Michelin starred chef

Smoked haddock omelette by Tom Kerridge

A delicate, beautiful omelette is one of those pure dishes that makes you realise great food does not have to be about hundreds of ingredients on a plate. It’s about allowing a simple product to sing. I learnt that lesson back in the day when I worked for Gary Rhodes and we used to do a lobster omelette which showcased the chef ’s technique rather than putting a load of fancy things on the plate.

This smoked haddock omelette, which has been on The Hand & Flowers menu pretty much since we opened, started off as a lobster one. But I took a sharp, commercial learning curve early on. Starting out, of course, we had no accolades and were relatively unknown, so there was no reason for customers to spend what, at the time, was the equivalent of £30 or £35 on an omelette, even if it had lobster in it!

I still loved the idea of an omelette, so we tried an omelette Arnold Bennett (a fluffy open omelette created at The Savoy in the 1920s for the novelist, playwright and critic). Most people didn’t know who Arnold Bennett was, so we just called it ‘smoked haddock omelette with Parmesan’ and after a first couple of bumpy weeks it became one of our most popular dishes.

There is no reason why this dish should ever change. I can’t improve it. The flavour profile of the humble omelette is heightened with gently poached smoked haddock, a brilliant glaze made from hollandaise sauce and a béchamel sauce flavoured with the fish poaching liquor. So, even the glaze has got that lovely smoked taste, which really drives the flavour.

Actually, this omelette is probably my favourite dish on the menu. I am very pleased to say the lobster version has reappeared at Kerridge’s Bar & Grill in London some 14 or 15 years down the line, and has gone on to become one of our most Instagrammed dishes. Thank you Gary Rhodes…

serves 4

Poached smoked haddock
1 side of smoked haddock, 600g,
skin and pin bones removed
600ml whole milk

Check the smoked haddock for any tiny pin bones. Bring the milk to the boil in a wide-based saucepan. Carefully lay the smoked haddock in the pan, ensuring it is covered by the milk. Place a lid on the pan, turn off the heat and leave the fish to poach in the residual heat for about 10 minutes. Once the haddock is cooked, remove it from the milk and gently flake the fish into a tray lined with greaseproof paper. Cover the tray with cling film and place in the fridge until ready to serve.
Pass the milk through a fine chinois into a clean saucepan and keep to one side.

Smoked fish béchamel
250ml smoked haddock poaching
liquor (see left)
15g unsalted butter
15g plain flour
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Bring the smoked haddock poaching liquor to a gentle simmer. In a separate pan over a medium-low heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour to make a roux and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Gradually ladle in the warm poaching liquor, stirring as you do so to keep the sauce smooth. Cook gently over a very low heat for 20 minutes. Pass the sauce through a fine chinois and cover the surface with a piece of baking parchment or cling film to prevent a skin forming. Set aside until needed. (You won’t need all of the fish béchamel but you can freeze the rest.)

Omelette glaze
4 tbsp warm smoked haddock
béchamel (see left)
4 tbsp hollandaise sauce
(see page 403)
4 medium free-range egg yolks
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Gently warm the béchamel in a saucepan then pour into a bowl and whisk in the hollandaise and egg yolks. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pass through a chinois into a warm jug or bowl. Keep warm to stop the glaze from splitting.

To assemble & cook the omelette
12 medium free-range eggs
4 tbsp unsalted butter
100g aged Parmesan, finely grated
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Crack the eggs into a jug blender and blend briefly to combine. Pass through a chinois into a measuring jug. Place 4 individual omelette pans (we use Staub) over a low heat. Take the smoked haddock from the fridge, remove the cling film and lay on a grill tray. Warm under the salamander or grill. To each omelette pan, add 1 tbsp butter and heat until melted and foaming. Pour the blended egg into the pans, dividing it equally. Using a spatula, gently move the egg around in the pans until they start to firm up. Remove from the heat; you want the eggs to be slightly loose, as they will continue to cook off the heat.

Season the omelettes with salt and pepper and sprinkle the grated Parmesan over their surfaces. Divide the flaked smoked haddock between the omelettes, then spoon on the glaze to cover the fish and extend to the edge of the pans. If the glaze spills over the side of the pan, wipe it away, as this will burn on the side when blowtorching. To finish, wave a cook’s blowtorch over the surface of the omelettes to caramelise the glaze. Allow the glaze to become quite dark, as the bitterness will balance out the richness of all the other ingredients.

Cook more from this book
Slow cooked duck
Vanilla crème brûlée

Buy this book
The Hand & Flowers Cookbook
£40, Bloomsbury Absolute

Read the review
Coming soon

Stark by Ben and Sophie Crittenden

Stark is no ordinary Michelin-starred restaurant. In December 2016, chef proprietor Ben Crittenden, formerly of the West House in Biddenden, converted a sandwich shop in Broadstairs and, working alone in a tiny kitchen, served creative tasting menus to a dozen customers a night. A rave review on the Guardian in 2017 was followed by a Michelin star in 2019. This year, Stark moved to larger premises in the same road and there are plans to turn the original restaurant into a tapas bar.

It’s fitting then that Stark is also no ordinary cookbook. In addition to the recipes, 42 of them such as Hake, mushroom, dashi, and Poussin, korma, grape (there are also a dozen tapas dishes including a wagyu slider), the extraordinary story of the restaurant is told with breath-taking honesty from both sides of the pass, Ben in the kitchen and Sophie, whose contributions appear in bold text in the book, front of house.

In his introduction, Ben Crittenden says ‘there’s no sugar coating or PR spin’ and he is true to his word. At one point in his career, the pressure of work coupled with a draining extended daily commute see Crittenden contemplating steering his car into the central reservation rather than face another day in the kitchen. On a business trip to San Sebastian, he recalls standing on the ledge of a hotel balcony, ready to jump.

But it’s Sophie Crittenden’s voice that really sets this book apart. Being able to understand the devasting impact of a severe lack of work-life balance on the couple’s relationship and family life (the Crittendens have three children) is sobering. Their personal life is laid out so barely that at times it feels like eavesdropping on a private conversation. But that searing honestly is what makes Stark such a compulsive read and so valuable to anyone considering following in the Crittenden’s footsteps and opening their own restaurant.

This review was first published in The Caterer magazine.

Cuisine: Progressive British
Suitable for: Professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy the book
Stark by Ben and Sophie Crittenden
£30, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon Stark

Cook from this book
Duck liver parfait
Poussin, korma, grape
Pecan pie, banana, chocolate

Duck liver parfait by Ben Crittenden

300g duck livers
100g foie gras
100g hazelnut butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp curing salt
100ml madeira
100ml port
100ml brandy
200g shallots
4 garlic cloves
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
5 eggs
400g melted butter

Roughly chop the shallots and garlic. Sweat down with the thyme and bay for 5-10 minutes. Add the Madeira, port and brandy and reduce until barely any liquid is left. Allow to cool slightly then blitz in the Thermomix with the livers, foie gras, hazelnut butter and the 2 salts. Then add the eggs and blitz again. Then slowly add the butter on speed 7 until it is thoroughly mixed. Now pass through a fine sieve into a container. Cover the top with cling film on the surface of the parfait mix and allow to set over night. Divide into 2 vacuum pack bags and seal. Cook at 63c for 1 hour then empty the mix back to a blender and blitz for 30 seconds or until smooth. Now allow to set in the fridge ready to serve.

ORANGE PURÉE
1 orange
100g sugar
300ml orange juice
Ultratex

Cut the orange into 6 and vacuum with the sugar and orange juice. Cook sous vide 85c for 5 hours or until the skin is soft. Add to bender and blitz on full until smooth. Add a tbs of Ultratex and blitz. Check consistency add more Ultratex if needed until you reach a smooth thick purée.

DUCK LEG
150g course sea salt
1 tbs black pepper
1 bulb garlic
1/2 bunch thyme
8 fatty duck legs
4 shallots
50ml brandy
25g parsley

Blitz the salt, garlic, thyme, and peppercorns. Rub this cure mix into the duck legs, cover in a container and leave for 24 hours in fridge. Wash off the salt mix and place the duck legs in vacuum pack bags (3 per bag). Cook at 88c for 6 hours. Dice the shallots and sweat. Add the brandy and reduce by 1/2. Remove the ducks from bags. Flake the flesh down and mix with the shallots. Allow to cool slightly and add chopped parsley then using cling film roll into neat ballotines.

GINGER BREAD
225g self-raising flour
20g ground ginger
Pinch salt
100g demerara sugar
100g butter
100g treacle
175g golden syrup
1 egg
150g milk

Heat the butter, sugar, treacle and golden syrup gently until the butter has melted. Beat into the flour, ginger and salt and mix well to ensure there are no lumps of flour. Beat the egg and milk together and slowly add to the mix. Divide into 2 inch ring lined with tin foil. Bake for 30 minutes at 160c. Remove from the rings and refrigerate overnight so the cakes firm up. Then slice as thinly as possible into discs and dehydrate for minimum of 8 hours.

TO SERVE
Toasted hazelnuts
Chervil

Cook more from this book
Poussin, korma, grape
Pecan pie, banana, chocolate

Buy the book
Stark by Ben and Sophie Crittenden
£30, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon Stark

Read the review

Poussin, korma, grape by Ben Crittenden

BRINE
2 litres water
120g seasalt
40g sugar
1 bulb garlic
1/2 bunch thyme
1 tsp black peppercorns
10 poussin crowns

Bring the water to the boil with everything except the poussin and simmer until the salt has dissolved. Chill in the fridge and then submerge the poussin for 24 hours. Drain and discard the brine. Pat dry the crowns.

POUSSIN MARINADE
40g mild cheddar
100g single cream
100g natural yogurt
1/2 bunch mint leaves
1/2 bunch coriander leaves
1/2 lemon juice
1 green chilli
2-inch knob ginger, peeled and grated
4 garlic cloves
2 tbs sunflower oil
2 tbs gram flour
1/2 tsp turmeric

Mix the gram flour and oil with the turmeric in a pan. Cook out gently for 5 minutes or until the flour turns slightly golden. Blitz in a blender with all the other ingredients. Smother the poussin in the marinade. Cook in BBQ at 220c for 10-12 minutes. Remove and rest under heat lamps for 10-15 minutes. Remove the breasts and serve 1 per portion.

KORMA SAUCE
2 tbs sunflower oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
10 cardamon pods
2 blades of mace
½ tsp garam masala
1-inch knob ginger, peeled and grated
4 garlic cloves, grated
100g cashew paste
100g single cream
100g natural yogurt
200g cashew milk
Pinch salt
Lightly toast the cardamom pods, mace and garam masala for a minute. Add the onions, garlic and ginger and cook lightly for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook in Thermomix at 90c, speed 5, for 40 minutes. Then blitz on full and pass through a fine sieve.

ONIONS
2 red onions
50ml white wine vinegar
25g sugar
10 mint leaves
Pinch salt
Thinly slice the onions on a mandoline. Salt lightly and leave for 1 hour. Wash off the salt and dry off a little on a J cloth. Whisk the sugar and vinegar together until dissolved. Chop the mint and mix everything together and vacuum seal on full pressure.

TOASTED CASHEWS
100g blanched peeled cashew nuts
500g sunflower oil
1/2tsp mild chilli powder
Pinch salt

Heat the oil to 160c. Add the nuts and stir constantly until golden brown. Drain from oil onto a J cloth and dust in chilli powder and season with salt.

CORIANDER OIL
300ml sunflower oil
2 bunches coriander
Pinch salt

Heat the oil and salt in a Thermomix for 5 mins at 80c. Add the coriander and cook at 80c for 4 minutes on speed 8 then blitz on full for 1 minute. Pass through muslin and chill immediately.

TO SERVE
Red grapes, thinly sliced
Coriander cress
Coriander oil

Cook more from this book
Duck liver parfait
Pecan pie, banana, chocolate

Buy the book
Stark by Ben and Sophie Crittenden
£30, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon Stark

Read the review

Pecan pie by Ben Crittenden

SWEET PASTRY
450g plain flour
150g icing sugar
Pinch salt
225g butter
1 egg
50g cream

Add everything except the egg and cream to a food processor and pulse to bring the ingredients together, Then add the egg and cream and pulse to create a stiff paste, being careful not to over work. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour then roll out to about 3mm thick and line 2.5” tart cases. Trim excess and line the inside of the cases with cling film. Fill with rice or baking beans and place in freezer for an hour. Set oven to 190c and bake the cases for 8 minutes. Turn the oven down to 160c and bake until the pastry is cooked through. Remove the baking beans and make sure the bottoms are cooked, which should take about 20 minutes in total.

PECAN PIE
250g golden syrup
50g treacle
85g fresh bread crumbs
80g ground pecans
1 egg
150g cream
1 lemon zest
100g toasted pecans

In a blender, blitz everything except the toasted pecans until smooth. Decant into a container and refrigerate overnight. Crumble the toasted pecans into the base of the cooked tart cases. Set oven to 170c. Give the batter mix a good stir and then spoon into the cases on top of the crumbled pecans. Bake for 10 minutes at 170c then turn the oven down and bake for a further 10 minutes at 150c. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

BANANA SORBET
5 ripe bananas
50g glucose
1/2 lemon juice
Blitz everything together and freeze in Pacojet canisters. You don’t need to heat anything just blitz and freeze.

CHOCOLATE PURÉE
150g 70% Valrhona chocolate
50g cocoa powder
150g sugar
400g water
Ultratex to thicken

Bring the sugar and water to a simmer and pour over the chocolate and cocoa powder. Mix well and chill in the fridge overnight. Beat with a whisk to loosen and then add Ultratex a teaspoon at time. Mix well and leave 10 minutes between adding to allow time to absorb the moisture. When thickened pass through a fine sieve and decant into bottles.

CANDIED PECANS
100g pecans
225g sugar
125g water
Pinch salt
Bring 125g sugar, water, nuts and salt to simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Add the remaining 100g of sugar and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Drain off the syrup and bake the nuts on parchment paper for 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 150c.

TO SERVE
Lemon balm

Cook more from this book
Duck liver parfait
Poussin, korma, grape

Buy the book
Stark by Ben and Sophie Crittenden
£30, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon Stark

Read the review

Lemon meringue pie with English blackberries – star anise by Glynn Purnell

For the blackberry parfait
500ml blackberry purée
1 star anise
160g caster sugar
40ml cold water
75g egg whites
1.5g citric acid
375ml double cream
Packet of popping candy

Slowly bring the blackberry purée and star anise to a boil. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes. Remove the star anise and pass through a fine sieve.
Prepare some 3-4cm rubber dome moulds.

In a small saucepan, add the sugar and water. Stir gently and place on to a medium heat with a sugar thermometer in the pan.

Put the egg whites into an electric mixer bowl with the whisk attachment fitted.
When the sugar syrup reaches 100°c, begin whisking the egg whites slowly. As the syrup reaches 110°c, increase the whisking speed of the egg whites. When the syrup reaches 116°c, the egg whites should have formed soft peaks.

Remove the syrup from the heat and slowly add the syrup to the egg whites, whisking constantly. Once all the syrup has been added to the egg whites, turn the electric mixer speed up and continue whisking until the meringue is thick, glossy and cool.

In a large round bowl, semi-whip the double cream. Fold 350ml infused Blackberry purée and citric acid into the cooled Italian meringue, then fold into the semi-whipped cream in two stages. Add the popping candy to taste, then pipe into dome moulds, smoothing the tops with a palette knife. Freeze the parfait in the moulds for 24 hours.

For the sweet pastry
270g salted butter
180g caster sugar
2 large eggs
540g plain flour

In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment fitted, cream the butter and sugar together, do not over-mix. Beat in the eggs one at a time, until the mixture is smooth.
Sift the flour and fold into the mix gently until it just starts to come together. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and finish by hand to ensure the dough is not over worked.

Divide into two, flatten to 2 cm in thickness and cling film. Reserve in the fridge for up to ten days or freeze for up to four weeks.

Preheat oven to 160°c.

Roll the pastry to 2mm in thickness and line some 8cm tart cases with the pastry. Cover the pastry with cling film or silicon paper and fill with baking beans.
Blind bake for 12 minutes, then remove the baking beans. Return to the oven for a further five minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Once completely cool, remove from the tart rings and store in an airtight container lined with food safe silica gel. Keep in a cool, dry place.

For the lemon curd
12 large lemons
450g caster sugar
300g salted butter, diced
540g eggs
600g egg yolks

Zest the lemons and reserve the zest. Juice the lemons. You need 600ml of lemon juice. In a medium sized saucepan bring the juice up to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and reduce the lemon juice to approximately 150ml. It should resemble a glaze and be a slightly deeper colour. Empty the reduced lemon into a clean saucepan and add the sugar and butter. Bring this to a boil, stirring often.

Once boiling and all the butter has melted, whisk in the eggs and egg yolks and cook out over a medium heat, until the curd is thick. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest. Cover in a clean bowl with cling filmed pressed down to touch the lemon curd. This prevents condensation and water dripping onto the curd. Leave to cool in the fridge. Once cool, place the curd in a jug blender and blend until smooth. Reserve in vacuum pac bags in the fridge until needed.

For the Italian meringue
250g caster sugar
250g water
15g SOSA Albumina powder (dried egg whites)

In a suitable sized saucepan, bring 200g of the sugar and 120g of the water up to 118°c over a medium heat. While the sugar syrup is coming up to temperature, place the Albumina powder, 50g caster sugar and 130g water into an electric mixer bowl. Using a hand whisk, gently mix the ingredients together, then place the bowl onto the electric mixer.

When the sugar syrup reaches 100°c, begin whisking the egg whites slowly. As the syrup reaches 110°c, increase the whisking speed of the egg whites. When the syrup reaches 118°c, the egg whites should have formed stiff peaks.

For the blackberry and star anise gel
1 litre blackberry purée
4 star anise
0.5g vanilla powder
10g agar-agar

In a medium-sized saucepan, bring the blackberry purée, star anise and vanilla powder to a boil, whisking occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for ten minutes. Place the pan back onto the heat and bring back to a boil. Once boiling, remove the star anise and put to one side. Add the agar-agar and continuously whisk and cook for two minutes to activate the agar-agar. Pour the mix into a lightly greased, high sided tray and leave to set for two hours in the fridge.

Remove the set gel from the tray and roughly chop. Place into a Thermomix blender and blend on a medium-high speed for two minutes. Turn the blender off, scrape the sides of the jug down and blend again for two minutes on a medium-high speed, until you have a smooth and glossy gel.

Store in vacuum pac bags for freshness. Place into a squeezy bottle for service.
Wash the star anise to remove any purée, then dehydrate to completely dry out.
Once dry, blend the star anise in a spice grinder to a fine powder. Seal in a vacuum pac bag to reserve.

For the frozen blackberries
2 punnets of fresh blackberries
Liquid nitrogen

Wash the blackberries and dry them on kitchen towel. Put the blackberries into an insulated nitrogen container. Completely submerge the blackberries in liquid nitrogen and leave for three minutes. Once the blackberries have completely frozen, lift them out of the nitrogen with a slotted spoon and place into a large sous vide bag. Fold the ends of the bag over and lay the bag on a flat surface with one hand covering the folded end. Bash and roll the frozen blackberries with a rolling pin so the filaments separate. Empty the bag into a small metal Gastronorm container and half cover with liquid nitrogen. Reserve in the freezer until needed.

To serve
Lemon balm
Star anise powder

Pipe the lemon curd into a cooked pastry case and smooth the top with a palette knife. Place a dome of parfait in the centre of the tart on top of the lemon curd. Place the tart case onto a pastry turntable and start turning on a low speed. Fit the desired piping nozzle onto a piping bag with the Italian meringue and pipe your desired pattern onto of the tart, starting in the centre of the top of the parfait and working down as the tart spins on the turntable. Once the meringue is piped, lightly colour the meringue with a blowtorch. On a large flat white plate, sporadically pipe dots of differing sizes of the blackberry gel. Place the tart on top of one of the dots or around the centre of the plate. Refresh the frozen blackberries in liquid nitrogen and spoon liberally around the plate. Garnish with lemon balm and a pinch of star anise powder.

Buy this book
A Purnell’s Journey
£85, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon: There And Back Again: A Purnell’s Journey

Read the review

Monkfish Masala with Red Lentils, Pickled Carrots and Coconut Garnish by Glynn Purnell

SERVES 4

FOR THE PICKLED CARROTS
3 CARROTS, PEELED AND SLICED
1 TABLESPOON FENUGREEK SEEDS
1 TEASPOON AJWAIN SEEDS
1 TEASPOON BLACK MUSTARD SEEDS
½ TEASPOON ONION SEEDS
1 TEASPOON CUMIN SEEDS
1/3 TEASPOON CHILLI FLAKES
1 TEASPOON SALT
VEGETABLE OIL – ENOUGH TO COVER THE CARROTS
1. Preheat the oven to 90˚c / gas mark ¼, or the lowest setting.
2. Spread the carrot slices out on a baking tray and put in the oven overnight, or for 8 hours, until dried out. Pack the carrot slices into a sterilised airtight jar.
3. Mix all the spices and salt with enough vegetable oil to cover the carrots, pour over the carrots in the jar and seal. Leave for a couple of weeks (longer if you can) in a cool place before serving.

FOR THE MONKFISH
300G ROCK SALT
4 X 130G MONKFISH FILLETS
4 TABLESPOONS MASALA SPICE MIX
25G BUTTER
4. Sprinkle the salt over the monkfish fillets and leave for 5-6 minutes to draw out the moisture.
5. Rinse the salt off thoroughly under cold running water. Wrap the monkfish in a clean tea towel and leave overnight in the fridge.
6. Spread out the spice mix on a plate and roll the monkfish fillets in the mixture. Seal each fillet in a vacuum food bag and cook for 11 minutes in a water bath at 63˚c. Alternatively, wrap each fillet in heatproof clingfilm. Heat a saucepan of water until it reaches 63˚c on a cooking thermometer, add the wrapped fillets and cook for 11 minutes, keeping the temperature constant.
7. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat until foaming. Remove the fish from the bags or clingfilm and then sear on each side for 2-3 minutes until golden brown and crisp all over.

FOR THE RED LENTILS
SPLASH OF VEGETABLE OIL
½ ONION, PEELED AND CHOPPED
1 TABLESPOON MILD CURRY POWDER
225G DRIED RED LENTILS
500ML CHICKEN STOCK
½ RED CHILLI, FINELY CHOPPED
2 HEAPED TABLESPOONS CHOPPED CORIANDER
JUICE OF ½ LIME
SALT
8. Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a saucepan and sweat the onion over a gentle heat for 4-5 minutes until softened. Stir in the curry powder, then add the lentils, stir well and cover with the stock. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.
9. When the lentils are cooked, stir in the chilli, coriander and lime juice and season to taste with salt. Set aside.

FOR THE COCONUT GARNISH
400ML CAN FULL-FAT COCONUT MILK
1 KAFFIR LIME LEAF
PINCH OF SALT
½ FRESH COCONUT, FLESH ONLY, THINLY SLICED INTO STRIPS ON A MANDOLIN
10. Pour the coconut milk into a saucepan and add the lime leaf and salt. Simmer over a medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until reduced by half.
11. Heat a frying pan until hot and toast the coconut strips for about 2 minutes until golden brown and fragrant.

TO SERVE
CORIANDER SHOOTS (SPROUTED CORIANDER SEEDS), TO GARNISH
12. Spoon the lentils onto each serving plate. Carve each monkfish fillet in half and place one piece of monkfish on top of the lentils and the other piece next to them. Drizzle over a bit of the reduced coconut milk, then garnish with the toasted coconut strips, pickled carrots and coriander shoots.

Cook more from this book
Haddock and Eggs – Cornflakes – curry oil
Lemon meringue pie

Buy this book
A Purnell’s Journey
£85, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon: There And Back Again: A Purnell’s Journey

Read the review

Haddock and Eggs – Cornflakes – curry oil by Glynn Purnell

For the Haddock Milk Foam
4 litres whole milk
2 fillets yellow dyed haddock
2 fillets Arbroath smokies
Trim from 6 fillets naturally smoked haddock including skin etc
(this is the trim from the home-cured smoked haddock and in the brandade mix)
54g Agar
6g Xantham Gum

1. In a large saucepan, heat all fish in the milk and slowly bring to a boil while stirring occasionally.
2. Once boiled, remove from heat and transfer to a large container and cool at room
temperature. Cover and leave to infuse in the fridge for 24 hours.
3. Pass into a clean container. Remove 3 litres of the infused milk and reserve the rest in the fridge until needed.
4. Bring 3 litres of the haddock infused milk to the boil with the Agar, whisking occasionally. Once boiling, whisk continuously for two minutes.
5. Remove from heat and pass into a clean container. Leave to set in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours, or until fully set.
6. Once set, blend back with 900ml of the reserved haddock milk and Xantham gum.
7. Split into 450g portions and seal in vac pac bags. Reserve in the fridge until needed.
Always weigh the haddock milk to check the ratios are correct. If you have less then 3900ml, use these ratios to adjust the mix as necessary:
18g Agar Agar per litre
1.75g Xantham Gum per litre
Blend back with 300ml of haddock milk per litre

For the Smoked Eel Brandade
140g smoked eel, diced
70g cod
70g smoked haddock
120g salted butter, softened
120g warm dry mash potato
1 lemon
Milk, to cover

1. Place the smoked eel and fish into a saucepan.
2. Cover the fish in milk, bring to a simmer and cook gently.
3. Once the fish is cooked, pass off the mixture, reserving the milk and keeping it warm.
4. Mix the cooked fish mixture with the warm mash potato.
5. Put the fish and potato mixture into an electric mixer with a paddle attachment fitted. Beat in the softened butter for 30 seconds.
6. Add 20ml of the reserved milk and beat until fully incorporated. Add more if the mix is too dry.
7. Season with the zest and juice of the lemon.
8. Pipe into even ballotines on top of cling film. The ballotines should be approx. 1.5 inches in diameter and 20 inches in length. Roll the ballotine in the cling film to form a tube and twist the ends of the cling film over and over until they can’t twist any more. This should form an airtight tube and the ends of the ballotine should be sealed up due to the pressure. Tie these ends to seal and freeze the brandade mixture.
9. Set up a pane station with flour, beaten egg and a 50:50 mixture of breadcrumbs and cornflake crumbs.
10. Carefully remove all the clingfilm from the brandade ballotines and portion into 3-inch cylinders.
11. Pane the cylinders in the flour, egg and breadcrumb and cornflake mix. Reserve on a tray in the fridge until needed.

For the Curry Oil
1 litre sunflower oil
2 tablespoons mild curry powder

1. Place the oil and curry powder into a large vac pac bag and seal to remove all air.
2. Place into a water bath at 65˚c for four hours. Remove and leave in the fridge for 12 hours.
3. Hang the mixture through a muslin cloth set over a bowl but do not push through. Vac pac the passed oil into medium bags and reserve in the fridge until needed.
4. Decant the oil into squeezy bottles once it is at room temperature.

For the smoked haddock
6 haddock fillets
Coarse rock salt
Sunflower oil

1. Skin the haddock fillets.
2. Submerge in the salt for 4 minutes.
3. Removed the haddock from the salt. Thoroughly wash off the salt and dry.
4. Rub the haddock fillets in sunflower oil.
5. Set up a hot smoker with oak chips. When the smoker is ready, place the fillets on to the wire rack and smoke for 10 minutes.
6. Remove the haddock fillets from the smoker and leave to cool completely. Seal in a vac pac bag and keep in the fridge until needed.

For the Baked Cornflakes
250g Cornflakes
250g salted butter, melted
10tbsp milk powder
2tbsp caster sugar
1tsp table salt

1. Preheat oven to 140˚c.
2. Mix all the ingredients together. Spread out evenly onto a tray lined with a silpat mat. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
3. Remove from the oven. Once cooled, place in a blender and pulse blend until a crumb-like consistency is achieved. Reserve in an airtight container until needed.
To serve one portion
1. Deep fry the brandade croquettes at 170˚c for 2-3 minutes until golden and crispy. Remove and drain.
2. Heat 40g of the smoked haddock in the oven until warm.
3. Separate an egg yolk, removing all the white, and carefully drop the yolk into a pan of water at 50-55˚c. Poach gently for no longer than two minutes. The yolk should be just sealed on the outside.
4. Place the haddock into the bottom of the serving bowl. Sprinkle with a pinch of chopped chives, a splash of curry oil and add a teaspoon of the baked cornflakes.
5. Get the ISI gun containing the haddock foam. Give it a good shake and squeeze gently to form a dome of haddock foam which should just cover the haddock in the bottom of the bowl.
6. Carefully remove the poached egg yolk from the water and place into the centre of the haddock foam. Season with sea salt and drizzle the top with curry oil. Serve with a brandade croquette on the side.

Cook more from this book
Monkfish masala with red lentils
Lemon meringue pie

Buy this book
A Purnell’s Journey
£85, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon: There And Back Again: A Purnell’s Journey

Read the review

Ekstedt by Niklas Ekstedt

What’s the USP? The subtitle for Ekstedt is ‘The Nordic art of analogue cooking’, which makes the book sound like one of those lifestyle books that seek to teach us all the true meaning of a nation’s idealised characteristic by expanding on a single word with complex meaning, be that ‘hygge’, ‘ikigai’ or ‘nunchi’.

‘Ekstedt’ is not a Swedish word for analogue cooking, but rather the surname of the Michelin-starred chef who has become almost synonymous with the practice. This massive coffee-table cookbook seeks to reconcile home chefs with the revived Nordic traditions of cooking over an open flame. That’s what ‘analogue cooking’ means – cooking without the use of gas or fire. So don’t expect any dishes that can be reheated in the microwave later.

Who wrote it? Niklas Ekstedt is something of an icon in the Nordic food world. Over the last twenty years or so, Ekstedt has run four fine-dining restaurants across Sweden, and has grown increasingly interested in traditional Nordic cooking techniques. His latest eponymous restaurant cooks entirely over open flames – and it’s this approach to food that he espouses in his second book. Actually, it’s also the same approach he took to his first book. But this one’s out now, ready for Christmas, looking all monolithic and filled with worthy prose and grounded, earthy photographs of fishermen and very beautiful (but very small) dishes.

Is it good bedtime reading? There’s certainly reading, though how good it is will depend on how much you like fantasy writing. That is, the fantasy that you’ll ever actually cook anything from this book.

There’s an introduction in which Ekstedt speaks of the self-evaluation he had to do when his third fine-dining restaurant didn’t do quite as well as his first two. There’s a chapter on the techniques you’ll use throughout the book, from using your wood oven (you have a wood oven, right?) to cooking over embers, or ‘hay-flaming’ a dish. That’s where you get your hay (you have hay, right?), bosh it into a pan, set it on fire, and chuck some scallops or something on top. Actually, that’s not fair. It’s more complicated than that. Which is exactly what you were hoping for, isn’t it? Oh, and don’t forget flambadou, where you baste a dish with burning fat that you’ve melted in your red-hot cast-iron cone on a stick (you have a red-hot cast-iron cone on a stick, right?)

Elsewhere, there’s well-meaning Radio 4 documentaries essays on reindeer herding with the Sami and fishing off of Lofoten, Instagram’s favourite Norwegian archipelago. Ekstedt also offers short introductions to each of his recipes – though these frequently amount to little more than a sentence.

Will I have trouble finding the ingredients? HA! Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Ahahahaha. Haha. Ha.

No.

No, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Why would you even ask that? It’s not like the first recipe in the book is for smoked moose heart. Oh, can’t get your hands on a moose heart? Ekstedt doesn’t actually offer any advice for substituting it for another ingredient, but later on does offer a completely different heart recipe: this time it needs a reindeer’s.

Other fun ingredients to ask the guy restocking the shelves in Sainsbury’s about: ättika vinegar, cloudberries, meadowsweet, birch wood, reindeer blood, chickweed, nasturtium leaves, redfish collars, ‘a branch of juniper, fresh and green’, dried reindeer, vendace roe, and bladderwrack seaweed.

I guess you could try B&Q for the birch wood, and maybe you can juice that reindeer heart from earlier to get the 250ml of blood you’ll need. When you see the words ‘veal sweetbreads’ and consider them one of the more accessible ingredients you’ve seen recently, you know you’re in trouble.

My favourite, for what it’s worth, is the casual request for 400ml of fresh bovine colostrum, which the glossary at the back of the book helpfully defines as ‘the milk a cow produces during the first days after calving’. Expect a rush on your local dairy farm come spring, then.

What’s the faff factor? Do you even need to ask? Look, one of the joys I have when I sit down with a new cookbook is this: I take some little multi-coloured index stickers and mark out all of the recipes I’m keen to try. On most cookbooks, I manage to find at least eight to ten really tempting dishes that I can’t wait to get to work on. In a really great cookbook, like Claire Thomson’s recent Home Cookery Year, I find myself marking off every other page. In reading through Ekstedt, I didn’t reach for my bookmarks even once.

This isn’t to say that the book isn’t filled with things I’d love to eat. In fact, I’d be more than happy to stick a fork into almost every recipe in here. Maybe not the butternut squash, fermented salsify and vegetable foam – but even then that’s only because I’m not sure what the best utensil is when reckoning with foam. It’s got to be a spoon, right?

The problem is just that everything in here is so damned impractical. If – and it really is a huge, wobbly ‘if’ – you manage to source all the ingredients for a given dish, you’ve still got to cook the bastard. And that’s not easy in a book that champions ‘analogue cooking’. Ekstedt has made no noticeable concessions for the home chef, except that he lets you flambadou your beef fat in a pan. A typical recipe might ask you to ‘hot smoke the parsley root for 10 hours every day for 1-2 weeks until it is dried out’. Who does he think I am? I think Niklas Ekstedt has mistaken me for his sous chef.

As a final kicker, the end result of all your hard work will be an authentic Michelin-star level dish. Which sounds fantastic, until you remember how big a dish is in a Michelin-starred restaurant. The semi-raw hay-flamed sea bass, sorrel & Swedish ponzu takes longer to announce than it does to eat. Three slices of the sea bass per person, with three (three!) sorrel leaves as accompaniment. Ekstedt says his recipe serves 4 as a middle course, but he doesn’t tell us how many middle courses he’s expecting us to have in what is now apparently a tasting menu that we’re expected to put together from this self-indulgent collection of impossible wonders.

How often will I cook from the book? Never. You will never cook from this book. It will sit on your shelves, untouched and forgotten except for the occasions when you reach for something adjacent to it – something useful, with primary ingredients like chicken, or pork – and pick it out for a moment, open it to a random page – let’s say ‘Langoustine, charcoal cream and cold-smoked parsnip’, allow yourself a few good minutes to stop laughing at the idea you would ever find it within your energy limits to ‘place the langoustines on an untreated wood plank and sear each tail for 8-10 seconds with burning beef fat from the flambadou’, and then place it straight back onto the shelf until the next time you need decent laugh.

Should I buy it? Only if Niklas Ekstedt is coming round your house for tea, and you want to make him like you by shelling out forty(!) pounds(!) on pretty pictures of things you will never eat.

Cuisine: Nordic
Suitable for: Professional chefs with access to Scandinavian deer hearts
Cookbook Review Rating: One star

Buy this book
Ekstedt: The Nordic Art of Analogue Cooking

Review written by Stephen Rötzsch Thomas a Brighton-based writer. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @srotzschthomas.

A Purnell’s Journey: There and Back Again by Glynn Purnell

Weighing in at 6.5kg and standing over a foot tall, Glynn Purnell’s third book dwarfs his previous two volumes. Printed on high quality matt paper and presented in a clamshell box lined with the same pattern as the wallpaper in Purnell’s eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant, it’s a lavish production. But what do you expect from a chef with ego enough to anoint himself ‘The Prince of Birmingham’?

Purnell tells his story in a series of chapters titled with postcodes that relate to where he has lived or cooked. It begins in B37, his childhood home in the Chelmsley Wood council estate in Solihull where the closest the young chef came to foraging was helping his father carry home boxes of meat purchased in pub car park deals. The book then follows Purnell’s route to Michelin success in the heart of Birmingham’s city centre via stints at the Birmingham Metropole, Simpson’s in Kenilworth and Hibiscus in Ludlow, with detours for stages at Gordon Ramsay’s Aubergine and Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.

Although Purnell relates how he came to national attention and won his first Michelin star at Jessica’s in Edgebaston in 2005, the recipe for the restaurant’s signature dish of veal with caramelised squid is sadly not included. Instead, there are a selection of Purnell’s restaurant’s ‘greatest hits’ including monkfish masala with red lentils, pickled carrots and coconut garnish that ably demonstrate the chef’s knack for creating memorable dishes that stand the test of time.

Purnell is undoubtedly a macho chef and the book charts his passions for boxing, shooting, fishing and football. But there’s more than just testosterone on display here. His detailed description of the evolution of his signature haddock and eggs, cornflakes and curry oil dish proves Purnell to be a creative, thoughtful and reflective cook.

With just 33 recipes, you may feel the need to buy Purnell’s other books to understand the full extent of his culinary talents, but There and Back Again serves up a generous enough helping of amusing anecdotes and stunning visuals to justify its hefty price tag.

This review was originally published in The Caterer magazine.

Cuisine: Progressive British
Suitable for: Professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
A Purnell’s Journey
£85, A Way With Media
Also available at Amazon: There And Back Again: A Purnell’s Journey

Cook from this book
Haddock and Eggs – Cornflakes – curry oil
Monkfish masala with red lentils
Lemon meringue pie