A Day At Le Manoir.

By now, there aren't many foodies in Britain who don't know who Chef Raymond Blanc is. Having now had three series of his cooking competition show The Restaurant, where couples compete for the opportunity to go into business with Raymond, he is well known for his exacting standards and passion for sustainability. (Don't get me started on JJ and James winning last season..) Now, with his BBC 2 show Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets, we're learning about some of the methods Raymond uses in his two Michelin star restaurant Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons in Oxfordshire, which has featured in both series.
Almost two weeks ago, we had an incredible evening at Le Manoir and ate some of the most beautifully prepared food we've ever had. From the hors d'oeuvres served in the lounge before we went to our table, to the five course seasonal menu, absolutely every bite was a delight, as were the staff, and the setting. I was most excited because I knew I would be returning ten days later for a day-long cookery class.

Le Manoir is only a 45 minute drive from my home, which is incredibly lucky for me. I gave myself an extra hour to account for morning rush-hour traffic but there was none on Monday, so I arrived over an hour early. I had a little wander around the same gardens we had seen at dusk on our previous visit, then I went to reception, where I was greeted and taken through to a small lounge with a burning fire and a cup of coffee.

After my fellow classmates arrived, we were joined by our tutor Joel Moroney, a gregarious and patient American chap who has been with Le Manoir for three years, working his way up to Chef Tournant before becoming a cookery school tutor six months ago. Joel distributed chefs' whites and aprons to us all and took us back through reception and the courtyard to the purpose-built teaching kitchen. The class I was attending was the Blanc Vite, which is aimed at cooks with at least basic kitchen skills and general enthusiasm for cookery and like everything else at Le Manoir, is geared around creating seasonally relevant dishes.

We were paired up into teams and were taken through the schedule for the day. We were shown how to poach eggs properly, which is something I've never felt completely confident doing, so it was brilliant to see it done in front of us and then turn around and do it ourselves. We made our own breakfast of poached egg, asparagus and spinach and were served teas and coffees while we ate and watched further demonstrations by Joel and Junior Tutor Emily Sneddon, who showed us how to make a rough puff pastry that we were to use for a tart later on.

Over the course of the morning and earlier part of the afternoon, we learned some beautiful seafood techniques, including pan-frying the perfect piece of salmon and sauteed squid and steaming mussels in a coconut broth. Not only were we shown some lovely recipes and able to ask all kinds of questions, but were given the scientific reasons behind why you must do certain things in a specific way.

The passion of Raymond Blanc and the chefs for the highest quality, ethically-sourced food rings through everything you see and learn. A massive binder on the shelf houses lists of the producers he uses for everything from the pine nuts to the name of the fisherman who caught the squid and the farmer who makes the buffalo mozzerella in Wales.

We put all of our veggie scraps into a compost pot in one corner, and when I asked Joel "Should I compost the egg shells?" He said "No, because they encourage rodents."
So THAT explains why I have an uninvited guest (or two) living in my freaken compost bin! The little bugger moved literally three bucket-fuls of compost through a tunnel and into the greenhouse yesterday. I don't know whether to be outraged or grateful!

So we had a lunch that we cooked ourselves, consisting of a fresh and zingy Thai green papaya salad with a firey dressing and then a wonderful piece of pan-fried salmon over spring vegetables from the garden outside. Joel showed us how to make a perfect roast chicken, as well as poaching one gently in aromatics. We drank a lovely glass of wine while we ate our own creations and both of Joel's chickens and were then taken for a walk through the gardens.
We were able to talk to Jo the head gardener about what is growing in the vegetable patches and the poly tunnels, all of which are completely organic, learned about the history of some of the many beautiful bronze sculptures around the grounds and saw how they grow the incredible micro herbs they use in the kitchen.

After returning to the kitchen for the remainder of the lessons we were shown how to make a beautiful caramelized banana souffle and crepes. Two things that were fairly simple but that I had never quite mastered before.
We made a small cherry tomato tart with the puff pastry we'd made earlier and some onions which had been confited in olive oil.

We boxed up our tomato tarts to take home with us and were presented with certificates for completing the course. We also got to keep our chef's white jacket and were given a 12cm santoku knife from Chef Blanc's range for Anolon, which is fantastic.

Before leaving, Joel took us for a proper tour of the restaurant's kitchens, which made me drool with equipment envy, especially the sous vide baths and circulators.
Our day was over and I was so sad, because I'd had such a lovely day. I learned how to poach eggs properly and why my pancakes were never quite right (I was cooking them in butter) as well as why I have a family of rodents chillin in my compost bin. It would have been nice to work individually rather than in pairs and to have done more of the cookery ourselves, instead of watching so much, but in reality, it would have taken two days to cover everything we did that day had it been structured any other way.

I came home with my skills refined and with a new confidence to try dishes which had previously intimidated me. I've made poached eggs for my last two breakfasts and am going to make a cheese souffle for my supper tonight.

The class is not cheap, at £325 per person, but really is worth every single last penny. The day is filled with learning, pampering and tasting, leaving you with a feeling much like when you were a kid and you'd spent all day at an amusement park, full in your heart and stomach, wishing it wasn't over yet and knowing you'd sleep like a rock that night.

I absolutely will go back when I can scrape together a few shekels for the Artisan Bread class, as the bread they make at this place is nothing short of miraculous and I've told you all about my struggles with bread making.

Now I'm off to my own kitchen for more practice, still slightly giddy from that brilliant day..

Top Tips And A Great Monthly Read

I mentioned once before that I LOVE Olive Magazine. It's one of the things that makes me glad to be back in the UK and I look forward to my copy coming through the letterbox every month.
Olive is a monthly foodie publication with brilliant but realistic photographs and recipes that have seasonality, cost conscience and lively flavour at their heart.

My skill and knowledge as a cook have most definitely improved over the year+ that I've been a subscriber because of regular sections like Need to Know, Olive Investigates and Masterclass tips and recipes by Lulu Grimes and John Torode.
Olive is definitely a real cooks' magazine and focuses on from-scratch meals which make the most of what the current season has to offer and what an average (or lower) family budget can afford. Look for the 7 Days for £35 and What To Eat Now sections specifically for ideas for your weekly table. I suppose my only misgiving is that some of the dishes are a little less substantial than my insanely greedy husband and stepson require, but there's no reason you can't add a veg or carb dish to bulk things up a bit.

The Eat Out and Eat Away sections are a brilliant guide to some of the best restaurants both in the UK and abroad and gives honest reviews of popular eateries, both from professionals and Average Joe.

The £3.40 cover price (less if you subscribe, depending on the offer you choose to take) is more than made up for by the money-saving tips you glean from the pages. If you're like me, you'll keep your back copies for future reference and inspiration. I even keep a small notebook which lists some of the recipes I'd like to try, referencing the edition and page number.

Olive will make you a better cook and a more informed shopper and leave you with little nuggets of information that will enhance every aspect of your cookery. This April's edition has a couple of pages called 21 Secrets To Being A Brilliant Cook, with everything from ways to keep your knives sharp, tips for successful baking and little techniques which improve everything you do in small but effective ways.

I've put a few of my own tips and techniques for successful cooking below. I would love to include all 21 of Olive's tips, but apart from being plagiarism, it would be incredibly tedious. If you're able to pick up a copy, these two pages are worth the whole magazine's weight in gold.
I have already done a post about saving money, so I won't include any of that in this post. I would love to get your suggestions or tips you use in your own kitchen, so please leave comments if you can.

1) Don't refrigerate your tomatoes. The cold prevents proper ripening, kills the flavour and turns the texture mealy. Keep them on the vine in a bowl on the counter or on a shelf and eat them before they go soft.

2) Don't wash your mushrooms. They'll absorb water and go mushy when you cook them. Instead, use a mushroom brush or slightly damp paper towel to wipe away any dirt.

3) Use stock instead of water whenever it might benefit the dish. When a savoury recipe requires water, use chicken or veggie stock (not stock cubes though) instead to add flavour as well as moisture. Simmering veg such as carrots, parsnips and mushrooms in chicken stock, until tender and the stock has reduced to a syrupy glaze is about the simplest way to make a simple veggie side dish.

4) Have at least one good quality knife and keep it sharp. Besides being far safer, having a good, sharp knife will give you better precision and slice (pun intended) valuable minutes off your prep time.

5) Make your pastry in a walk-in fridge. Ok, maybe that's a bit extreme, but the best way to get super light, flaky pastry is to keep the fat as cold as possible. Refrigerating the fat, the flour, the bowl and everything else will help achieve this. Keep your hands out as much as possible and make sure to chill the dough for at least half an hour before rolling

6) Roll out dough between two layers of cling film instead of on flour. This doesn't apply to pizza dough, but for cookies or pastry, this is a good tip to follow (Thank you Rachel Allen). By not rolling out on flour, you don't introduce more flour to the mixture and upset the balance of ingredients. This is even more applicable when rolling out cookies which are to be cut out, as often the dough scraps are re-rolled a couple of times.

7) For perfect roast potatoes, use goose or duck fat and get it as hot as possible before tossing your par-boiled potatoes in. Super hot fat and a soft, floury potato surface will give you the crunchiest, most spectacular roast potatoes you could wish for.

8) Brine your meat! Ok, not all recipes will benefit from brining, but a nice long bath in a sweet, salty and aromatic bath before a gentle roasting will give everything from pork loin to whole chickens or ducks and Christmas turkeys a wonderful, fragrant moistness that cannot be achieved any other way.

9) Keep your shrimp/prawn shells. Put them in an airtight container in the freezer then use them to flavour sauces and soups. For instance, if you simmer them in the stock you plan to use to make prawn risotto, you'll impart even more of the natural flavour. This is doubly true if you roast the shells first.

10) Don't use extra virgin olive oil for frying or hot roasting. The strong, fruity flavours will not survive the heat and will turn bitter. Use a lighter olive or other veg oil for cooking, saving your better E.V. olive oils for dressings.

11) Store asparagus, lettuce and celery in water. My Mum taught me this tip years ago and it's still one of the best. When you bring the veggies home from the market, and you have room in your fridge door, slice the very bottom off and put in a mug or jug with a couple of inches of cold water in the bottom. Cover with an upside-down plastic bag and pop in the fridge door. Your veggies will stay crisp and fresh for more than a week when stored this way.

12) Wash your veg right away. When you get home from the shops, wash all your veggies in a sink full of cold water. Not only will this refresh the veg, it will keep your fridge cleaner and will make meal prep so much faster.

13) Keep a few basics in your fridge and cupboard and you'll always be able to whip up something tasty. I always have: Garlic (fresh), ginger root, a chunk of parmesan cheese, crushed red chillies, lemons, limes, a tin of anchovies, soy sauce, capers and a jar each of green and black olives. With this collection of flavour-packed dynamos, you'll be able to turn even the lowliest bits of meat, veggies or pasta into a something truly special. This tip will never be more handy than when you've got an unexpected lunch or dinner guest.

14) Take note of your successes. I can't count the number of times I've made a dish or tried a technique and thought "Wow, that was brilliant, I'll have to remember it for next time!" only to not be able to remember what I'd done that had worked so well. And so, for about a year now, I've kept a small journal to keep note of recipes I've tried that worked, whether my own, from my cookbooks, (Olive) magazines or online.

15) Use an oven thermometer. For £5 you can get a small metal thermometer to hang or stand on your oven shelf as you can't always depend on your oven's settings or thermostat. This is most important when baking or roasting meat for a long time at a low temperature.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll add bits as they come to me. Please do leave your own suggestions and tips, as I value all the help I can get!

Regal Beef- A Visit to Cattle Grid in Windsor.

Anyone who knows me knows that for me, going out to eat is a gamble. Never more so than when my incredibly, irritatingly picky husband is with me. We live in an area of Berkshire where there are no decent restaurants to speak of, so we rarely eat out, not even for a snack. Whenever we DO (gulp, deep breath) decide to eat out, it really pisses us both off when the food we're served is crap. When I say crap, I mean "This cost a third of our weekly grocery budget and I wouldn't serve it to my dog." A couple of my local pubs (peel a freakin' carrot, change your fryer oil more than once year, cook a potato all the way through!?) fall into this catagory, as did my first Indian takeaway from a local place (coughAmir in Binfieldcough) that had come recommended.
I don't think that we have extremely HIGH standards, it's just that we know what CAN be done with simple ingredients, so if it's your job, why not do it properly? Why hire cooks who take absolutely no pride in what they're serving?

That's why, when we walked into Cattle Grid in Windsor for lunch today, our expectations were no higher than usual.
Cattle Grid is conveniently situated in Royal Windsor Station, just a stone's throw from the castle and seems to be popular among the local professional men, as there were quite a few posh suits munching away this lunch time. We grabbed a table for two near the door and were quickly greeted by a busy but friendly waitress who apologized for being "on her own today".
Not that it mattered, because our order was taken in a timely manner, even though customers continued to flow through the door and the "order up!" bell chimed away in the background.
The restaurant itself is of a moderate size- I'd guess to seat 40?- and has an open kitchen, where we could see two well-groomed, concentrating young men making the food. I didn't notice any music, which is a plus in my book and the decor was butch in a dark wood and steel furniture way, but comfy and clean.
The menu is unapologetically carnivourous, which shouldn't be a surprise, given the name. They have a modest, yet decent selection of steaks, burgers and ribs, none of which would break the (even my!) bank and some lovely looking sides and salads.
We were both in the mood for a burger, mine with beetroot and goats'cheese and Hubby's with brie and caramelized onions (yum, right!?) accompanied by a tidy but not OTT pile of hand-cut chips.
While waiting for our food, my glass of Temperanillo and Hubby's cider arrived and we watched plate after plate of food be delivered to other tables, making me think several times "oooh! That looks good, I should have ordered that!" The hog roast sandwich in particular looked fantastic, and I decided there and then that we were coming back for that in the not-too-distant future.
My wine was rather disappointing, and tasted like the bottle had been left open since yesterday, but Hubby's cider was apparently crisp and refreshing.

Our burgers arrived in good time and were just as attractive as the rest of the food we'd been ogling. The goats' cheese melting on top of mine was just creamy enough with not too strong a flavour and the beet was roasted, not pickled (gold star). The burger was good-vet-could-cure-it-rare, just how I'd ordered it, of really nice quality beef and on a robust herb bap. My only complaint, was that the whole lot could have been a liiiittle more seasoned, as the salad veg and beets were a little on the bland side but this was easy enough to remedy with the condiments on the table. The hand cut fries were every bit as crunchy outside and delightfully fluffy as any I've had and made me wish I could finish them.
We were in and out within an hour and for the two of us including one glass of wine, one bottle of decent cider and tip we spent £30. Granted, not the cheapest lunch you'll have, but well worth the price when you consider what else is on offer on the high street.
This Cattle Grid location has been open for just over a year, while the Balham and Clapham locations have been open for two years and six weeks respectively. It would be nice to see more locations, as long as they're able to maintain the quality of the food and the feel of their restaurants at the price point.
We will definitely be back (only I'll order a whole bottle of wine this time) and in jeans with considerably more stretch than the ones I was wearing today.

Learning the Sweeter Side

When I was growing up my Mum didn't make a lot of sweets really. Of course on family birthdays and some holidays Mum would bake incredible cakes and pies but really, I never saw baking as "proper cooking", and poo-pooed cookie and cake bakery as the domain of old fashioned housewives. I loudly maintained this opinion over the years, even as I came to realize that not only does baking take every bit as much talent and patience as savoury cookery, but it also requires a certain precision in order for the magic to work properly. Like most cooks, I often try to make a recipe my own, by adding a little here, omitting a little there and generally putting my own twist on a recipe that has caught my eye. Over the years though, I have tried to do this all too often with pastry recipes, ignoring the basic obvious fact that many of these tried and true recipes rely on a number of chemical and physical reactions to be successful.
Like many things, it turns out that if you can understand the science behind what is going on in your mixer, cake tin and piping bag, THEN you can start applying your own tweaks and changes to make a recipe truly your own.

I bought two cookbooks recently, which have both been invaluable in my quest for successful baking. The first is Leith's Baking Bible from the cookery school of the same name, which has recipes for just about everything you could want to bake both sweet and savoury. Each section has important tips and information about the upcoming recipes and has helpful "What's gone wrong when" suggestions for improving your methods. I have cooked several of these recipes, with great results every time.
The last book I bought, which is actually an essential for every aspect of cookery was McGee on Food and Cooking. This is a hefty tome about the size of a dictionary, with print only slightly larger and is a go-to for Heston Blumenthal. This book investigates the minutiae of each and every ingredient and how and why they react to various treatments, heat and other ingredients. It could definitely be used purely for reference, as it would take months to read cover to cover, but if you CAN take the time to read it, you'll gain more practical knowledge about science and history of food than you ever would watching all 13 seasons of Good Eats back to back. I am on page 114 of 818 (followed by a 48 page-long index!) and have covered milk and milk products and nearly all of the egg section. If you're a complete anorak about cookery and don't fall asleep easily while reading, I'd recommend giving it a go.

One other thing that has vastly improved not only my puny ability, but mostly my confidence, is a pastry class I took last autumn at master patissier Eric Lanlard's Cake Boy cafe and school.
My Dad bought me this day-long class for my birthday and I was rather nervous, because the vast majority of my sugar, flour, egg and butter-related efforts to date had been roundly disappointing. There was one other student in the class, which was brilliant because we each got a lot of one-on-one help. As we went through the day, we learned all kinds of processes like making meringues, mousses, ganache, caramels, pralines and truffles and with each new thing I realized that each little step was something I was very familiar with. The class with Eric taught me that I can actually make pastries and pies, as long as I take my time, don't cut corners and just view each recipe as a series of steps, instead of one intimidating challenge.
At the end of the day, I had a huge bag full of desserts and sweets that I'd made, along with Eric's Glamour Cakes book, which is really for those who want to make rolled fondant tiered cakes. I have used the cake recipes with good results, but I think that most of the designs are a little dated and unexciting, with not very polished work in the pictures. The thing that surprised/dismayed me most was that Cake Boy uses cheap, battery eggs and lower quality ingredients in general than I use at home. The exception to this was the use of copious amounts of Valrhona chocolate. Given the number of eggs his bakery goes through daily and the prices his pastries fetch, it bothers me that he cuts this corner.

I subscribe to Olive Magazine, which I look forward to every month and from which I take endless inspiration. In the most recent (March 2010) edition, I found a recipe for Baileys Cheesecake with Coffee Jelly

This turned out beautifully as a dessert for Valentine's Day. This is a no-bake cheesecake, and rather than being made with cream cheese, uses marscarpone, quark, cream, eggs, Baileys and sugar and is set with gelatine. This produces an incredibly light, velvety treat, which doesn't leave you groaning and unbuttoning your jeans.

One thing though, is that if you follow the recipe, the coffee jelly is only about half as thick as the picture. From a flavour standpoint, this is fine, as if it was as thick as shown, the coffee flavour would overwhelm.



I expect that I will continue along my pastry exploration path in the coming months, so I'll post both my successes, revelations and failures here. Stay tuned.....

Product review- Mino Sharp 220/BR Ceramic Water Sharpener

My knives (basic Henckels) have been professionally sharpened several times over the years. I usually wait longer than I should, because of the inconvenience of being without them for days at a time, but last summer, I found the Mino Sharp ceramic water sharpener at a small kitchenware shop near my home. Based on the recommendation of the shop owner and her return policy, I decided to try it. The sharpener cost £24, which was preferable to spending nearly £40 to have all my knives sharpened again.
The gadget works using two pairs of ceramic discs that sit in a shallow well of water beneath a guard which has two narrow slots through which t draw the blade, which prevent you from making mistakes with the angle. Depending on how blunt your knives are, you need to steadily and firmly draw the knife 7-20 times through each of the two pairs of discs. The first pair grinds the blade edge down, the second hones it to a razor sharp edge.
Each knife will take about 2 minutes to sharpen, then you simply wash the well and discs, dry , and store for future use.
I have used the Mino Sharp twice now, the first time on all of my knives and the last on the chef's knives, cleaver and boning knife I use the most. I have found that by keeping the blades honed by regular use of my honing steel, my knives have not needed a trip to the kitchen shop at all. I even managed to get a killer edge on the $5 cleaver I bought at the Oriental grocer in Phoenix four years ago.

If you have a good number of forged steel knives that you want to be able to sharpen at home, I would definitely recommend the Mino Sharp. They are available from Amazon, Russums and Art of Living among other places.

When I have a knife block full of Tojiro Senkous, I will employ fairies to sharpen them for me but until then, this is probably the best kitchen gadget I've bought in a long while. Well worth the £24.

Other ways to prolong the length of your knives' life:
* A traditional sharpening steel should be used to maintain the sharp blade, but does not actually sharpen the edge, it merely straightens it out. No matter how many swipes you give a dull knife, it will still be dull when you're finished.
*Don't ever use the sharp edge to scrape or move ingredients across a chopping board (the very thought is making my toes curl!)
* Never use harsh or abrasive cleansers to clean your blades and don't leave them soaking in water, gentle cleaning with a mild detergent is sufficient.
*Don't put your knives in the dishwasher. Aside from the harsh detergents, the rattling and banging about won't do the blades any favours. Loose knives in the dishwasher can be dangerous if you don't see them when reaching in for something else.
*Use polythene, polypropylene or wooden cutting boards. Glass, granite or other hard surfaces will dull your blades and are unsafe to cut on, as your blade can skid on them.
*Store your knives in a knife block, a drawer block or on a magnetic rack. Storing them loose in a drawer is unsafe for the blade and for your fingertips.