MobyP

The white truffle menu has been announced. Menu Tartufi di Alba Seared Day Boat Scallops, Boston bibb lettuce velouté, shaved white truffles Homemade Foie gras/tapioca ravioli, sunchoke broth, tartufi di Alba Blue foot chicken breast fillet, vegetables “en blanquette”, Albufera sauce, white truffles Truffled Brie de Meaux Asia/ Bartlett pear, soft cake, “Vin Jaune granité”, white truffles essence foam $ 290 Per Person

It may not surprise you, but I for one would gladly pay 100 quid for a truffled black pudding rolled the thighs of a nubile virgin. But maybe that's just me.

I'm intrigued about how he succeeds with so many courses and so many intricate preparations whilst still being on his own. Is there any chance someone could convince him to write/record a day in the life? How many of these meals can he pull off in a week? How many days prep for each meal? Might someone ask?

Certainly. I'm using a burner which I think is in the 15,400 btu range. Admittedly I'm loading the pan, so would expect a certain heat loss, but was surprised that it was less in the pentole than in the mauviel. I found (on this site) the following: Unfortunately, after several decades, the original company went bust and sold off its different ranges. I don't know if this one is still made.

As with you, I noticed I could keep a higher heat for searing steaks or chickens etc. When making jus, and have a pan full of scraps to brown, the copper will lose heat and so become 'sticky' much faster than the old cast iron. I also have some s/s pieces from an Italian range of pans - the company is calle Pentole - that I've only ever seen in the UK. I believe they have a copper core. Regardless, the (even) heat they maintain is unbelievable, certainly higher than the mauviel. Not what I was expecting.

I find the day to day stuff harder and harder to pull off, though having a six month old and rather picky companion doesn't make it any easier. You know, it's just getting food on the table every night. Some days I barely have enough energy to open the fridge door. Oddly, I still enjoy the feast cooking, the difficult things I've never attempted before, partly (I realised the other day) for the physical demands they place on me. I have a baby tonight that starts crying when I put him down or pick him up. He cries when I feed him, or don't feed him. My head is beginning to pound. And I have 6 very large chicken thighs in the fridge that need cooking or they'll spoil. But you know what, it's just more than I can do tonight. So I pick up the phone and order a curry...

Sam - I realised the other day that of all the things that have changed about my cooking in recent times, nothing has changed more than the way I think about applying heat to proteins or liquids; and most of that has been affected by your course. Salut. Interestingly, it has lead me away from much of my copper, and back to the cast iron and copper-core s/s, as I realised that I value more the ability to maintain heat these days than I do the rapid trasfer in either direction. And as I thought more about it, I started noticing different recipes (for instance with Ducasse and all his jus instructions) that call for the cast iron, rather than copper s/s. I still prefer the copper for all liquids reduction or simmering, but it loses too much heat with proteins.

Susan, it looks like a great meal. Have you ever thought about making your own puff pastry? It's really not diffficult, and tastes so much better than store bought. Also, once you portion it out, it lasts for a good couple of months in the freezer.

Here's the final dish... crayfish tortelloni with a fumet saffron foam, and crayfish jus. It was prettty nice. I used half the meat from the crayfish and pureed it with some cream, lemon zest, salt and pepper, and chopped the rest of the crayfish into large pieces, and mixed it together. A lovely texture.

Beautiful potato and veg thingy, Matt. A lunch party for some egulletees for very great services rendered... To start, a torchon of foie, poached in gewurtztraminer and veal stock, which I clarified and served as a gelée. Also Pain Poilane, and figs poached in a fennel red wine syrup. Then crayfish tortellini with a fumet safron foam, and crayfish jus. Then (apologies for picture quality) Roast chicken stuffed with herbs, sauteed cépes, and artichokes with a chicken jus. For dessert, chocolate tart with vanilla cream, and freshly baked lemon madeleines.

8 quid a kilo! Compared to the £24-28 for Langoustines...

Nancy Silverton sold La Brea Bakery - which used to supply the whole Los Angeles area, to an Irish company or consortium for 10 million smackers. That must make her the richest baker in the history of mankind (excepting the guy who produces the baps for McDonalds...). I imagine she gave them the starters, the recipes, and then laughed all the way to the bahamas in her bikini. BTW, the Los Angeles stuff was, in my opinion, much better than the LBB stuff I've found here. More rustic, with a fantastic flavour. This stuff fells a little homogenised, by comparison. Jack - do you have her book? I think you (of all people) would consider it a pretty good piece of work. Very thorough, certainly.

Jon - Rex Goldsmith, a very good bloke who runs Chelsea Fish around the corner from Tom Aikens took a special order for Crayfish, and brought me a large bucket of wriggling, beclawed, viciously armoured Steve McQueenies, all leeping for the rim of the bucket and trying to make the great escape.

I always heard it was 'Our Friends' of New Jersey (no, not the Perlows), and the pork lobbyists who started a scare story about 'European Swine Flu' - something you may not be too surprised to hear, no European pig farmer I've spoken to has ever heard of. Yes you'll get Pata Negra, but they've forced the producers to change the method of production for US importation, so it won't be the stuff you'd get in Spain. Like, I believe, they required the prosciutto makers of Italy to add another 100 days to the curing process. It's an older product. Again, not the thing you'd be served in the trattorias of Parma.

Sorry - another needles and thread question. Do you think it was an actual sabayon, thickened with egg yolks, or a 'sabayon' - meaning a creamy, frothy, saucy type affair?

Marc - I really like the safron idea. Thanks. Dan - what do you mean by flavoured syrups? Is that a sweet component, or are you uysing the term in some other way?

Gotcha. But how far is too far? I had a very powerful lobster jus at ADNY, but it worked rather well. The lobster jus had tarragon, so maybe that's a goer. Thanks. Wife allergic to shrooms. Dill is interesting, but it might be taking the dish in a different direction to the one I meant. Also, I was told by a chef that milk foams better than cream when using lecithin (which is described as a 'fat emulsifyer' in the health food shops, whatever that might mean).

A vanilla buerre blanc foam - possibly a frighteningly good idea. Or just frightening.

I saw a huge writhing basket of live crayfish on Fulham road at a poncy market, just next door (same side of road) as the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (coincidental? I don't think so...). Also, I've seen the odd wrigggler at Borough. I always thought they looked like mean bastards. Can't wait to tip them screaming into a pot of boiling water.

A tortelloni problem!

I'm making a langoustine or crayfish tortelloni this weekend, which I'm going to serve with a drizzle of reduced crayfish jus, and I would like to add a foam but I can't think of a good complementary flavour to use as the base (of the foam, that is). All suggestions welcome!

I wondered the same thing. Turns out it's one of those sealable jars that the French use for storage. In other words, they bring the small jar what ever it is to your table, containing rillettes, or a baba, or foie gras confit etc.

No - nothing to do with dark meat. Just roasted or unroasted bones. Although it's usually called blond or brown. So a blond veal stock is one where the bones are unroasted. A brown veal stock usually entails roasting - though Keller has his stock somewhere in between, by adding tomato paste to unroasted bones, his stock still comes out with darker colours.

It would be interesting to run a poll of how many people were influenced to try ADNY because of your reports. Perhaps you (or they) could begin to extrapolate a positive dollar value to the restaurant of all that comped food.

Thank you. A blow torch would make sense also, given (what appears to be) the blistering.