MISSION COQ AU VIN: SERVING UP A DODGY OLD BOILER

So, here’s the thing.

I really, really dislike the new and growing trend towards quick and easy recipes.

I should clarify that, before I am bombarded with shrieks of anguish from people telling me that they need recipes to be quick and easy to sculpt time in their hectic schedules to prepare them. Let me rephrase my statement. I have no problems with recipes that are meant to contain few ingredients and to be prepared in a short amount of time. Pushed when you come back from work? Make an omelet. Stretched with life and kids? Sandwich away my dear friends. Let it not be said that I am anything but tolerant.

Where I have am starting to have real issues is with the current tendency of magazines and TV shows to fill their space with versions of classic recipes, debased so they can be squeezed into the schedules of the busy and the lazy. There appears to be little thought that the reason such recipes became classics in the first place is that they require effort to make. To counteract such an annoying current trend, I have begun to post a series of recipes on my Facebook page called “Mission…..”

These are recipes that are, to put it mildly, projects. They are recipes for dishes that might take a whole day, a couple of days or, in the case of the bacon I made recently, a whole week to complete. They may require trips to more than one shop to find the ingredients and, in one or two cases might even need a bit of online ordering before you are ready to begin the mission.

Despite all this, the end results are definitely worth the effort and I am thrilled to say that I have received dozens of e-mails from folks telling me that they have enjoyed not only the final product but also the process of preparing maple cured bacon, Hyderabadi biryani, mole negro and Brazilian feijoada to name just a few.

I am soon to begin filming a series of webisodes based on this series of recipes, with the rather terrific Small Screen Network based in Seattle. All of which means that you can expect to hear me pontificating on this subject for a good while to come. You have fair warning.

Next on the list of missions was one of my favourite dishes of all, the Burgundian Coq Au Vin. As the name suggests, it is a dish that was originally made with a cockerel that was too old or no longer able to do what cockerels do (I know how he feels). As the meat was tough, it was marinated for 24 hours with wine (a Burgundy, obviously) chopped carrots, celery and onion and a bouquet garni of fresh thyme and parsley. It was then cooked down and served with classic accompaniments of mushrooms, lardons of bacon and button onions.

It is, as all of these culinary missions are, a bit of a faff, but the final result is so good that it is definitely worth every second of all effort required. Of course, there are quick and easy versions of Coq Au Vin, but they are but a pale reflection of the real thing.

The truth is quite simple, like all these “Mission” recipes, the time spent preparing them is almost as important as the eating and, if you don’t have time to do it properly, it’s just God’s way of telling you that you are not meant to eat Coq Au Vin.

If you are interested in following along, I shall be posting more recipes in the following months. If you try them, let me know how you get on.

MISSION COQ AU VIN

INGREDIENTS

1 Large Cockerel (This may be hard to find. If so, buy a boiling chicken, which will stand up to the marinating and long, slow cooking)

4 Carrots

3 Stalks of Celery

1 Large White Onion

1 Bottle of Burgundy (Or any decent Pinot Noir)

2 Bunches of Fresh Parsley (One for the marinade and one to serve as a garnish)

1 Bunch of Fresh Thyme

1 Piece of Cheesecloth (In which to wrap the herbs)

1 Pint Chicken Stock (I made mine with the backbone and wingtips of the chicken, vegetables and a bouquet garni of herbs)

6 Strips of Bacon (Cut into lardons. I used my own homemade bacon, but any good unsmoked variety will do)

3 Cloves Garlic (finely minced)

20 Button Mushrooms

20 Pearl Onions

3 Ounces Plain (All Purpose Flour)

Salt & Pepper (I use white pepper during cooking and black pepper just before serving)

Olive Oil & Butter (For cooking)

METHOD

Joint the chicken into 8 pieces.

Make a mire poix (rough chop) of the carrots, onion and celery.

Place the chicken in a bowl with the Mire Poir and add the wine and the bouquet garni of herbs.

Cover the bowl with cling film and place in the fridge to marinate for 24 hours.

After 24 hours drain the marinade from the chicken, retaining the liquid and the vegetables in separate bowls.

Dry the chicken thoroughly with kitchen towel and season on all sides with salt and pepper.

Melt 2 ounces of butter in a deep sided frying pan and when it begins to foam add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Brown the chicken on both sides and remove from the pan.

Add the vegetables from the marinade to the pan along with the finely minced garlic and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the flour and combine well with the vegetables. Cook for a further 4 minutes on a low heat.

Return the liquid from the marinade to the pan and stir well to combine with the vegetables and flour.

Return the chicken to the pan.

Add 1 pint of chicken stock.

Simmer on a low heat for around 90 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally.

While the chicken is simmering, peel the pearl onions and stem and half the mushrooms.

In a separate pan, fry the bacon until golden and crisp. Remove and drain on kitchen towel.

Drain the bacon fat from the pan, keeping 2 tablespoons in reserve to cook the garnishes.

Fry the mushrooms in the bacon fat until they begin to colour and then remove from the pan.

Fry the onions in the bacon fat until they begin to colour and then remove from the pan.

When the chicken pieces are cooked (after around 90 minutes) remove them from the pan and drain the cooking liquid.

Discard the vegetables, which will have given their all by then, but retain the sauce.

Return the mushrooms and onions the pan along with the chicken pieces and the cooking liquid.

Simmer gently until the sauce is at the point that it will coat the back of a spoon.

Season with salt and black pepper for taste and add a handful of finely chopped parsley.

Plate the chicken coated with lots of sauce, onions and mushrooms and topped with plenty of bacon.

I served mine with buttery mashed potatoes.

Enjoy with a glass of great Burgundy and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

You have completed “Mission Coq Au Vin”

LES DEUX SALONS: NO OIL PAINTING

We've had a few (scrub that, thousands) of mails asking us why no updates to the blog. I can't speak for HS but in my case it's mainly down to the fact I’ve been on holiday but it’s also because I have a certain ennui with the current dining scene in this city.

While I'd like to believe that the many new Burrito joints (it's a flipping wrap - get over it), Bahn Mi shops (it's a sandwich pal, not Babette’s Feast) and grim chains (oh goody, yet another Eat, you are spoiling us, City of London) are raising the foodie bar in London I tend to see them as no more than exercises in seeing how much dosh can be squeezed from gullible Londoners for the least outlay.

Ditto most restaurants which rather than attempting to provide something so wonderful that you’d never want to go anywhere else again work on the “What can we get away with” principle based on the premise there’s always another mug punter around the corner.

Ok. Now I’ve got that little lot out of my system I can tell you about my visit to Les Deux Salons, a pretty major restaurant opening and as good a way as any to get the blog rolling again (albeit creakily).

First a confession: I've never had a satisfying meal at any of Anthony Demetre's restaurants. First at Putney Bridge - even after he had gained a Michelin star - then at Arbutus and Wild Honey. The latter two restaurants have always been extremely popular, due in part to keen pricing and perceived value for money (=cheap, something us Brits are very keen on) but I’m afraid I just didn't get it.

Les Deux Salons is a big step up from the more modest gaffs in the collection. It occupies what was previously a barn-like Pitcher and Piano located just South-West of Covent Garden. It’s now been converted by Martin Brudzinski from pissy lager-selling, pickup joint into, well, I guess it’s supposed to be an evocation of grand European brasserie. I think Mr Brudzinski must have knocked this one out on a Friday afternoon after a few stiffeners at the Dog and Duck.

I’m afraid I didn’t like it. It all felt a bit insubstantial to me. HS said it all sounded a bit Trompe l'oeil but he’s a smartarse and nobody likes them do they? The other tables were too spread out as well (limiting numbers?) – the seating in a brasserie needs a certain density. To cap it all my table was wobbly. Not a great crime against humanity, but, still.

Unfortunately, the food failed to compensate for the dodgy décor and the wobbly service – although the latter did improve as the evening progressed.

Once I’d got over the shock of not getting a slice of orange in my Lillet Rouge and the shock to my choppers of some tough bread – why are the simple things so hard – there was the triple whammy of not seeing any sort of Bivalves or Shellfish on a Brasserie Menu. Odd seeing as big trays of Fruits de Mer going out does add a certain glamour to proceedings. And who doesn’t like a dozen on the half shell with a glass of fizz?

Instead, and more prosaically, I went for the Brawn. A little bit of me died when a plate with a small glass jar turned up. This affectation has been done to death by now and isn't an improvement over a slab of terrine. The Brawn itself was underseasoned and tasted mostly of fat without any porkiness to compensate.

The small Beetroot and apple salad was strewn with some microgreens but was a bit apologetic. What was wrong with some piccalilli - this was English Brawn after all?

The Salt Cod Brandade dish was an improvement but had a built in entertainment factor. They omitted to tell me the Parsley Cromesqui would, when speared by my fork, spurt out dark green parsley puree like some sort of alien ejaculate. Well, the waiters probably had a chuckle.

The offending Cromesqui would have been a bit better (and less dangerous) if it hadn’t been so tough. I was pleasantly surprised by the baby squid which were properly cooked and having ate my bodyweight’s worth of them in Spain recently I know from baby squid. The brandade wasn’t too shoddy either although it was quite salty. Somehow though the dish was less than the sum of its parts.

Roast Halibut with razor clams was one of the most expensive dishes on the menu so what the dish lacked in embellishments should have been made up by good ingredients and precise cooking. The quality of the Halibut was fine but it was flabby and overcooked especially surprising as they’d not managed to get any colour on it. I suspect it may have been cooked properly then left on a hot plate to cook some more.

I quite like the idea of chopping up the clam and serving it in the shell but it was tasteless and a bit rubbery. It really could have done with a a squeeze of lemon to liven it up a bit.

The accompanying veg was beyond help.

A sweet of Rum Baba – fast becoming my number one dessert choice (sorry Ice Cream, you’re so dumped) – rescued things somewhat. It was light with a decent texture and a good measure of navy rum (other brands are not available) which was poured over it at table. I was a bit wary about the thin slices of pineapple served but they worked well providing a fresh, sweet counterpoint to the rum-sodden pudding. That’s not me BTW.

I wish it wasn’t so but at the end of the meal I was thinking that I've still never had a truly satisfying meal in an Anthony Demetre restaurant. But, hey, what do I know? The other places have been enough of a success to open a 250 seater restaurant in the heart of London’s famous West End which was filled and buzzing with (apparently) happy people. Call me an old, misery-guts naysayer but for me this says more about the low expectations of London’s restaurant-going public than it does about our burgeoning London restaurant scene.

GAUTHIER: SUPER SCRAN, SOHO

I don’t like Tasting Menus. They can be bloody hard work for a start - like enduring a long car journey when you're young, you find yourself thinking "are we there yet?". The saucing can be so rich that you're stuffed by the second course when you still have ten more to go. There's usually no choice so like a film soundtrack you have to endure a few clunkers before you get to the good stuff. And there's never enough of the good stuff. And so on and on - just like a tasting menu in fact.

So how come I've eaten three tasting menus in as many weeks? Well, the first two were in restaurants where there isn't any other choice. Both Viajante (in Bethnal Green) and Coi (in San Francisco) serve food that you're not going to come across too often and were both very enjoyable in their own way. More of Coi in a later post.

My third was at the newly opened Gauthier in Soho. Located in The Lindsay House (previous tenant: Richard Corrigan), the chef-patron is Alexis Gauthier who also runs Roussillon in Pimlico. The only times we've visited Roussillon we were pretty underwhelmed with the food so I wasn't particularly looking forward to my visit. I'd seen the menu ahead of my res and though it looked interesting but I still wasn't convinced.

The place has had a lick of paint since its previous occupant and the dining room (one of two) I was in was a light and pleasant space in contrast to the dark and gloomy rooms I’m usually to be found in. Quiet to begin with it soon filled up with Wine Merchants, PRs and diners who frequented Roussillon.

I thought my initial misgivings about the food were justified when I took a bite of one of my canapés, a chickpea "stick" which was a bit heavy and doughy - not great. I took a bite of another little amuse, this time one with a dice of langoustine and thereafter my meal followed an upward arc.

Although there’s a proper tasting menu I decided to construct my own from the list of small plates. These start off with the lighter, veggie-based dishes and get more protein orientated as you work through the list.

I always used to wonder how ex-restaurant critic Jonathon Meades managed to have a view on so many dishes on a restaurant’s menu. This was explained when a friend mentioned they’d seen him in a restaurant and basically he just ordered everything on the menu. Even when dining toute seul.

I was tempted to do the same to see how far I could get through a very attractive menu but I fancy living for a few more years yet before I have my Grand Bouffe moment so I contented myself with six ‘plats’ leaving some room for pud.

In the end it wasn’t a problem because M. Gauthier’s cooking has such a light touch that I never felt at all bloated during the meal. Even more surprising given the fact that like all French gaffs they’ll keep bringing you bread until you make like Mr Creosote. And very nice bread it was too with the bacon (mmmm...bacon) variety seeing most of the action.

As well as that light touch the cooking is also characterised by decent ingredients so a starter of Asparagus actually tasted of that vegetable.

Beautifully crimson Pigeon Breast was served slightly tiede and cleverly matched with Lobster. Wild Garlic in the risotto didn’t really come through and it was a tad salty but it was still a good risotto, the grains of rice retaining the right amount of ‘bite’ and the whole being soupy enough.

A small fillet of expertly cooked Red Mullet came with some Baby Squid and with their accompanying pieces of fennel and confited tomatoes was like a taste of the Meditteranean in minature.

The definition of the word savoury (or umami as is currently in vogue) would have a picture of my Veal Sweetbreads with Morels next to it. It delivered a huge hit of, well, whatever you want to cal it. But not so much that subtle favour of the golden glands was masked.

The Beef dish was the culinary climax. Combining the meat with olives is not an original idea but it’s still a good one and the chemistry between the rare beef, and the bitter elements of the olives and chard worked fantastically well. The marrow was the er, icing on the beef.

This could be a pretty full-on dish for some but I was still pondering upon another savoury dish after I’d finished it. So either portions were very small or I’m just a glutton. Ok, probably the latter.

After that little lot the desserts paled a little. I found my Duck Egg Soufflé a tad underpowered although this was probably not such a bad thing. I like my Ice Creams though, especially as they came on top of a refreshing pineapple granita.

After some PFs and a couple of Marshmallows staff had to administer emergency Espresso and Eaux-de-vie to stop me exploding. Thankfully, there were no waffr-thin mints.

Service at the start of the meal was a little hesitant but got better as the dining room filled up and they didn't miss a trick although I didn't get my little pre-dessert (boo). The meal was well paced too although inevitably, given the number of dishes I’d ordered, I was there for over three hours.

Wines by the glass were great value and actually appeared to have been chosen to complement the individual dishes. It isn’t always like this, you know.

Apparently there was a brief soft-opening for the resutaurant but if my visit was anything to go by M.Gauthier has hit the ground running. I don’t like Tasting Menus? I love them.