Scotch Egg

Home made scotch egg is soooooo much nicer than ready made ones

Keith made some that are runny in the middle.
He followed Heston's recipes - with some slight alterations with the seasonings..


1. Soft boiled egg
- Boil for 4.5minutes for runny scotch egg

2. season some sausage meat  - as you like
- with herbs/ salt & peper/

3.wrap the egg with a thin layer of sausage

4. Coat it with egg, flour, breadcrumbs and cumin seeds
    Deep fried them at 190oC  till Golden - for 2 minutes

 5. Bake at 190oC for 10minutes and tadaaaa

Reference : http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/h/heston_s_scotch_eggs.html

Honey glazed duck breast with couscous

Based on Marco Pierre White's recipe at Knorr's website

http://www.knorr.co.uk/Recipes/Game-Recipe/Honey-glazed-Duck-Breasts-with-Apple-Sauce.aspx

115g runny honey

2tsps coriander seeds, dry-fried and roughly crushed

4 star anise

4 duck breast fillets, skin on (200g each)

A sprinkle of Knorr Chicken Granules

Olive oil

4–5 sprigs of fresh thyme

1. Place the honey, coriander and star anise in a small pan. Bring to the boil and cook uncovered (taking care it doesn’t boil over), stirring often until reduced by around a half.

2. sprinkle the Knorr Chicken granules (we just used salt and pepper_ over both sides of the duck breasts to season them. Add a little olive oil and spread evenly over the duck breasts, coating the breasts thoroughly in the seasoning mixture. Add the thyme sprigs. Set aside for 5–10 minutes.

3.    While the duck is marinating, pre-heat a good quality, thick griddle pan. Add the duck breasts skin side down to the pan and cook over a low to medium heat for 10–15 minutes, turning over halfway through.

4.    After 12 minutes cooking, turn off the heat under the duck breasts and leave them in the pan to cook in the residual heat left in the griddle pan. 

5.    Brush the honey glaze over the skin side of the duck breasts, topping each breast with a star anise as decoration.  Garnish with fresh coriander sprigs. 

Viajante

Have always wanted to try out Via Jante.
With the head chef  - Nuno Mendes trained at the world's top restaurant - El bulli, it has to be good!
You have to be an adventurous eater to go there. because they don't have an a la carte menu like most other restaurants and you pick what you want to eat.
They do a surprise menu - so you won't know what you will eat until it is right in front of you.
You can only tell them how many courses you would like to have (3,6,9/12) and if you have any dietary requirement.
I think that's one of the fun element of the whole meal..  it was like an adventure :p
We kept on guessing what we were going to have next by observing the actions from the chefs and spying on our neighbours food..
We went there for lunch and picked the 6 course options - which kept us full till the next day!
We enjoyed the meal very much - everything beautifully presented and perfectly cooked.
some very interesting combinations with ingredients that I have never had before.
Every plate is composed of many different textures and flavours.

It has a very modern/casual setting with an open kitchen!
We sat right in front of it so we could observe and try to learn from all the actions by the chefs

Unfortunately Nuno Mendes wasn't around on the day 

we can see that everything was already prepared. they were just doing the final touch there before serving.

We were first greeted by 4 different canapes

Thai Explosion

- confit chicken with poached egg on top. wrapped around with crispy chicken skin.  seasoned by some Thai spices

Amaranth with sorrel

the crumbs were sweet and nutty, served with a light herb sauce

that was quite interesting. 

Girolle mushroom with red cabbage and alium

very beautifully presented

Potato with yeast and olive

- the yeasty paste was strong

the potato's texture was very interesting...

the bread was great too - potato baguette and  pancetta flat bread

accompanied with very soft and fluffy homemade butter 

I particularly like the butter on the left  - it was smoked with nuts on top

Brown butter with bacon bits on the right.

Here comes our first course : White asparagus with creme fraiche butter and crispy spiced bread. 

This was one of the less exciting course. 

Crab with egg yolk and rhubarb. 

I have no idea how he managed to deconstruct the egg.

the egg yolk was very creamy. 

Bream with dill chicory and fennel caramel

the bream was very soft and a bit raw.  It went well with the crumbs

Turbot with spring vegetables and mussels. 

Pluma with goat's curd and black quinoa. 

for a minute, we thought it's beef!!!! 

I have never tasted such flavoursome pork!!!!  - I don't know how many exclamation marks I need to add behind this to show how amazing this was :p 

I wish there were more slices of it ...

the goatcheese was slightly over powering we think

Pickled cucumber with reduced milk sorbet as a palette cleanser.

very fresh

That's called Milk 

- different texture of milk - pannacotta like pudding

some milk skin and crumbs

we were also served some frozen vanila and olive oil toffee which we had to eat right away - before i could take a photo of it.

It melt in our mouth with a texture that's a bit like the japanese mochi :p 

right... when are we going there again ?