Vienna - a tale of two dinners

The idea of being a Michelin inspector...now that, surely, is the dream job? I don't think that I'd be good at it though - I hate criticising people or bashing them and I am cripplingly polite. Seriously - it is a family trait and not a good one. I was musing about this because we went to two one-star restaurants on our recent trip to Vienna and one I adored and one I didn't but it all came down to a completely subjective view of the food being served and that's the thing - how do you divorce subjectivity from, presumably, a set of criteria that deigns something worthy of a star or not? I'm not sure I could do it.

I mean, there were plenty of reasons to like Apron. The service was fabulous - the most engaging, friendly, fabulous staff. The setting was gorgeous - dark, brooding, romantic...but with a table big enough that you didn't feel in constant danger of knocking your water glass over. A create your own tasting menu - yes, really! They have a menu of six starters, two mains and two desserts and you can pick your own five or seven courses for a set price which is extraordinary - I've never seen another restaurant do this. Everyone at the table can please themselves as well - you don't have to order the same thing. Which meant that D and I could cover all ten dishes between us by opting for a five course tasting menu. 

I say five courses, but Apron are out to break you as an eater. Before we even got to these there was a fabulous amuse of minestrone soup and Parmesan cream, some decadent snacks and a bread course that was just bonkers. It came with multiple accompaniments, the best of which was a candle MADE OF BUTTER that melted into a pork gravy. 

Once we got into the menu proper though, I started falling a bit out of love. I just didn't feel that the dishes were quite coherent enough, or sufficiently balanced. Of the starters - for me, the stand out was a glorious mushroom dish which tasted as bosky as you could possibly wish. But any textural contrasts were completely obliterated by the broth that was poured over at the table. Mains were good - I had chicken which is just not done often enough in high end restaurants - but not great. My chocolate dessert really needed some contrast from somewhere - the mango element on the plate was too sweet to balance out the delicious cremeux. Very pretty though.

The next night, we went to Pramerl and the Wolf. I thought that I was done with food at this point; it being the third night in a row we'd been for high end grub. I was wrong though - it turns out, when anything is this good, the stomach will find a way. Not a duff mouthful from start to finish; and I'd walk on coals to have the celeriac and scallop tartlet again, or the dinner rolls basted in bone marrow, or the squid and smoked eel in Parmesan cream. Service again was great, if a little more perfunctory than the night before, atmosphere good. Fabulous wine pairing - lots of interesting, natural wines which seems to be a really big deal in Austria, far more so than here.

One place, then, to which we will definitely return and one to which we will not, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either. I think, when it comes to food, what makes one's heart sing is subjective, and I wouldn't criticise anywhere for doing its thang when its thang just isn't my thang too.

Recipe corner: cheese and pepper chickpeas

Lots and lots of food writers are doing sterling work at the moment across all of social media, making loads of recipes and cook-alongs and tricks of the trade available to us mere mortals.  I have always been an avid Ottolenghi fan anyway (his book "Plenty" remains one of our most utilised) but he has had some fabulous stuff over on Instagram which he saves to his Stories. When he mentioned doing a sort of take on cacio e pepe, but with chickpeas, then I had to give it a go.

You will note that lockdown has not improved my food photography skills any.  Sigh.  Although I suspect it would be hard in any case to make a pile of gloopy beige chickpeas look attractive (not really selling it there, am I?)  Anyway, forget about the crappy picture, these chickpeas were DELICIOUS.  Look, so good it made me shout.  D was less enamoured and, of course, he is entitled to his opinion (he is WRONG.)  I suspect that the problem here was partly that I didn't quite get the sides right.  I served them with a tomato and chorizo couscous salad and flatbread which, while nice in their own right, weren't quite...there.  

Anyway.  My chickpeas needed less cooking and slightly more water than Ottolenghi's so I've included my timings and quantities on the below write up - a lot is going to depend on the peas themselves, the soaking, your oven...you just need to cook them until they are nice and soft and most (but not all) of the liquid has been absorbed so that you're left with a very slightly soupy texture that will thicken up into a silken, clinging sauce once the butter and cheese has been added.

Cacio e pepe should really just be about cheese and pepper so don't be afraid to be bold with the latter.  Since Ottolenghi himself supported the initial addition of garlic, I'm going to go one step further and chuck a couple of aromatics in at the cooking stage, but you could quite happily omit these.  Oh, he also originally suggested a couple of pickled chillies as a garnish.  I didn't bother as I had a bit of heat coming through from the couscous, but I think that they would be a lovely addition.

Ingredients

150g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

Tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

Couple of Parmesan rinds

2 bay leaves

Sprig of thyme

750ml water

Pinch of bicarbonate of soda

50g butter, fridge cold

25g Parmesan, finely grated

Heaped tsp black peppercorns, roughly crushed

Serves 2

Preheat the oven to 180 (160 fan).

Take a pan large enough to hold all the soaked chickpeas comfortably and that will go in the oven - some sort of casserole dish is ideal.  Over a low heat, warm the oil and then fry off the garlic for just a minute or so, until the raw edge has disappeared from the smell.

Drain the chickpeas and add to the pot, tossing well in the garlicky oil.  Then throw in the rinds, the bay and the thyme and cover with 750ml of water and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.  Bring the lot to the boil and then cover and transfer to the oven.

My chickpeas were cooked perfectly after just an hour in the oven - the original recipe called for an hour and forty five minutes.  I would suggest checking after an hour.  Cook until the chickpeas are tender and the consistency is still slightly soupy.  

Remove from the oven and discard the Parmesan rinds and the herbs.

Add the butter and the Parmesan in 4 lots, stirring well each time to ensure that they have melted completely.  The residual heat in the dish should do this without the need to apply any further heat from the hob.  Then finish by stirring through the black pepper and a pinch of salt (if needed).

Serve.  With...something.

MPM: 20th August 2018

I meant to do this first thing this morning and then got distracted by, ugh, work.  And I meant to introduce the post by spending a good five minutes moaning about how TIRED I am but, actually, I might save that for tomorrow and just concentrate on meal planning today. 

This week, we have my parents coming for dinner on Saturday, which if D has his way will mean a multi-course, thousand point extravaganza.  I am wondering if everyone would settle for a couple of takeaway pizzas and a few hands of cards.  Other than that, the week is a quiet one which is fine by me.

Monday: Spiced tomato and lentil soup

Tuesday:  Thai spiced turkey patties with rice noodle salad

Wednesday: Crispy lemon sole with brown shrimp butter and cucumber salad

Thursday:  Pork with mushrooms in creamy tarragon sauce, mash

Friday:  Chilli con carne

Sunday:  Trout with horseradish

MPM: 13th August 2018

I’m so tired this morning. This, despite the fact I had a nap yesterday afternoon and then went to bed at nine o clock, I feel like I could sleep for a week. Thankfully, God invented caffeine and I’m sure that the second cup of strong coffee will be the charm.

Anyway, meal planning. A quiet week ahead with some nice food to look forward to.

Monday: Pan fried salmon with Bois Bourdan sauce and crushed potatoes. A Heston Blumenthal recipe from his “At Home” book.

Tuesday: Creamy butternut squash and red pepper soup, homemade flatbreads brushed with smoked butter

Wednesday: Kale and blue cheese gnocchi

Thursday: D is out, so filled pasta for me.

Friday: Skate wings with black butter and capers. This is one of my all-time favourite things to eat but, dear Teapot, butter is high in points. The recipe I’ve used before suggests 75g butter between two people. That’s 14 points worth of butter a portion! I mean…I’m going to eat it, but I will be licking any excess butter off the plate when I’m done and will probably be whingeing about it a LOT.

Saturday: A homemade fakeaway - Nando’s chicken pitta. Now, we went to Nando’s the other week on a pre cinema jolly and I was SO disappointed. I think they might have changed their recipe, or else we just got a really duff cook because it was not nice at all. Too much chill heat without any rounded flavour, woolly, over cooked chicken and the chargrilled vegetables were not so much chargrilled vegetables as crappy, overcooked mulch. So I’m going to make my own Piri-Piri style chicken at home and it will likely cost a hell of a lot less than the £30 we paid for two of us to eat remarkably mediocre food.

Sunday: roast dinner. Probably chicken. Depending on the weather, I’ll either do roast potatoes and standard trimmings, or we’ll have it with a couple of salads, maybe some bread. It’s distinctly cooler and greyer this morning here in Leeds, perfect roast potato weather, but we’ll see how the week pans out.

Recipe corner: tagliatelle with mussel butter sauce

For such a simple recipe, this looks bloody long when it's written out. Sorry. But if you like mussels, and pasta, and all good things, and if it pleases you to end a meal and have a glaze of butter about your lips then this is the dish for you.

I've already got a mussel pasta dish on here from years and years ago - I'll have to make it again soon to compare and contrast.

Ingredients

1kg fresh mussels (in their shells)
Small glass white wine

250g fresh tagliatelle

Tbsp olive oil
Shallot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
50g butter, cubed
Small handful fresh dill, chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice

Serves 2

Sort through the mussels, discarding any with broken shells. Remove the beards. Heat the wine in a large, lidded pan and when it just starts to simmer, tip in the mussels and cover. Cook for 5-6 minutes until the mussels are all steamed open, plump and glistening. Discard any that are closed and set the rest aside to cool slightly.

When no longer too hot to handle, remove the mussels from the shells and strain the winey juices. All this can, of course, be done in advance.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and, on a second ring, place a second pan (large enough to accommodate all the pasta) over a low heat and measure in the oil to warm.

Sweat off the shallot, garlic and chilli with a generous pinch of salt, then pour over the mussel juices. Reduce the liquid down by about a third. Start to add the butter a cube at a time, stirring well. Once all the butter has been incorporated you can throw in the mussels and dill.

Put the pasta in the now boiling salted water and cook for 3-4 minutes or per the packet instructions. Meanwhile, taste the sauce - season and add a splash of lemon to lift it slightly. It may taste slightly salty at this point but this will balance out when eaten with the pasta.

Toss the tagliatelle through the mussel butter sauce and serve immediately.

Dan Lepard's sour cream sandwich bread

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, since I believe most tinternetters with an interest in bread baking discovered (and raved about) this recipe ages ago. But I've never been ahead of the zeitgeist; I work on the basis that if I'm slow enough, by the time I discover things they might be just coming back into fashion.

I'm not going to reproduce the recipe here because, y'know, copyright. If you own Mr Lepard's much lauded baking book, "Short and Sweet", it's in there and, luckily enough if you don't, it is also available on The Guardian website: here. It's featured in a list of his top ten bread recipes, all of which I want to make.

It's well worth having a go at this recipe just out of curiosity - I find it fascinating that the technique of very short, sharp kneads can produce such a beautiful texture when it is so different to the traditional method. The result is a loaf with a soft crust, and a light, fluffy crumb.

I decided to opt for mini loaves to make use of the gorgeous little tins that I was gifted earlier this year. Aren't they sweet? A half batch of the mixture made eight perfectly little dinky ones which required just 12-15 minutes baking. Here are six of them, fresh from the oven:

One of their fellows having already been ripped open and slathered with butter. Behold that gorgeous, pillowy interior:

Highly recommended!

Recipe corner: Mussels on toast

I’ve got behind on talking about the cook books / blogs that we used as the basis of our March meal plans. Which means you’ve been spared a blog post full of me banging on about how excellent all my old recipes are. (Although in all seriousness, I cooked five recipes from this blog’s back catalogue and they were all delicious. Yay me.)

During the week in which we cooked from Valentine Warner’s “The Good Table” there was, for me at least, one stand out dish. I’m usually a bit chary of sharing recipes here that appear in books or magazines because…y’know…copyright but this one happens to be posted on Mr Warner’s own website, so I figured that it wouldn’t cause any great harm if I reproduced it here as long as I linked to it. Voici le link.

It is such a simple idea that I am kicking myself for not thinking of it previously – creating a béchamel sauce using the wondrously fragrant, sea-redolent cooking liquor of the mussels and then stirring the little blighters through to create a rich, creamy pile of deliciousness. Yes, I am getting a little adjective heavy here but I thought it was that good. We’re coming to the end of mussel season now (if you hold by the old adage that you should only eat them if there is an “r” in the month) so maybe this is one to tuck behind your ear for a bit later on when the nights begin to draw in again. It is comfort food par excellence. Mr Warner suggests serving the mussels on toasted soda bread and the slightly dense, cakey texture does hold up particularly well here. I commend to you my very own soda bread recipe – it’s an absolute doddle to make and, I think, worth the effort in this case.

Ingredients

500g mussels, in the shell, cleaned and beards removed

25g butter
Level tablespoon plain flour
150ml milk
A good grating (perhaps ¼ tsp) of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Small handful chopped curly leaf parsley

2 thick slices of soda bread, toasted Butter (optional)

Serves 2

Put the mussels in a large pan with a splash of water, cover and cook over a medium heat for 3-5 minutes until the shells have started to open. You may need to give them a good shake about half way through the cooking time to ensure that they are evenly distributed – also, it is an excellent stress reliever. 


Remove them using a slotted spoon and set aside. Strain the remaining juices into a small jug ready to make the sauce.

When they have cooled slightly, remove the mussel meat from the shells and hold them ready to go in the sauce. Discard any mussels which have failed to open at this point.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat. When it is just on the point of foaming, add the flour and stir briskly to make a paste – I always favour a wooden spoon for this operation. Continue to stir until the paste is beginning to dry out – you will notice that it starts to form a ball away from the sides of the pan.

Now you can add the strained mussel juice, a little bit at a time, stirring hard in between each addition until the sauce appears smooth. A liberal application of elbow grease is required here. Once the mussel juice has gone, start adding the milk in a similar fashion, until it has all been absorbed and you have a creamy white sauce.

Turn the heat up a smidge and allow the whole to simmer for 5 or so minutes. Then, add the nutmeg to taste (not too much – nutmeg can take over a party if you allow it), a pinch of salt (again, not too much, there is a natural salinity to the mussels) and plenty of black pepper. Finally, stir in the mussels and the parsley and heat for a further 30 seconds to ensure that the meat is warmed through.

Toast the bread, butter it if you wish (I always wish for more butter) and then spoon over the creamy mass of mussels and serve immediately.

Note: I am convinced that this would make a fabulous brunch dish, if you were looking for something a bit different. If you were planning on doing it for brunch, I would recommend making the béchamel and the soda bread the day before, and then all you would need to do in the morning is make toast and stir through the mussels. If you do ever make béchamel in advance, once it is cooled, cover with a layer of cling film directly touching the surface of the sauce – this will prevent a skin from forming.

Cooking with fat

Minx gets tired trying to keep track of what she is supposed to be eating...

So the debate rages on about what the real enemy is when it comes to our eating - it seems that after years out in the cold someone has decided that fat isn't actually all that bad for you but having sugar in your tea is akin to...something dreadful.  I don't pay an awful lot of attention, to be honest; I have no intention of ditching any of the food groups, mainly because I am greedy and they taste nice and life is genuinely too short to spend it worrying all the time.

This much I do know, if you're counting points, or calories, or whatever, and you want to get your intake down a bit, shaving some of the fat out of a recipe often helps.  In most cases you can, at least, halve the amount of oil called for in a recipe with no particularly detrimental effects to the flavour but a decent calorie saving.  Gram for gram, fat has about double the amount of calories in it as does protein or carbohydrate.

And, when we're talking about pure energy content, all fat IS created equal.  Earlier this week, I watched Jamie Oliver pour several "lugs" (what is a lug, Jamie?  A good few tablespoons I reckon) of olive oil over a plate of mackerel and quinoa...and then refuse to add a knob of butter to his mashed potato.  Yes, there has been much written about the health benefits of olive oil, but that does not change the fact that pouring it willy nilly over your food is going to increase the amount of calories you consume by rather a lot.  Also, butter tastes good.  I love butter and cook with it often, and there is no reason you can't as long as you are sensible with regards quantities.  The idea that butter is "bad" while oil is "good" is a total nonsense.

The key for the home cook is to invest in some decent equipment.  A couple of good non stick pans will change your life (if your life, like mine, is quite small and quiet, and kitchenware excites you).  We bought ours a few years ago from M&S - a little pricey but worth their weight in...well, gold.  The point is, often a recipe calls for a lot of oil at the beginning just to stop food sticking to the pan.  It seems a bit of a waste to add something that is not going to contribute particularly to my enjoyment of a dish but just save a bit of time washing up.

Another tip is to buy yourself a silicon brush - this is something I picked up from watching Andrew Pern work during a Star Inn cookery course last year.  A brush will ensure that whatever fat you have added to the pan - even if it is just a scant teaspoon - can be quickly and evenly dispersed across the whole surface.  I use mine a lot for this very purpose.

When cooking foods with a high fat content of their own - streaky bacon and chorizo are two examples which immediately spring to mind - you can often get away with not adding any additional fat for cooking purposes.  Keep the heat low to start with, which will allow the fat in the item itself to render out.  I never cook bacon in oil - which makes me sound a bit puritanical -  but I just don't see the need.  The bacon will cook quite happily in its own fat as long as you start it off slowly.  And if I'm cooking something alongside said bacon - for example, an onion, I will cook the onion in the bacon fat as well.  Just make sure you do your meat first and that should provide you with sufficient lubrication.  And I'm sorry for using the word lubrication in a piece about cooking.  Those of you with a prurient mindset are allowed to leave the room for a giggle.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is, when you're following a diet plan, every little calorie or point or syn is precious.  But, equally, fat can be an important - even crucial - component of a dish and we shouldn't be afraid of it.  We just have to work out where it will actually contribute an element of pleasure to the food that we are eating - that's the bottom line, isn't it?  Enjoying what we are eating?

Personally, I like tuna...

Recipe corner - partridge with bacon, lentils and parsnip puree

Sigh.  Yet again food photography that makes perfectly decent meals look like....well, slightly nondescript plates full of goo.  Perhaps I need to hire Lesley to be my photographer on a permanent basis.  Or take more time and trouble over the whole endeavour.  The thing is, when I've got to this (indicates upwards) stage, I want to eat!  And Strictly is on pause and I need to find out whether this is finally the week that Abbey trips over her own feet.

Anyway, this was a highly delicious weekend dinner that I thoroughly recommend.  It requires several pans and a bit of time, but pretty much everything can be prepared in advance and then heated through while the meat cooks.  Talking of the meat, I managed to slightly overdo mine (partridge breasts are very small) so I've reduced the cooking time in the recipe below but keep an eye on it if you have a particularly enthusiastic oven.

Ingredients

4 small partridge breasts
2 rashers of streaky bacon
25g butter
Several sprigs of fresh thyme
Salt, pepper

75g dried Puy lentils
Rasher of streaky bacon
Stick of celery
2 cloves of garlic
Tsp olive oil
100ml red wine
500ml (ish) chicken or vegetable stock
2 tsp red wine vinegar
Tsp juniper berries
Bay leaf
Small bunch of thyme
Salt, pepper

3 medium parsnips
250ml skimmed milk
15g Parmesan cheese
Salt, pepper, fresh nutmeg

Serves 2, 21 pro points per portion

For the lentils: Warm the oil through in a large pan (the lentils will cook better if the pan has a big surface area).  Finely chop the celery, garlic and bacon.  When the oil is hot, tip in the bacon and vegetables and cook until the veg are soft and the bacon is golden.  Then add the lentils and stir well to coat in the bacon fat.

Pour in the red wine and bring up the heat to reduce it quickly and furiously.  Lightly crush the juniper berries with the blade of a knife or the back of a spoon.  Add to the pan along with the thyme and the bay leaves and then pour in the stock and the vinegar.  Ensure that the lentils are well covered with liquid - if not, then you can top up with more water.  Season very well and then reduce the heat and simmer for at least 35 minutes until the liquid has all but evaporated and the lentils are tender.  Lentils tend to be variable little creatures so be prepared for it to take longer, and, if the liquid looks to be boiling dry, add a splash more.

For the parsnips: Peel and slice and then put in a saucepan, covered with the milk.  Cook over a very gentle heat.  The milk should be at a bare simmer throughout - any higher and it will catch on the bottom of the pan leading to a nasty burned milk smell in the kitchen and a very long washing up job.  The parsnips need to be falling apart soft - this will take 20-30 minutes.  Transfer the lot to a blitzer along with the grated Parmesan cheese, seasoning and a hefty grating of nutmeg.  Whizz to a smooth puree.  You could then pass it through a sieve if you're feeling extra cheffy.

For the partridge: I would recommend roasting these in a little foil tray - it saves on washing up.  Whatever you use, make sure it is not completely flat or you are liable to end up with melted butter all over the bottom of your oven.

Bring the butter to room temperature and then season well and mash in the thyme leaves.  Smear the butter over the partridge breasts.  Reserving a dab to butter the roasting receptacle.

Cover the bacon rasher with cling film and using a rolling pin (or similar) give it a good bash.  Cut the rashers in half horizontally and drape over the buttered breasts.  Transfer to the roasting tray.  To roast, preheat the oven to 220 degrees and then cook for 25 minutes.  Allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving with the parsnip puree and lentils, drizzled with the melted butter.

So what’s new with you?

Or, the Foodie tries so you don’t have to…

So, firstly, let’s talk chocolate cheese. Cadburys Philadelphia Light. This particular product has the Weight Watchers messageboards aflame (in so far as an internet messageboard can ever said to be aflame…) and, frankly, with good reason. If you like chocolate cheesecake then it is very important that you try some of this glorious stuff soon. The mini pots, or a 30g serving from a fullsize pot, are 2 pro points. You can smear it on toast, or cake, or biscuits, or fruit, or just eat it with a spoon. Luscious.

Image from The Grocer website.  May provoke attempts to break through computer screen with a spoon.

 And next up on my product review list is an epic fail. Lurpak Lightest. I bought it out of interest because I like Lurpak and think the Lighter version is a pretty good ingredient to have in one’s fridge for cooking purposes (as opposed to smearing purposes – if you’re having butter on toast or crumpets etc. then it needs to be the proper stuff.) The Lightest is obviously a step too far. I had to melt it for use in a banana loaf – it looked like scary alien mucus and refused to cream properly with the sugar. I then (foolishly) attempted to use it as the basis for a white sauce. Terrible. I have never before had to sieve a white sauce, but the roux just would not cook out properly. And, it doesn’t taste nice. It may be low in points (1 pro point per 10g serving) but that is all that can be said for it.