with the recipe (perhaps they had the thermostat fixed? -joke-). Other ingredients are added on top/around the croquant or used to fill the rolled croquant (but not mixed in) and varies between recipe and type of ingredient. I imagine this is more to do with how much is needed to cover/fill the croquant. I’m not sure if you have enough pointers from my description. It seems that the technique is pretty standard but with a creative use of ingredients and style of presentation. From the ElBulli website, you should be able to get a good idea of the different ingredients used. Shout if there is something more that could be helpful.

For one of the ultimate English language references, you might try 'Japanese Cooking: A simple Art' by Shizuo Tsuji (pub. Kodansha). It may not wow you with pictures and interesting stories, but it's absolutely solid and covers far more than sushi and teppenyaki. Well worth absorbing, especially if you have a few specific ideas you want to try.

Please don’t ask, just Google it!

‘Essence’ from David Everitt-Matthias is a book with a very structured approach and full restaurant recipes (i.e. complex and resource intensive). Temperatures and methods are well defined with a strong sense of the ‘right way’ to do things. Local herbs are frequently used that, unfortunately, are difficult to find in usual retailers (not dissimilar to Marc Veyrat). Generally in the classic French tradition with the typical English ‘lets improve it’ twist. I’m convinced Ramsay would recruit Everitt-Matthias if they didn’t stylistically cook in the same way and would, therefore, compete.

I have a pretty healthy appetite and can tolerate most foods, even when they are culturally new. However, slimy things have always caused me to hesitate and I always had a fairly distant relationship with tripe – English tripe; stuff that’s been boiled with lysol to make it white and tender (= gelatinous + tasteless). Andouillettes I can manage, but don’t like. Once I saw someone who was really ill in hospital drink a whole cup of lung butter – since then I can’t even think about tripe without gagging.

Tom that’s a great link, thanks. I’ve tried the patatas (good but tends to be a little on the gelatinous side of nice), mayonnaise (hot – fantastic with asparagus) and gin fizz – the gin fizz is now an absolute favourite, albeit I use the recipe from the Cook’s Book which uses a gin/lemon sorbet under a hot gin/lemon foam. I also use the cream whipper for making batter as in Heston Blumenthal’s book, In Search of Perfection. Strangely, I have never used it for whipping cream.

Another observation. I made another batch of baguettes from my trusted bag of Viron Classique Bleu T55 French flour, but using more water than usual (68% rather than the usual 62%). I can report that additional water kills the creamy taste of the flour. So if a US baker uses authentic French flour, but adapts it to the normal practice of adding more water to give a highly hydrated dough, then the baguette won’t have the typical French taste.

I saw an earlier posting reporting on the long 50C method for preparing steak. I tried it, and have to agree that the steak is juicy, but the texture is not buttery. My theory is that prolonged cooking even at lower temperatures not only degrades the meat proteins, making the steak more tender, but also dissolves or contributes to the liquefaction of other things that give it a creamy mouth feel (like collagen) leaving a rather grainy texture. Any other thoughts? I have also tried the method presented for fish and chips, except for the onion juice spray as I can’t justify the deliberate practice of atomising acid in my own or anyone else’s face. I won’t comment on chips, as I can only agree with our community that it’s almost impossible to get potatoes that are fit-for-purpose without going to a specialist wholesaler. I would however commend using the same general approach with frozen fries (blanch, fry twice, no desiccation step), as this produces a very significant improvement in crispiness without loosing the creamy centre. I followed the approach as closely as possible, including the use of turbot for the fish, and rice flour, vodka and an iSi cream whipper for the batter (wear an apron!). I found that the batter was very crisp and it stayed crisp through the time taken to finish eating. But the texture was dry and sandy, more like meringue than batter. I have tried the same general approach, using all flour rather than half rice flour, and it gives a more conventional batter texture (not as crisp and not as long lasting). I will probably try some different ratios of rice flour to see if I can get closer to my ideal. When using the suggested 220C frying temperature the batter was very dark and had a slightly astringent taste. I suspect that an initial temperature is fine, but it needs to fall to stop the flour burning. I tried frying at a closely maintained 180C and that seemed to give the nice golden colour without the burned flavour. As for the fish – I think there is a general problem with battered fish. If the fish is not fully battered, the fish itself is exposed to the oil and quickly overcooks. On the other hand, if the fish is hermetically sealed in the batter, the steam generated turns the fish to a soft homogenous mass. The only other time I have seen this before is when frying fish taken directly from the freezer (may not be recommended, but when there’s nothing else in the kitchen…) With the stiff, deep blanket of batter produced using this method, the homogenised fish texturally was similar in concept to a tube of toothpaste – crunchy on the outside with a soft creamy interior. The taste, however, was more appealing. The total cost was around £10 per person, but the flavour of the turbot was, if anything, masked by the residual oil in the batter. With cod the flesh seems more resilient to the frying process, giving a better texture and the significant benefit of almost halving the cost. I like the method and it has expanded my boundaries of making this regular favourite. I have already converted to adding 50% of liquid as vodka to crispy batters (not tried this with tempura batter yet), but will be sticking with cod in future. I wonder if anyone else has been trying some more of HB’s methods?

BryanZ – the principle is good. For those into banana pulp, vacuum packing peeled bananas and then freezing means that it’s possible to store them in the deep freeze without going brown. I also make up big quantities of fresh herbs for remoulade sauce – all packed in small pouches with a touch of lemon juice, which I then vacuum. Whilst the really fresh herb taste tends to go off after a couple of months (and the mix is not quite as green), it does mean I can have a reasonable quality remoulade sauce at short notice just by mixing in the frozen herb mix with some fresh mayonnaise.

Am I slow to be catching up with your post, ludja, almost 5 months late? Tom Aitkens – too complicated to be attractive, and the design is not helpful; but doesn’t mean it tastes bad! Made in Italy by Locatelli – fantastic; far better than the much promoted Silver Spoon, although by way of a note, the French version, La Cuillère d'Argent, was published in 2006. I haven’t tried Nobu West but it looks interesting… …and I’m sure you already caught up with HB’s In Search of Perfection – a book for reading and enjoying; the basic principle of improving simple English fare is not really what we would like to know from someone who is profiled as innovative. Basically, at least from European viewpoint, 2006 was a poor year for decent books, with Locatelli and ‘Essence’ from David Everitt-Matthias being the two outstanding volumes.

Not sure this is going to help your particular situation but this link is probably the best known in the UK: http://www.msk-ingredients.com/

Sure - give a few days & I'll take a look.