Langoustine on a bed of pureed cauliflower and samphire with langoustine bisque and Blue Moon

When I was first trying to teach myself to cook I read every recipe I could. It didn't matter if it was from a cookbook, a Sunday newspaper supplement, or on a scrap of paper; if someone had taken the time to write it down then I felt it should be read. After all, how else was I supposed to become the culinary genius that I wanted to be! It will come as no surprise that I have never attained the status of "culinary genius", there are no Michelin stars in my history and no restaurant critic has ever hailed me as the "next great thing" in a kitchen. There are many reasons why this didn't happen and one of the minor ones is that so many food items have too many names. Langoustine, Norwegian lobster, Dublin bay prawn and Scampi all sound delicious but they are also all the same thing! The sad thing about this delicious seafood is the fact that the vast majority of these crustaceans that are caught in UK waters are exported to the continent where they are properly appreciated. 

This dish is based on a classic sauce/soup, the bisque. This means that you get to use the shells of the beast in order to extract all of the flavour. This serves 4 as an indulgent lunch.

• 12 or 16 raw langoustines (frozen is fine)
• 1 medium cauliflower (broken into small florets)
• Vegetable stock
• Double cream
• 1 pack of samphire 
• 1 medium onion (finely diced)
• 1/2 bulb of fennel (finely chopped)
• 2 sticks of celery (finely chopped
• 1 carrot (finely diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
• 1 squirt of tomato puree
• Splash of brandy
• Bigger splash of dry vermouth
• 1.5 ltr of fish stock.
• Paprika

Your first job is to remove the meat from the langoustines. I find it easiest to twist off the head section ans use kitchen scissors to cut down the underside of the shell. Then use your fingers to open up the shell and pull out the meat with the tail. The intestinal tract should come out with the tail but check this and cut it out if necessary. (It does seem like a lot of work for such a little piece of meat but I promise it is worth it). Make sure you reserve all of the shell and head of the beast.

Swear down the onion, fennel, carrot and celery in a saucepan with a little oil until softening but not browning. Split the heads of the shells and remove the sand sack (if present) and the "tomally" (a green sack) rinse these if necessary. Add all of the shell bits to the veg and stir well. cook gently for about ten minutes then add a good squirt of tomato puree then add the brandy and reduce (flame it if you want to show off, scare your partner or set off your fire alarm but this is not necessary). Reduce until it is almost all gone, then add the vermouth and reduce by half. Add enough fish stock to cover everything and simmer for about an hour. 

Strain everything into a fresh saucepan (make sure you use the back of a ladle to squeeze out all of the juices) return this to the heat and reduce further, add a really good slug of double cream and reduce further. Taste and season.

Whilst the sauce is reducing pop the cauliflower in a sauce pan with not quite enough vegetable stock to cover them. Cover and boil the cauliflower until it seems a tiny bit over cooked. Add a large dash of double cream and pop into the liquidiser. Once blitzed pop back into the saucepan and reduce if necessary, you are looking for a thick smooth puree. Keep warm. 

Bring some water to the boil in another saucepan and add the samphire (do not add salt) boil for 4 minutes.

In a frying pan, fry the langoustine meat in a little butter with some garlic if you like.

To plate up, place a solid dollop of the cauliflower in the middle of the plate, top this with some samphire and put thee or four langoustines on top. run the sauce around this and sprinkle over a little paprika.

 

The match

Blue moon is a Belgium style wheat beer brewed in Denver in the states. In Europe it is brewed under license. I have never made any secret of my love for wheat beers of any type so this was always going to be a treat for me. Like many of its Belgium cousins, it has distinct coriander and orange overtones and this stood up to the sweetness of the seafood very well. For a whet beer it has a medium body so was not too much for the delicate sauce and the complexity of the biscuity wheat flavours gave great balance against the cauliflower and samphire. This was a lovely combination.

Braised lamb neck fillet with Tap Social Inside Out

It is the time of year when it is unwise to trust the weather. This is the reason that one always needs to ready with a bright zingy salad or a heavy braise. This is really a dish that is suited to dark winter evenings and not to mild spring twilight.

• Lamb neck fillets (work on about 150-200 gms per person)
• 1 large carrot (cut into chunks)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 2 celery stalks (cut into small pieces)
• 3 cloves of garlic (roughly chopped)
• 1/3 bottle red wine
• 250 ml lamb stock
• 1 tbsp quince jelly (or redcurrant)
• splash of oil

Heat the oil in a heavy pan with a lid. Put in the carrot, onion, celery and garlic. sweat these down until softened and taking on a little bit of colour. Remove these from the pan and set aside. Pop the pan back on the heat and ad the lamb to brown it all over (get a real crust on them). Add the veg back in and pour over the wine. Make sure it boils to burn off the booze and then add the stock. Cover and put on a low simmer for a couple of hours until the meat is falling apart. 

Lift out the meat and set aside somewhere warm. Stain the liquid and return to the pan on the heat, add the jelly (it really is very easy to make) until it is thick and sticky. Serve the meat with the sticky sauce over the top. I served it with cauliflower puree, baton carrots and roasted shallots.

The match

Tap Social Movement are a force for good. They deliberately recruit staff who are leaving the prison system, a group for whom paid work is not only hard to find but their only chance to build a future outside of the criminal justice system. Their beer is also really good.

Inside Out is an Oatmeal Stout, meaning that oats are used as part of the grain bill during brewing. This tends to add body and also makes the head nice and creamy. This is a really lovely beer and hits all the chocolatey and coffee flavours that would be expected. It has a lovely body and matched up to the rich meal very well.

As a note, because I've been asked, I am perfectly comfortable matching a beer to a dish which contains red wine. By the time that the wine has been cooked for 2 hours it has a lovely flavour but it is not in any way like something you would put in a glass.   

Chicken Margaret and Guiness 0.0

This dish was named in memory of my late mother. She was a child during the war so always had a sense of the value of chicken, especially one roast as a part of a feast day meal like Christmas or Easter. She never had much time for the idea of cheap chicken, it was always a luxury to her. Further to this, she had a liking for Black Pudding which bordered on obsession. Black pudding is a blood sausage, and so, not to everyone's tastes but it is part of "nose to tail eating". A full English breakfast is incomplete without Black pudding, and my Mum would agree. This is one of the few dishes on my YouTube channel and a demonstration of how to cook it can be seen on there:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdIfWRJNUmU&t=4s

Serves 2

Please note that the sauce is different from the one in the video

• 2 Chicken legs (just the thigh and drumstick)
• 2 slices of Black pudding
• A handful of Bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 150 mls vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Cut the bone out of the thigh of each leg. This takes a bit of time so please don't hurry and do not try and take the drumstick bone out - you'll be at it for days.

Blitz up the Black pudding, breadcrumbs and egg in a small blender to produce a rough, dry paste. Roll two fingers of the paste and put it where the bone has been removed from the leg. Wrap the flesh and skin around and secure it with two or three cocktail sticks. Put the legs in the oven at 180 for about 20 minutes until it is cooked through and the skin looks brown and crisp.

Meanwhile, reduce the stock in a pan until it becomes a little bit syrupy. Stir in the jelly and allow it to melt to create a sweet, rich, shiny sauce.

Carve the thighs into three or four pieces and place neatly on the plate. Gently run some of the sauce over and create a small pool.

I always serve this dish with a puree of cauliflower (more of this in a later post). This time I also added buttered cabbage and roast potatoes.

The Match

At present I am partaking in Dry January so my beers will all be without any alcohol and doing some research into this, increasingly important, type of beer has been a revelation. Guinness 0.0 is genuinely lovely. It is a really good approximation of the "real thing". Obviously, it is Malt forward and has the thick, creamy head that makes this style of beer so famous. However, I was not expecting the level of depth in the maltiness or the dryness in the finish. It is not exactly like the real thing but a few pints into an evening I would defy most people to tell the difference.

The richness stood up well to the black pudding and the depth of flavour in the chicken. The redcurrant sauce with the Guinness took me back to my student days when some of my misguided friends used to have a shot of blackcurrant cordial poured into the top of their Guinness claiming it was the next big "thing". I look forward to matching stouts (Irish, Milk, English, Oyster and American) with food in the forthcoming weeks. 

 

Inspiration and perspiration.

There are very few new ideas in food. Most interesting ideas in modern food are modern twists on old classics or an introduction of new ingredients or cuisine to a different context. Calital food was probably the first of these to be given a name. The sheer glory of Californian produce with Italian cooking wasn't actually to big a leap of anyone's imagination but it did produce some stunning dishes. Those few cooks and chefs who go beyond innovation into invention usually end up with Michelin stars or bankrupt or both.
Most of us mere mortals search for inspiration from the familiar places: a stunning ingredient, and old classic, a particular location, the work of a "proper" chef and such.
The dish below comes from a few of these!
In February, before the world shifted on its axis, the Beautiful Wife and I were invited out to dinner at the Sir Charles Napier near Chiner on the edge of the Chiltern Hills. The meal was a triumph with that rare combination of great food, great wine and great company. The quality of the cooking was really very high - The memory of the Rhubarb Souffle will stay with me for ever.
For my main course I had the Navarin of Lamb. This in its purest form is a rustic lamb and vegetable stew, very "paysan" and hearty. However, the chef had taken this ancient dish and completely re - thought it. I have never been a fan of the idea of de-constructed dishes but to a degree that is what he did. It was a piece of exemplary cooking. I have endeavoured to recreate it since then and now have something of which I am proud. I have served it with different vegetables as we are later in the year.

Braised Neck Fillet of Lamb with puree of Cauliflower, Roast Beetroot and Thrice cooked chips.

1 large neck fillet of lamb
2 or 3 long shallots
Red wine
Lamb stock
2 carrots - diced
3 or 4 celery stalks - diced
1 medium onion  - diced
1 tbsp plain flour

Cauliflower puree
1/2 head of cauliflower
250 ml double cream
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic

Thrice cooked chips
2 large baking potatoes
Lard
Salt

Roast beetroot
1 large beetroot
Oil

In a large saucepan or stock pot heat a little oil and brown the meat until the surface is a little caramelised add in the celery, onions and carrots and fry them with the meat for a couple of minutes until they are just starting to take colour. add in the flour and stir into the mix. Then add half a bottle of wine and a similar amount of stock and stir in gently but thoroughly. Cover and allow to stew on the hob for a couple of hours till the meat is just starting to fall apart. 
In the mean time cut the potatoes into neat large chips wash them in cold water to remove excess starch and boil until they are becoming just tender. Dry them and allow them to cool then chill them in a fridge for an hour or so. Bring 1/3 of a large pan full of melted lard up to a temperature of about 160 centigrade. Fry the chips until they are soft but have not taken any colour. Again cool the chips. Just before serving fry the chips in the fat at 180 centigrade. 
Also while the lamb is cooking the beetroot should be cut into equal sized cubes and popped into the oven with the oil to roast (This takes about 45 mins to an hour.)
To make the cauliflower puree, break the cauliflower into small florets and put them in a pan with enough veg stock to just cover them boil until the cauliflower is very soft and then add the cream. Boil this to thicken a little and then blitz to a puree. This maybe to thin, in which case pop it back in the pan and continue to thicken. Incidentally, you probably wont use all of the puree but it makes a great base for a cream of cauliflower soup (I always thin it out a bit with cream and add crumbled Stilton)
About 20 minutes before serving peel the shallots and cut in half, keeping the root bit attached. Pop this with a little oil in the oven to roast down, caramelise and become all sticky. 
Meanwhile, back at the lamb. Remove the neck fillet from the stew and place somewhere warm; it should be falling apart like pulled lamb. Strain the liquid of the all the veg. They have done their job. Take about 200 to 250 ml of the liquid into a clean saucepan and reduce fast to create a shiny syrupy sauce, maybe add a little butter to add some gloss. Slice the neck fillet in half. Place a piece of neck fillet on half the roast shallot and plate up the rest as you see fit!

A word about presentation: My default position on presentation is "Bistro / Brasserie / Family" I have no aspiration to produce works of art on a plate. Though I always want my food to look like one would want to eat it. For this reason (and many others) it was never in my destiny to win Michelin Stars!
However, with this dish I did go a little to town and showed off, on our best china.

The finished article.