Happy New Year! And festive feasting

New Year's Eve fondue

Happy New Year, all! Hope you've been able to muster some cautious optimism for the year to come.

Bit of an unusual festive season for us. We entertained! And we mostly didn't eat meat!

My aunt came to stay with us for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year. She's been a vegetarian for almost 40 years, and I couldn't face the idea of making two different meals for three people, so we resolved to cook vegetarian at home while she was with us.

In the end there were loads of things I planned to make that I never got around to (the gado gado, cheesy polenta with roast shallots and figs, sage and walnut lasagne and the white bean puree with roast radicchio can all wait until her next visit) but what I did cook went pretty well, I thought.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's savoury carrot and feta cake

Felicity Cloake's perfect panforte

Nigella's take on pizzocheri - pasta with potato, brussels sprouts and cheese - for Christmas Eve dinner

I started planning what to cook for Christmas Day a couple of months ago. We aren't wedded to any particular traditional Christmas meal, so we weren't trying to fit vegetarian food into a pre-existing format, but we wanted something a bit sumptuous and celebratory. I originally thought that a stuffed pumpkin would be good, but decided that there isn't enough room inside a pumpkin to have a decent amount of stuffing, so I reimagined it as a baked, layered dish.

Sour cherry couronne

We started Christmas day, however, with couronne. It's mostly Paul Hollywood's recipe, but substituting sour cherries for apricots (I didn't bother soaking them) and lovely Italian crystallised citrus peel for the raisins. Instead of plain marzipan I used a new-to-me brandy marzipan, which packed quite a wallop.

Mezze plate

For lunch we just had mezze - bought hummus, felafel, artichoke hearts, olives, dolmades and stuffed peppadews, with some leftover carrot and feta cake, and a few bits of pickled carrot and mooli. Then the layered baked squash for dinner.

November's trial run on the Christmas squash

In my practice runs I had used delica pumpkin, which sliced into neat crescents which cooked evenly and looked like a pretty sunburst.

Unfortunately Ocado let me down on the day and delivered a butternut - good flavour but not as pretty!

The layers of squash were interspersed with sauteed onion, loads of rosemary and sage, crumbled sourdough bread, toasted hazelnuts, crumbled Stilton cheese and garlic. Then I poured cream and white wine over the lot and let it bake slowly.

We had a persimmon and chicory salad with it (Diana Henry's recipe, although for obvious reasons I left out the cheese and nuts). Delicious, if not in any way photogenic.

Final version of baked layered squash

There was no need at all for dessert after all that! Later in the week I made a quince and clementine trifle, but we really didn't go in much for pudding at home.

Quince and clementine trifle

On New Year's Eve we had a fondue for lunch, and then friends came over for tea and cake. I'd been looking for an excuse to make Ottolenghi's walnut and halva cake, and this seemed like just the time. It's a very good cake.

Ottolenghi's walnut & halva cake

The other main home-cooking highlights of the festive period were a rather triumphant take on megadarra (I used siyez bulgar instead of rice, topped it with pomegranate arils and goats curd and served it with runner beans stewed in tomatoes) and pairing Ottolenghi's bulgar with mushrooms, feta and dill with Gizzi Erskine's brussels sprout, pomegranate and pistachio salad. Which end up looking quite similar, so fortunately we didn't have them back to back.

Megadarra and runner beans

Ottolenghi's bulgar and Gizzi Erskine's sprouts

A. Wong

Last autumn we went to a cookbook festival. Cookbook Confidential had a bunch of talks, demonstrations and panel discussions, and it was brilliant. Diana Henry and Kay Plunkett-Hogge talked about how to write a cookbook, in such an inspiring way we immediately went home and pre-ordered Kay's book Heat (which has now been released and is wonderful. Diana didn't have a new book out). And Richard Turner, Dan Doherty and Andrew Wong talked about their food heroes.

Paul fell a little bit in love with Andrew Wong. Something about the way he talked about his approach to food really captured Paul's imagination, and he's been keen to get to A. Wong ever since, but somehow dinner in Victoria has never quite been the right thing. But on Friday night we did it.

Harbin

I started with a Harbin cocktail, which was a take on a margarita - absolutely divine. I ended up having two, because the bottle of Gewurztraminer Paul ordered was so nice he didn't want to share...

We couldn't be bothered with menu reading or decision making, so we ordered the ten course "Tastes of China" menu. Which was, I think, an absolutely brilliant idea.

smoked halibut

Before the ten courses began, we were served a couple of snacks. A little bite of something crisp, with smoked halibut and crunchy jellyfish, and a prawn cracker. It's the first time I've had a prawn cracker that actually tasted of prawn.

Not your average prawn cracker.

Chilli sauces

We were also given a pair of chilli sauces - one made with fermented bean curd, one made with shrimps - but the prawn crackers had so much flavour we only tasted these out of curiosity.

Then the menu proper began. The (completely charming and lovely) waiter introduced each course explaining where the original dish came from and some information about that region of China. Tastiest geography lesson ever.

點心

Dim sum duo.

Dim sum duo

The menu began in Hong Kong, with an incredibly delicate har gau and delicious siu mai. I am not generally a fan of foams, but the light citrus foam on the har gau was a very good friend to the sweet, bouncy prawns. The siu mai was firm and very porky. Neither one bore a lot of resemblance to the dim sum we buy frozen in Asian supermarkets.

The second course was listed as 茶叶蛋 63 degree ‘tea egg’ with shredded filo and satay powder but we were told that Andrew wasn't happy with his eggs and so something else would be served. I'm always absolutely delighted to be told that - even if it is something I am looking forward to, and to be honest, this was the course I had my doubts about because of Paul's known soft egg aversion - it just shows that the chef really cares about the quality of what they are sending out.

Instead, we were served 成都豆腐花 - Chengdu street tofu, soy chilli, peanuts, preserved vegetables. 

Chengdu street tofu

The waiter told us how when he was growing up, little old ladies would travel through the streets with a yoke over their shoulders: fresh soft tofu on one side and a variety of tasty toppings on the other. This was so delicious. This was the dish that tofu naysayers should be offered to cure them of their heresy. The tofu was a light, soft curd, the preserved vegetables gave a toothsome crunch and deep savour, and the peanuts added another level of crunch, fat and flavour. I committed my first crime against table manners for the evening and drank the remaining juice from the little bowl. It was so good I almost wept. I did actually comment to the waitress who cleared our plates that I didn't see how the meal could get any better after a dish like that. It did.

上海小籠包 

Shanghai steamed dumplings, ginger infused vinegar. 

Shanghai soup dumplings

I have never had a xiao long bao like these. Never made quite as much mess with one either. The "caviar" on top was a spherification of something delicious, I think. Ginger maybe? And in picking mine up I ruptured the silky fine skin and ended up having to drink the broth off my plate. I like to think that the staff viewed it as an appreciation of their skill and not me being a complete pig.

红烧臭鳜鱼, 蝦醬什菜 

Anhui province red braised fermented fish belly with mixed vegetables and dried shrimps

Apparently the thing in Anhui province is fermenting fish for days. Which sounds a bit like Surströmming - so I wasn't at all disappointed when the waiter told us that this was an interpretation of the dish, with the fermented flavour present in the sauce, to be dabbed on the shatteringly crisp fish skin and delicate braised flesh. It was very good, but the best thing about the dish was the accompanying vegetables, cooked with dried shrimp butter. I want to eat those vegetables again and again and again.

What the dish really needed was a bit of bread so we could fare la scarpetta - the sauces were so good and it was sad seeing so much go back to the kitchen. Even a spoon would have helped.

白灵菇扒鲍片

Braised abalone, shitake mushroom, sea cucumber and abalone butter

Braised abalone

I like to think I am a pretty open-minded sort of eater, but  sea cucumber... When I was a child, we had a holiday in the Cook Islands and I am still traumatised by standing on sea cucumbers in the sea around Rarotonga. I was not a bit sure about this dish! But everything else had been so delicious, and the story of how abalone is prized in China for its resemblance to old Chinese gold coins lulled me into taking a bite. And it was very nice. I think the small brown squares were the sea cucumber, but I couldn't really tell. They certainly weren't horrifying. The slices of braised abalone and the slices of shiitake mushroom were very well matched for flavour and texture - tender with a subtle chewiness - the crisp shreds of deep fried greenery added a lovely extra dimension, and the buttery abalone juice was just wonderful. You don't tend to taste much butter in Western Chinese restaurant food, but it's a very nice addition.

肉夹馍

Shaanxi pulled lamb ‘burger’ with Xinjiang pomegranate salad

The Muslim population of Shaanxi have contributed lamb dishes, fragrant with cumin, to the cuisine. I've tried it in a couple of different forms: as tender slices of fillet, crusted with cumin; as a murky hotpot with firey sauce and luscious chunks of meat to be sucked from the bones. 

This version - pulled lamb in a rich sauce, with lots of lovely accompaniments, to be stuffed into little buns - was the nicest take on the pulled meat trend that is swamping London restaurants, and a really enticing interpretation of the flavours.

薄荷牛肉卷

Yunnan seared beef with mint, chilli and lemongrass served with a pulled noodle cracker and truffle

Technology came to the party for this course. Our waiter had an ipad and showed us a short clip of Andrew pulling the noodles for these crackers. Mesmerising. Mine lacked structural integrity (or Paul had a knack that I lacked) and crumbled all over the table and my face, but the flavours and the crunchy noodles topped with soft mushrooms were excellent. If the Yunnan black truffles on top were not augmented with truffle oil, they are the most intensely flavoured truffles I've ever had, I think.

The seared beef with mint, chilli and lemongrass was a tribute to Yunnan's proximity to Vietnam, and the exchange of flavours along that border. It tasted very much like a combination of Chinese and Vietnamese food, with a sweet-ish but not gloopy chilli sauce and the freshness of mint (both raw and fried to crisps) and cucumber.

四川香辣手撕茄子, 宫保雞丁

 Sichuanese aubergine with Gong Bao chicken, roasted peanuts and ‘hot pot’ essence

Gong Bao chicken

I'd lost track of the number of courses we'd had at this point, but as soon as I saw the bowl of rice I knew that this was the last of the savoury dishes. We were instructed to eat the Gong Bao chicken (and told that it was very definitely not Kung Pao or Hong Bao) first, with our fingers, and then the aubergine. Which was most certainly the right way around. The aubergine, perfectly silky and luscious, had so much of the málà numbing fire sensation that I wouldn't have been able to taste the chicken. The plain rice was very welcome as a bit of a palate cleanser before the desserts.

北京 酸奶, 菠蘿

Chilli barbequed pineapple with Beijing street yoghurt

Apparently the reputation that China has for not using dairy products isn't entirely accurate - in Beijing, yoghurt is a very popular street food. This was a very nice one. Tangy but not too sour, a little gingery syrup and a chunk of warm, sweet, spicy pineapple.

雪圓子, 荔枝, 檸檬雪酪

Poached meringue, lychee granite, mango puree and orange sorbet

The final dessert was a cheffy play on the idea that the Chinese finish a banquet with a fruit platter. An orange made from two hemispheres of poached meringue, filled with a blood orange sorbet and coated in a crisp sugar shell. A fresh, perfumed mango mousse, a crunchy lychee granita (definitely to my taste - the aroma of the lychee without the excessive sweetness or slimy eyeball resemblance) and a red envelope of sugared lotus root crisps. We were told that when lotus roots are pulled up they are very long and keep coming and coming, so they are seen as a symbol of longevity. And as oranges are seen as symbolic of wealth, it was a wish for us to be long-lived and prosperous. Which is just about the nicest thing a waiter has ever said to me.

Sugared lotus root crisps

There was one more little treat in store though. A white chocolate mah jong tile, filled with strawberry ice cream. So pretty and just the right touch to end a very memorable meal. 

Piquet, Fitzrovia

Beetroot & goats cheese

For a few weeks I'd been hearing increasing buzz about Piquet. Well, maybe not buzz. More of a well-mannered murmur of appreciation and licking of well-fed lips. People whose opinions on food I respect were saying it was very nice. And grown-up. You could book a table and drink out of actual glasses. Then I also saw a suggestion that it was going to be reviewed by the big guns, so decided I needed to go while it was still possible to get in.

We chose the "Discover Piquet" menu option, at £29.95 for three courses and a welcoming drink. I started with a heritage beetroot salad, goat’s cheese mousse, black figs and hazelnuts - comfortable in the knowledge that Jude can't bear goat's cheese, so I wouldn't have to share. Beetroot and goat's cheese is such a safe combination, but this was beautifully composed, with the leaves, figs and toasted hazelnuts adding extra dimension. The slices of golden beetroot confused me, because even though I knew it was beetroot my eyes kept telling me it was persimmon and my palate didn't know what to think.

Jude had celeriac velouté, trompette mushrooms, of which I didn't get anything approaching an acceptable photo. The presentation elevated the soup, poured from a jug around the black mushrooms, but the flavour lived up to the theatre.

I had chicken with a wild mushroom raviolo and salsify as my main course. The portion was a touch on the dainty side but it was the most wonderfully chicken-flavoured chicken I've had in ages. The salsify was lovely - it's such a pain in the arse to prepare that I am always happier to have someone else do it. Unfortunately the raviolo was a bit underdone and firm to the bite.

Jude definitely won the main course round. Her casserole of cod cheeks, baby squid & chorizo, haricot blanc and chopped herb oil was a more generously sized portion, the little squidlets on top were perfectly crisp and the cod cheeks sweet and delicate.

We'd both ordered gin and tonics when we arrived, so one of the (well trained, very lovely) waiters offered us glasses of cava instead of the house cocktail included in the menu.  And very nice it was too. So good, we had seconds with our desserts.

Jude finds it very difficult to go past iles flottante on a dessert menu. So she didn't even try. It wasn't as pretty as the one they do at Brasserie Zedel (they use those bright pink sugared almonds as the garnish), but it was good.

My baked almond tart was utterly gorgeous. Thin, crisp pastry, a thin layer of something like powidl, then a lovely frangipane filling and some not-too sweet prunes. It was served warm with whipped cream on the side. Classic and wonderful. Just like the rest of Piquet.

Le Deux Salons

This is my thousandth published post. I can't help but think that with a bit of planning I could have published my thousandth post the other week on my eighth blogoversary. That would have been good. But that kind of strategy isn't really how I roll...

When I last went to Le Deux Salons, in 2011, I was a bit concerned that I was the last person to go and everyone else had moved on. Well, it wasn't as bad as that, but rumour has it that by the time it was sold to Prescott & Conran last year it was looking a bit wilted.

Reserve de Gassac Rosé

Then, suddenly, a couple of months ago I started to be bombarded by emails from Le Deux Salons and the other Prescott & Conran properties. I have to say things must have got pretty dire if my details from one lunchtime meal deal all those years ago were considered part of the goodwill of the business. I was on the point of getting really annoyed when one email caught my attention - a "Best of the French Riviera" menu, of a starter, bouillabaise, dessert and a half bottle of Rosé for £32. Not quite the three courses for £15.50 of my last visit but it still sounded like good value. And fortunately my lunch partner of the last visit was on her long school holidays, so we made a date for a holiday treat.

Crudités, fromage blanc

I don't remember an enormous amount about the décor from the last visit, but it's now looking just how you want a French restaurant to look. We were seated upstairs in the more formal restauranty bit where the tables are capacious and the tablecloths are crisply white. Lovely. Jude had the crudités with a herbed fromage blanc dip, which looked incredibly pretty. I had a platter of lovely jambon Noir de Bigorre, which I think is the French equivalent of Spanish pata negra. It was simply and generously served with some little cornichons. I do think the Spanish version, with the acorn sweetness of the fat is slightly better though.

Jambon Noir de Bigorre

I wasn't sure what to expect from the bouillabaisse. Most articles I've read about it make it sound quite rustic - Elizabeth David includes an account of an enormous cauldron boiling on a wood fire on the beach, full of a broth yellow from saffron and all the fish they could catch. What we got was not that. But was refined and delicious.

Three types of fish, fennel and potato

I do love a dish in multiple parts, so the sight of waiters coming towards us with many different dishes was very pleasing. We each got a copper dish with three types of fish (red mullet was one, not sure of the others), fennel and potato, a plate of toasted bread slices with a pot of aioli (I don't think it was red, spicy or saffrony enough to be the traditional rouille) and grated parmesan. The waiter then ladelled a couple of dainty spoonfuls of rich seafood broth over the fish and left each of us with a little tureen of the remaining broth.

Bread, aioli and parmesan

We ate the succulent, delicate fish with a little more of the broth, then I made a big delicious mess with the rest of the broth, thickening and seasoning it with the aioli and dunking in the toasted bread. Just wonderful. The white tshirt I was wearing was very much an error.

The waiter ladled on broth

For dessert we both had Brillat-Savarin cheesecake. The cheesecake I had back in 2011 was one of the finest I've ever had, and this was equally as good. The raspberries on the side weren't the best-flavoured fruit I've ever had, but they were just right to punctuate the rich, smooth cheese. All in all, it was an excellent lunch and I think well worth going back for. And it's very conveniently located right near Charing Cross station, so I might have to drag Paul in for a date night some time.

Land down under: Brisbane Part the Second

Another week in Brisbane, and much more food! The highlights included:

Happy Little Dumplings - not authentic, but very tasty!

My old stamping ground in Rosalie has changed a lot!

We shared a trio of dips

... but if I had realised how large the lunch deal was I might have skipped them! This was a shwarma kebab

Lovely Japanese at Azabu. Gorgeous nasu dengaku

Stunning sashimi

Probably the best tempura I have ever had. Utterly crisp and greaseless

A drive to Scarborough produced lovely seafood

I made cranberry blondies as dessert when we had people over for drinks.

It's my sixth blogoversary - I cannot believe how time flies! The blondies will have to do duty as the birthday cake!