Have an absolutely jam packed weekend ahead but I think I've got it all under control.
Starting off this evening after work (Friday) I have some preparation to do for my demonstration on Saturday. Could end up having to make contingency plans on some equipment I want to use because I've not yet received the necessary electrical safety certifications (PAT Tests) for my mini oven and water bath, they've been tested and got the sticky labels to say so but I believe the environmental health guys will still need to see the full documentation as it's a public event.
I'll take the equipment anyway and if I can't use them I'll just have to adapt. The first 3 dishes on my mind only require pans anyway so it's not so much of a drama.
The first dish I'm planning on doing is similar to one I did at my last demo but jiggled slightly to bring it into line with the festive food theme. I'll be doing a Boxing Day brunch with a bubble and squeak style potato cake containing bacon and brussel sprout topped with a delicious soft poached egg.
Second dish I'm thinking of recreating the Thai Green Curry that I cooked for 20 people on Tuesday at my local pub but this time substituting the chicken for turkey so making use of the Christmas dinner leftovers. Might do quite a big batch of this or several little ones and serve it up in some cups with a bit of rice to hand out. Might warm people up on what I'm sure will be a chilly day.
Incidentally the curry and a pint for a fiver night at The Golden Cross in Twyford went down an absolute storm and it will be a weekly event from now on :-)
Thirdly I'm going to go for another dish using up turkey but this time as an open Lasagne. The turkey sauce in between the layers of pasta being nice and creamy and with bacon peas and a little bit of chilli. I'll top the Lasagne's off with some crunchy breadcrumbs.
Lastly I'm hoping to recreate the dish I did for the final of the competition, slightly tweaked to be a bit more seasonal and certain much better however this will require that I use my waterbath so fingers crossed on that one.
In between all this I have DJ gigs both tonight and tomorrow night in Reading so it's all going to be a bit of a mad rush. Never mind that though for next weekend I will be doing absolutely nothing else other than staying up late and watching the first Ashes test match. Come on England.
For those interested in popping alone to any of these goings on you are more than welcome.
Saturday I'll be kicking off at about 11:30am in Broad Street, Reading. You shouldn't be able to miss the event as it's right on the main part of the shopping area with M&S one side and BHS the other.
For the DJ gigs both are at Sakura, Reading and tonight I'll be in the VIP room starting at about 10:30/11pm and tomorrow in the downstairs bar from 9pm.
On Sunday if you fancy a pint I'll be in Twyford tucking into some real ales :-)
Friday, 19 November 2010
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Pressure.....
For the first time in ages I feel really under pressure. Had a complete waste of effort yesterday trying to pre-prepare the curry for tonight's pub feast, made a big batch of sauce up only for it to taste pretty bloomin awful...in my opinion anyway.
So that lot went straight into the bin however I did manage to get plenty of rice boiled up. I was going to make this into fried rice but seeing as now I have decided to just go with a nice Thai green curry instead I think I'll just keep it plain.
Felt ill all last night and had a really awful nights sleep just thinking about how I was going to save the curry night but I've got a picture in my head now so all should be OK.
Saturday is now on my mid too. Another demo for the guys who ran Reading, Steady, Cook. Looks like I'm going to be doing the whole show on my own but I'm worried as I've not yet got the PAT testing certificates back from the guy who did them and I'm going to need to show them to the environmental health guys when they come to do the inspection. Might be a rather different show with just two camping gas burners rather than having my portable oven and water bath too.
Not sure what I'm going to make on Saturday just yet. I'm thinking some Pork fillet with those marvellous vanilla potatoes, poached pear and parsnip purée and then maybe seeing as it's a celebration of festive food I was thinking of making an open lasagne with Turkey, Cream, Bacon, Peas and Chilli ?!?!?!? Oh and maybe some slow cooked Lamb with something or other, perhaps lentils. Anyway it's gonna take a bit more organising than anything I've done before but I think I should just get curry night out the way first.
So that lot went straight into the bin however I did manage to get plenty of rice boiled up. I was going to make this into fried rice but seeing as now I have decided to just go with a nice Thai green curry instead I think I'll just keep it plain.
Felt ill all last night and had a really awful nights sleep just thinking about how I was going to save the curry night but I've got a picture in my head now so all should be OK.
Saturday is now on my mid too. Another demo for the guys who ran Reading, Steady, Cook. Looks like I'm going to be doing the whole show on my own but I'm worried as I've not yet got the PAT testing certificates back from the guy who did them and I'm going to need to show them to the environmental health guys when they come to do the inspection. Might be a rather different show with just two camping gas burners rather than having my portable oven and water bath too.
Not sure what I'm going to make on Saturday just yet. I'm thinking some Pork fillet with those marvellous vanilla potatoes, poached pear and parsnip purée and then maybe seeing as it's a celebration of festive food I was thinking of making an open lasagne with Turkey, Cream, Bacon, Peas and Chilli ?!?!?!? Oh and maybe some slow cooked Lamb with something or other, perhaps lentils. Anyway it's gonna take a bit more organising than anything I've done before but I think I should just get curry night out the way first.
Monday, 15 November 2010
A whole week.....
It's been one whole week since I last blogged, blimey!! Reminds me of a joke actually.
What's the difference between oral sex and anal sex? Oral sex makes your day but anal sex makes your hole week?
Sorry about that but it had to be done.
So I guess your all wondering just what the hell I've been up to this past 7 days? No well sod you because I'm going to tell you anyway and I'm guessing that if you've read this far down without clicking that small cross at the top right hand corner of the screen then you probably have some form of interest.
Highlight for me was cooking food for 6 of my very good buddies (7 including my wonderful missus). Was a bit worried when the butcher rang me at 11am to inform me that my whole loin of Venison (all 1.8kg of it) had been delivered and that it was frozen! Oh no worries I'm only serving it up in 2 hours time....thank heaven yet again for the water bath.
Really quite happy with the way it turned out. The Venison was cooked to perfection, the hot smoked salmon starter that I pinched from Raymond Blanc was plentiful but still light enough not to ruin the main course and my chocolate pudding sent two of the boys to sleep so I reckon that was a success too. Bit angry with myself for not emulsifying the sauce for the main course but I think I'll get over it.
DJ'd at Sakura in Reading on the same evening and really enjoyed it. There was a good crowd in there which surprised me because it was ever so quiet when I got there and they were very responsive too. Took the music on many different angles though House, Disco, Funky House, Soulful House and even a small smattering of Tech house and only once did I get asked to cheese it up a bit :-) Normally it's about 4 times.
Yesterday I spent mostly with a few good buddies down the local boozer talking rubbish and watching football. Incidentally I called the Chelsea vs Sunderland score the moment I saw the line up, not just the Sunderland win but also the 3-0 result. Absolutely no way in the world we were going to even compete with Drogba as captain and Paulo Ferreira at centre back. Drogba played like a schoolboy and kept dropping back into Malouda's position meaning that he was cancelled out of the game. Couple that with Ferreira and Ivanovic at the back and we were effectively playing with 8 men. Ivanovic should definitely been sent off too. oooooopppps sorry about the mid blog footy rant off!!!
This weeks highights are as follows -
Tuesday - Cooking Curry for 50 people
Friday - DJ'ing at Sakura
Saturday (Day) - 4 hour cooking demonstration in Reading town centre
Saturday (Evening) - DJ'ing at Sakura again
In between - Spending time with my amazing girls and loving it :-)
Actually two other things!
Firstly I've been asked if I'd be interested in a new catering venture for private and corporate functions which has my interest buttons tingling but perhaps more of a revelation is the fact that I did not once turn my laptop on over the weekend !!! Crazy.......
Byezingtons.
What's the difference between oral sex and anal sex? Oral sex makes your day but anal sex makes your hole week?
Sorry about that but it had to be done.
So I guess your all wondering just what the hell I've been up to this past 7 days? No well sod you because I'm going to tell you anyway and I'm guessing that if you've read this far down without clicking that small cross at the top right hand corner of the screen then you probably have some form of interest.
Highlight for me was cooking food for 6 of my very good buddies (7 including my wonderful missus). Was a bit worried when the butcher rang me at 11am to inform me that my whole loin of Venison (all 1.8kg of it) had been delivered and that it was frozen! Oh no worries I'm only serving it up in 2 hours time....thank heaven yet again for the water bath.
Really quite happy with the way it turned out. The Venison was cooked to perfection, the hot smoked salmon starter that I pinched from Raymond Blanc was plentiful but still light enough not to ruin the main course and my chocolate pudding sent two of the boys to sleep so I reckon that was a success too. Bit angry with myself for not emulsifying the sauce for the main course but I think I'll get over it.
DJ'd at Sakura in Reading on the same evening and really enjoyed it. There was a good crowd in there which surprised me because it was ever so quiet when I got there and they were very responsive too. Took the music on many different angles though House, Disco, Funky House, Soulful House and even a small smattering of Tech house and only once did I get asked to cheese it up a bit :-) Normally it's about 4 times.
Yesterday I spent mostly with a few good buddies down the local boozer talking rubbish and watching football. Incidentally I called the Chelsea vs Sunderland score the moment I saw the line up, not just the Sunderland win but also the 3-0 result. Absolutely no way in the world we were going to even compete with Drogba as captain and Paulo Ferreira at centre back. Drogba played like a schoolboy and kept dropping back into Malouda's position meaning that he was cancelled out of the game. Couple that with Ferreira and Ivanovic at the back and we were effectively playing with 8 men. Ivanovic should definitely been sent off too. oooooopppps sorry about the mid blog footy rant off!!!
This weeks highights are as follows -
Tuesday - Cooking Curry for 50 people
Friday - DJ'ing at Sakura
Saturday (Day) - 4 hour cooking demonstration in Reading town centre
Saturday (Evening) - DJ'ing at Sakura again
In between - Spending time with my amazing girls and loving it :-)
Actually two other things!
Firstly I've been asked if I'd be interested in a new catering venture for private and corporate functions which has my interest buttons tingling but perhaps more of a revelation is the fact that I did not once turn my laptop on over the weekend !!! Crazy.......
Byezingtons.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Lambtastic...
Weekend over and I must say apart from the severe delayed hangover that hit me on Saturday at about 6pm it was a rather fun few days.
Great send off for my homeward bound antipodean buddies on Friday which somehow ended up with us having a fry-up at the Ibis hotel in Reading at 7am on Saturday morning just before getting home and going to bed.
A few hours of sleep and then I just had to get mobile so popped next door to the local for a few ales with my brother from another mother....hair of the dog most definitely did not work so there was only one thing for it and that was to download the brand new football manager 2011 game which I'm sure now will consume most of my time.
In between all this I got a nice DJ booking for new years eve but more importantly we got to eat the Lamb and the Beef that had been in the water bath since Thursday lunchtime.
Friday it was the Lamb that we had and the reaction from my better half after the first mouthful said it all really. The fork went down, the eyes widened and something along the lines of "Oh my god...Oh my god...that is incredible" came out.
It was just so soft, tender and tasty. Easily the best bit of Lamb I've ever tasted and all from one the very cheapest cuts that being the Neck. All in all that cooked for 28 hours at 54.5C. I wasn't sure what to set the water bath at with Lamb but seeing as this temperature is perfect for medium rare Beef I thought I'd keep it at that.
Most of the temperature charts for this method of cooking are from the U.S. and they themselves eat very little Lamb so it's rare that you'll even find a recipe in a book for this type of meat let alone for something so diverse as Sous Vide.
Seeing as Saturday was a write off the Beef brisket got another day in the water bath so in total that was in for almost 60 hours and again is was really soft and tasty. It actually looked well done when I was carving it but the texture was far from that and the constant 54.5C mean't that it kept all the juiciness of a medium rare joint.
Actually turned out to be quite a feast because to accompany it we had Roast Potatoes, Brussel Sprout Gratin, Chipolatas, Bacon bits, Broccoli, Green beans, Parsnip purée, Yorkshire puddings and lashings of wonderfully beefy gravy....yum yum.
Ok well that'as it for now....byeeeeeeeeee
Great send off for my homeward bound antipodean buddies on Friday which somehow ended up with us having a fry-up at the Ibis hotel in Reading at 7am on Saturday morning just before getting home and going to bed.
A few hours of sleep and then I just had to get mobile so popped next door to the local for a few ales with my brother from another mother....hair of the dog most definitely did not work so there was only one thing for it and that was to download the brand new football manager 2011 game which I'm sure now will consume most of my time.
In between all this I got a nice DJ booking for new years eve but more importantly we got to eat the Lamb and the Beef that had been in the water bath since Thursday lunchtime.
Friday it was the Lamb that we had and the reaction from my better half after the first mouthful said it all really. The fork went down, the eyes widened and something along the lines of "Oh my god...Oh my god...that is incredible" came out.
It was just so soft, tender and tasty. Easily the best bit of Lamb I've ever tasted and all from one the very cheapest cuts that being the Neck. All in all that cooked for 28 hours at 54.5C. I wasn't sure what to set the water bath at with Lamb but seeing as this temperature is perfect for medium rare Beef I thought I'd keep it at that.
Most of the temperature charts for this method of cooking are from the U.S. and they themselves eat very little Lamb so it's rare that you'll even find a recipe in a book for this type of meat let alone for something so diverse as Sous Vide.
Seeing as Saturday was a write off the Beef brisket got another day in the water bath so in total that was in for almost 60 hours and again is was really soft and tasty. It actually looked well done when I was carving it but the texture was far from that and the constant 54.5C mean't that it kept all the juiciness of a medium rare joint.
Actually turned out to be quite a feast because to accompany it we had Roast Potatoes, Brussel Sprout Gratin, Chipolatas, Bacon bits, Broccoli, Green beans, Parsnip purée, Yorkshire puddings and lashings of wonderfully beefy gravy....yum yum.
Ok well that'as it for now....byeeeeeeeeee
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Bathtime.....
The adventures in sous vide go on......
A couple of days ago I tried a recipe from one of my favourite chefs Glynn Purnell which he cooked for the Great British Menu series. It involved using Pork Fillet (Tenderloin) and of course involved using the water bath.
I was surprised to see that he only cooked the meat for 18 minutes at 62C as I assumed that you need to do it for longer but of course he knows better than me so I followed it and was unbelievably good.
Yes it was a little bit pink but using this cooking method ensures that when the internal temperature of the Pork fillet reaches 62C for more than 1 minute any trace of Trichinosis is killed off so it's absolutely fine to eat.
I finished these off with the blowtorch which gave the meat a beautiful golden colour and a slight crust.
Accompanying the Pork was a Water Chestnut purée (couldn't get any Jerusalem artichokes), Glazed Pears and perhaps the most outstanding part of the dish some Vanilla dipped Potatoes.
The potatoes are a revelation and very easy to make. You just set the oven to 130C and layer the bottom of a glass oven dish with 6 slices of potato about 1cm thick. Remove the seeds from a Vanilla pod and sprinkle these over the potatoes then just cover the whole lot with rapeseed oil, give it a bit of a stir around to get it mixed up well, bung in the empty pods too for more flavour then heat in the oven for about 30 mins or until they are soft. I suppose they could be described as a Confit of vanilla infused potato too.
The whole recipe can be found here
The whole combination of flavours was just immense and it's no wonder this guy has Michelin stars coming out his ears.
So this shorter cooking period got me thinking because about a week ago I cooked some Ribeye steaks in the water bath but I did them at 55C for about 8 hours and I was a little disappointed after that time to find them quite a bit smaller than I was hoping them to be, the flavour was absolutely stunning don't get me wrong and they were cooked perfectly to medium rare but I wanted to achieve a certain look with the finished article and that wasn't possible with what I ended up with.
After cooking Glynn Purnell's Pork Fillet it dawned on me that as a much more tender cut of meat I need not have cooked it for so long and in fact around just 40 minutes would have been fine so I'm going to give it another go this evening serving it up with some gorgeous chips (not my own creation but these and they are damn good) some Portobellini Mushroom and my own Chilli Pea creation.
I was also thinking of what else to try in the water bath so rather unlike my usual self I have pre-planned a couple of meals for tomorrow and Saturday.
For tomorrow I have a couple of Lamb Neck fillets all vacuum packed up and cooking away, these are going to cook for around 30 hours before I'll blowtorch them ready to serve up with some Parsnip purée and a warm Broad bean and Asparagus Salad.
The next meal will be Beef brisket which again is already cooking and will be doing so for around 40 hours, this is going to be served up full roast dinner style with all the trimmings.....Just what we're going to need after a rather massive night out on Friday DJ'ing at Walkabout, Reading and seeing our buddies the lovely Candice and Wesley back off to Australia.
Personally I think they are just leaving the country before our boys give their cricket team a good bashing during the upcoming Ashes series :-)
A couple of days ago I tried a recipe from one of my favourite chefs Glynn Purnell which he cooked for the Great British Menu series. It involved using Pork Fillet (Tenderloin) and of course involved using the water bath.
I was surprised to see that he only cooked the meat for 18 minutes at 62C as I assumed that you need to do it for longer but of course he knows better than me so I followed it and was unbelievably good.
Yes it was a little bit pink but using this cooking method ensures that when the internal temperature of the Pork fillet reaches 62C for more than 1 minute any trace of Trichinosis is killed off so it's absolutely fine to eat.
I finished these off with the blowtorch which gave the meat a beautiful golden colour and a slight crust.
Accompanying the Pork was a Water Chestnut purée (couldn't get any Jerusalem artichokes), Glazed Pears and perhaps the most outstanding part of the dish some Vanilla dipped Potatoes.
The potatoes are a revelation and very easy to make. You just set the oven to 130C and layer the bottom of a glass oven dish with 6 slices of potato about 1cm thick. Remove the seeds from a Vanilla pod and sprinkle these over the potatoes then just cover the whole lot with rapeseed oil, give it a bit of a stir around to get it mixed up well, bung in the empty pods too for more flavour then heat in the oven for about 30 mins or until they are soft. I suppose they could be described as a Confit of vanilla infused potato too.
The whole recipe can be found here
The whole combination of flavours was just immense and it's no wonder this guy has Michelin stars coming out his ears.
So this shorter cooking period got me thinking because about a week ago I cooked some Ribeye steaks in the water bath but I did them at 55C for about 8 hours and I was a little disappointed after that time to find them quite a bit smaller than I was hoping them to be, the flavour was absolutely stunning don't get me wrong and they were cooked perfectly to medium rare but I wanted to achieve a certain look with the finished article and that wasn't possible with what I ended up with.
After cooking Glynn Purnell's Pork Fillet it dawned on me that as a much more tender cut of meat I need not have cooked it for so long and in fact around just 40 minutes would have been fine so I'm going to give it another go this evening serving it up with some gorgeous chips (not my own creation but these and they are damn good) some Portobellini Mushroom and my own Chilli Pea creation.
I was also thinking of what else to try in the water bath so rather unlike my usual self I have pre-planned a couple of meals for tomorrow and Saturday.
For tomorrow I have a couple of Lamb Neck fillets all vacuum packed up and cooking away, these are going to cook for around 30 hours before I'll blowtorch them ready to serve up with some Parsnip purée and a warm Broad bean and Asparagus Salad.
The next meal will be Beef brisket which again is already cooking and will be doing so for around 40 hours, this is going to be served up full roast dinner style with all the trimmings.....Just what we're going to need after a rather massive night out on Friday DJ'ing at Walkabout, Reading and seeing our buddies the lovely Candice and Wesley back off to Australia.
Personally I think they are just leaving the country before our boys give their cricket team a good bashing during the upcoming Ashes series :-)
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Ashes to Ashes....
25th of November is the date of the 1st Ashes test of 2010 and I'm positively brimming with excitement. Despite our resurgent form and the lack of the same coming from the Australian team I think we have a great chance of keeping hold of that little urn.
I still wouldn't have us as favourites because in their own backyard Australia are a pretty fearsome opponent and they need no more incentive to win than simply beating the old enemy.
The Australian psyche is so much different from the English mentality. Every Australian will think that whatever competition they enter they will win. Even during the football (soccer) world cup every single Aussie thought that their team could win that cup whereas it was pretty obvious right from the start that English hopes were fading fast....I was surprised they even got out the group to be honest and I was tempted several months before the start of the competition to have a bet on England failing even worse than they did but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
With the test matches starting at 00:00 GMT it's going to mean getting nocturnal for a while and hopefully not missing too much to those inevitable naps during the breaks in play. Last time the Ashes were played down under I remember falling asleep after about 3 hours of play where hardly a thing happened. I thought I'd just had one of those quick shut eye moments but alas not because I'd missed about 2 hours and loads of action.
Good job I have plenty of holiday spare at work because I think I'll be needing it although the one bonus of sitting watching cricket through the night is that I can still work from home during that time and not miss a ball so good times all round really.
I still wouldn't have us as favourites because in their own backyard Australia are a pretty fearsome opponent and they need no more incentive to win than simply beating the old enemy.
The Australian psyche is so much different from the English mentality. Every Australian will think that whatever competition they enter they will win. Even during the football (soccer) world cup every single Aussie thought that their team could win that cup whereas it was pretty obvious right from the start that English hopes were fading fast....I was surprised they even got out the group to be honest and I was tempted several months before the start of the competition to have a bet on England failing even worse than they did but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
With the test matches starting at 00:00 GMT it's going to mean getting nocturnal for a while and hopefully not missing too much to those inevitable naps during the breaks in play. Last time the Ashes were played down under I remember falling asleep after about 3 hours of play where hardly a thing happened. I thought I'd just had one of those quick shut eye moments but alas not because I'd missed about 2 hours and loads of action.
Good job I have plenty of holiday spare at work because I think I'll be needing it although the one bonus of sitting watching cricket through the night is that I can still work from home during that time and not miss a ball so good times all round really.
Monday, 1 November 2010
Good Times....
Well I suppose that today was the start of a new era for me. Waking up in my new house with my lovely girls. What a morning it's been too because as we were up extra early probably due to the clocks changing we got to go into the village and have a nice breakfast before walking off to school and work. Yep that's right I walked !!
The weekend itself was pretty subdued not helped by the fact that I'd got really bad backache from heaving boxes around which mean't that anything involving standing up for sustained periods was out of the question.
Had a couple of friends over for dinner last night and I've definitely got the red wine head to prove it. Made some Duck which cooked sous vide produced the most amazing results, by far the best bit of duck I've ever eaten let alone cooked. I'm wondering what a pork chop would be like cook this way because I usually find them really dry and pretty horrid.
Also it's bought Turkey back up on the Christmas menu. I really think it's going to bring out the best in turkey which again is something I'd usually shun in favour of something a little more juicy.
It's a shame in a way that the sous vide method takes so long because I'd definitely use it for one of my upcoming cooking demos.
Laters Tatas
The weekend itself was pretty subdued not helped by the fact that I'd got really bad backache from heaving boxes around which mean't that anything involving standing up for sustained periods was out of the question.
Had a couple of friends over for dinner last night and I've definitely got the red wine head to prove it. Made some Duck which cooked sous vide produced the most amazing results, by far the best bit of duck I've ever eaten let alone cooked. I'm wondering what a pork chop would be like cook this way because I usually find them really dry and pretty horrid.
Also it's bought Turkey back up on the Christmas menu. I really think it's going to bring out the best in turkey which again is something I'd usually shun in favour of something a little more juicy.
It's a shame in a way that the sous vide method takes so long because I'd definitely use it for one of my upcoming cooking demos.
Laters Tatas
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