olicollett

Well I have to say I think you would struggle to find a better pork belly than the one I cooked with this recipe last week. The meat was incredible - tender, the fat almost dissolving on your tongue. The Pea and Ham Soup was also great with the mint oil. One thing was I wasn't sure what temperature to serve it - I ended up settling for ambient temperature (I know Heston serves most food like this). Some people commented suggesting it was a little cold but I wasn't so sure, I thought that if it was too hot you wouldn't have the same refreshing feeling from the peas. I served the pork belly as a main on a bed of Choucroute (I used leftover gammon instead of smoked bacon) with the crackling on top, pomme puree with truffle oil and glazed carrots. Rich? A little, but very good indeed Finished off with the Lemon tart served with creme fraiche and some rosemary infused meringue. I was a bit unsure about the tart recipe - For the filling, it suggested just mixing together the egg, cream, sugar and lemon juice mixture before pouring into the tart case. The problem I found was that when I tried to mix the ingredients together it didn't really work, the eggs didn't really mix in properly. I ended up giving it a bit of a whisk before heating it up and pouring it in.

I think restaurant reviewers are very much a personal thing. Personally I'm a big fan of Jay, less so of AA Gill. That might have something to do with the rest of AA Gill's writings clouding my judgement though. One thing about Jay's reviews is that he seems to spend more time writing about the food than puffing out his word count by recounting a story. Then other reviewers seem to spend as much time talking about their company as they do the food. I realise there is a balance to be struck - a few food pictures along with brief descriptions of what they taste like do not really fit well with a newspaper, but I think on the whole Jay generally gets things spot on. And I can't think of many times where I have been disappointed with one of his recommendations.

Good to hear I'll be reporting on what I'll be doing next week!

I think some people mis-understood that recipe for the perfect steak - the 50C for 24hrs was supposed to accelerate ageing, it wasn't supposed to cook the steak. I'd say the key thing as people have pointed out is temperature. It's a shame your oven won't go down to 55-60C though, as any higher temperature will mean you are likely to still end up with the outside ring unless you have a fairly rare centre

jamesglu - do keep us posted on the pork belly, i'm planning on doing that recipe next week! Not sure what i'll be doing as sides with it yet though

No ideas? Thinking about just reverting back to the original salted caramel recipe...

Dave Arnold has covered this a few times on the cooking issues podcast. Essentially it comes down to personal taste - the higher temperature will give a more traditional braised short rib texture, whereas the lower temperature will give it the kind of texture you would expect from a sous-vide piece of meat, i.e. v tender but you probably won't have so much breakdown of the connective tissue that you will get at 48hrs - which is why he prefers 60C: http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/02/12/sous-vide-and-low-temp-primer-part-i/ Maybe try 58C as a comprimise?

Am I cheating by using the cling film method?

In no particular order, as it would take me forever to decide: Arzak Etxebarri Hertog Jan The Fat Duck Roganic Sat Bains The Ledbury Quay Dinner Galvin @ Windows - the scallop I had there was worth an entry alone Near misses: Mugaritz - Some hits, some misses.. nice atmosphere, some really inventive food but some of the main dishes really missed the mark for me Tuddenham Mill - V good food, service/FOH/atmosphere not quite there yet Hawksmoor @ Guildhall - had a great meal there last week

I'm looking for some help with a dessert I am planning to do in a couple of weeks time using David Everitt-Matthias' recipe for chocolate delice as a basis: http://www.lechampignonsauvage.co.uk/chocolate.html I've actually tried doing the dessert before but it didn't turn out right due to me screwing up the part where you whisk the oil into the egg yolks as if making a mayonnaise - I knew at the time it wasn't right but I'd used up my eggs and it was a bit late, and I ended up with a rather dense filling. This time I'm going to be more careful, but I was thinking of changing the filling to something like peanut butter and raspberry. Any thoughts on this? I was going to plate it with a raspberry gel and maybe some kind of chocolate crumbs, but I'm not sure about an ice cream which would work, possibly peanut butter but I don't want something to rich. I've no idea if the malted barley from the original recipe would work? One last thing, the recipe doesn't state what type of gelatin sheets to use - i.e. bronze/silver/gold strength. Should I stick to a medium strength to play it safe?

With regards to seperate temperature areas, I believe they are for serving temperature. For ageing, I don't believe you would need to store white at a different temperature to red, I think you would store them both at around 13C, but I could be wrong on this point. £1000 for 150 bottles sounds pretty good to me price wise, personally I wouldn't worry about the temperature areas and just plonk white/champagne in the fridge before serving, but it depends how fussy you are I guess!

I hope things went well - finally got around to visiting one of his London shops today and was very impressed, lovely staff too!

Heh And the ironic corollary is chefs who claim to be self taught but have actually done time in famous kitchens. Heston is a good example of this. For years the newspaper profiles banged on about how he was entirely self taught,went from debt collector to inventing triple cooked chips etc etc without mentioining a word about the fact he'd worked in MPWs kitchen. I think it was only when they got round to doing the big fat duck cookbook I finally saw a clarification on this (think it was a stage). An amusing inversion. J Tbf, if you've only done the odd stage, I think self-taught is a fair description!

I expect the pronounciation of Noilly Prat relates to the history of the Noilly name in a similar way to why the Moët in Moët & Chandon is pronounced with Mow-et, rather than Mow-ay. Just a guess though..

Beef shin is certainly a common ingredient in the UK, you can get it from most supermarkets - you would probably know it as shank It might be worth checking the back with regards to carrots, there's a section on using the book that explains when 500g carrots is pre/post cutting. 15 carrots is a lot! I've yet to try any recipes but I think it's a great book. I'm going to try the pea and ham soup, the pork belly and lemon tart over christmas time.

The only time I've struggled was at Pierre Gagnaire where I made the mistake of eating a couple of hours beforehand. Nowadays I tend to excercise beforehand as well, that way I go in hungry and there's no chance of not managing to finish - the only problem is alcohol tends to go straight to your head that way!

So, Janeer - if you booked a table at a small 2-3*, seating say 20 people, and only one person on the table actually ate, you don't think this is a bit rude? You don't think it might be worth notifying the restaurant before you arrive that they aren't actually going to eat anything? It's not hard to understand why booking a table for one is different to booking a table for 4 which is only really for 3, because one person decided to pig out at lunch!

Oliver, hope you don't mind me asking. How much was that. £150/head: http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/Cancellation-Policy/ Thankfully the person who dropped out paid (he had cocked up his calendar) but i was pretty shocked. 5 Days notice to change a table of 3-4 people - so if you cancelled a table of 3 4 days in advance, you'll be charged... £450!

David - Interesting point about the notice period. I had a similar thing with the Fat Duck, but we were just going from a table of 4 to 3. I think I gave them 48hrs notice but it still wasn't enough to avoid the cover charge

Oh no, not that thread again Pam! That put me off going to the waterside inn..

Hmm, depends what you mean by relatively small - I'm fairly generous but haven't yet managed to overseason a steak. You will get a residue left over but it shouldn't be too much and I just dry this off before cooking. I've found with well aged cuts you end up with a lot less moisture loss which I guess is what you would expect as you haven't got as much to start with.

I won't go too much into the drawing out moisture thing but it's a bit more complicated than that - especially if you're salting for 20mins or more Please do I guess your talking about the possible tenderising effect it might have but surely that would go beyond seasoning and towards curing? Well, my point was as per this excellent post on the subject in that after a certain period the liquid released gets drawn back in: http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/03/the-food-lab-more-tips-for-perfect-steaks.html I wouldn't call salting meat for such lengths curing any more than any other form of brining is - for me it's the perfect way to season the meat through giving it a much fuller flavour. I believe they do this at Goodman - I spoke to Jack O'Shea who said he always salts for 30mins or more before cooking. If it's good enough for him..

I won't go too much into the drawing out moisture thing but it's a bit more complicated than that - especially if you're salting for 20mins or more But yes as you say it's not all about the food!

I've only been to Goodman once, keep meaning to return but it's always been booked up when I've looked. Hawksmoor Seven Dials is always good, but the problem I have found with steak is that if you know where to source good meat and how to prepare & cook it properly you can do a very good meal with some friends at home for half the price and relatively little effort. One thing that did put me off Hawksmoor recently was discovering they don't salt their beef until just before it goes on the grill, rather than giving the beef a longer salting to season the meat properly. Apparently they prefer the results this way - fair enough I guess.

Definitely call them! Sadly as nice as the food is there it probably isn't the kind of thing you want to eat if you're not feeling 100%. I'm sure if you explain the situation they should be OK.