3 posts tagged “el bulli”

so, I think I need some help with this dinner engagement.

I am looking to pair wines with a couple of the dishes:

white asparagus with hot mayonnaise (am assuming the white asparagus is usually milder than the green)

prawn and caramelized prawn head pipette (perhaps I'd focus on the caramelized part)

octopus in hot potato jelly (the hints from the chef are: homely)

breast of duckling with seaweed salt and vegetable scallops (chef says, focus on the duck and not to forget hints of seaweed may come through) 

So far, I am considering a white (perhaps an albarino or french lirac for the first two dishes and then a red for the next two (octopus and duck).... would love some help...

I met her at the Edinburgh TV festival; we prodded fun at the panellists and felt smug that we’d never ridicule ourselves by participating in such nonsense, game shows and gambling and yet another round of chats about Big B. Anyways, we just got on.

We met again. Exhausted by all this smugness, we had established we were like minded folks. So the conversation quickly moved on to food. She is a Nigel Slater fan and well, me I like everything, especially those unconventional guys out in Barcelona and Berkshire (Bray), yes; I like what they are calling molecular gastronomy. So I told her.

Crap, pretentious, having your leg pulled, waste of good-earned money. You have got to be joking. I have left out the naughtier-bits but you get the drift.

Huh. We’ll show her. So after many failed attempts (with some reasonable excuses!) to get her over to my little abode, last week-end she was here.

We started off gently. Simple. Picholine olives and some bread.  Now you can forget about those Greek or Spanish (sorry) olives this French variety are humbling. Mild and nutty.

She had recently returned from filming in the US. She regaled us with stories. She shared her encounter with US’s finest (no, not the cast of CSI at Soho House, the real stuff - the cops). We laughed nervously. More olives anyone.

Apparently (as advised by my legal chums) a home-owner in a backstreet where they were filming was unhappy that his home would appear in the documentary. After a few exchanges of words, evidence they have permission to shoot the scene and the waving of bits of paper, the camera crew thought it best to move on. Disappointed she, as the producer and boss, instructs her crew to find another area. They reload the truck. Many moments later the crew’s truck is surrounded by three cop cars, O.J. Simpson style, but here the driver stops immediately. My friend, as the boss, is arrested.

More picholine olives, she has me hooked - the story and the olives.

Wait. Arrested for what. No, not for trespassing or something like that but for attempting to kill the neighbour.   I am impressed. We are dining with an apparently “attempted murderer”, gosh this food better be great! Apparently, the home-owner accused the crew of attempting to kill him. How wonderfully mad. With a few telephone calls, all is sorted.

Shit. This food better be great. Apparently, I think I mustn’t annoy her.

Eager to please, we ramp up the afternoon with a few amuse bouche Heston Blumenthal style. Pommery grain mustard ice cream and red cabbage gazpacho followed-by beetroot and orange jelly. Cold.  

No drum rolls. The jelly dish is the trick dish. It shows how the palette can be fooled by colour, the colours were inverted. We set her to task to decipher the flavours. She is caught-out by the beetroot jelly. Its orange coloured! Its orange beetroot and we used blood-orange oranges. She smiles. 

We started with kir royale jelly. Nice. I opened a Chilean Chardonnay and Haut-Medoc.

Moving-on to the starters. Snail Porridge. This is Heston’s signature dish. Don’t forget our guest has called this stuff food for the pompous.

It really is porridge (oats). Snails, ham plus lots of yummy garlic added.  The point here is you eat porridge for breakfast and associate it with something sweet. But it isn’t sweet. It’s simply a grain, so we eat it like you would rice and accompany it accordingly. It’s utterly delicious.

She thought the base ingredient came from the couscous family. Close. She gave a thumbs-up.

Yes, we were on a roll and she was engaged.

Two more courses before desserts. Quail consommé with langoustine cream & foie gras (where all the flavour is captured in the consommé) followed-by poached lamb with pomme puree, carrots glazed with orange and cumin. The latter dish is more traditional in its combination of ingredients and presentation. The beauty of the dish is in how the lamb is poached. Prepared in a stock, placed in a water bath at 54.5^OC, wow it was tender.

We all agreed this dish had a Moroccan feel about it. A few glasses of the Haut-Medoc went well with the lamb. The Chardonnay with the consommé.

Desserts came in the form of orange graniita with pine sherbet presented in a cornet and inside-out profiteroles (chocolate on the inside, ice-cream on the outside).

Simply, these dishes are unusual combinations of food, cooked very well. It’s almost whimsy. The results are beautiful flavours, presented in a way one can have fun with food.

The finale. Breakfast. Parsnip cereal! Milk added. (See picture to the right, parsnip flakes drying).

IMG_0032

Next date in the diary.  We check our limbs. We survived.

This time we paired the food and wine.

For our amusement, we started off with hot frozen gin fizzes and parmesan ice-cream. The look of perplexity on our guests’ faces is wonderful. We always provide a spoon with the gin fizz. It needs to reach the bottom. It’s the shockingly cold and hot and zesty lemon which makes the gin fizz so special, frankly orgasmic.

The excitement tempered, we move on to the starters. The red wines were opened a couple of hours before. The whites left in the fridge. One bottle for the cooler already placed on the table. 

Up next, is the green asparagus with hot mayonnaise and grapefruit. Paired with an Albarino, the intense aromas of citrus and grass work, unfortunately the acidity was not as bracing as hoped. The mayonnaise and grapefruit is a marriage in heaven. Following on from the asparagus, the ‘evolution of the hot’tortilla de patatas singla’ foam’. This is simply, a deconstructed omelette. The tortilla is served in a glass. The opened Dogajolo, with its fruity and faintly floral aromas went down a treat. 

Then, we are on to the fish. Big prawns au naturel with rosemary, tempura prawns legs and red mullet with suquet puree. The Australian Riesling seemed appropriate here. Its lemony citrus flavours help to balance the tempura and shellfish. The Hochar’s smokey plum aromas and full body accompanied the mullet (in a rich stock).

The big finale was the 5-course puddings washed down with the Riesling and Dogajolo.

We launched straight into the bacon croquant flute with pine nut ice cream, then frozen lime, coffee & juniper tart with banana sponge. He cheated slightly and dipped in to John Campbell’s recipe book for the hot chocolate ice-cream. The afternoon was neatly polished off with a few scoops of homemade mango & blackcurrant sorbet.