Steve and Christina are coming over this weekend, so we splashed out and placed the order with Wagyu House again. There will be burgers on Saturday. But I also ordered a piece of their sirloin, 300 g of it, a bit of luxury. I cooked it this evening, alongside roast potatoes and some greens. The meat was waiting to be at room temperature, then placed onto a hot pan, no oil or anything, cooked, left to rest and only then seasoned with flaky salt and a touch of pepper. Phenomenal flavour. And the credit card £80 heavier. 🙂

First ever, how I managed to avoid ever making one of these, I don’t know. We get through 18-24 fresh farm eggs in a week in our house and yet it took “Remarkable places to eat” on the BBC to make me want to cook one. Excellent mini series, I must say, there was an episode in Venice ( “Venetians are thieves”, said our Tuscan host Marco last month), in Edinburgh- loved it, as it featured The Kitchin, one in Paris and one in San Sebastian, which is where the tortillas were made.

I used a simple recipe from BBC Good Food, with half a white onion chopped and slowly fried in quite a lot of oil, till softened but not coloured. 2 medium sized potatoes chopped quite small, cooked until soft. Then most of that oil had to be drained before 4 beaten and generously seasoned eggs were added. I also chucked in a few cherry tomatoes from the green house and some green peas leftover from Izzie’s supper. It cooked under the lid for a few minutes then with a help of a plate I turned it upside down to finish the cooking. I served it with crusty baguette, a green salad and some parma ham. We both liked it, but I would put some more flavour in it, chorizo maybe, garlic, something strong.

Last Saturday we braved the rain ( summer’s been cancelled this year, by the look of it) and went to check out Daylesford Farm near Kingham, a place recommended by Christina. I knew nothing would be cheap there, but we still went and blew 60 quid. First thing I noticed on the car park was a Tesla charging station, that said it all about the clientelle…. 🙂

It’s all organic in there, apparently, nothing wrong with that, there’s a lovely selection of bread, there’s butcher’s, some fish, cured meats- at eye watering prices- as well some lovely stuff for home. My favourite place was a little cold cheese room. We got some of their own organic cheddar, some blue cheese and a small piece of a phenomenal truffle number imported from Italy, called Moliterno.

We had most of those cheeses on Saturday evening, laughing out loud in the face of the diet!!! But last night I grated the remaining piece of the truffle cheese onto the pizza, alongside mozzarella di buffala and parmesan. And finally, almost exactly a year after purchasing it, I used up one of my whole truffles from La Bottega di Tartuffo in Lucca. Time to do that was high, as I’ll be there next month again. Beautiful pizza, earthy with mushrooms, simple, cheesy. Top marks!

Hands down the best curry I’ve ever made. While flipping the pages of the latest Good Food I saw this recipe and wanted to make it straight away. Today I did and we both loved it, Izzie ate some too, but only because she was promised a dessert. Florek had seconds, I didn’t, I’m being good. Over 500 kcal according to the magazine, so I wasn’t pushing my luck. Worked out at 4pm though, needed to earn my curry!

2 garlic cloves, a chunk of ginger, 2 large shallots blitzed into a nice creamy paste. 3 chicken thighs chopped roughly and quickly browned off, then out of the pan, the onion paste in for a few minutes. This followed by dry spices- 1tsp each of cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and paprika. 2 tbsps of tomato puree. 2 tsps of sugar, 1 of salt ( could be skipped, 300 ml chicken stock was salty enough). 0,5 tsp of chili flakes. Once all this was happily combined in the pan and smelling phenomenal, chicken went back in, chicken stock too and slowly it cooked for about 30 minutes before chopped potato and a sweet potato went in. They were not in the recipe, but I love spuds in my curry. And some cauliflower too. And peas, added towards the end. 150 ml of double cream was recommended to be added by the end, but I used coconut cream half way through.

Toasted, flaked almonds, fresh coriander and naan breads from Sainsbury’s completed the picture. Very, very good indeed.

I have a new cookbook, Tim Anderson’s “Tokyo Stories”. The first recipe that screamed “MAKE MEEEEEE!!!!” at me was the hanetsuki gyoza. Made it accordingly, but skipped the crispy”wings” made with soaked cornstarch. I was starving, so was Florek, I left it out. Gyoza itself was super tasty, Florek, who’s not crazy on any pork dish had all all of his plus 3 of mine- I was pushing it already in terms of my diet…. :-/

Anyway, 250 g of fatty minced pork from Toby’s, 80 g of very finely chopped Chinese cabbage, 4 garlic cloves and a 2cm piece of ginger, grated. A handful of chopped chives- replacement for nira, I had no idea what nira was, but google did have an idea. Seasoned with salt and white pepper. All this nicely combined and wrapped in gyoza wrappers, gently panfried, then covered and steamed for 3 minutes to make sure the pork inside was nicely cooked. Served with a simple dipping sauce made with 4 tbsps of soy sauce, 2 tbsps of rice vinegar, a splash sesame oil and – not in the recipe, but I thought ponzu would work here nicely- good splash of lemon juice.

Excellent, not too complicated and will be made again.

A few months ago in “Saturday Kitchen” Tom Kitchin was cooking a wagyu steak that did not come from Japan or Australia, it came from Scottish Highlands, where they know breed wagyu cattle.  Their website’s here :

https://www.wagyuhouse.co.uk/

I was initially put off by the prices, but having slept on it a few times I decided I’d love to order some burgers from them, as a birthday present for Florek.  I considered some steaks too, but at £15 per 100g of sirloin, ribeye or fillet, I only ordered the burgers.  They’ve arrived yesterday, 4 in a pack, 2 went to the freezer and 2 were devoured last night- with clear conscience, as on Florek’s actual birthday on Tuesday we’ll be dining in Pasta Ripiena in Bristol.

Easily the best burger I’ve ever cooked. Even while in the pan the smell was intense and promising great flavour. I tried to keep it simple, so that the burger was the star on the plate, so all we had on it was cheese, iceberg lettuce, some shallots and a slice of tomato. I held off any sauces, just toasted the brioche buns and made fresh fries from the oil.

Florek was very happy and agreed we’ll be ordering from Wagyu House again. 🙂

Ocado delivers my shopping on Tuesday mornings. I already had 2 duck legs on order, then watched Masterchef, where a dude cooked a duck breast, the look of which made me grab my laptop immediately and edit my order.  2 duck breasts cost £9, 2 legs £4.50. The whole duck, just under 1,5 kg was on offer at £6.70. I hesitated for a few minutes, as I’ve never taken apart a bird and I’d hate to make a mess of it. But there’s youtube.com, so I watched 2 videos of how to do that and ordered the bird.

I have to say that butchering the duck was not as difficult as I thought it would be and it made me feel like I’ve just learned a new skill, saved some money and ended up with both breasts, legs and extras as well. My mum often makes soups on turkey/chicken wings, so I saved mine and froze them for that purpose, then decided to use the carcass to make some duck stock. Another 2 minute video helped with that- never done my own stock before. I whacked the carcass in the hot oven for 25 minutes till browned.

When cooled a little,  it went in  the pot together with a shallot, some green celery, carrots, bay leaves, peppercorns, a few porcini mushrooms and cooked nice and slowly for over 3 hours.

Strained, it now cools in the fridge and will be used for sauces, especially to accompany duck legs.

I then went on to reward my good housekeeping by dining on a pan fried duck breast with fabulous daphinoise potatoes and green beans, washed down with a large glass of Argentinian malbec.  Yum.

We’re off to dine in Roka Charlotte St in 2 months time with Steve and Christina, I can’t wait. Had a good look at their menu and I think I’ll go for their set menu at £90, which might just take me to food heaven by the look of it! One of the several dishes on that menu are scallop skewers with wasabi mayo. I had some frozen scallops, so last night was the time to see what kind of combination it is. Obviously that was me executing it,  a certain Masaki Sugisaki was contacted in order not to cock things up.  Mayo and wasabi mixed did not taste particularly exciting,  Masaki suggested either salt or soy sauce, I added a bit of both and ended up with lovely creamy finish to my simply panfried scallops. As it was an evening meal , I made some panfried potatoes with chorizo, shallot and lots of spring onions too.  A glass of Gruner Veltliner completed the picture. 🙂

We’ve visited 2 local pubs recently, where food disappointed us on both occasions.  Hollow Bottom used to be our favourite place to eat not so long ago, now we were told “they’ve changed everything”, so no more San Miguel on tap, for instance, but the food was the real issue. I’ve eaten braised red cabbage there 2 years ago that blew me away. This time it did too- in a bad way.  I could only taste one thing- vinegar.

And just a week ago we went for a Sunday roast to The Slaughters Inn.  More expensive place, higher expectations. As mediocre as it gets, it turned out and cabbage- sour with vinegar.  Very annoying, I can’t imagine how can someone call himself a chef, put a piece of turd like this on a plate, send it off and expect people to happily pay.

My Christmas menu is almost ready and there will be braised red cabbage on it. Today I’ve made it according to a recipe I found in Good Food, one of the old special festive editions. As it sat in the oven, two duck legs on the stove, the house filled up with fabulous smell. Great recipe, did the veg the justice it deserves;

Shredded cabbage, quite finely, plus a large red onion fried on butter till soft. In. 200 ml of port. A juice and a zest of 1 orange. Some cinnamon. 2 tbsps of brown sugar. A generous handful of chopped prunes.  To the oven, covered, for nearly 2 hours in 140 degrees. Half way through the cooking everything gets a good stir and back in for the second half.

Once it cooled a little and I had a proper taste I decided it was a treat. Buttery, quite sweet, orange comes through nicely. Saved some for the ox cheeks I’ll be making for Steve and Christina this weekend. Thumbs up.