Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Celebrity Chef day

These days everyone knows or thinks they know about food and eating!  Well today we have learned things I never would have thought possible - like steaming an egg in its shell at 65 degrees celius - how do you get steam at 65 degrees?  The answer - in state of the art oven that you can control the temperature so acurately that you can prepare the most perfect poached eggs!
Today has been about duck and venison and a TV celebrity.
 After another gentle start where we discussed the local abbatoir scandal and  the Michelin Star system and of course, yesterdays successes and/or disasters! 
The abbatoir scandal seems to involve a bunch of Commie pinko vegie eaters breaking into the local abbatoir and planting secret cameras that then showed  some slaughtermen allegedly mistreating some animals.  They then leaked this footage to the press and as a consequence the abbatoir owner has received threats to his business and his family.  I'm sure it's not a pretty job, slaughtering animals, but it is highly regulated and like other industries, subject to the scrutiny of the state and essential to those of use who eat meat.   So, methinks, the veggies had a hidden agenda! Have you heard the noise a parsnip makes as you lop its head off?

The Michelin Star discussion revelaed that, apart from Darren and Luke, we were in the presence of a celebrity chef, James.  James Knight-Pacheco was a runner up in the last series of the BBC TV programme "The Restaurant".  He is about to star in February in the new BBC food programme "Out of the Frying Pan".  James has worked in Claridges (before it lost its Michelin Star!) and at Le Manoir Aux Quats Saisons, Raymond Blanc's restaurant in Oxfordshire so what he doesn't know about fine dining is probably not worth knowing and it was he who showed us how to do the most perfectly shaped poached eggs!

Anyway, I digress - another change of partner today - Charlie and Dave team up!  The first job of the day was to prepare our duck for lunch.  On the menu today was Honey and szechwan pepper duck breast with shredded mangetout salad and a honey, ginger and soy dressing.  So Charlie and I attacked our duck which was significantly easier than portioning our chicken last week!  Once we had removed the breasts and legs and fat we marinaded the legs and cooked the breasts.  I rarely eat duck but today was a gastonomic delight.  After pan frying the duck, we whacked it into the oven for a few minutes and out came beautifully pink blushed duck, sliced and placed on a bed of salad with a dressing that you would die for.
After lunch we prepared a tray of  Dauphinoise potatoes, a pastry cream for our fruit tarts and then lined our suet pies for our dinners.  My suet pie did have a little leakage and a repair job was needed to save the the thing from collapsing into a heap!

After lunch we got stuck into the venison - the saddle of venison that was brought in as worth about £100.  Darren fortunately butchered the saddle and took off the flanks and filets, otherwise, if it had been left to  my ham fisted hand, there would have probably been a large proportion of the meat left on the carcass!


And so to dinner - the beef and musroom steamed pudding served on buttered spinnach with beetroot an parsnip puree, parsnip crisps (I thought they only did Cheese and Onion) with a sauce made from the cooking juices.  Tasty beyond belief  -but the suet pudding was a little too heavy for my tatste.

So I can't decide what to do tonight - read the BBC Good Food Mag or go down to the Bay Horse and watch Man U v Man City?




3 comments:

  1. So, If any of our Ducks go missing I'll know where to look!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bay Horse it was again then?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Are you ducks plump and full breasted? If they are - look out!

    ReplyDelete

Letters from the Greek Islands -Part 2 - Crete

  The series of e mail exchanges continues with my good friend and  H & S travel guru - not for the faint hearted and does contain adul...