Pam Brunning

Your cheap chickens were probably injected with water. In the UK meat can have up to 10% water injected without it having to be declared. They even have multi needle injectors for over fish here!

My vote is that FD is not 3 star - always have said it. At least it looks as though Hilbark has the ambiance to support a three star restaurant. You need Le Manoir style surroundings to be truly 3 star,(its inconsistency that lets that place down). Michelin always used to take ambiance into account before FD days. I am not sure Byrne has the capability of 3 stars but I have only eaten his food once so it will be interesting to see.

An interesting video Chris. I was pleased to see they addressed the microbiological angle. The technique is alright under controlled lab conditions but open to all types of problems when you get amateurs playing around with such a procedure. Sooner or later someone is going to get seriously ill. The process is not that new - in the eighties Albert Roux set up a factory in south London to produce sous vide for the restaurant trade - it didn’t take on and he had to sell up we bought some equipment in the sale. Of course the idea became more popular when the name was changed from the English - ‘Boil in the Bag’ to the French sous vide. In the UK boil in the bag was the lowest of the low form of cooking, I think it is funny how, since Blumenthal resurrected it, it is now being hailed as the wonder way of cooking. I have had some superb duck breasts rendered in a dry pan. Anyway the reason you cook meat with the fat on is to baste the meat and give it flavour. You can’t do that if you remove the fat. I have had some very good mutton cooked sous vide - old tough meat is the perfect medium. I have had some lovely steak rendered grey and horrible. I came to the conclusion a long time ago with this thread that the principle use of the site was to sell expensive equipment or books.

Just roasting some chicken wings - how about skinning them and sous vide them I think you are going OTT and making a farce of sous vide - a brilliant method of cooking in some circumstances.

If you know what you are doing there is no problem cooking a duck to perfection whilst rendering the skin properly with conventional cooking

Why bother cooking a duck sous vide unless it is an old breeder, a quality duck roasted for the right period will have a lovely crispy skin without all that messing about. I don't know where you sous vide people come from sometimes.

The shop at their warehouse in Basingstoke is not daunting - there is a friendly atmosphere and it is a very interesting wine shop but expensive.

I agree entirely with Phil - if you eat out at weekends you must expect crowds especialy at holiday time in a holliday destination the out of order part was the reply you received. So many restaurants suffer from 'Gordon Brown' disease - they don't know how to apoligise.

Sorry you have lost me - who are the Grayson Brothers? I have a friend who swears by BB&R, I must pull his leg about it. He is a Francophile though - I wouldn't expect BB&R to stock much Argentinean wine.

Thank you very much I will give it a go.

I am serving a very soft scallop pâté which needs Melba toast or something crisp with it for a texture change. The trouble is every time I make Melba for a lot of people, because I leave it to the last minute and there is so much going on, I usually burn most of it! I never get evenly cooked toast anyway - I have tried fresh bread, stale bread you name it but it is still not good - any ideas out there?

Hi Daznz Don't know bakers gems we don't get them over here as far as I know. When I made puff regularly, to make thousands of sausage rolls, as I didn’t want it too rich I always used one third lard to two thirds butter. Beating in the lard and folding in the butter. Don’t forget that pinch of salt it makes all the difference. Strong bread flour of course. It’s hard work but worth it.

These are some very ripe ones I roasted last summer - I skinned, cut in half, concussed them, then put in the oven at 200° F for about 10 hrs with plenty of olive oil, garlic, thyme and sea salt on them. They kept under olive oil in the fridge well into the winter.

Why bother to stuff and make yourself fat with bad food when there is so much good food about? As a friend of mine always says - If a meal is good, I eat it and enjoy it, if a meal is bad I leave it and lose weight - a win, win solution

Yuck!! That sounds disgusting - I thought e gullet was into good food not rubbish

Sorry to upset you Shamanjoe - no mansion, no massive kitchen, no walk in cold room (since we gave up curing professionally) just an American True commercial fridge, bought on e bay, with no fancy ice makers bunging it up. Here are the results! Bacon caramelises nicely as we use brown sugar in cure. The mushrooms are from the garden. The brine crock will hold a whole gammon and a belly.

I have found this thread very interesting. Having read you all going on about Julia I decided to dig out Mastering the Art. My first paperback copy, purchased in about 1969, fell to pieces with use and I invested in a hard back later in the 70’s but it has now sat in the bookcase for about 20 years, without use. Last night I had a half shoulder of lamb to braise as the other half, roasted, was a bit chewy. I decided to dig out Julia. Stuffed shoulder of lamb - elaborate stuffing, a lot of work - duxelles of mushrooms, cooked and chopped spinach, onions, garlic, breadcrumbs, herbs etc. Cook it all up, stuff it in the shoulder sew it up - braise it with wine, stock, veg, herbs etc. It produced lots of intense flavours, all their own individuality was lost, the lamb flavour was also lost, it reminded me of my mother-in-law’s cooking where she would throw everything she had in the larder in the pot. Today my cooking is much more refined - I want to taste all the individual flavours in a dish - I think we have much better quality ingredients these days, we don’t need the flavours all jumbled up and lost. Julia’s is very retro cooking. Having said that I am catering for a 1970 dinner next week with 1970 wines so maybe I should be looking at Julia’s ‘sauce for venison’ to go with my saddle but I think I would rather keep it simple with the jus and maybe a touch of chocolate.

Le Manoir is the best out of that lot when the boss is there and they are doing things right. It has the ambience which most of the others havn't got, at least you can see what you are paying for.

A Union Jack just means they were packed in the UK

Can anyone tell me where I can get a 48 blade one in the UK?

Sad to say probably all head meat is coming from Poland labour is a lot cheaper out there, all our pig head boners will be on benefits

Ditch the freezer and buy a bigger fridge!

I think your reaction was about the same as ours John - some great dishes some not so great but an experience. We decided it was a one off event - it had to be done. I can go one better than you - we have been to the ‘Best restaurant in the World’ - it was when we went and it cost less in those days, mind you the menu sounds about the same. I am disappointed you didn’t take any photos!

Why freeze? If you are curing your own just keep the brine crock going in the fridge, cure in small joints, take your piece of bacon out when it is ready, keep it on a tray in the fridge to dry off and slice every day when you want it. If you do need to keep it for longer than about a week vacuum pack it - it will keep for several weeks but why cure more that you need in the first place? It will carry on curing in the vac pack. We have been curing hams and bacon for about 40 years. Nothing is ever as good when it has been frozen, avoid doing it whenever possible, always remember the three f’s, - freezers f*** food!

No David they don't need a special licence - it is economics. A small abattoir sells their pigs as a whole or half carcase they then get the same price for the head as they do for the legs etc. Only a bacon factory will bother removing the head meat - it is hardly economicaly viable with the mimium wage as it is today. At one time Bowyers bacon factory had a line of about 30 head boners all paid a pittance - the meat would go into pies etc. One factory I know would sell all its pig heads to the local circus for the lions! Sainsburys have their own bacon factorys in East Anglia you might get them in the Sainsburys over there but I expect they all go into manufacturing. All the tales you get told are because butchers can't be bothered with them, they are not worth the effort.