Cooking The Books

Wild Honey

I do love a bit of fine dining but don't go too often, mainly because the cost is so prohibitive.  I love the food and wine but do baulk a bit at £80/£100/... a head too frequently.  There are more cost effective ways to eat at such establishments though as most provide set lunches of some description, handy for ladies that lunch but not ideal if you have to work office hours as I do.  We needed somewhere to dine yesterday though as a colleague is leaving and so decided to give one a go.

Being based in Mayfair the choice is fairly large but we decided upon Wild Honey, a pretty new entrant to the Michelin starred gang and from the same stable as Arbutus, a Soho establishment known for great value fine dining.  At £16.95 for 3 courses it seemed a bargain, even if drinking was obviously going to have a fairly negative effect upon the bill.  You have to sacrifice a bit for these set lunches with a reduced choice (two options per course) and a reduced portion size too, not that it was too obvious with the dessert.

Our choices were potato soup or pork slices with apple puree for starter, Cornish mullet with potato gnocchi or lasagna of veal shoulder for main and a pain perdu with seville marmalade or a portion of Brie de Meaux for dessert. 

Starting off we all went for pork, as nice as I'm sure their potato soup would be it was just never going to compete with four men at the table.  The dish was rolled belly pork, braised and then sliced very thinly.  Apple puree provided some tart sweetness and the baby herbs some pepperiness.  As much as there things to like about this dish, such as the beautiful texture and the apple puree, I was a little disappointed all told.  The meat was bland in parts with the seasoning concentrated in spots, one mouthful was woefully underseasoned with the next an explosion of salt in the mouth.  It was nice, don't get me wrong, but nothing too special.

Again the meat won for the second course with four orders of the lasagna of veal shoulder.  Whilst more a ragu between two sheets of pasta, constructed post cooking rather than baked, this was nothing short of amazing.  Without a doubt the finest ragu and pasta to ever pass my lips.  The pasta was delicately thin but still toothsome.  The ragu was rich, meaty and seasoned to perfection, melt in the mouth veal with cubes of vegetables which at first resisted the squash of the tongue against the palate (there was really no need to go so far as chewing) before giving way in a little burst of sweetness.  Superlative.

No one was too keen on brie, de Meaux or not, so we made a pact to share a proper cheeseboard after our dessert and kept up the theme by all ordering the pain perdu, seville marmalade.  The pain perdu (eggy bread) was good but not perfect.  Everything stuffed in the mouth at once Masterchef judge style made for a pleasant dessert, the sweet ice cream and bread being a good foil to the bitter seville orange.  The pain perdu on its own though had a bit of a bitter taste, as if over caramelised I think.  A slightly tough bottom edge suggested a little overcooking on one side too.  There wasn't a scrap left on any of our plates by the end though which says something.

The cheeseboard was an on display affair, sat proudly in the middle of the restaurant right behind us and I got the pleasure of choosing.  We had a bleu d'Auvergne, a Montgomery's cheddar, Epoisse and then another blue and another washed rind whose names completely evade me now.  All were fine examples, nutty for the washed rind, fantastically mature for the cheddar and smooth and salty for the blue.  Throughout the meal we were also given masses of very good sourdough bread, so much that I had to stop taking it after a while.

With two bottles of wine between four and cheese it came in about £36 a head, a step up from the £16 food bill but not bad for food like this, when they got it right that is.  It has definitely made me want to go back and give the a la carte menu a go, something I think would only add maybe £20 a head to the bill, which thinking  how impressive some of the mains around us were looking doesn't sound too bad at all.

Wild Honey

12 St George Street
Mayfair
W1S 2FB

Hash Brown, Black Pudding and Lancashire Cheese

I'm not the biggest fan of a tower of food in the middle of the plate.  I think it looks a lot nicer than some presentation methods but it's been a bit overdone and can look a bit dated.  This thought pops into my head when I'm watching food reality TV (namely Masterchef) a lot, looking at which of the contestants I think either eat out frequently or has lots of modern cookbooks, the tower in the middle doesn't really get the showing from them.  You get food artfully scattered around the plate, a bit of fish here, an aubergine there and a scattering of baby herbs maybe.  You also notice the contestants style metamorphosise into these more modern styles as the rounds progress, as they cook in more and more upmarket establishments.  I'm not on Masterchef though and I couldn't think of any other way to arrange this food.

Blood pudding is delightful stuff, whether it's the British variety or the softer, more spiced versions of our European neighbours - blutwurst, boudin noir and morcilla.  I'd had a few slices of the British one in the freezer for a while though and when I grabbed some mature Lancashire cheese at the weekend I was reminded of a dish I'd seen on the web ages ago.  I couldn't remember exactly where or what it was but recalled slices of black pudding topped with the melting cheese.  I needed some carbs too and had a few rashers of streaky bacon that needed using up and so this dish was born.  Looking at it one could think of it more as a breakfast dish, and it'd certainly make a nice, if not rather filling, brunch - I ate it in the evening though and enjoyed it immensely.  As I was playing around in the kitchen my hash browns were cooked in chef's rings, leaving soft textured sides.  If you wanted more of a crunch then the same amount of ingredients split into two patties and fried without the rings would give you the desired texture.  Cooked with the rings it's a more unctuous experience though, waxy potato strands giving way to soft black pudding and rich melted cheese, broken only by the bite of the bacon.

For me the key to both hash browns and rösti is to maintain distinct strands of potato in the filling, not a starchy mush.  To do this you need a couple of things, first off waxy potatoes are key, precooked and left to cool.  After that you need to get them in the pan with some butter, tossing and stirring so each piece gets coated with the fat.  Not only does this add loads of flavour it creates a barrier between strands, keeping the desired texture even after cooking.  Once the strands are well coated (and seasoned too) shape into patties, add a little oil, turn up the heat a little and brown each side.

Hash Brown, Black Pudding and Lancashire Cheese

Ingredients, 2 people

450gr waxy potatoes
250gr/4 slices of black pudding
1/2 onion, grated
50gr mature Lancashire cheese
25gr butter

Method

First off boil the potatoes in their skins until just underdone, for smallish potatoes (100gr each) I gave them 14 minutes.  Allow to cool, then peel and grate coarsely.

Grate the onion then fry in the butter over a medium heat until until it has lost its raw taste then add the potatoes, seasoning well with S&P then stirring for a few minutes till well combined with the onion and coated with butter.  At this point you can either shape into a patty/patties in the pan or remove to a board, separate and shape then return to the pan.  Either way you need to turn the heat up a bit and add a little oil to stop sticking.  Cook for 4-5 minutes a side until golden brown.

Whilst the hash browns are cooking grill the bacon till crisp and black pudding till heated through.

Slice the cheese and put on top of the black pudding, giving it another minute or so under the grill to melt.  

Arrange on a plate as you see fit and eat.

Franco Manca

As I type this I'm fighting to hold my eyes open, suffering from a severe bout of post-prandial somnolence.  In an effort to digest the masses of sourdough crust, cheese, tomato and pig products the activity of my parasympathetic nervous system has increased and the activity of the my sympathetic nervous system has decreased.  The shift in the balance of autonomic tone towards the parasympathetic system has resulted in a subjective state of low energy and a desire to be at rest.  In short I've got the food sleeps.

I've just come back from Franco Manca where greed got the better of my colleague and me and we ordered three 12" plus diameter pizzas between the two of us and polished them off, just.  Franco Manca burst onto the scene some point last year in a flurry of amazing reviews.  Folk waxed lyrical amount the sourdough bases and wood fired oven handbuilt and shipped in from Naples.  People hopped on the tube to get there between the hours of 12pm to 5pm on a weekday and queued to get in.  With all this hype the place had rather a lot to live up to and when my friend Lizzie (from Hollow Legs) told me about her meal there yesterday she said 'the pizza was good, but not as amaaaaazing as the hype suggests'. 

I think this provided a bit of expectation management for me, a point of reference other than the hype, as I was blown away by the food today.  I'd probably say it's the best pizza I've eaten in London.  The stand out feature is definitely the sourdough crust, light and airy from the immense heat but with a chewy crumb which you can only get from a long fermentation, charred yet soft - I was flabbergasted when the bloke on the table next door left most of his crusts.  For topping one had chorizo (Brindisa, dry and semi-dry), another anchovy, olive and caper one and finally the day's special of ham and artichoke.  The chorizo was good, slices and lumps of the sausage, both yielding to the heat and releasing their paprika red oil all over the pizza.  I sometimes feel that it takes over though, rendering every mouthful identical in flavour - even if that flavour's very nice.  To moisten we had a glass of the red each, cheap at £1.40 a glass but a tad tannic for my palate, it went a lot better with the pizza than it did on its own though.  All this came to a little over a tenner each.  If we'd not been such gluttons, sticking to a single large pizza each, we'd be talking £8 for a fantastic meal.

Franco Manca

4, Market Row
Electric Lane
Brixton
London
SW9 8LD

Duck Stewed With Ginger

I love duck.  Whether it is cooked through with crispy skin (think Peking duck in Chinatown windows), seared and pink, confited until fork tender or even dry cured into chewy little duck ham slices - the combination of dark, gamey meat and lots of melt in the mouth fat is always going to be a winner.  The skin and the fat is so sublime it can end up being the best bit, whilst others dive in for the breast meat when I'm confronted with the British takeaway favourite crispy duck my pancakes are always filled with skin and the wobbliest bits of fat, the meat is good - sure - but the fat is better.  Even with all that loving I've never stewed a duck before but looking through the fantastic Cook Malaysian this weekend a recipe caught my eye.  Duck deep fried then stewed in a dark soy gravy with masses of ginger had to leave a tasty dish.

I managed to get the last duck from Sainsbury and as it was a bit larger than the recipe suggested I've adapted the recipe to suit a larger British duck.  The result was very good, the meat almost fell off the bone whilst not being overcooked and dry and the stock was nice and rich, it even set to a jelly when left to cool.  When you deep fry the duck make sure to really give it lots of colour, I didn't cook some of my bits enough and the colour washed off during the simmering, leaving the skin a bit wobbly and pallid.  If you get the meat and skin really dark it should keep both colour and texture even after the hour simmering. 

Leong's Legends

Following on from favourable reviews over on Around Britain with a Paunch and Tamarind and Thyme Leong's Legends was added to the to do list of restaurants.  Normally places remain on this almost endless list for quite some time but my little brother (he's 15) came up to stay with me this weekend and as he loves dim sum I decided to take him here.  We had a show to get to at 2.30pm (Traces at Peacock Theatre, well worth a visit) so headed to Chinatown early, something that probably helped us out as an empty restaurant left us with great service, something that other reviewers have questioned.  The maitre'd seemed very interested in my picture taking of all the food too and was most helpful after I said I had a food blog, I even got a hand shake on the way out.

The dim sum menu at Leong's Legend is a lot shorter than most Chinatown dim sum menus but even its reduced list threw up quite a few dishes I'd not seen before, most of which ended up on our order.  The waiter said we'd probably ordered too much, advised us to drop a dish or two and said we'd still need to move to one of the bigger tables as our order wasn't going to fit on the two person table we had.  This necessitated a move to a four seater in the window, which had the added bonus of fantastic natural light for the photographs.  Leong's Legend's interior is highly stylised by Chinatown standards.  Whilst I love the functional nature of the cafe style melamine interiors it is nice to go a bit upmarket sometimes too and the wooden furniture and mood lighting here (and in Baozi Inn) make a refreshing change.

For food I tried to order things I'd not really had before, the menu isn't the most descriptive though and so we ended up with some har gau (down as prawn dumplings, I should've figured really) which wasn't a bad thing as they were good har gau.  A glutinous wrapper with distinct prawn and crunchy water chestnut filling. 

I'm a big fan of turnip cake but the menu had a crispy fried turnip dish on, which I'd never heard of before, and so we got our turnip fix for the day there instead.  This consisted of a gloopy grated turnip filling surrounded by a buttery, flaky pastry outside.  Quite delectable.  A cheung fun of pork and preserved vegetable was also new to me but not quite as detectable.  I was hoping for pungent, salty vegetable but whilst it added some crunch I found it was a bit bland.

I couldn't let the Taiwan Kebab Roll pass me by and I'm glad I didn't, a sheet of char siu bao style dough was wrapped around a melt in the mouth slice of braised pork belly, salted vegetable provided both texture and piquancy to cut through the rich meat.

Sui Long Bao (soup filled dumplings) only came in a portion of eight, so large by dim sum standards, but there was no danger of them not being finished.  The pastry was delicate and the ginger vinegar added a welcome sharpness to the savoury broth as they burst into your mouth.

It wouldn't normally be something I ate with dim sum but my brother loves fried rice and so we ordered a portion.  There was none of his favourite egg fried rice and so we went with chicken fried rice instead, a dish that gave me my first ever encounter with pine nuts in Chinese food.  I'm not sure if they're a traditional ingredient or a bit of fusion cooking on their part but they were a welcome addition, adding both texture and a lovely toasted nutty element where they'd browned against the wok.

The mushroom and ham roll was a dish I'd never heard of before.  It turned out to be leathery beancurd skin rolls wrapped around a filling of shredded wood ear fungus.  I couldn't find any ham although its meatiness was discernible in the taste.  A corn starch thick sauce and enoki mushrooms finished what was a very nice dish.

Won ton in spicy oil were in an egg-free wrapper and filled with pork.  The spicy oil had a good kick to it, too much for my brother but perfect for me.  The final dish was char sui bao, a common favourite and another request of the brother.  They were pretty decent char sui bao, not out of this world bu good eating nonetheless.

We both really enjoyed our meal there, even if it was a bit of a struggle to get so much food down our throats - so much food that after a midday meal we didn't feel the need to eat again till gone 8.30pm.  I think the fact that we did is testament to the quality of the dishes.  Well worth a visit if you want a change from the usual Chinatown dim sum.

Leong’s Legends

4 Macclesfield St
London
W1D 6AX