Archive for June, 2009

panna cotta made from awesome

Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2009 by mr_smith

hard at work as usual, piloting my desk headlong into a storm of middle aged women and rabbits suffering terribly from hutch fever, i was perusing the usual catalogue of food and pornography related news media that i like to keep abreast of (ha ha, breast). i was struck by a particularly neat idea. it wasn’t, in fact, my idea, it was from the woderful website the kitchn. it was for a remarkably tasty sounding rosewater and blueberry yoghurt panna cotta. I’ve had a hankering to do something with roses for a while now. ever since my neighbourhood burst into bloom. it’s probably the best thing about english summer, the smell of all the roses lining the approach to smith and co hq is intoxicating and delightful (although i did have a can of jd and coke with lunch – classy). On top of this infatuation with the rose, i love panna cotta. it’s easy, quick (apart from the chilling time), and it never fails to impress. this recipe suggests substituting some or all of the cream for yoghurt, to give it a bit of a tang.

i didn’t actually follow the recipe on the kitchn, rather i used one that i’d had considerable success with in the past. being me, and something of an impulsive type, i bought a tub of organic sheeps milk yoghurt for about as much tang as is possible. i also had a slightly different plan for the  rosewater. i decided to make rosewater and mint syrup, from scratch i might add ( it was pretty freakin easy: get a rose, remove the petals, rinse petals, steep in hot water with one or two mint leaves) i had fully intended to make rose syrup caviar, but my technique was incorrect and i wrecked the whole lot of the syrup, annoyingly. -morre about my attempts at molecular gastronomy in a later post.  here’s my recipe for the panna cotta:

pannacotta

i forgot to take fotos of the actual pannacotta, but i think you'll agree that this is a pretty faithful representation. the rays coming off the side are rays of awesome

  • 2 gelatine leaves
  • 30 ml milk
  • vanilla pod
  • 350ml organic goats milk yoghurt.
  • 100ml cream

soak the gelatine in cold water.
put milk & yoghurt & vanilla pod intoa saucepan and simmer gently until it thickens.

whip the cream with vanilla sugar (you do have some right?)

fold the two together, put in molds, chill until set.

the first one that we had was nice, although the texture was somewhere between a lovely creamy pannacotta and a coarse ricotta cheesecake, and the taste was probably slightly over tangy. so i came up with yet another friggin genius idea.  add awesome greek honey and a little grated chocolate, and serve with a vacuum expanded grapefruit and limoncello sorbet.

what a combo, the honey just took away all the (frankly) sourness of the yoghurt.
it would probably have been nice with some sore sugar in the original mix also. and perhaps some blanched hazelnuts.
- ah that gives me an idea…

Leave A Comment »

a taste for katering

Posted in foodstuffs on June 12, 2009 by mr_smith
i recognize this is a pretty offensive image, but it's still funny

i recognize this is a pretty offensive image, but it's still funny

last night, i did some almost impromptu cateing for the late-night crew at mrs smith’s workplace.  the hard working agency types were pulling a radical all-nighter (probably super top-secret like most things in the high powered world of advertisation). i must say i was impressed, and somewhat flabbergsted at the commitment displayed by these indsutrious little advertising elves, particularly as i am an intensely lazy individual whose main focus while “on the job” is to craft novelty towers from the office recycling or stare out the window dreaming of a better place where unicorns lick my face…

anyway…

mrs smith decided that in order to work all night at their optimum performance levels, these creative types needed a little dash of culinary inspiration (i.e. dinner). so she enlisted my help to provide her typewriter monkeys with the vital sustenance they needed to keep working long into the dark night.

I’ve not really done much in the way of catering before (apart from a team away day for the now sadly defunct “food is love”) but i do find it kind of exciting. not like something i’d like to do for a job, but there is something quite satisfying about making food for a large (ish) group of people outside of a dinner party or similar setting.  i suppose it’s the lack of connection that means no-one has to complement you if they don’t feel that what you’ve produced is any good. if, for example (and i was a little concerned about this myself), what you serve is too spicy, or salty, or flawed in some other way, chances are that you’ll hear about it, and most likely directly. especially if you’re being paid (which i wasn’t for some reason – i guess it’s all about the love here at smith & co.). unlike at a dinner party where you’ll usually go out of your way to complement the host and his cuisine while guzzling gallons of cheap rose, only to bitch about how the mussels were rubbery and trifle just isn’t innovative on the bikeride home (and if you don’t bike home, then that’s why you’re fat). so i was quite keen to see how this whole event would go .

perhaps predictably, i decided on korexican birdreedos as beeing a pretty good option for the 20 or so people who really weren’t there for the food, but were there to work. it’s an interesting set of flavours, oh so trendy, easily adjusted on the spice-o-meter, and all packaged up into a familliar tortilla shaped wrap that even the most culinarily prudish can relate to. there was at least one vegetarian, so i did some tofu, mushrooms and peppers, in the same bulgogi style that i have used twice before as well as beef and pork for the non hippies. unlike the first time, i decided that it was much more cost effective to make my own bulgogi marinade, not to mention being much more fun, and hopefully excellently and more awesome ( i’m well aware that that makes very little sense…). the recipe i used is pretty simple:

(this is for about 4-6 people)

  • 3 tablespoons  light soy
  • 2 tablespoons crushed garlic
  • 1 teaspoon crushed ginger
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons korean chilli paste
  • 2 tablespoons korean fermented bean paste
  • 1 teaspoon chilli flakes
  • 2 tablespoons sesame oil
  • 1 finely minced onion (i used the bamix and a splash of mirin to completely liquidize this guy)
  • sesame seeds
  • 1 tablespoon mirin

-mix it all up, marinate your meat.
like anything, i adjusted the quantities to get the flavour that i thought was right, and i went a little easier on the chilli than usual.

i made everything up the night before, and left the meat and tofu (seperated of course) to marinate.
the next day i loaded up the king of shopping, edwardes, with all the tools and ingredients and headed off to south london. the massive load unfortunately proved too much for edwardes, and his back whhel near exploded under the load, breaking a total of 9 spokes, which will lead to his untimely demise, at least in his current form.

anyway. everything went really straightforward, although cooking a large quantity of meat and rice on a small, shit stove in an advertising agency is considerably more difficult than i had anticipated. it would have been a lot easier if i’d had a hot plate that spanned two burners, but as it was, it turned out ok, i just cooked the meat in small batches and put it in the oven to keep warm.

everything else was super easy, there was plenty of food for everyone, it wasn’t too spicy, and it went really quickly, so i can only assume that it was a success. the only thing i noticed was that the beef was a little dry.

even though i enjoyed the experience, mostly because it’s pretty great to know that something you’ve created has given a whole bunch of people a tortilla full of joy, i don’t think i’m goign to start an office catering business just yet.

1 Comment »

shallot tarte tatin

Posted in foodstuffs with tags , , on June 3, 2009 by mr_smith

…well, actually it was steak, polenta, beans and shallot tarte tatin.
shallot tarte tatin

the other night, i decided to cook a steak, the local had a half-price special on sirloin and combined with my cool handling of a particularly obnoxious turd at the counter beside which gained me the respect of the overworked meat slinger and resulted resulted in a further 50% reduction i ended up with a 500g sirloing for around £3.
i have a charcoal bbq, so that was a no-brainer as they say across the pond, and in a flash i recall reading a great idea for shallot tarte tatin on theKitchn.
luckily i had a pile of shallots and a few red onions already at home so again, a no-brainer. the recipe is super simple, particularly if (like me, ashamedly) you have some puff pastry already in the freezer, and you’re happy to use it.

I altered theKitchn recipe slightly and when cooking something llike this, i tend not to bother with weights and measures, because i’m rad.

basically the recipe is:

heat the oven to about 200c
cut a red onion into rings, and cook it slowly in butter in a heavy, ovenproof pan. (mine was a le creuset around 15cm across and about 3cm deep).
cut shallots in half (or don’t if they’re small). add them into the pan with the onions.
let them cook for a bit, then add some balsammic vinegar. you want it to be pretty dry by the time it goes into the oven, so the more you add, the more you’ll have to reduce, and the more syrupy-vinegary-sweet-acid the whole event will be.
i also splashed in a little white wine and some dried oregano.

roll out the pastry so it’s just a little bigger than the pan you’re using in a circle (or the same shape as the pan, if you happen to be using an unorthodox pan), to about 3mm thick.

put the pastry on top of the onion/shallot/balsammic in the pan and poke it down the sides.
put it in the oven
cook till golden brown and a puffy, ensuring your flatmate’s girlfriend does not turn off the oven before the food is cooked.

take it out of the oven, put a plate or something similar over the pan, and turn it over.

shallot tarte tatin. rad.
steak, polenta, beans, and shallot tarte tatin

i just seasoned the steak we got, grilled it to rare, grilled some hard polenta, and steamed some beans as well. it was a little strange, because although the steak was lovely, the savoury tarte tatin was totally the centrepiece of the meal.

try it.

Leave A Comment »