All posts tagged: Featured

Pork belly and caviar

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This dish is a version of surf and turf which turned out extremely delicious and nicely balanced; it has fatty, juicy meat with a very crisp skin, smokiness from the fish, acid from the white currant, ozoney salinity from the caviar and earthiness from the potato. The herbs bring some freshness and zing. To get the perfect glass-like crispy skin I use a method adapted from Peking duck. Ingredients: (Serves 2) 500g pork belly with skin Caviar – as much as you can afford. This is baeri caviar which is very good but won’t require you to remortgage your house. Ratte potatoes – handful Smoked fish – this is smoked trout but mackerel would also work very well Mint – bunch Pea shoots – bunch Cream- dash White currants – punnet Olive oil Lemon balm oil (optional) See previous posts about how to make herb oils Equiptment : Sous vide / Blender/ Sieve Method: 1.  Prepare the pork belly. Having experimented quite a lot to get the perfect combination of crispy skin and juicy flesh with …

Braised shortrib with Roquefort

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This is an unrepentantly indulgent comfort food dish which balances melt-in-the-mouth beef with creamy, cheesy, potato and lightly sautéed mushrooms. The natural astringency in the reduction sauce from the braise plus the light vinaigrette on the mushrooms really lifts the dish and stops it being way too heavy. Roquefort loves beef but also brings a satisfying acidity which also helps balance the whole thing out. Ingredients: (Serves 2) 500g beef short ribs Marsala, a splash Onion, bay leaf for the braise Sherry, a dash 2 baking potatoes 100g Roquefort Double cream, to taste Mushrooms Herb oil (optional) Method: 1.  Get your braise on. The longer you cook this the more unctuous and delicious the end result. And because it’s a very low oven you can let it cook on its own all day whilst you do something else. In a heavy le creuset-style casserole dish/Dutch oven heat a tablespoon of oil until it’s smoking then add the ribs. Brown on all sides very well. Now throw in a chopped onion and bay leaf, and let …

Pizza

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During the past year I’ve been working on a recipe that pretty closely replicates what you can get out of a proper pizza place, but which can be made with ingredients you can find at your local supermarket, and can be cooked at home in a normal domestic oven.

The Clove Club

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( 18.5 / 20)  Absolutely outstanding demonstration of how to cook ingredient-driven food with a clear sense of terrior, but also, more importantly, with passion and a great deal of fun. This is an astonishingly good restaurant, with a perfectly pitched service, that takes the casual fine dining concept and shoots the lights out.

Jacobsz

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1st Visit: Lunch Saturday 30 September 2017 (15.5 / 20)  Very enjoyable addition to the upper echelons of the casual fine dining scene in Amsterdam, and here with a sincere mission. That it seems is to put out a high standard of dishes, each clearly well thought through and generally well pitched in terms of flavour, at an accessible price point. For me Jacobsz it’s not yet as good as the leaders in the price bracket – the Daalders or Breda’s of the world, but to be fair its not that far off. We’ll watch this place with some interest. (Click on the score to see the rating system and why I write these reviews) €€€€€ 5 course dinner €49 Gault&Millau 15/20 The restaurant scene in Amsterdam is bubbling away nicely. The economy is doing well, house prices skyrocketing, and almost every week there are new openings of pop-ups, bars, cafes, full-blown restaurants, and sometimes even as in this case, a pop-up becoming permanent. For a city of its modest size Amsterdam really has more than its fair share …

Hertog Jan

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1st Visit: Lunch Saturday 16th 2017 (19.25/ 20) Elegant and precise cooking with a real sense of place, set in a beautifully calm, light and informal dining room, though slightly let down by an oddly under par service. Food-wise it was one of the best meals we’ve eaten all year (and ever), but still I’m left with the distinct impression we’ve only scratched the surface of what delights can be found here. We can not wait to return.  (Click on the score to see the rating system and why I write these reviews!) €€€€€ 6 course lunch €195 3 Michelin stars since 2011 Gault&Millau 19/20 OAD Best European Restaurants No. 25 Worlds 50 Best No. 61 Hertog Jan has been high on my restaurant wish list for longer than I care to remember. Widely recognised as one of the better restaurants in Europe, probably at the forefront of innovative fine dining coming out of Belgium, and one of only three 3 star Michelin establishments in the country, this place is ‘worth a special trip’ in the truest sense. …

Lamb en croute

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This started as just an idea… can you even make lamb en croute? First there was confidence, then concern, then a strange conversation with myself. ‘If it doesn’t work first time who cares? Erm.. I care. Well then, why don’t you also cook it sous vide and then if it over or under cooks you can serve that instead and then eat the pastry one yourself later!’…. In the end both ended up on the plate (?!) Ingredients: (Serves 2) one rack of lamb a handful of frozen peas chanterelles one leak pate de foie gras (or any smooth pate) two leaves of savoy cabbage one egg for egg wash pre-rolled puff pastry parsley oil optional Method: 1.  Get your butcher to french trim the lamb rack. Life is too short to be doing this at home. Its also far to short to make puff pastry so just buy that! Cut the rack in half and remove the bones from one portion. Place the one still with the bones attached, well seasoned, in a sous …

Daalder

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(16.25 / 20)  From a food perspective at least, Daalder, the bistro-come fine dining spot, is already encroaching on some of the starred restaurants in town. And service (for us) is certainly at a new level. This is delivered still at a very sensible price point. But at what point does the food outgrow its surroundings, start demanding fewer covers, more space for its diners, and pressurise prices? Its going to be very interesting (and a lot of fun) to watch how this story progresses… 

Bridges

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(16 / 20)  Business dinner favourite in transition to a new team. Well thought out and really beautifully presented dishes which still lack a little oompf but which show a lot of promise. Decent if slightly erratic service and all at a very sensible price point. Recommended already, I expect as the team settles in it will just get better and better, especially if they manage to transition the menu a little more back to concentrating on fish and a little less to hotel menu standards.

Turbot with red wine

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This is a pretty easy dish which plays on combinations which might sound a little odd to some but that actually have a long history together: Turbot, red wine, and mushrooms. It was also one of the very rare occasions in which I managed to make a restaurant quality dish at home. Give it a shot and please be careful with frying the kale – read the full recipe first! Ingredients: (Serves 2) Turbot, about 200g a portion Bottle of red wine – here I used an OK Rioja Kale – one stalk Spinach leaves – bag of Chanterelles – handful Butter Method: 1.  Portion the fish and reserve the bones and skin for the sauce 2.  In a large saucepan, place the bones and a dash of oil on a high heat. Get some caramelisation on them – it makes the sauce much tastier later. When there is some good browning, add an entire bottle of wine and cook down until syrupy. Season and pass through a muslin cloth. Add a knob of butter …