March 2009 Archives

It was good to see Glynn Purnell in the latest series of the Great British Menu, which started on BBC2 last night.

The theme this year is to cook a meal for some of the soldiers returning from overseas this summer and Glynn dreamed up a starter of home-made corned beef and brown sauce, which I thought looked fabulous.

Best of luck to Glynn, who was one of the winning chefs in last year's show.

Inside the container, shaped and painted to to resemble an egg, was hay on which sat the yolk of a quail's egg that was firm enough to pick up yet proved to be perfectly runny when eaten.

The flavour was extraordinary - the richness of the egg given layers of complexity by being smoked over hay and then pickled in rose hip vinegar.

Here was stunning technical prowess allied to imagination underwritten by an ability to mix flavours and textures that might seem odd, but work brilliantly together.

These were traits experienced time and again during a seven-course tasting menu at Noma in Copenhagen on Saturday.

The appalling bunch of money-grabbing ego-maniacs in The Apprentice were treated to a demonstration - and a few coktails - by the Bar Wizards at the end of Wednesday night's programme.

I recognised the lads from the launch party at last summer's Taste of Birmingham and Cannon Hill Park, where they put on an amazing display with the help of Marketing Birmingham's Dave Hodgson who was roped in to swirl a few bottles.

The lad done good, I seem to remember. But he admits it was difficult.

If foodies were asked to name the culinary powerhouses of Europe then France, Spain and Britain would probably feature.

It's unlikely that Denmark would be high on anyone's list. But that's changing.

Noma in Copenhagen was recently voted the world's tenth best restaurant, already has two Michelin stars and has been tipped to get a third.

It sounds an absolutely fascinating place....a sort of el Bulli of the north.

Pigs nipples, calf's brain custard with fish gut sauce and sausages that were dragged out of a cooked pig's carcass as though they were its entrails...

Three of the dishes that were prepared on Heston Blumenthal's programme on Channel 4 last night recreating (and updating) Roman recipes.

This series hasn't impressed me greatly, but last night's episode raised a few chuckles and set me thinking about just what I might not be prepared to eat.

And I think the answer is: very little.

Smoked salmon is one of those foodstuffs that, once a luxury, is now far cheaper. But, of course, the quality has suffered.

Too often it has a flabby texture and an equally flabby flavour - the result, I suspect, of using farmed salmon and inferior smoking techniques.

Farmed salmon - even organic - just doesn't compare to the proper wild stuff.

But the shelves of our supermarkets groan under the weight of inferior foodstuffs cheaply produced for the mass market.

Anyone for sea snail?

I popped to Wing Wah in Nechells for a family meal last night and we ordered the usual suspects - duck in pancakes, crisp belly pork, chilli beef, prawns with garlic and ginger.

The restaurant's new manager Andy Liu, who's worked at some top places in London, spotted our conservative choices and got talking about new dishes he's planning to introduce.

He was keen for us to sample at least one and got the chef to prepare it.

We use the term "Indian restaurant" very lazily to describe anywhere that serves food from the sub-continent.

Into this category fall restaurants that serve dishes based on Pakistani and Bangladeshi cuisine as well as those that serve food from India itself, which, being a vast area, has a diverse range of styles.

It's a bit like using the term "European food" to describe nosh from the tip of Italy to the far north of Finland.

The diversity of Indian cuisine will become apparent at the excellent Lasan just off St Paul's Square on April 29.

These days health and safety considerations frequently stifle common sense and pleasure.

Take cheese, for example. All too often it's stored at such a low temperature by cautious shops and restaurants that its texture is wrong and its flavour virtually non-existent.

How reassuring, then, to come across a reminder of how cheese should be.

I'm not going to reveal my dealer - he/she would probably get into trouble from those who make it their business to deny us such delights - but the two soft French cheeses I bought on Saturday were magnificent.

Another birthday, another excuse for a meal at one of Birmingham's best.

Last night as I edged closer to my dotage, I visited Edmunds and the food was fantastic - modern but grounded in the classic French/British tradition and fabulously well-crafted.

Its chef-patron Andy Waters won a Michelin star when he ran a restaurant of the same name in Henley-in-Arden and I'm certain a similar honour will be bestowed when next year's guide is published.

Just think: Brum would have four starred restaurants to Manchester's none.

Birmingham 4 - Manchester 0....a dream scoreline.