The Silver Spoon

Bread Pudding

There are many advantages to marrying a European man.  In my case one of the many stand out benefits of marrying into the Swiss culture is that a fondue party is neither kitsch nor a seventies throwback, reserved for ski vacations or even a novelty. It is the Swiss national dish.  Instead of Christmas turkey, they have Fondue Chinoise (a Chinese hotpot of sorts).  What is not to love!  We have not one but two fondue pots AND a raclette machine.  Fondue is a fun dish, however, perilous for the lactose intolerant.  The dish hails originally from the town of Gruyère in the Fribourg canton of Switzerland.  Legend has it that while the walled city was under siege from a hostile neighbour canton (Switzerland was not always one happy neutral nation), the food supplies ran low and all that remained was stale bread and the rinds of cheese.  So they melted it down and used the bread to sop it up, it turned out it was a filling dish that also created solidarity among the villagers due to its communal nature.  I learned all this on a recent trip to Gruyère so if you happen to be from another part of Switzerland and have a different rendition (that potentially includes your hometown) I apologize for any historical inaccuracies.

So when preparing for the evening’s festivities, I asked Pascal what we needed to get and how much, concerning the bread the answer was, “when it comes to fondue, if you run out of bread it’s game over.” So as a good American girl, I overbought and subsequently over cut thus leaving me with a ton of cubed bread. Hence the real reason for this entry, bread pudding, fondue was just a side plot.  Like fondue, this sort of bread pudding was a wartime, WWII, replacement for cake when supplies were being rationed.   Most of the ingredients are already in your fridge and it is exceptionally easy to make.  The resulting dish is delicious and very homemade in a grandmother kind of way.  One tip would be to make sure that you are having some sort of party to serve the bread pudding lest you feel inclined to eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner.

Ingredients

Left over bread cubed to fill a 13 x 9 inch baking pan

Butter to grease the pan

1 cup raisins

3 free-range eggs

4 cups milk

2 cups sugar

2 tbsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 190˚C or 375˚F.

Step 1: Put the bread and the raisins into the greased pan.

Step 2: Whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon and pour over the bread.  Let soak for about an hour, pressing down with a spatula every now and then to make sure the top gets soaked too.

Step 3: Put into the oven for about an hour.  Let cool slightly then serve.  

Note:  You can use white or brown sugar, I used both. My house is now white sugar free!  More brown sugar means a more earthy flavour.  Also this pudding is great warm but also excellent room temperature.

 

 

 

The Hinds Head

The Hinds Head

High Street

Bray

Berkshire, SL6 2AB

01628626 151

website

 
 

Background: Our dear friend Jeffery is moving back to the States and to send himself off, he had planned a wonderful boozy lunch out in Henley the other Sunday.  So what is one to do when they find they need to be out in the countryside on Sunday for lunch? Well, schedule two meals around it, of course!  It was this magical thinking that brought us to The Hinds Head.  The Hinds Head is the pub of the world renowned Heston Blumenthal whose claim to fame, The Fat Duck, is just down the road. The pub, built in the 15th century, has been operational for over 400 years and although its original function is unknown some say it was a royal hunting lodge while other the guest house of the Abbot of Cirencester. In an unusual turn of events, I was not burdened by the responsibility of making a reservation but was told by my friend, Michelle that her new boyfriend, Dawid (pronounced Daa –Vid, try it once more) had made a reservation and we would be having a double date. Fantastic! Luckily the skies were pouring down with rain so there was nothing more we all wanted to do then sit down to a nice pub lunch.

 

The Meal:  One glance at the menu and it is obvious that a measured pace is advised although it was pretty clear that was not going to happen.  We started off with two “snacks”, Devils on Horseback and Scotch Quail Eggs (we opted out of Warwickshire Wizzers); all of which needed to be explained by the waitress as there wasn’t not an Englishman among us and I was too embarrassed to admit just how familiar I already was with Scotch Eggs. That being said, The Devils on Horseback were exactly as good as any meat lover (pork in particular) can imagine sausages wrapped in bacon would be and the Scotch eggs were cooked to perfection.

For the starters we elected to go for some of the lighter options on the menu; the Duck and Smoked Guinea Fowl Terrine with Spiced Apples, the Picked Anchovies with Tomato and Garlic, the Scallops with Smoked Pollack Champ and a grilled squid that was not on the menu but an additional special.  All of the starters were very good but the anchovies and the scallops were the stand out favourites.  Fish, like aubergine, has never been a particular favourite of mine, strangely I am a diehard fan of anything shellfish.  The anchovy, therefore, poses several problems; a) it is fish shaped, b) it is a fishy fish, and c) it has lots of little bones in it.  Imagine my surprise when this rather large anchovy melted in my mouth without a hint of fish or bone.  It was a delightful dish.  The scallop was also very good but in a very different way.  Where the anchovies were simply and beautifully prepared in a classic Mediterranean style the scallops were more inventively put together a la late 1990’s with a foam to represent the sea and breadcrumbs the sand.  As cheesy as it sounds, I was still extremely tasty.

For the main courses, Dawid chose the Blade of Highland Beef with Savoy Cabbage and Black and White Pudding, Pascal got the Oxtail and Kidney Pudding, Michelle opted for the Wild Boar and Apple Sausages with Mash and Caramelised Onion Gravy, and I ordered the Aberdeenshire Beef with Bone Marrow Sauce and Triple Cooked Chips.  Given that it was Dawid who brought us all together at the Hinds Head, it was only fitting that his choice would be the winner among champions.  The beef shoulder was cooked sous-vide (in a plastic bag in water) for 17 hours! (I believe the hype)  It was rich and tender and succulent and really anything you could hope for in a braised shoulder of beef with the crisped Savoy cabbage balancing the flavours very nicely.  

The second favourite were the Wild Boar and Apple Sausages; a step up from your traditional bangers and mash and very good.  My steak was lovely.  And although am not such a kidney fan for those around the table who are more smitten with offal, the Oxtail and Kidney pie was also a winner. 

  

Dessert:  It’s hard to imagine that after such a feast we could muster the energy for dessert. But desperate times call for desperate measures and we dug deep; deep enough to order two desserts among the four of us.  I choose the Caramelised Apple Crumble with Vanilla Ice Cream and Dawid chose the Chocolate Wine ‘Slush’ with Millionaire Shortbread. The crumble was a very good, solid, stand-up crumble, certainly worth another pass. The ‘Slush’ was an entirely different matter.  If you were to analogize it would go like this: anchovies are to scallops as crumble is to slush.  Make sense?  It seems that culinary inventiveness was not just limited to the late1990s but also to the 1660s (there is a nice symmetry or palindromeness or something to that).  Chocolate wine (made by whisking a strong wine like claret or port with sugar and chocolate) hit the scene in the days of Charles II and was seen as an aphrodisiac.  The resulting dessert was very good in an “I can’t really figure it out but I like it” kind of way.    

Closing Thoughts: It’s hard to say that you were blown away by a pub.  Emotionally I find that difficult, but this place was really good.  The beef shoulder is up there with best pieces of meat ever.  Everyone walked out of lunch into the rainy afternoon and said, “Man, do I want to go to Fat Duck for dinner ... and come here for lunch.”  I hope to find a reason to venture to Bray again, and soon!

 

Silverware: Classic and substantial

Silverspoons: 8.5 / 10

Damage: £50 / person including wine

Ottolenghi's Chocolate Fudge Cake

If only the lack of blogging this summer would be the direct result of lack of eating.  Alas, it is not.  I not only ate my way through the summer but I have nothing to show for it except half a dozen pairs of jeans that don’t fit. I have therefore embarked upon no less than five attempts at dieting only to find myself in the South of France or other such environs where dieting is, indeed, impossible.  I welcomed the first of September, with its ever so slightly cooler breeze, as a new start, fresh beginning, or back to school if you will:  I have sworn off carbs!  And I haven’t been so bad, one French fry here and there but I have been pretty good.  So what to do when lovely brother and sister-in-law invite themselves over for dinner (I wish more people would do this by the way)?  Well there isn’t much else to do than whip out the Ottolenghi cookbook and start flipping through the pages of what can only be categorized as food porn. It’s not too difficult to put together a starter and a main course and avoid the dreaded carbohydrate but dessert is a different matter altogether.  Enter the flourless chocolate cake: pure genius.  As soon as I laid eyes upon this recipe I knew that it was meant to be.  Isn’t that cheating you say?  Yes, of course it is.  But were my guests to suffer because of my personal battle of the bulge.  I think not!  Does that mean I have full license to have chocolate cake for every meal until I finally gave away the rest to my housekeeper? No! But did I?  Yes! And with pleasure. 

Ingredients:

240g Unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

360g Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

290g Light muscovado sugar   

4 tbsp water

5 large eggs (separated)

A pinch of salt

Cocoa for dusting

Pre-heat the oven to 170˚C and prepare your baking tin. 

Step 1: In a large bowl combine your chocolate and butter.  Both should be sufficiently cut up into small pieces. At the same time mix the sugar and water into a sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat.   Once boiling pour over the chocolate and butter until it is all melted together. (If you ignored the “cut it up into small pieces” directive, insert step 2a, melt mixture further over a double boiler until smooth.)

Step 2: Stir the egg yolks into the chocolate one at a time and reserve the whites in another bowl.  Then whisk the whites and the salt until firm.  Let the chocolate cool room temperature before folding in the whites. 

Step 3: Pour 2/3 of the mixture into your cake tin and cook for 40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.  Then set aside until completely cool.  Then pour the remaining mixture over and cook for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick shows a moist crumb.  Set aside to cool and dust with cocoa and/or icing sugar. (Tip: To best dust a cake, use a tea ball.  You get the right amount of dusting material with little mess and no lumps)

Notes:  Make this cake and you will make yourself and anyone around you happy.  It will keep for a couple of days. 

Peas with Ricotta and Mint

I wish I could say that I have a love affair with vegetables.  I desperately want to love them, each and every one.  But, alas, I don’t.  I have been trying to enjoy the most revered of all vegetables, the aubergine or eggplant, for the past year with no luck.  I hate it and that’s that.  Peppers also make me uneasy so that mixed grill vegetable plate is kinda out for me.  That said I have also been known to say that I hate peas; mostly because I find them annoying.  They remind me of that little song/poem: “I eat my peas with honey/ I’ve done it all my life/ I eat my peas with honey/ It keeps them on the knife.”  For me, that about sums up peas: evasive little fellows that are hard to eat.   Then I moved to England and was introduced to mushy peas, which enlightened me to the fact that I did not have a problem with the taste of peas just the format.   

Enter Rob.  In preparation for a weekend in Cornwall of 20 people, he has ordered all the groceries and planned out the menus. (PS These are the types of people with whom I like to go on holiday. If you are one of them, please feel free to contact me) I have one task; the peas.   Imagine my dismay.  I have to make a dish that I don’t eat!  Not so.  This will be peas, ricotta and mint. A salad inspired by the likes of Bocca di Lupo (an apparently great London Italian, I embarrassingly have not been to yet.)  The result was amazing and has changed my view on peas. 

Ingredients:

Serves a lot

1 bag frozen peas (1.2 kilos)

1.5 tubs of ricotta (roughly 375 grams)

Mint

Lemon

Salt

Step 1: Boil the frozen peas for 3 minutes.

Step 2: Mix in ricotta so that the peas are bound together.  Remember its peas with ricotta not the other way around. 

Step 3: Squeeze in a lemon, salt to taste, add some shredded mint. Mix and serve. 

Negozio Classica

Negozio Classica

283 Westbourne Grove

Notting Hill

London, W11 2QA

Background: Living (and eating) in Notting Hill can be exhausting (and fattening).  We also tend to frequent the same restaurants over and over again.  Come Sunday there is often no food in the house and Pascal and I debate if we should just go back to the usual or try something new.  Negozio Classica was recommended to us by two trusted sources, Skye (who also recommended the Ottolenghi cookbook for which I am forever grateful) and Melissa, my Pilates instructor (read great body and healthy) so it seemed appropriate for a light Sunday night bite.  Negozio Classica is on the corner of Westbourne Grove and Portobello Road, a corner with uber people watching possibilities (although probably not recommended on a Saturday)and is basically a wine shop with a couple of tables.  Negozio means shop in Italian so that would make sense to anyone who speaks Italian; I do not so I looked it up.  This also means that if you order wine then you pay a shop price and not a restaurant price which is great news. 

 

The Meal:  Most of the dishes are basically starters with the possible exception of the beef filet, so we started off with the Mozzarella di bufala, avocado and cherry tomatoes and the Parma Ham and Mozzarella with figs (PS the menu items were obviously in Italian but I didn’t grab a menu and am not that clever).  The Parma ham and figs was very nice, the ham was lovely, although, having eaten a lot of Parma ham I wasn’t so sure it was the genuine article.  We asked the waiter he assured me it was and they get it special delivery blah blah.  I believe him and either way it was really nice and the figs were great. 

 

The mozzarella dish, however, was a bit disappointing.  Given the limited and simple nature of the menu you would really expect each dish to be spot on, but while the mozzarella was good it was not exceptional and the avocado was unripe to the point of being inedible.  Fair enough if you are attempting to make this dish in an igloo in Greenland and your shipment of avocados was late or not ripe enough, but inexcusable if you are a restaurant in London ON Portobello Road where they sell ripe avocados 6 days a week.  Granted, Sunday is not one of those six days but still, you do not serve a tennis ball to your diners and hope they won’t notice it’s not avocado. Same same.

 

 

Next up we had the beef carpacio and the fillet of steak.  The Capacio was nicely seasoned and the salad was well put together. The steak was also good but nothing to write home about.  It seems that the lesson with this meal is that you aren’t supposed to treat Negozio like a proper restaurant where you order a starter and a main, etc.  This was our mistake. Instead the approach should have been to order the selection of cured meats and the cheese plate and maybe something else like the Pappa al pomodoro, which is thick yummy bread soaked with tomatoes.

 

 

 

Dessert:  This part of the meal should never have happened.  We didn’t need desserts, we weren’t still hungry but somehow we managed to order not one but two sweet treats; the Chocolate Fondant and the Pannacotta.  This was where the restaurant really fell down, literally in the case of the Pannacotta which looked more like a puddle and tasted like tapioca pudding (luckily for them, I really like tapioca).  The chocolate fondant was also not what it advertised but instead was more of mushy brownie, tasted ok too. But in both cases I felt a little bit duped and figured they were using some sort of store bought desserts of the Gϋ variety.

 

Closing Thoughts: All in all the experience as ok,  I would definitely change my style of ordering for the next time, skip dessert and concentrate more on the wine than anything else. The ambience is nice and a table outside is always welcome.  The service is a bit slow but nothing worth complaining about.  In truth, great for a glass of wine and some nibbles, not the other way around.

 

 

Silverware: Modern and thin

 

Silverspoons: 5.5 / 10

 

Damage: £40 / person (pricey we thought given the wine is retail priced)

ManSchool #1

 

It's no secret - an inordinately high proportion of the world's best chefs are men.  Joël Robuchon, Gordon Ramsay, Paul Bocuse, Tetsuya Wakuda, Alain Ducasse.  Let's leave aside all questions of right, wrong, equality, yay, nay or otherwise, because that's for another time.  What actually puzzles us most about the high number of haute cuisine male chefs is the lack of a corollary - if the creme de la creme is mostly male, then why are most mortal men utterly hopeless in the kitchen?

 

Summer is here, of sorts, and short dresses have lured the heterosexual male from the sofa to the beer garden, in pursuit of love and lust.  (Yes, this is primarily directed at straight men. ManSchool's gay friends just don't need as much help in this area.)  So you've met a nice lass at the pub, got her number, and are poised to call her up to ask her on a date.  ManSchool suggests that you don't take her to a white tablecloth overpriced restaurant.

 

Cook her dinner instead.

 

Go on.  We dare you.  Cooking a dinner party for a dozen food critics with a myriad of courses is difficult, and takes practice.  Cooking for two is just ... well ... not.  Try the following recipes for an amazing dinner which will take an hour from start to eat time, leaving you plenty of time to chat while you prep.  The dishes genuinely require the culinary skills of a monkey.  But the most important ManSchool lesson for the day: the end result of the food is immaterial; it's all about the effort.

 

 

ManSchool's Prosciutto Salmon with Roast Garlic Butternut Squash and Asparagus, followed by Balsamic Strawberries

 

We love the simplicity of this dish, and the summer flavours which come through.  The roasted garlic and the saltiness of the ham with the freshness of the fish combine to create a great summer evening dish.  Follow the main course with the sweetness of strawbs with the tang of balsamic, and you can't fail to impress.

 

Shopping List

• 2 salmon steaks
• 4 slices prosciutto or parma ham
• 1 small half butternut squash
• 1 bunch asparagus
• a couple of cloves garlic
• butter
• 1 lemon
• 1 punnet strawberries
• balsamic vinegar
• sugar

The Plan

0 minute mark: Turn the oven on, and set it at 180C.  Take the half squash and scoop out the seeds.  Into the cavity place a knob of butter and the garlic - the cloves don't even need to be peeled.  Stick it in the oven on a piece of foil or a baking tray, and bake for an hour.

10 minute mark: Take the prosciutto or parma ham out and wrap two slices around each salmon steak.  The natural stickiness of the ham will mean it sticks to the fish.  Put in a baking dish or on foil and set aside.

20 minute mark: Time to get pudding ready.  Take the strawberries' tops off with a knife, cut them in half and place in a serving bowl.  Sprinkle them with a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and then scatter about a shot glass worth of balsamic vinegar over the top.  Mix it all up with a spoon and set aside - it's finished.

40 minute mark: Put the fish in the oven - same temperature, leave the squash where it is.

45 minute mark: Chop the non-pointy ends of the asparagus off and put the remaining spears in a glass, or lay them flat in a dish.  Cover with boiling water for 5 minutes, then remove, drain and chop into roughly 2-inch lengths.  Set aside.

60 minute mark: Take the fish and the squash out of the oven - they will both be ready.  Cut the squash in half length ways, and put half on each plate parallel to a salmon steak - the melted butter will spill out and the garlic will be soft.  "Sprinkle" the asparagus on top.  Try to get as much butter or pan juice on top.  The final touch - cut the lemon in quarters, and just squeeze one quarter over the top of each plate.  Put a remaining quarter as garnish on the plate.  You're done!  And pudding can follow whenever you're ready.  Add ice cream if you like, but strawberries are so good in summer you won't need it.

 

Food tip

Asparagus should actually be broken at the end "where it gives" rather than chopped - but maybe next time, when you have more time.  It should be crunchy and never soggy like tinned asparagus - all the flavour and goodness is lost when that happens.  Also, when you're serving your food, two things.  Height is good - avoid taking up the whole plate by spreading stuff around - concentrate it in the centre and build up vertically.  Second - don't be frightened to wipe around the rim of the plate with paper towel to clean drips and spills.  This is what restaurants do and it just makes everything look a bit nicer.

 

Grog tip

You don't need French champagne at this stage.  Buy a bottle of Cava.  It's inexpensive, bubbly and a great way to start the evening.

 

Table tip

Big long candles are old-fashioned and intimidating and can convey the wrong idea.  Buy some tealights and put a couple in a bowl or on a plate, or even in a brown paper bag.  Candlelight is candlelight for a reason - it works, and it's so simple.

 

Bon courage!

 

ManSchool

 

Proud to be an American

 

Weird things happen when American ex-pats living in London get together en masse.  For starters a lot of England bashing goes down (light-hearted of course) but strange yearnings for the products of home arise.   This is pretty much how July 4^th manifested itself for me this year.  I confessed to bringing Ziplock and Force Flex garbage bags, Bounce fabric softener and mini white (only multi-coloured exist in England, don't ask me why) marshmallows back with me from trips to the states.  My friend Ann, who is returning to NY, offered me a couple bottles of Tide laundry detergent and some Windex and tears came to my eyes.  It was, therefore no surprise that I would rush home to Notting Hill bang down the doors of Mr Christians (literally), which has recently been stocking American items a la Partridges, and buy not one but two packages of probably the most abhorrent product on the US market.

On American soil, it is seriously unlikely that I would ever resort to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, even if I was trying to re-enact my college days, in that case I would go for the organic version and namesake, Annie's.  But somehow on the 4th of July it seemed right.   Pascal enjoyed it as well but then again he didn’t see the colour of the “cheese” mixture before it was combined with the pasta.  It did, however, occur to me that many people, especially men, eat food out the package regularly and for no other reason then they are afraid of cooking.

Therefore, I will take this opportunity to introduce a guest piece, ManSchool, that will appear every now and again aimed at trying to teach our male readers, but really anyone who is intimidated by cooking, that it is not that tricky and can be fun.   Stay tuned for the first addition later this week.

Al Pont de Ferr: Milan

Al Pont de Ferr

Ripa di Porta Ticinese 55

Milan

02-8940-6277

 

It has been two years and two days since I first drove from France to London to start a new life.  Add to that 10 months for an MBA and it’s been nearly three years since I left my hometown of New York City.  I am often asked about how the cities are different and what do I miss from NY. My list, which I will save for another time, is often long and nostalgic.  At the top of that list, however, are my family and friends so when my best friend/ex-roommate/partner–in-crime, Michal, said she was moving to Europe I was elated.  By American standards she is not exactly close.  Geographically, Milan and London are about as close as New York and Atlanta (I had to Google this, took me four tries) but psychologically they are basically neighbours.  All I had to do was make sure that she actually went through with it and stayed. 

So in the middle of June I trundled off to Milan into 88˚F (31˚C) heat to look for apartments.  I may have just described a modern day nightmare for some but for me, this is my bag.  I love hot weather and am obsessed with real estate.  So what if I am on my own and don’t speak Italian while Michal is lost in some suburb trying to sort out her visa.    

At the end of day one, we are discouraged.  I fear that I am going to lose her back to the comforts of the United States and air conditioning.  We had been scouring our little guide book for some where to eat and figured we would hit up a new neighbourhood since we had already memorized 75% of the city.  We wanted to eat in the Navigli, the south of Milan where the canals are.  We mentioned this to a friend who gave us a disgusted look like we were patchouli-wearing backpackers but then proceeded to call her friend and book us a table. 

Al Pont de Ferr is not an unknown locale.  It graces way too many guide books to be considered a local find but surprisingly we were the only two customers speaking English. The dishes are simple, delicious and well priced.  One stand-out, however, was the squid.  I had read recently in the New York Times that said “THERE'S an old chestnut about squid: Cook it either for just two minutes, or leave it on the stove for at least 30.”  Whether this was the former or the latter I have no idea but am inclined toward the latter, it was the best squid, hands down, that I have ever had.  Let it be known that I am not a squid novice. I have been around the block once or twice when it comes to squid so I do not utter these words lightly. 

The setting is not something to be scoffed at either as the canals are beautiful.  You do get the feeling that you might have your handbag stolen at any given moment and I was bitten than no fewer than a large colony of mosquitoes, nonetheless, it was a beautiful night.  There is nothing like some good food and wine to get someone to warm up to a city.  Welcome to the Continent, Michal. 

Eastside Inn

Eastside Inn

38-42 St. John Street

Clerkenwell

London, EC1M 4AY

 

Background:  One of the perks of writing about food and restaurants is that you end up meeting other people who are similarly impassioned about the same topic. Hence how I met Charlie McVeigh of the Le Café Anglais and The Westbridge (I highly recommend both). We got a talking about cheese, wine, restaurants and the like and planned to have lunch.  Eating with a restaurateur is a little daunting.  He made the reservation at Eastside Inn (through the PR office at Le Café Anglais!), a newcomer to Farringdon around Smithfield market, in the previous home of Vic Naylor’s, opened by Bjorn van der Horst, formerly with Gordon Ramsey Holdings. 

When I hear the word “Inn” I immediately think of Jesus, for no other reason than he was born in the stable of an inn or so they say.  After Jesus comes small country get-aways in Connecticut or the Cotswolds.  This place was not very “inn-like” according to my standards but I am not in the habit of setting them so take them with a grain of salt.  The interior is modern and minimalist, a little too well-lit for my taste, and is divided into two sections; the restaurants and the bistro.  There is also a little lounge area where there is supposed to be jazz (apparently not lunchtime) but struck me as a little awkward.

Lunch is often the toughest time for most restaurants, new restaurants especially, thus the place was rather sparsely populated when we arrived. Thankfully we opted for the less formal option, the bistro, and to eat at the bar of the open kitchen which to my great pleasure was not pre-set with Easter egg coloured chargers like the restaurant. 

The Starters:  I have a bit of a habit of asking the waiter what he or she likes the best of the menu.  It comes out automatically without my having much control over it.  So I did.  Sometimes you can tell that they are completely sincere and love the item they are suggesting and sometimes you just know that they are trying to move a dish.  In this case it was the former.  A good thing, you might be thinking.  In theory, yes, but you forget my rather complex eating habits these days.  So he earnestly recommends the Bone marrow and oxtail marmalade: Horseradish and orange zest which sounds absolutely amazing.  I have a thing for bone marrow and a completely separate thing for oxtail anything, so this is pretty much heaven except for one thing.  I cannot fathom being that much of a glutton that I can eat bone marrow not on bread, just with a spoon.  It seems just too Edwardian.  So I instead order the Baby squid à la Basquaise.  Charlie goes for the Organic Egg: Frisée, walnuts and blue cheese.   

  

The squid dish is rather wrongly named as its more A la Basquaise with Squid. In case you are unaware (as I was); à la Basquaise means it is a dish whose ingredients will include mostly tomatoes and sweet peppers. This could be great except that I am not a fan of peppers and my culinary ignorance has gotten me into a pickle once again.  But wait, I really enjoyed it.  I thought the squid was too sparing and a little tough but I absolutely loved the Basquaise bit.  Charlie’s egg was, well, an egg but a beautiful and delicious orange-yoked egg and damned right at £10 (please excuse the "before and after" pictures but the yolk colour must be documented it).

The Mains: For the mains, I went with the Monkfish bourride: Fennel and clams and Charlie chose the Plats du jour which was a skate wing with a side of ratatouille.  This was pretty daring on my part as I consider myself a fish novice and rarely order it in a restaurant for a) fear of being disappointed, b) offending the restaurant, c) embarrassing my dining companion or d) all of the above.  As a fish Charlie’s skate looked pretty scary (to me, not a normal person), but it was apparently very good and the ratatouille excellent. My decision, however, was genius.  “Wow” was the first word out of my mouth and (sorry Mom) I hadn’t even finished chewing yet.  The monkfish was adequately rested and tender and the clams were juicy and flavourful but it was the sauce that tipped the balance for this dish.  Since the bread embargo prevented me from sopping it up I was forced to use a spoon.

Closing thoughts:  The décor wasn’t exactly my taste but I loved eating at the bar and watching the chefs cook. That being said it can get a little awkward when one of the sous chefs or line cooks (I can’t tell, definitely need to brush up on kitchen hierarchy) gets yelled at or burns himself (both happened while we were there). We didn’t take dessert but were offered a beautifully presented ball of sorbet on a block of ice.  Hopefully the traffic gets a little heavier and the place fills up, but it should as the food is really very good.  One last thing, maybe it was the star-studded cast (Charlie, not me) or the fact that we were almost alone in the dining room but I felt a little stalked by the wait staff; a little bit eager to please.

Silverware: Standard issue.  Nice and sturdy.

Silverspoons: 7.5 / 10

Damage: £40 per person (no wine)

Carrot and Walnut Cake

 

I am not sure why, maybe it’s some sort of masochism, but I have been going all out on the dessert front recently.  I am still on a food lock-down and can’t even try the recipe as I go along but I have been committed to making cakes, tarts and desserts of any kind.  And, in turn, I am sharing them with you.  This is, of course, completely out of character as I don’t even have a sweet tooth and I have embraced a healthy lifestyle of reduced sugar consumption.  But still the urge to bake haunts me.  Perhaps it’s that I never really had the time to whip up a cake on a Wednesday afternoon and that this freedom has encouraged me into creating a dinner menu from start to finish.  I do cheat on hors d’oeuvres and buy cheese and crackers and the like but I have even entertained the idea making my own crackers. 

Another logical conclusion is that I recently bought the Ottolenghi cookbook and have become obsessed.  I am blessed to be within 5 minutes walking distance to my nearest Ottolenghi and my most frequent lunch companion, Gaby, has one in spitting distance (no kidding, and you don’t even have to be a master spitter) from her house.  Thus we walk in and survey what’s on offer quite regularly, carefully choosing among the delicacies and blocking out the beautiful pastries and cakes that loom in the corner of your eye.  You have to; otherwise a trip to Ottolenghi would not just be detrimental to your waistline but also your wallet.  I am, however, a devotee as you might have noticed.  I had heard raves about this book, particularly from a vegetarian friend with a non-vegetarian husband (Skye and Paul) who plan weekends around cooking from this cookbook, “a versatile book with so many options, they say.” I had to have it. 

So when planning out my menu for a recent dinner party I was going to cook from the Ottolenghi cookbook alone and it was wonderful.  One of the highlights of my musings was when I asked Pascal whether I should bake a chocolate or carrot cake for dessert, “EVERYONE bakes chocolate cake, you should do carrot,” he replied.  Now I think that the young man might be getting a little bit spoiled because certainly not EVERYONE is baking chocolate cakes for a Wednesday night dinner, either way I got the point. 

As usual, I subbed out the refined sugar and flour with unrefined brown sugar and whole wheat flour, but the result (or so I am told) was great. Doesn’t it just kill you that I can’t even try one bite! I was unable to find an unrefined version of icing sugar so if you know of a good one please pass it on. 

Ingredients

Cake

160g whole wheat flour (sifted twice)

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp ground cloves

1 egg

1 egg yolk

200g sunflower oil

270g brown caster sugar

50g walnuts (chopped)

50g desiccated coconut

135g carrots (peeled and grated)

2 egg whites

Pinch of salt

 

Icing

175g cream cheese

70g unsalted butter

35g icing sugar

25g honey

30g walnuts (chopped and toasted)

 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 170˚C and grease a 24 cm springform cake tin and line with parchment paper.  The best way to do this is take the tin apart and use the side of the tin to draw a circle on the parchment to cut out so it fits the base, then put it back together with the base lined and then line the sides.

 

Step 2: Sift together the flour (twice for the flour), baking powder, baking soda and spices and put aside.  In a small bowl whisk together 1 egg and an egg yolk.  With an electric mixer, cream together the oil and sugar until smooth and slowly add in the egg mixture.  Mix in the walnuts coconut and carrot.  Then incorporate the dry mixture.  Use a light hand and don’t over mix.

 

Step 3: In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form peaks and gently fold into the carrot mixture in 3 steps.  Do not over mix. Some white streaks are ok.

 

Step 4:  Pour into the cake tin and bake for about 40 minutes (poke with a toothpick to check for doneness, if it’s clean it’s done).  If you use a smaller tin, say 20 cm, then cook for about 1 hour. Let the cake cook for an hour before removing from the tin.

 

Step 5: For the icing, beat the cream cheese until creamy and light.  I used light cream cheese, mostly because that is all I could find, but it is also spreadable from the get go. Then cream the sugar, butter and honey together.  Fold the two together and ice the cake, then sprinkle the walnuts.  For the walnuts, it’s easier to toast then chop than the other way around.   

 

Note:  When combining the oil and sugar in step 2 make sure the cookbook (if you buy it, which you should) is far away from the bowl and the oil has a tendency to spit.