A couple of days ago I had a chance to taste a deconstructed wagyu tataki at work. Deconstructed by Alex, who took the shallot and chives topping and made it into his own tomato and parsley salsa, plus some balsamic, which gave the dish another depth. I got some ponzu last night and made my own version this evening, not with wagyu, but with fillet. My salsa lacked parsley, but was replaced by shiso leaf instead, my new favourite flavour at work ( the spicy salmon roll is now served with kizami wasabi and shiso on the outside, I can’t get enough!). Alongside the tomatoes and shallots  I also added a bit of garlic and seasoned it with shichimi pepper.

My fillet was cooked rare, as usual for this kind of stuff, rested and then thinly sliced. Topped with the salsa and finished off with ponzu. Loving the flavours.

This meal was not perhaps hugely sophisticated or technically challenging, but we loved the flavours on the plate. Our favourite fillet steak, medium rare, with bearnaise sauce ( from the jar, yes).  The steak was accompanied by minted peas, not very fine, as I like the rough texture. The star of the show though- the chips. I was aiming at similar effect as Jamie Oliver’s Posh Chips, simply a generous few drops of truffle oil on the chips, once they’re roasted and then a sprinkle of parmesan. Loved it. With a glass of cold budweiser.

Wednesday night dinner. Something nice to have while watching “Horrible Bosses” – awesome!!!- and to divert our attention from the broken boiler.  I bought a small pork fillet, cut into rings, flattened a bit and seasoned well, then covered in egg and breadcrumbs and pan fried with some chopped onions.  Served with the same lovely bacon and leeks mash, like last Sunday and green beans.  Nice and simple.

I’ve  had a boeuf bourguignon in here already, so I won’t be going into details, it was made in my nice new casserole dish – needed a new one, as I’m very good at smashing them, but what was lovely, was the mash. I threw the boiled, mashed spuds into the pan of fried bacon and leeks, added some butter  for extra healthiness, plus some seasoning. Loved it. Deep, deep flavours.

Florian suggested something Asian, when I asked what he feels like eating. Books have been looked through, web has been searched, recipes have been compared, Waitrose has been visited ( for the kurwa 47th time this week!!!) .

The best s/s pork I remember having was Alex’s at work, the only problem with it was the quantity, as far as I remember, cause the pan was being scraped, so I attempted to make mine at least that good. I think I succeeded.

I used a small pork fillet, thinly sliced it and fried in the wok. Added 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, a red onion, chopped bell pepper, some mange tout, some cup mushrooms, a carrot and a zucchini. Fried it up, added a chopped pineapple and a handful of beansprouts and then added the s/s sauce-; I used about 150ml of juice from under the pineapple, 3 tbsp of ketchup, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, a tbsp of white wine vinegar, same amount of honey and cornstarch. All this went into the wok and thickened nicely after a couple of minutes.  I served it on a nice steamed rice. Very pleased with it, but tomorrow will make some more Chinese I think, lots of stuff in the fridge to be used.

Can’t believe it’s that long since I posted here last time.

Moka came over all the way from Paris this morning and is staying till Saturday, so I made some good food for her tonight, drowned in a bottle of wine. All this resulted in our early departure for bed…

The Chief gave me some Korean spicy  sauce that is used at work to serve chargrilled  wagyu and pork with, I bought 3 nice beef fillets, some nice greens- beans, baby courgettes and broccoli, steamed them first and then finished off on the pan. Steaks were cooked medium rare, just the way we like them, served with mustard mash, lovely sauce and greens. Yum.

Having posted that link from “Eat. Pray.Love”, I just had to make some lovely spaghetti bolognese and give it a spot, as we love the dish and the good French wine we bought in Paris last time, it was a fantastic supper.

My sauce takes at least 1,5 hour to cook. I first sautee the onions and carrots, some celery, in goes the mince, once it’s browned I add red wine, then the tinned tomatoes, good amount of seasoning, herbs and let it simmer for at least an hour. When it’s ready, will all the flavours sitting nicely together, I cook the pasta and mix it all together, finish off with black pepper and freshly grated parmesan. A glass of good red- a must.

Yum.

Inspired by tar-tar chips from work of course, shop bought though, bigger in size and not so lovely in taste, as the potato ones we serve in Dinings.

I made the filling of steamed shrimps, fresh chopped chilli, lots of fresh coriander, mayo,  chopped shallot, tabasco and some seasoning.  First, some lovely ripe  sliced avo went on the bottom of each taco, then filled them up and topped with some more coriander. Yum, very nice starter before the pesto we had tonight.