[fatdoc]

hmmm...
not sure, but I'll ask about..

numbers?

[Fatleg]

About 150 people or so.

[Houdini]

PM Neil_H, he's a chef and has muchos experience in all things grub. I'm sure he'll have Sheff contacts worth expoliting.

When I'm not fucked on wine I'll impart a lovely recipe I've been perfecting for a few months.

[Houdini]

But before that, anyone familiar w/ this place?

http://www.fatduck.co.uk/  It Heston Blumenthals' restaurant.

Yoss?  It's your neck of the woods.

Typical really, amazing food, amazing wines; fairly shit port selection.  OK Niepoort, they're in the right ball park at least.  But Grahams?  In a Michelin starred restaurant?  Jokers.  I'd love to go, but I judge a restaurant by it's port selection (mostly resaurants have poor vegetarian food if one is that way inclined).  Heston needs to get on the case and search for perfection a little bit harder.

[Yossarian]

I've never been, although I did write an article for The Oldie about Heston and his chums before they were famous. I will endeavour to scan it tomorrow...

I think they're more into sherry there than port.

[Houdini]

Yoss, that would be the bees knees.
´
Now, obviously I know zilch about business, profit margins or how many fingers there are in the pie.

But I seriously doubt I would ever eat here even though I would very much like to.  Why?  Well it's 25 quid for 50cl of 30 yr old whiskey for example.

I just won't never ever throw that money away in such a pretentious and ostentacious fashion.  I'd rather buy all the food, all the wine, and get Yoss or Slopes to serve it up for me w/ a 100 quid tip.  Fuck paying for another mans ego . . .   Life is too good on ones botty and in the valleys to work it away to pay for such things.

[Houdini]

I must concede that if I ever started to earn 90K a year my opinion could very well change . . .

[Joepicalli]

Random recipe: Smoked haddock Brandade.
This is version of the Provencale classic made with salt cod which is a bitch to get hold of over here and needs to be prepped for 24 hrs: saw it advertised on a menu at a brilliant restaurant in Staithes and decided to give it a go. It is one of the ultimate comfort foods.
So:
500g smoked haddock poached in milk with a bay leaf and some peppercorns.
 125ml extra virgin olive oil
60 ml of the poaching milk
2-3 cloves of garlic
salt and white pepper
chuck the garlic and haddock in a food mixer and blitz alternating the addition of the milk and olive oil 'till its a smooth  puree.
Eat with toast or croûtons
A variation is to use some of the poaching milk to make mashed potato and add this to the haddock and garlic after you have blitzed smooth with the oil alone.

[Bonjoy]

Sounds great.

Funnily enough I made my first ever batch of Brandade last week with some salt cod I got from the 'ethnic' section in Tesco. 400g of salt cod with skin and bones removed cost me £2.99 and would make about a kilo of brandade, not bad value considering the price of fresh cod. Got my recipe from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's brilliant new Fish book (everyone should get this book!!).
 I had mine baked in the oven with a Cheddar crust (a very british way to treat a french classic), served with steamed greens. It was worth the effort of pre-soaking.

[Houdini]

Yes the brandade looks great, I'll try it as my second attempt at cooking fish for the frau.

So Brandade is the mixed up mush of spud and salted fish?  Never heard of it . . .

[Joepicalli]

Salt Cod, in tescos Which one? Where? You're right Brandade is worth the effort of the soaking I've just never seen it over here.

[Bonjoy]

It's the one I go to at lunch, at the bottom of Upperthorpe

[lagerstarfish]

Infirmary Road Tesco does salt cod? I must pay more attention.

[Joepicalli]

Tonight's tea, a comfort against what might just be my worst foundry bouldering sesh ever. Its food like this that keeps one from the wristcutter's lullaby, but, given the necessary butter quantities, is not likely to help with climbing performance either, anyway:
Spaghetti alla bana cauda (Taken from Antonio Carluccio's recipe quantities screwed with for max anchovie/garlic action).
this is enough for one-
six fresh garlic cloves
120ml milk
5 anchovie fillets
1 Red Pepper grilled black sweated and peeled, de-seeded and kept warm
25g butter(you can try and reduce the quantity, I'd love to hear the results as less is obviously more if it can be done without compromising taste)
soften the garlic in the milk over a really low heat for 30 min (you may need to add a bit more milk as you are cooking)
Blacken your peppers, seal,steam and peel'em (usual sketch for charred peppers); keep warm in low oven.
Take the garlic off the heat and add the anchovies, dissolve them up in the milk and garlic mix. Pass the whole lot through a metal sieve; make sure you have got practically all of the solids through (good forearm workout; Oh yes this is all about climbing really). Put the result back into the pan set over the lowest heat and stir in the butter.
Cook fresh (egg) spaghetti for 3-4 minutes, drain, pour the source over, top with the peppers, eat. 

[Dolly]

Joe its so good to have you on here - proper foodie shit to follow. Will you contribute to the other foodie/drink threads as well ?
BTW on your recommendation via Seb I got some Blackwood's Gin - it truly is the best

[fatdoc]

Tonight's tea, a comfort against what might just be my worst foundry bouldering sesh ever. Its food like this that keeps one from the wristcutter's lullaby, but, given the necessary butter quantities, is not likely to help with climbing performance either, anyway:
Spaghetti alla bana cauda (Taken from Antonio Carluccio's recipe quantities screwed with for max anchovie/garlic action).
this is enough for one-
six fresh garlic cloves
120ml milk
5 anchovie fillets
1 Red Pepper grilled black sweated and peeled, de-seeded and kept warm
25g butter(you can try and reduce the quantity, I'd love to hear the results as less is obviously more if it can be done without compromising taste)
soften the garlic in the milk over a really low heat for 30 min (you may need to add a bit more milk as you are cooking)
Blacken your peppers, seal,steam and peel'em (usual sketch for charred peppers); keep warm in low oven.
Take the garlic off the heat and add the anchovies, dissolve them up in the milk and garlic mix. Pass the whole lot through a metal sieve; make sure you have got practically all of the solids through (good forearm workout; Oh yes this is all about climbing really). Put the result back into the pan set over the lowest heat and stir in the butter.
Cook fresh (egg) spaghetti for 3-4 minutes, drain, pour the source over, top with the peppers, eat. 

that so fuckin genius you get to the be the only man on the forum with as much waddage as posts!!!!

[Joepicalli]

Joe its so good to have you on here - proper foodie shit to follow. Will you contribute to the other foodie/drink threads as well ?
BTW on your recommendation via Seb I got some Blackwood's Gin - it truly is the best

Glad you liked the gin actually I'd forgotten how good it is and defaulted to Tanquray (which really its hard to beat for martinis). Blackwood makes a slightly less aggressive martini as I remember (not that well, obviously, we are talking massively strong alcohol diluted but a very small amount of still pretty strong alcohol), which, used neat, is better than stirring with ice as a way of having a more vermouthy martini which still carries all of that lovely ginny depth...ahh.
 

[andy popp]

Great start Joe! Just started my evening with nice large Tangueray GnT.

[fatdoc]

i can remember pouring my brother down the stairs of joe's flat and finding the taxi of god just meandering by to get us home after a martini session some years ago... my bruv then passed out on arrival home... like totally unresponsive!

[Houdini]

In German it's Bärlauch, English is Bear's Garlic/Wild Garlic/Wood garlic/Ramsons.  Occasionally I've bought it in soft cheese or as pesto, the bärlauch replacing basil.



Anyways, managed to buy some fresh today and have decided to wash and shread it and add it to the spinach layers in lasagne Fraudini is preparing now.

Any other recipes?  Anyone else care for it?  It's fresh flavour is intense, somewhere between strong garlic and chives (schnittlauch).

wiki stuff

Apparently the stuff that's medicinally good for you in normal garlic is 8 times stronger in this variety.

[Joepicalli]

Cool houdini, this is the wild food of the moment, just this evening on my way back from work I was looking at a lovely leafy patch of wild garlic  and thinking modified pesto thoughts. Fortunately I have a huge crop growing in the grounds of the flat I live in,so for the whole of spring I have loads of the stuff to experiment with: I'll post results. In addition a brilliant green garlic recipe ( it's those big stemmed garlic bulbs that you can buy around this time of year in some supermarkets).
1 bulb green garlic
Butter 50g
Shit loads of Parmesan of the highest quality (Note on quantities: 1 shit load is sufficient Parmesan to make the eater of the dish go "fuck yeah" )
 Good dried spaghetti
peal and cut up the garlic- real small (don't use a garlic press)
cook the spaghetti, drain, reserving 2-3 tablespoons of cooking water
add the cut up garlic & butter and as much of the water as makes a lovely sloopy amalgam when you mix it vigorously, add the Parmesan.
The effect should be of parmesany spaghetti eaten while the person you love most in all the world breathes their garlicky breath into your face.

[Oli]

When you're cooking something new, from a recipe book (not experimenting) what proportion of times would you expect it to turn out well first go? By 'well', i don't mean edible/inedible more 'alright'/'fucking awesome'.
I seem to be let down by my timings of different things in general.

[underground]

When you're cooking something new, from a recipe book (not experimenting) what proportion of times would you expect it to turn out well first go? By 'well', i don't mean edible/inedible more 'alright'/'fucking awesome'.
I seem to be let down by my timings of different things in general.

If I'm on the knives and pans, it'll be very good-to-awesome 95% of the time. We just eat later than normal. In peace. (unless I've started in the morning rather than after a day grafting)

If I'm sat waiting for my dinner, it'll be on the table for half five , priority being so we can eat with the kids, but 50% of them will be fucked up or not cooked well enough.

Main difference is, I know better than the recipe how my cooker will perform, and how stuff will cook dependent on how it's cut, what pan etc.

Having said that I've a few 'authentic' Chinese recipes that are on the money and didn't need any fucking about with.

[Joepicalli]

Hurrah for me. Did bus stop mantle at rowtor, stopped in Bakewell got some sex Hartington creamery blue cheese and a bottle of death malt from the "wee dram" great specialist whiskey shop and of course a bakewell pud. Hurrah for food hurrah for climbing hurrah for booze.

[Percy B]

Nice work, Joe. Me and Mr Alderson just enjoyed being very lucky boys whilst having a 3 day quick skiing mission in France. The half metre of fresh powder aside, all the hotels in Flaine were fully booked so we had to stay in a small hotel 15 minutes down the hill - owned by a lovely couple whose gourmet restaurent would almost certainly be in the offing for a Michelin star if it was in this country.....

The menu ( http://news.lacroixdesavoie.fr/lacroixdesavoie/uk/carte.asp ) contained stella examples of the local specialities, and was matched in its extent and quality by the wine list. All in all highly recommended, and had me and Grom pontificating long into the night about fine food and wine - me punching way above my weight - could have been the cognac.....

Now I'm off to find a recipe for Farcement that I can adapt to include apricots and Marc de Savoie - just like the one that had us in raptures the other day. Incidentally, anybody who hasn't made a Tartiflette yet needs to find a good cheese shop with unpasturised Reblochon and a recipe. Fine winter food if ever there was an example.