MobyP

OT - but are those books for cooks compendiums any good? And which ones have tatins in (like the way I swerved to save myself??)? Tarka's Clash of the Tatins! Step forward all ye who quake with fear and fancy a good nosh. [Edit for new set of glasses]

I think the thing that trips up most first timers is not (as Rowley Leigh says) being brave enough. You really have to let that caramel head towards the deep golds and early browns before you throw it in the oven with the pastry.

Be bold and great forces will come to your aid!

Have you found these in the UK?

are you setting out this morning to provoke me? Braeburns! Braeburns! Braeburns? Braeburns! You dare to insult my grandmother?!? My family crossed the Russian Steppes to bring me to this country and you say Braeburns!! Right - now where do I get those illicit insulin medical supplies. I know nothing about anyone who would agree to massage a pancreas.

Jackal - could you give us your red onion tarte tatin recipe? That sounds amazing. I've done it with endive before. How long (and at what temp) do you cook the onions?

Actually, I'm going to disagree with you on this one. If you make it with sufficient water-based caramel and then dot the butter over separately, the apples cook in the caramel and are beautifully translucent, then the butter melds with the remaining caramel and lo, you have sauce. But I do completely agree about the caramel. Must be live-on-the-edge verging on burnt. Mmmm. And, of course, the whole thing to be served with cream, "to cut the richness" (© Fi's Mama, circa all of her life). Fi Ok - first of all - you're not allowed to disagree with me because I'm very very important around here, and with a snap of my fingers... well, let's not find out what would happen, shall we? Secondly, we might have to have a competition. And when I say competition I mean a highly scientific and well-moderated objective doo-dad where I leave you begging for mercy at the very perfection of my tart. Hmm, that didn't sound quite right. Still, it's the feeling that counts. Ok, maybe not. (And that last one you had wasn't my best game, so I demand at very least a rematch!) Tarka-the-judge is off to Chicago for a month. Now I'm not saying I'm competitive, but who'd be on for a death battle of tarte tatins? How do we arrange it? How do we judge it without going into insulin shock? And it has to be cox apples. Their main benefit is their sturdiness. They're not over-sweet, and hold-up under high temperatures.

Hmm - I wonder if this isn't closing the hatch after the cockerspaniel has poodled - the problem for me is that where I live it's practically too late. We're talking about the death of the high street. Those who still have a good local butcher, a conscientious greengrocer, or a fishmonger with high turnover are few. I too would be very happy to give up superstores. I'm fortunate in having some off the above - including a veg market on North End Road around the corner from me - but to get anything orgaanic I have to go over to Nottinghill or the turgid depths of Kensington if I'm to avoid a supermarket. The other problem - for those places "just beyond local" - it's the absence of parking, or the lack of immediate transport. Well, maybe I'm just moaning. I shall have to ponder this...

Exactly - you want to be living on the edge - like when you can smell ionised air before a storm - you want to just taste the first tinge of burnt sugar. I'm going to pass this one over so the other kids can play as well. Oh, and definitely puff.

I think it's important (and simpler) to cook the apples and sugar butter together - preferably in a straight-sided saute pan - that way you get an apple flavoured caramel, rather than caramel with apples. Also - you need that caramel to darken sufficently. Too many people under cook their tatins. I use the larousse method. About 200g butter, 200g sugar! [edit to add: bad people for posting this here!]

Lizard. Or maybe goat.

The ravioli with egg yolk (surrounded by spinach, ricotta) is a claasic old school Bologna dish - often served with flecks of black truffle. You only need to cook it for a couple of minutes, so the yolk is cooked enough, but still runny.

Were you there last Autumn as well, or was this the first time you'd been? I'm glad you got to try it. I can't remember the prices we paid this spring, but I seem to remember it was in line with what Ramsay was charging - generally below both Waterside and Gavroche (neither of which I've tried), and certainly far beneath the standard three-star prices in France for what it (of course) exceptionally labour intensive food (as all food at that level is. And yes, it's obviously silly to compare prices defined by criteria like 3 michelin stars, but most other criteria seem even more arbitrary). Is Heston's reputation for hyper-creativity? In the standard sense of haute-cuisine, I would agree that that might be inaccurate. The Troisgros had Salmon with Sorrel sauce; Heston has snail porridge or sardines on buttered toast ice cream. Or white chocolate with caviar. But, then again, I'm not sure I'd be able to recognise hyper-creativity if I came across it, as this surely has something to do with context, and I have only been eating seriously for a few years now. I was far more shocked and moved at Gagnaire's creativity than by Blumenthal's. Still, I found the Fat Duck unusual and delicious. I think rather what interests people and other gourmands and chefs has been two things: his reassessment of what preconceptions we bring to the meal, and exposing those to you as a diner (so tastes, textures, sensual illusions), and his reworking of obscure cooking techniques into their quantum components - in a wizard's apprentice sharing secrets kind-of-way. Do you want to go into particular dishes? Did you have the tasting menu, or alc?? Were there any courses that you found interesting?

You mean Marylebone High Street - Patricia's place La Fromagerie is famous in London - her cheeses are on 3/4's of the high end menus (Aikens, for example). Her original shop is up in Islington. I guess in the last year she opened the bigger place off Marylebone High Street (next to the great Ginger Pig) with that long table so people can sit down. I've never eaten there, but they do sell the best pancetta tesa in the world (which they bring over from Italy regularly). It's pretty expensive, but the much of the food is immaculate.

Well - they certainly were incredibly light - and very delicate; a couple disintergrated from man-handling (unfortunately no pics). I suspect that the spinach would give them just a little more substance, a heft. Without the spinach, next time I would add 50g or so of flour - or maybe a little mashed potato. Ok - I looked it up. Bugialli (who I think reinvented the nudi idea) uses 5 egg yolks for every half pound (225g) of ricotta (plus large quantities of spinach, parmagiano and gorgonzola) - and then rolls them in flour. So - if you want to stay away from the spinach, you'll need to up the egg count, anyway. Although Jamie Oliver doesn't use any eggs - so it's up to you! Hope this helps.

The former poster (who wishes to remain anonymous), apparently has some connection with the immigration service, and reiterates that they would rarely target illegal Chinese workers due to the massive difficulties removing them. Presumably the immigrants destroy their paperwork because But (to return to food and restaurants). is this only an issue for Chinese restaurants, or do we see this organised behaviour in other parts of the catering industry?

I saw some buffalo ricotta in the market this morning (and some quail), so I thought I'd give it a try myself (as I realised it was also pretty good for my diet). So - making a half recipe - I mixed 250g drained ricotta with 1/2 a cup of pecorino sardo and 1/2 cup of grated parmagiano, an egg yolk. salt and pepper. Then, using 2 spoons, I made rough quenelles and placed them on a well-floured (semolina) tray. I found a J Oliver trick of rolling the gnocchi in the semolina, and leave for a couple of hours to firm up. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I received this via pm re: the article on illegal immigrants:

How many people who make their own terrines actually have a meat grinder? Or is the preference for a food processor from the freezer?

This strays into the realm of French style gnocchi. I think there's a Elizabeth David version somewhere. Basically, for every pound of ricotta, use one egg, 1-2 cups of parmagiano, salt and pepper to taste. If the ricotta is very wet, place it in a cloth-lined sieve for a few hours. You have to be careful, as this is a relatively unstable mixture. Mix well, then use two spoons to form quenelles (you can use your hands, but it might get a little messy). Place each quenelle on a tray sprinkled liberally with semolina (to stop them from sticking together). Poach them in sub-boiling water until they start to float - a couple of minutes. You might want to test a couple first and see how they turn out. If they feel a little loose, you could mix in a second egg, adjust seasoning etc. Serve with melted butter, fried sage, fresh black pepper, and parmagiano. BTW - you can alter these in a number of ways. I've mixed in asparagus puree (blanch until soft, then blitz in a food processor, add to mix), but you could use a spoon or two of pesto, or tapenade (for an olive taste), or make a walnut sauce with olives and parmagiano, and use some of that, then serve with walnuts, or serve plain with some pancetta, or soak and puree some sun-dried tomatoes and add those etc...

Who's the chef there at the moment? Scott, you going again for Lunch any time soon? Maybe I could do a raid into town and join you.

Went here last night, very excited as my first time, and had a thoroughly mediocre experience. The room is old style victorian - wood panneling and beautiful stone work - superimposed with entirely meaningless glass screens. In fact, almost every diversion from the original room was in poor taste, other than some beautiful statues of Ganesh and others. The menu looks lovely - plenty of imaginative ideas there - but the execution was consistently poor to very poor. Almost everything was overcooked. To start we had an amuse of pulses in a yoghurty emulsion - fair, but none of the excitement you should feel with an amuse. To follow: the prawn platter and Zaika platter. I don't remember everything on these. One of the prawns was batterred and fried - but the batter was 'doughy,' with an unpleasant mouth feel. Then a 'risotto' with shrimp - the rice was pretty dry (I don't know why they thought to call it 'risotto'), the small shrimp crunchy with some kind of batter (again). Then an enormous prawn, butterflied, and sauteed or roasted with spices, with coconut. This was okay, but overcooked (a theme of the evening). On the Zaika platter, some sepia-coated chicken was pretty mild. A duck kebab was almost entirely tasteless. Then a nice piece of salmon with yoghurt and dill - probably the best of the lot. For mains, I had the duck breast with wild mushroom naan, black lentils, mash. This was a nicely designed dish, but the duck was completely over-cooked. I asked for med-rare, and they brought it med-well. The other tastes on the plate were pretty good, otherwise. Including truffle oil, which worked surprisingly well against all of those spices. Kate had the butter chicken, which came with a tomato chutney ice-cream. The latter tasted very nice, btw. The chicken was cooked well enough, but the sauce was rather empty and flacid and not heading in any particular direction. A great butter chicken is a luxurious dish when done well. This was just a bit of menu filling. Finally a leg of lamb biryani, cooked in a pot with a pastry crust. This tasted good, but again was entirely over-cooked. All of the elements were bone dry and piping hot. We declined the desert menu - which looked pretty interesting - we were too stuffed. The total, with three beers, one glass of wine, and a bottle of water came to £123. That's £40 a head without desert - too much for that level of cooking.

I thought the steak looked pretty wobbly and undercooked when he cut into it.

Jimbob and Plutocrat - welcome to eGullet!

Champignon Sauvage is that general area and supposed to be superb.