another secret...

Now that the season of salads is (just about) upon us, a word to the wise....

This stuff...

... (olive oil, in case you were wondering) will transform your salads into something truly wonderful. I wouldn't recommend it for cooking purposes, but for adding a finishing touch to a dish, it's absolutely the dog's dangly bits. It hails from a family-run estate in Andalucia, is organic, stone-milled, and has an unusually low acidity, giving it a fabulously smooth taste. What's not to like? You can read more about it here.

OK? Got it? Take a snap, and take it with you so that you can identify it easily next time you're out and about...

And no, they're not paying me. I'm just trying to find something to blog about while the kitchen work is STILL going on, and so now seemed as good a time as any. I use it all the time, and discovered it at my local fave deli/cafe, The Fat Delicatessen (who also use it all the time and were good enough to let me into their secret).

So there you go. Another secret. Just how nice am I??

The stress must be getting to me.

Ssshhh! A secret.... Foliage

So, anyway, what does a person do in London on a Bank Holiday? (Yes, I know Bank Holiday Monday was a few days ago now, but please. Indulge me. I've been busy.) Skip on out to the countryside? Go to an exhibition? Frolic in one of the magnificent parks? Take a boat ride on the Thames? Go shopping?

No, my friend. What one does is go to a very fine restaurant, take advantage of its very keenly-priced lunch menu (£29 a head), and enjoy a very pleasant couple of hours or three away from the hordes.

Well, it's what this one does, anyway.

I've been eyeing up Foliage for some time now. Not only does it have a Michelin star, which is usually - though not infallibly so - a good sign, but it's often spoken of in hushed terms as one of London's (whisper it) hidden gems. What that really means is that it isn't headed up by a chef who spends more time on TV than he does in the kitchen.

Actually, it's a bit of a wonder that Foliage can be called 'hidden' at all, located as it is within one of the most well-known hotels in the capital, the Mandarin Oriental, in Knightsbridge. Try finding it once you're inside, though. I needed a personal escort to the restaurant and then to my table. (No, not that kind of escort.)

Anyway, we made it, me and the Other Undercover Diner. True, we didn't have the loveliest of views - the restaurant usually looks out over Hyde Park, but thanks to current building works on a horrendously gargantuan scale all around it, the view now is mostly over rather unlovely hoardings, portakabins, and other buildery stuff.

Still, we were rather more concerned about what was going to be in front of us and in our mouths than the outside scenery, so it was time to take a squiz at the menu.

And it's not just any old menu. Foliage offers five courses, from which you can pick any 3 or 4 items (if you want more than 4 courses, an extra is £7.50), in any order. You can have 2 things from the same section, or, for example - and I pondered this reasonably seriously for a moment - have 4 desserts. For a sweety lover like me, this is possibly quite dangerous.

Still, there were so many other tempting options from the other sections that I came over all conventional. (I haven't entirely ruled out going back and having a dessert orgy one afternoon. Hell, if I'm paying, what does it matter? I'm not hurting anyone.)

Here's the first three sections:

and here are the latter 2:

I mean, what would you do? (Actually, don't answer that. This is my blog, so it's all about me, ok?)

The other incredibly wonderful thing about this place, and the lunch menu, is that for an additional eight quid you can have the sommelier choose you a couple of wines to go with your meal. (That's a couple of glasses, not bottles.) As much as I love wine lists, this was actually quite fun to do, because (a) you don't have to sit there for hours pondering what to have, and (b) given that the sommelier's choosing for you, the wine should be pretty decent. Of course, if you're dining with someone you don't like, and you actively want the wine list so that you can hide behind it for a while, then this won't suit you so much.

Anyway... for me, there were some tough choices to be made, viz. I loved the sound of everything on the menu. But I had to decide on something. It being a pretty warm day, I chose the crab to start. And then, because I just wanted damn good stuff to eat regardless of the weather, I went for the sweetbreads followed by the lamb.

First up, though, an amuse of vichysoisse with a goat's cheese mousse, like so:

The photo makes the bowl look enormous - it wasn't. It wasn't tiny, but it was definitely amuse-size rather than full soup bowl size. The soup was delish. Very leeky, rather than potatoey, and all the more surprising for that. But it contrasted and worked very well with the goat's cheese mousse, which was faintly sweet. Probably doesn't sound that great, but it was. Powerful but delicate at the same time. A wakey-wakey amuse, like all amuses should be. A good start, then.

It got better when, at about the same time, my wine arrived, a lovely Viognier, drier than most, but definitely with that Viognier sweetness about it. Yep, that would be a fine match with the crab. So bring it on...

Oo-er. If ever a dish was designed to herald the start of summer, surely this is it? Fabulous colours, lots of swirly bits (foliage??), and cucumber. I did wonder for a second whether I should stick a glass frame over it, take it home and put it on the wall, but greed got the better of me. It was very nice, very fragrant, very light. Perhaps the crab was a shade more delicate than I'd expected, but that's not meant as a criticism. And it went extremely well with the wine. Thank you, Mr Sommelier.

OK, so now for the intriguing dish. Sweetbreads with.... salted peanuts. Come again? Er, right. Okaaaaaay... I have to admit that I chose this specifically because it seemed so weird. Weirdness attracts me. I'm like that. But more of that some other time. The question was - was it any good?

Huh. Had I any idea it was going to be as good as it was, I would have ordered it four times over. It was superb. Those brown splodgy bits? They're like a peanut coulis. The morels? Fabulously meaty things. The sweetbread? Oh. My. Word. Something like a cross between the best liver and the best foie gras you've ever had, and then some. Creamy, melting, delicate, and tasty all at the same time. Quite a feat. And just AMAZING with the peanut stuff. Oh, and perfectly cooked, obviously. Not that I'm any expert, but really, I couldn't fault it. I foolishly offered the OUD a mouthful, too, and got pretty much the same response. Crikey. Must be good, then.

Shall we zoom in and linger a little longer? Mmm, I think so, too...

Oh baby, baby....

By now my second glass of wine had appeared - this one, a Tempranillo. Yep, well, I'm having lamb, so that makes sense. Great on the nose, but even better in the mouth.

My lamb, please, waiter...

The chef's done it again. Another extraordinarily worthy dish. That pea puree was something else - a bold blend of pea and mint. Nothing subtle about it, but oh, so fresh and lovely. The lamb was superb, all pink and melty. The pressed shoulder? Terrifically no-holds-barred meaty and rich. The smoked tomato? (You see, more weirdness...) Imagine a roasted tomato, except with an unfamiliar edge taken off (or was it added on to?) the tomato-eyness. Something like that. Really, I don't have the words. But it was all perfect.

Ahem. To have dessert may seem a little greedy at this point, but the whole intention of a menu like this is to not leave you over-burdened and struggling for breath by the end of it. So the portions are sized accordingly. Which is great, because it means that if you're someone like me, whose belly would normally be doing full-blooded battle with my eyes at this point, you don't have to suffer. You can have dessert.

I've heard a lot about olive oil ice cream lately without having had the chance to try it, so I thought I'd better put that right. The fact that it came with something in the milk chocolate line didn't influence me at all. Really. The thyme anglaise also sounded intriguing - there seems to be a real cheffy trend at the moment to use herbs in new ways like this. So again, I was up for it. The things I have to do.

That anglaise was just the most lovely anglaise. Ever. A bit like a very superior thyme milkshake, I suppose. Beautifully cooling. The olive oil ice cream completely won me over. I know some of you have been banging on about it for ages. And you're right. You're absolutely right. The milk chocolate thang? That was strips of milk chocolate wrapped around a milk chocolate pot. A rather sexy thing, if truth be told - creamy and full-fatty and sweet (but not too sweet) in the mouth, without being the remotest bit sickly or cloying. To someone with a preference for dark chocolate - me - this was a complete revelation. Again, OUD readily agreed. Steady on.

So there you have it. Another rather good meal. Oh, except that we hadn't quite finished. Coffee, of course, and these:

... walnut chocolates with balsamic. Yes, balsamic. But as you've probably gathered by now, weirdness at Foliage tends to work, and these chocolates were no exception. The dot of balsamic was perfectly judged - any more and it might have been a bit too much. As it was, it was spot on, making an unlikely, but highly successful marriage with the dark chocolate and walnut praline.

So now you know what to do on a Bank Holiday in London. Trust me on this. For some reason, people just don't think to go out for lunch, so many of the top restaurants have tables available. Foliage is one of them.

There you are. See how generous I am. Not one secret, but two.

Sorry, folks.... and Simon Callow

Yep, I know I've been AWOL. I'm sorry, but it's all been a bit...

....around here lately. I'm not going to mention the 'K' word, so let's just say we're still about 3 weeks away from it all being finished, and even the cats are fed up with it now.

From a gastronomic point of view, the cats, of course, are fine, inasmuch as they still get their regular diet.

But us poor hoomans are continuing to alternate between eating salads (have you ever stopped to think about how many of your fave salads require cooked ingredients?? No, neither had I...), and eating out.

And no, I haven't been taking my camera out with me. Wot ya gonna do about it? I'm sorry (again? I should really get a grip), but I've just not felt inspired.

I should, perhaps, have taken it out when we met up with friends at Noura in the West End. Because not only is the interior of Noura worth a picture in itself, but the place also serves up the most attractive (not to mention delicious) Lebanese food this side of, well, Lebanon. The encyclopaedic array of hot and cold mezzes is a real mecca for gluttons, and if you make it through to dessert, their ice creams - rosewater and lemon, milk and orange blossom, clotted cream, etc - are truly worth the wait. Let's just say that, between 4 of us, we did the whole lot considerable justice.

Where else have we been? Well, to our regular curry house of choice - Chilli Chutney - which specialises in fabulous Lahori food, and naans like you've never seen or tasted before; Mini Mundus, a true slice of bistro France dumped in the middle of Wandsworth - French waiters an' all - and about which I'll have to write more at some point; Oishii, a half-decent Japanese/Thai combo about half a mile away, from where I get my fix of chilli squid; oh, and we've been a handful of times to the Fat Deli, a rather outstanding Brit/Spanish/Italian tapas cafe, and our pet favourite.

I also had the dubious pleasure of eating a pretty vile lemon drizzle cake at Costa Coffee in Victoria rail station during an afternoon meeting. (Yes, a lot of my meetings involve food, strangely enough.) Oi, Costa, enough of that cack icing already, m'kay?

I didn't see Petula Clark there, but Simon Callow was sitting not 3 yards away from me (yes, he of 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', among others). Will that do?

Maybe I should give up this foodie lark and offer my services to 'Hallo!' instead. Yes? No?

fish 'n' chips and Petula Clark

Y'know, this no-kitchen thing is a bit weird, in more ways than one.

For instance, I didn't expect ever to wail at having to go out to eat. After all, I love eating out. I mean, who wouldn't?

But when you've got no cooking facilities at all, and you can't face yet another salad or ready meal (more on those in another post), then the only alternative is to go out. And that's where it gets weird.

When you don't have the option, it palls, it really does. Because, let's face it, if - like me - you can't afford to eat out at Michelin-starred restaurants all the time, and have to make do with whatever the neighbourhood has to offer, the attraction really isn't so great after a while. And then there's the cost. It's amazing how it all adds up. Paying £30 or £40 a throw for what would cost me about £5 or less to make at home kind of rankles.

As it happens, I'm reasonably lucky. There are a few ok, and not-too-spenny places to go in my area, and I don't have to travel too far. But still. Sometimes (most times?), particularly during the working week, you just want to crash at home in front of the telly. Or get those boring domestic tasks done. So having to go out is getting to be a bit of a drag.

But needs must and all that, so what to do? One place we hadn't been to since the whole kitchen thang started was our 'local' (as in about 3 miles' drive) fish 'n' chippie.

It's a bit of an institution, this place. Open for nearly 20 years, it's run by an improbably posh-sounding but very jolly bloke who takes a huge amount of pride in the place. It has tables and chairs, for a start. And they serve wine. (Wine goes with fish and chips, by the way. If you've not tried it before, do it now.) The fish is - quite rightly - bought fresh every morning, and the chips are old-skool fat, chunky, oh-so-potatoey things. Bliss. Oh, and they have a condiments tray to die for: tartare sauce, dill mayo, tarragon mayo, marie-rose sauce, ordinary mayo, and tomato ketchup. Not to forget the salt and malt vinegar.

I didn't take my camera. I know. And I'm sorry. I was just too focussed on getting some decent nosh down me. Imagine deep golden-brown crispy batter covering moist, flaky, succulent fish (haddock) served up with a very generous portion of those scrummy chips. That was it. I don't know if a photo would really have done it justice. But it tasted just perfect, as the fish and chips always does there.

So, if you're ever in south London, go to Wandsworth Old Town, pop into Brady's, and say hallo. And eat the fish and chips, obviously.

You won't regret it. Unless you're on a diet, of course, in which case you probably will. Not my problem. Walk more. Ditch the remote. Leave off the ice cream. (Did I mention they serve a delicious homemade real honeycomb ice cream here, too? I didn't? Oh well, now I did. Look - just forget the diet, ok?)

Petula Clark? Oh yes. She was there, too. Eating her fish and chips just like the rest of us. Looking good on it, too. In fact, Brady's could use her as their 'face' if ever they needed to advertise. Which they don't. Apparently, she's been going there for about 15 years. What's good enough for 'our Pet' is good enough for me, I reckon.

And no, I didn't get her autograph. I'm sorry about that, too. Blame it on my lack of kitchen. It's seriously messing with my head.

whine and soup: jerusalem artichoke soup with lemon cream and crispy-fried leeks

OK, so the cat's out of the bag. Well, one of them, anyway. I have no kitchen.

Actually, I've had no kitchen for the past 3 weeks now, and it's killing me. I'm eating rubbish (by definition, anything that doesn't come out of my kitchen is generally rubbish), I'm not sleeping, and I feel like sh*t. I hadn't realised quite how big a part cooking played in my life. I certainly do now.

Yep, the kitchen's being made over, gutted, rebuilt, refurbished, redesigned, or whatever term you want to give it. All adds up to the same thing. Five weeks of building work (hopefully) and then one week of the kitchen actually being fitted. In the meantime, we're living in squalor in the living room, and have no kitchen facilities AT ALL. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Oh, and the brick dust is everywhere, and in everything. And I mean, everything. Yuck, phooey. Even the vacuum cleaner's on strike over it.

What this all means, of course, is that I'm busted for the rest of this post. This is actually something I made a few weeks back and then forgot all about. The shame. Still, it gives me something to put on here during the great non-kitchen interlude.

OK, so it's another soup. I promise this will be the last soup for a good many months - except, perhaps, for chilled sweet soups, which I might just have a play with over the summer.

The joke is that I'm really not a big fan of soups. I rarely eat them, let alone make them. So I dunno where all these soups have come from, really I don't.

I suppose this one got made because my veg box supplier decided a few weeks ago that they had a glut of jerusalem artichokes, and were going to give some away (for free? does that really happen?) in all their veg boxes for that week. It also happened to be darn cold. Soup seemed like a reasonable idea.

I also had my beadies on my Denis Cotter book again. His JA soup looked good. Really good. But it had sheep's cheese risotto balls in it, too. Which would have been fine, but I sure as hell wasn't going to be making risotto so that we could have a risotto ball each in our soup. Waaaaay too much effort.

So, a few tweaks, if you please. I nabbed his lemon cream from another recipe, and the nest of leeks represent my own feeble stab at some originality and making it a bit, y'know, fancy-schmancy.

The recipe for the soup is on page 280 of the book. Look, like I said, I'm tired, ok, and I really, really don't feel like typing it all out, much as I love you. I know you'll hate me. I can handle it. I'm that tired. Anyway, it's a pretty classic cream soup recipe, and the key is put the soup through a sieve to get that oh-so-lovely velvety-smoothness, and not to get trigger-happy with the truffle oil. A drop or two is fine. It's JA soup, not truffle oil soup.

The lemon cream? (It's there if you look hard enough, honest - it's just round the edges of the leek nest.) This is fab. Simple, but fab. For 4 peeps - 100ml veg stock, 100ml white wine, 300ml double cream, zest 1 lemon, juice of half a lemon. Chuck the stock and the wine in a pan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer until reduced by half (about 5 mins). Add the cream and reduce again 'to get a slightly thickened pouring consistency'. Stir in the zest and juice, and season. Job done.

Crispy-fried leeks? Too easy. Just slice into really thin strands and deep fry for as long as it takes for them to crispen - just a few seconds. Drain on kitchen paper.

Put it all together. Admire. Take photos under appalling artificial light with cheap point-and-shoot again. Eat. Agree with your fellow diner(s) that it's just about the most perfectest soup. Evah.

an intermission...

Oh. Hai.

I, um, I dropping in.

Where is she? Oh. I dunno. She work. Lots. Oh, and we no haz kitchen anymore. Builder peeple go bang bang. I no kno how long.

We all hang out in the living room now. Is cozy. I like.

Hey. You like my whiskaz? Yes? I can haz your cheezburger then?

Oh, and no worry. She be back soon. Summfink to do with artychoke.

In the Bag, March 2008: orrechiette with PSB, bacon, and gorgonzola, with PSB and chestnut pesto

OK, so this month's challenge. Use PSB.

That's it? Oh, ok, then. Fair enough.

Right.

So. Let's have one of my usual, hopelessly vague measurement-riddled recipes.

Take some orrechiette and cook according to manufacturer's instructions.

Grab some purple sprouting broccoli (from here on, and ever after, PSB) - a handful and a bit more for each person. Blanch for a minute or two in boiling water, then plunge into iced water. Set aside.

Chop up bacon into small strips - the equivalent of about 2 rashers per person. I use dry- or sweet-cured. Fry until slightly browned and crispy. Drain onto kitchen towel, and set aside.

Crumble some creamy gorgonzola - not too much, or it'll overwhelm the whole dish. Start with a little, and then you can always add more. In contrast, trying to take out molten cheese from food is not a good way to go. It hurts, and it's messy. Again, set aside.

In a food processor, blitz a good handful of blanched PSB, a small handful of cooked chestnuts, half a clove of garlic, and a small handful of parmesan, and a good glug of a decent olive oil, plus seasoning to taste. Whizz it all in the processor until you have a pesto consistency - it shouldn't be too thick, as you want it to properly coat the pasta. Taste, and adjust according to your preferences/fussiness/perfection levels.

OK, so your pasta should be ready now, so go drain it.

In the same (large) frying pan as you fried the bacon in, add a glug of olive oil and heat through. Tip in the pasta, bacon, and PSB. Once mixed, add the pesto. Finally, lob in the gorgonzola. One final stir, and you can serve it and start getting your chops round it all.

And there you have it. 'In the Bag', again.