Artichoke, it’s all about the foam on the Michelin Watch list.

On Friday we happened to find ourselves in the suburbs in North West London, Rickmansworth to be precise. While we were there my partner and I decided to try a restaurant which was recommended to us by a couple of friends who live locally. Apparently it is on the way up and is on the Michelin watch list, which means they are on best behaviour in case that scruffy couple in the corner area couple of inspectors seeing if their staff are always courteous regardless of the apparent dress of the clientele.

As this was a slightly special occasion for us we decided to give the tasting menu a whirl, if you have never tried a tasting menu I have to say it is a really good experience when done well. The theory behind this you get to try the best of the menu and experience what the chef can do. The food bit is great although I have to say that the best bit about any tasting menu in my opinion is the matching wine.

I am a late convert to this way of eating, I think I had my first one just over a year ago but since then I have been making up for lost time. In teh past I had always assumed that I would never be able to eat all of the food served up as these tend to be 6 or 7 courses which may sound like a lot but the portion sizes tend to be relatively small.

The Artichoke was the location for the latest meal, it is apparently on the Michelin watch list, which as a friend succinctly put it means that there is going to be "a lot of foam".

The amuse bouche and starters were interesting and very well paired with the wine, although the first starter probably had a few too many types of beetroot but was interesting and worked really well with the wine. The second starter was a couple of curried scallops with carrot and coriander, this was interesting and unusual but very tasty, the pairing with the wine was also very good.

The only complaint I could really have was the middle course for the evening, which was a shot glass full of fois gras, a pickled Victoria plum and an apple foam. The foam and the fois gras worked really well together, I could even get over the fact we were served a very sweet dessert wine with it but the Victoria plum in the middle of it really didn't work well.

After that we were served a couple of excellent main course, first a very tasty rock salmon, this was followed by a pork main course, this consisted of belly and a couple of fillets which were amazingly tasty but probably were a little bit too much (in terms of quantity) for my girlfriend.

I would have to say that the whole meal was a really good experience helped by friendly, knowledgeable staff. and would recommend the restaurant for any upcoming special occasions. I would also suggest that it is not quite Michelin star worthy yet, but I imagine its time will come fairly soon if the food and service continue to be of such a high standard. 

Shopping while hungry – Recipe: rosemary and mint Lamb chomps with ared wine jus.

 I am a firm believer that going to a supermarket while hungry is a terrible idea. However I really couldn’t decide what to cook last night (and the cupboard was pretty bare, so to speak) so I risked it. Usually when I try this I end up coming back with a  lotof things that I would never usually buy (bags of cookies and various other bakery products are the norm) but last night I was pretty good.

What I did end up buying were some nice looking lamb chops. Theidea being I was hungry and I wanted something that I could cook quicklywithout too much effort while watching the football (Kiev vs Stoke) on my laptop. To go with this I decided I would throw in some herbs, as it was lamb I purchased fresh Rosemary and Mint. As an accompaniment I decided to keep it simple, Vivaldi potatoes (they were on offer) and Chataney carrots (they weren’t but I have developed a liking for them recently). I also had some other veg lying round at home to supplement this.

I made a quick marinade for the lamb (for 4 smallish chops),this consisted of

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 stalks of rosemary – Stripped and finely chopped

2 stalks of mint – finely chopped

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of red wine

2 teaspoons of runny honey

1 clove of garlic

Sea salt and Black pepper

I left the lamb chops to sit in this for about 30 minutes stirring it occasionally as there wasn’t really enough marinade to cover all ofthe chops. (feel free to leave this longer but I was hungry)

Just before putting the lamb under the grill I put the potatoes on to boil on  a medium heat (these take 16-20 mins) after 7 or 8 minutes I put the rest of the veg (in this casetenderstem broccoli, fine beans and carrots) on my jerry rigged steamed (read: colander resting above the potatoes with the pan lid on top)

 I grilled the lamb under a moderate heat on a normal grill pan, I placed half a red onion which I had cut into hunks and brushed with olive oil under the grill rack while thelamb was cooking. The lamb took about 6 minutes per side to cook (when turning drizzle more of the marinade over the chops). After about 10 minutes of cooking I took the lamb out from under the grill at which point I poured a mug full of boiling water into the tray before pouring all of the mixture (red onion plus the fat from the chops) into a frying pan to make the sauce. I added a couple more tablespoons of wine and a lamb stock cube to this before simmering for 8 minutes (while I finished cooking the chops and serving the vegand everything else).

Anyway, coupled with the relatively reliable 2010 McGuigan’s Merlot the whole thing tasted really good.

Restaurant Trip: Maharini on Clapham High Street

 

Like catching up with an old friend for a drink and discovering that it is just like old times.

Before I moved to Balham 4 years ago I spent a happy year living in Clapham North with some close friend, all of whom were big fans of an occasional curry. While there, one of the regular places to get our Bhuna fix was the Maharani (http://www.maharani-clapham.co.uk/), now since the move (slightly) south I haven’t really been back and it was really nice to take my girlfriend there with the promise of a good, traditional English curry and find that I really wasn’t disappointed.

Now I am not saying this is the most up to date place in terms of décor, however if you can look past the fixtures and fittings the service was excellent and attentive and the atmosphere was pleasant enough (although obviously it is a big restaurant on Clapham high street so occasionally on a Friday and Saturday night I imagine you get a football or rugby team in there which may cause a few problems if your plan was for a romantic meal for two).

As well as fast and polite service, the food was excellent. We ordered a couple of specials not on the online menu ( a Rajistani chicken and a lamb dish which I forgot to make a note of) along with a Saag Paneer which according to my foodie girlfriend was one of the best she had ever tasted.I have to say both of the curry dishes were also really tasty and we’re delivered to the table still sizzling. The lamb was tender in a thick gravy, the chicken was also really tasty, neither was excessively hot, but they definitely packed a little  bit of a punch.  The food was also pretty good value for money, nearly all of the mains cost less than a tenner and the assorted sundries came in at about 3 quid each. As is the norm with curry houses 2 dishes and a vegetable side were probably a bit too much for two of us when you add in a portion of rice and a Naan but we really weren’t complaining and ended up finishing the lot.

The wine selection is somewhat limited (I know what you are thinking, who goes to a curry house and orders a bottle of red, the answer would be “my girlfriend”). The 2007 Saint Emilion we eventually settled on was under 20 quid and very nice (although it I hard to talk about wine complementing food when that food is curry) and obviously they also serve the usual array of beer if you prefer to use that to douse the spice fire.

Cost for two of us (including half a bottle of wine and tip) came in at a very reasonable 55 quid and I’d definitely recommend a visit as part of a night out.

Healthy Eating - Chicken breast stuffed with spinach and ricotta

At the minute I am trying to be healthy, mainly because I can't do as much exercise as I normally do as I have  injured my knee. So hopefully most of the things I am cooking in the next few months should be relatively healthy (although if you disagree about this please tell me).

Last night’s meal was a bit experimental, The plan was to do a simple chicken breast stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta cheese, which is straight forward enough, you simply butterfly cut the chick breast and stuff with about 2 table spoons of cheese (per breast) mixed with about 1 handful of roughly chopped spinach leaves. For extra taste you can the wrap these with a slice (or two) of bacon (depending on the size of the breast) before wrapping them in foil and putting them in a pre-heated oven (to 200 degrees C) to bake for 30 minutes.
I was going to do this with a few new potatoes and some fresh steamed veg (Broccoli, Fine Beans and chantenay carrots) again nothing too tricky here. My concern was that this would be fairly bland and dry, what it really needed was a sauce.

This is where the experimentation kicked in. I decided I was going to try to make a roasted Vegetable puree/sauce to go with the chicken. Not having any idea how to do this I cooked half a roast red pepper (or if you prefer capsicum) (I sliced the sides off the pepper), about 10 pomodorino tomatoes, quarter of a red onion, a couple of bits of chilli (no seeds) and a clove of garlic on some foil, covered them in olive oil, salt and black pepper and then put them in the oven with the chicken.

After about 20 minutes I removed the vegetables and threw them into the blender with the left over spinach and ricotta from my breast stuff effort earlier. My first attempt at blending failed, nothing got chopped, after some head scratching my house mate suggested I tried to add some more liquid to the mix so I added some of the juices from the chicken (which was by now relatively well cooked) as well as a bit of water and tried again. This was more successful however I have to say that the pepper/capsicum needed to be fished out of the sauce and fine chopped by hand. Once this had been blended I put this into a frying pan on a medium heat to reduce (keep stirring to avoid burning). Depending on how much water you added this will probably take around 5-10 mins. Next time I think I will add some paprika as this is cooking to take the colour from the yellowy brown it came out to something a little bit redder.

Ingredients (per person)

A small/medium Chicken breast

2 tbl spoons ricotta

1 handful of spinach leaves

1 or 2 rashers of smoked bacon or that fancy Italian equivalent

New Potatoes

Chantenay Carrots

Fine beans

Broccoli

½ red pepper (capsicum)

10 pomodorino tomatoes

1 clove garlic

¼ red onion

¼ medium chilli

Olive oil, Salt and pepper to taste

Fine dining

This is my first blog post so I figured it would be sensible to tell you a bit about why I am blogging and what the purpose of this blog is. I should also mention a bit about me, I have always been interested in food, like most people I was initially interested in the consumption of it (as the photos of me as a fat 14 year old will testify to) but in recent years I have found that cooking is a really good way to unwind after a stressful day in the office and it has become more and more of a passion of mine (to the extent that when I cook something I am proud of I have started taking photos!)

Which brings me to the idea behind this blog. I want to create a collection of my own food experiences with food I have cooked (mainly because my memory is terrible and I should really start writing down what worked and what didn't so that I know for next time) and also to give me somewhere to record about the restaurants I have eaten in so that I can remember in years to come if they were any good.
  
Now, apparently, according to today's Evening Standard, the only people who can afford fine dining are the uber rich and there is no point in most average people even thinking about going to those restaurants. I have to say that I completely disagree,  I am certainly not uber rich and although the average "fine dining" meal out is now in the region of 100 quid (apparently) I have to say that in London in general there are still some excellent eating experiences to be found which won't break the bank. So my aim is to blog about these so that more people can enjoy the experience.