Happy New Year y Feliz Año Nuevo.
To Do: various recent recipes
Made the Carrot Puree again (see below) but with less pepper and I forgot the garlic (!). As usual everyone raved about it - but that means I can't get any constructive criticism. Damn.
Am cooking for some other people this week (family) and went on a little spree - hopefully I actually bought enough of the correct stuff to combine it into decent meals.
Key purchases were the fresh cod (filleted) and the pulpo (octopus); which will become interest things over the next couple of days.
The first step was to make a fish fumet with the remains of the cod filleting (which I let the shop do - they're pretty good at it and I didn't bring my knives on this trip).
This might be called a "pincho" if we were in the Basque country but we're in Galicia so it's just an appetizer.
Slice a baguette into pieces, thinish would be my recommendation.
Hard boiled egg - smash it up with
Anchovies - chopped
mix, and spread on the bread.
I would have liked maybe a little slice of roasted red peppers to top it off. And could have toasted the bread a little.
No foto - still having connectivity problems.
It was late, we'd been out shopping, then went to the Madrid city Christmas concert. So last night we just fried us up some steaks. 400 grams each (about 12 oz?) - and thick..
Got the frying pan out, splashed in a little olive oil (it´s a stainless steel pan - not non-stick). Heat on high until it's close as possible to smoking and the oil's real fluid and coats the pan easily. Toss in the steak -
Of course you all know what a Thermomix is, it's a blender with a built-in heating system. Cooks and stirs / blends at the same time! Quite unique one might say.
Today it was Carrot Puré (or is it puree?) - to use up stuff that I had in the vegetable box before it all went bad.
Ingredients: (all go in at once)
Yesterday I made Fabada - probably the 2nd best known dish of Spain after paella.
Basically it's a really excellent pork and beans.
Serves: 4 (maybe 6)
Ingredients:
So I takes a little loin o' pork and try to figure out what to do with it.
Several seconds of research on chef2chef yield a half a dozen choices and I mix several all together an come up with:
I only found foie mi-cuit and I wanted raw lobes. I want the fun of deveining them and everything. But with mi-cuit running from 60 Euros (canard/duck - Spanish) to € 160 (French - goose) a kilo (divide by 2 for $ per pound [I think]) - - at that price I'm not making a terrine today.
Maybe a nice pork roast will do instead. I'm thinking... a dijonmustard, maple, rosemary crust. I'll have to do some research. chef2chef.net here I come (a favorite research source for recipes).
Here I am, a week and a half later and still no new hard drive. It's on order though and is expected to come in about a week - a week ago. Ah well. (frown) .
Now working from the (new) home machine (ordered the same time as the drive). I have no connectivity between this machine and my camera phone now my PDA camera so no pictures.
No big deal for the moment - although pictures do seem to be important ot food blogs, especially for one who is not a great writer.
Meanwhile, word of the day: sennight = seven-nights; just like fortnight = fourteen-nights
This week I'm going to make a terrine of foie-gras (duck liver or goose liver). We'll see how it goes. Recipe to follow - probably.
It starts with 2 complete foies. That would be about a kilo (2 pounds for the metrically impaired)
ravioli (on flickr)
This is the first thing I've been allowed to actually cook during service.
It's a bacalao (cod) and veggie mixture (a sort of pisto) that's wrapped in long slices of cucumber, dipped in tempura and deep fried. The circle of stuff on the plate is the same stuff that's in the raviolis. There's a streak of a red sauce on the place and a dusting of fresh parsley flakes.
I'm quite happy about being allowed anywhere near the stove during service; it's a step up from salads and deserts. Feels somewhat more chef-like. Next step... something in a frying pan maybe?
Looking at the plating of this dish I'm not all that excited about it. The raviolis are nicely browned, fried but not greasy; crisp. But the ravioli on top of the swirl of sauce doesn't look "right" to me and the sprinkling of parsley isn't visually appealing. It needs some thought.
On Sunday I was experimenting in the restaurant's kitchen by making dehydrated zucchini in the microwave. The idea was to make zucchini dust, zucchini powder, zucchini flakes - - or whatever you want to call them. Real fine, lightly flavored, green, mini flakes of vegetable.
I'll do it again this weekend a make a foto.
The process:
Baguette Attempts
Originally uploaded by willsong.
Back in May/June I did a Boulangerie course at Le Cordon Bleu - Paris.
The chef (JC) was not too happy about this attempt. These 4 baguettes, from 4 different people, are supposed to be rather more smilar than they appear to be in this picture.
Better luck next time - maybe.
Today I made an excursion into Madrid to visit the Prado museum. It's a holiday today; the Feast Day of Nuestra Señora de la Almudena: Madrid's patroness.
In keeping with the food theme I went to find paintings about cooking. There were so few (¿none?) that I modified the investigation to search simply for paintings involving food. In this I did have some success.
The bird picture is by Goya; it's dead pigeons (presumably in a kitchen someplace).
The other one is by Bosch, it was painted about 1500 and is called "De Jardin des Délices" (The Garden of Delights). It's kind of weird freaky 1970's sort of painting - but done 450 years or so before its time. Psychedelic. There's lots of food in it. The theme is debauchery (and, one assumes, the evil thereof). And it doesn't seem fair to me that debauchery is being associated with food.
The exec "bought" all the staff a drink after the service. This is my Cardhu.
My 'stage' continues (unpaid work in an actual restaurant kitchen [training is what you would call it]). I work Thurs-Sun-day in a small, stylish, restaurant as 3rd cook in a two cook kitchen.
Usually the place runs at a nice even pace but this weekend (it's only open Friday to Sunday [Thursday's for prep]) we were very busy for both Saturday's & Sunday's lunches. Not overwhelmed but quite a bit of a peak in the middle part of each service for the main and at the end for the desserts.
The difference now is that during prior "rushes" I was shuffled to one side and my role was to stay out of the way. Now, I'm actually expected to contribute! So instead of being relegated to appetizers, petit-fours and runner I'm now plating certain salads from start to finish and doing parts of some desserts. And, in turn, having the chef yell at me for being too damn slow - which is true. But after making this same salad 8 times I've developed something of a rhythm and am fairly productive. Naturally I'm not allowed to touch any protein yet - that's still the sole purview of the head & the sous.
Was a a little birthday fiesta on Monday. This was the main table of food. (Warning telephone camera)
There was dancing (music of the 70s & 80s prevailed).
And a lovely discovery from the Ribera de Duero region of Spain: Torres de Anguix (shockwave link). There are so many good wines in Spain it can be hard to locate a specific one in the local shop so talking to the bodega directly is usually most effective.
In keeping with the Spanish habit we arrived (¿fashionably late?) at about 10:30pm; which was, of course, prior to the start of the dinner buffet. Things start later and end ... later; often much later.
For those who are into that sort of thing I am adding a link to the RSS feed to the sidebar (the links over on the right). It looks like this 
.
It's not there right at the moment; but should show up in an hour or so.
Still lousy picture taking - -sorry - dirty lens I think.
A variant of my prior Pot Roast - Sans Pot.
Except: smaller piece of meat, started at a lower oven temp, variants in the ingredients (although the principal remains the same, and I forgot to pan fry the thing before wrapping it in foil! Everything went directly into the pouch. It's in the oven right now. I wonder how it will turn out. (See bottom of recipe for adjustments due to this slight oversight)
Into the oven at 125c for 1 hour and them lower to 100 for 1 hour (or until it reaches 60c internal temp)
Remove and rest, in the foil, for 20 minutes - this is important, don't skip this step
Open pouch, slice and eat. Enjoy.
Fixing my mistake: The meat was fine. The "sauce" was not really cooked. And too acidic from the vinegar. So, remove the meat (cover with foil to keep warm); all the sauce and leavings go into a sauce pan. Boil. Reduce until it has very little liquid; cook for 5-10 minutes. The vinegar sweetens and the garlic and onions softened. Came out pretty well although the tomato pieces lost their bright red color and sort of went brown. But it tasted really good I was told.
Edited to mention browning the meat 1st; re-edit to add pic and the fix for the sauce.
Clearly I need to work on my picture taking skills. Lens got fogged.
My sis and her guy have been visiting and on their last day we wanted a special meal. So, we went to The Oldest Restaurant in the World, Botin; more accurately known as Sobrino de Botin - Brother in Law of Botin - - which is what the sign over the door says. It's been there since 1725 and had an eatery on that spot since 1500 something. That's quite a while.
We were seated in the "Filipe IVth" room - which is up 2 flights - a bit of a climb but quite lovely. They really pack the tables in so it's full/crowded but not as bad as (for example) your typical french bistro.
We had the obligatory, and well worth it, Suckling Pig (one, me) and three had the Roast Lamb. For starters we had Morcilla (of Burgos), Sopa de Ajo (Garlic Soup)[with egg] and Anchovies with Roasted Red Peppers. My sister loved the morcilla, as I do; that must be because of our Scottish heritage (it's a type of blood sausage with rice). We also ordered a green salad with onion for 4 instead of having the fries that normally accompany the meat. Wine was a normal Cune Rioja [lotsa wine at a reasonbable price]. The bill came to about €€150ish for 4. Not bad at all and really big portions.
Besides big portions the food was good too. Well roasted meat from their 200 year old wood oven. Delicious.
It's at Calle Cuchilleros 17, in Madrid; right behind the Plaza Major. Worth a visit. They're usually fully booked so reservations are advisable but we just dropped by at 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon and they managed to squeeze us in. The back-up plan was to go to Posada de la Villa just a little further away.
No pictures - I completely forgot; we were having too much fun to bother with that.
Tortilla de Cebolla Originally uploaded by willsong.
Also known as: Spanish Tortilla (Onion), Spanish Omelette, Tortilla Español.
The wine: a simple El Coto crianza, 2002.
The recipe: (serves 3 or 4)
How to:
I see that the oil from cooking is drizzled over the fish and that the puré de patatas (potatoes) has slices of fried garlic on it.
Those julienned roasted peppers might have the oil over them too - but that would be overkill as they're quite delicious all on their own.
Sprinkled with very finely chopped parsley.
I like this one.
Txitxarro (pronounce as chit-char-o), filleted, pick the tiny bones out, braised in a little oil (for color) and finshed in the oven (170c) [It seems that the pros almost always finish things in the oven].
Served with 2 (green) chiles, puré of potatoe and garlic, and julienne of roasted red peppers.
(phone camera - sorry)
Working in a kitchen can be fun - but it's not all about actual cooking. A lot is about making things smaller. Lessons learned: work on your knife skills.
Here is what I did in one day at work (our "prep" day - when the restaurant is closed). Actually, I missed taking pictures of a whole bunch of stuff but you get the idea. The day consisted almost entirely of cutting veggies into assorted sizes.
Then, after work, a burger and a beer at the local cafe.
I just spent the last 4 days at work (well, 3 1/2 actually) and took a whole mess of pictures of what I did (camera phone). It's going to take a bit to assemble the blog entry. Please stand-by.
According to the BBC the top 50 things to eat before you die are:
I have had to turn word verification on for comments since the comment spam is getting bothersome.
My sis is visiting from way far away & we headed down to the beach for some sun; thus I have not been blogging (have been tanning instead [not bad for October]).
Let's see what I can find from my camera phone - maybe even a pic with food in it.
Brochetta in the town of Almeria
On the beach terrace in Vera.
I also noticed that in the sofrito thing I posted below I should have put the hamburger on the bottom and the veggie mix on top. It would have been much prettier.
Sofrito y carne picada
Originally uploaded by willsong.
Some veggies & ground beef
Recipe:
1 onion
1 shallot
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 garlic glove
Burnoise very very fine (important!) -
fry in olive oil - 20 minutes or so
salt / pepper
No, I said very very fine. No, even finer. You ought to be making veggies "dust". The pieves will be as small or smaller than the ground beef bit.
cook the vegs 'til soft
add thyme & marjoram
keep cooking - it will reduce in volume
You dont want to develop any color - really you are poaching it, not frying
In another pan:
700 gr ground beef (beef only - no mix)
fry in a hot pan - not non-stick - you want some color to develop
add salt
cook until the liquids are evaporated (the sound will change)
add 1 tsp Picante Pimenton de Vera (hot paprika)
add white pepper
add a dash of Lea and Perrins
cook until the oil sort of absorbs the flavors (if you have good meat you can hear the change)
Add 3 eggs (beaten together lightly) while the meat is hot helps hold the cooked beef together
Plate with (big) rings
- layer of the vegs
- layer of the ground beef
decorate with tomoto wedges around the ring (hides the leaky juices from the sofrito)
and tomato slivers on top (hide the bland color of the meat)
Reportedly this was delicious.
A real winner and so damn easy. Made from what just happened to be in the 'fridge. The idea was a "sweet" (thyme/marjoram) base of veggies with a slightly spicy (pimenton) meat topping.
Seems to have worked.
Camera shot was from my new Nokia phone.
What with the new job, school starting again, no internet connection 4 days out of 7 & assorted other stuff I've been neglecting the blog. I'll try to get back into the rhythm again soon.
Meanwhile, enjoy this: Pigeon flan with poached pears - part of the new fall menu.
Got to meet the sous chef (Cyril)- a very nice guy. We chatted some about the mass of government regulations that the French have for running commercial kitchens. Also about sauces and how you have to make your own fonds.
Met the executive chef; he's got several restaurants and a number of Michelin stars in Spain.
Met (one of) the owner(s), briefly. He was passing through the kitchen and asked the sous who the new guy was (me); although I was not really "new" but just visiting.
Maybe having these contacts could eventually lead to some real work (maybe even paid work?).
Also got to eat lunch there; both the staff lunch (in the basement) and the menu (out front). Well worth it (the menu that is; and the staff lunch was not bad either). This place will likely have stars in a year or two.
And that's why I was out for a few days. A small, 40 seat, restaurant in a beautiful but tiny Guadalajarian village. There's the Exec, the sous and I'm the assistant to the sous; that is, the 3rd chef in a 2 chef kitchen. 4 days - 40 hours. And lordy but I'm tired.
The pic is a starter: terrine of foie, carmelized - quite lovely.
Second set of muffins. Did you know that it's about 900 grams of batter for 6 muffins? That's 150 grams each; but let's not count calories here. I'm actually not filling the cups right up (yet) so it's only about 120 grams per.
These are much better - bad a tad dry. Need to work on that.
These are, by the way, from scratch. No mixes for me; no siree.
Heavy on the cocoa - thus, delicious.
They're the cakey type of muffin, and you can see in the pic that they have a rather flat top; that was a dissapointment. Neither were the tops circular; sort of drippy and wierd mutant shaped.
Per the JoC the cause of irregular tops is too high a heat.
Not raising up well is due to too low heat. This may present a problem. Perhaps a different recipe is called for. I'm not happy with this one.
2 eggs
200 gr sugar
- mix those 2 together
130 gr flour (all purpose)
35 gr cocoa powder
2 t baking powder
- sift these
1 t vanilla
160 gr milk
- add all the above together & mix gently
160 gr butter (melted, cooled)
- fold into the above
6 large muffin cups
@ 350C for about 30 minutes
'til toothpick comes out clean
In the pan on a rack for 5 minutes
De-pan them
Probably the best pizza in the area of Madrid.
La Cúpula Pizzeria in Las Matas (exit 24 on the A-6). Hard to find, as so many good restaurants are. It's on Calle Goya. Small place; just a 1/2 dozen tables or so and a summer terrace.
Using a wood fired, italian built oven; mostly organic & natural ingredients. Producing Napolitana Pizzas. thin crust; hand rolled - made with care.
This is their Sicilian - delicious.
This was the place by the way; it's just a scan of their business card.
And I have a pic of one of the dishes:
Carpacchio of Pigs Feet
Well, photgraphically, I tried.
This came with a sort of sesame crusted filo tube in the center, filled with some greens. The toasted sesame seeds go great with the meat and its marinade.Update: Since so many people land on this post from internet searches I'll add their phone number:
+34 949 28 40 85
Today's lunch was lovely. The place: "nacha restaurante" in El Olivar (province of Guadalajara); about 100 km outside of Madrid (Spain). A little village of just a few hundred - with a top-class resto. In English that would be "nacha restaurant"; (yes, all in lower case). So you see, translations are not always that tough to figure out.Pre meal:
Wine: Enate Cab/Merlot 2003
Some olives to snack on (it is, after all in El Olivar).
A little shotglass of Gazpacho de Sandia (watermelon)
Starters:
Ensalada de Reo (trout, salmonish)
Carpachio de Manitas (pigs feet)
Mains:
Arroz de Pescado (I love a good rice dish - especially for Sunday lunch)
Mejillas de cerdo (pork cheeks)
Dessert:
Mousse de fruta
Quesos
I'll post some pictures of the actual dishes later. Meanwhile make do with this nice pic of the restaurant interior (and the wine). Note the newspapers on the table - it was, after all, Sunday lunch; a time to sit back, relax, and recover from the week just past - - and prepare for the week to come.
Update: Since so many people land on this post from internet searches I'll add their phone number: +34 949 28 40 85
Fennel
Originally uploaded by willsong.
Very pretty I think.
I got some very nice organicly grown Fennel (Hinojo) so it's going to be another attempt at fennel with fish next week some time.
This time I'll actually acquire all the ingredients in preparation for making it (i.e. Pastis). Might use some fish instead of the Dorada (Bream) though.
I've not had much success doing carrot cake either. So I'll try another box...just as a baseline; while I work on my own recipe.
Ingredients that seem to have worked (27 minutes @ 180C):
I'm not just making muffins from a box... today I also made a Crab Bisque. No pic (let's face it - soup is not generally photogenic) but it tasted really very good. Went lighter on the cream than the recipe calls for (lower calorie motivations) and substitute maizena (corn starch) for the rice flour to thicken it; maybe agar-agar would have been a good idea?
I've not had much success doing muffins here in Spain. It must be the ingredients (maybe the flour?); it certainly couldn't be me could it?
Here's some muffin ingredients that seem to have finally worked (24 minutes @ 180C):
Yes, it's a mix! For shame!
But, but, but... I'm doing this as an experiment; to have a muffin
that's a baseline for my future attempts. I will also be going to get a
Starbuck's blueberry muffin for further comparison.
This is how they turned out: taste is okay but too dense a grain.
Wise sayings from our LCB Chefs:
Sea Bream
White Bream
Pretty close; very similar you'd think. But no-o-o.
I was planning to do a Dorada (Sea Bream) and Fennel (after all, I'd been practicing - remember?). But they were out of Sea Bream so, since the White Bream looked so close I decided to take those. 1/2 a mistake.
There was no fennel to be found either - so I bought leek (not even close) and slow cooked/poached it, fine julienne, in a little butter for a half hour, to provide a bed for the fish presentation.
White bream is 1) bonier 2) smaller fillets 3) less 'fine' a meat 4) greasier (I think).
They also curl dramatically as compared to regular (Sea) Bream. I cut crosses / lines in the skin side of the fillets but they curled up anyway. By the way, the skin's harder than a Sea Bream's too.
And, in the excitement of doing 8 fillets simultaneously, I under-cooked 2 of them - drastically. I really completely failed to check on the doneness before plating them. Idiot!
So, with a little care you can use White Bream instead - but it takes experience (and using bigger fish to get similar sized fillets). Learn from your mistakes. I hope I've learned from mine.
White Sea Bream: Diplodus sargus sargus (Linnaeus, 1758); Family: Sparidae Order: Perciformes
