High-end savory dishes with easily sourced ingredients

[sheepish]

If I find myself with a few hours, or a day, unexpectedly free I like to cook. And I like to cook fiddly, la-di-dah stuff. Think French Laundry, Alinea, Gordon Ramsay, Fat Duck (OK, I haven't managed anything from there yet!), etc, etc.

But my spare time usually comes at very short notice. It pours with rain all day so I can't (don't want to) get out and get on with my farm chores. So generally I don't have hand dived scallops, live lobster, truffles (ever), and so on. I do have Sainsburys (a fairly ordinary supermarket, in my location) and that's about it.

So what are your successful dishes where ingredients are hard to come by but the faffing around is worth it. Substituting ingredients is very much allowed. I'm quite happy to go completely free-style but I like following recipes at least once a week because it helps me learn new techniques, approaches and flavour combinations.

My favourites in the above category so far are the veal breast on polenta dish from TFL with lamb breast substituted. And pork belly with Madeira sauce from Gordon Ramsay. Neither of these are *that* fiddly really, no problem wasting my time with something a fair bit more involved.

Any inspirational ideas?

[HungryC]

Yeast baking and sugarcraft/candymaking come to mind. Both can be technically demanding, with intricate technique, yet the raw materials are easily acquired and have a long shelf life. You could spend a lifetime with bread and still find room to improve your technique and never run out of potential improvisation. Can you make a really good sandwich loaf? Then move on to pain au levain, or baguettes, or croissants.

Souffles & meringues also present certain technical challenges; once mastered, they're good bases for improvisation.