2006 El Bulli Reservations

Salut/Hi Andrew,

le/on Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:27:35 +1300, tu disais/you said:-

Yup, I thought so too.

Yum....

You will need to be _certain_ that your oven can hold that temperature and reasonbably steadily, IMO. I also found my electronic meat thermometer invaluable. Not many ovens go down that far.

I was sorely tempted by a Burgundy, and my hand hovered over some Gevrey-Chambertin 1 cru, but in the end, I plumped for the excellent Croze Hermitages Dom des Jalaberts, from Jaboulet. 1998, which went reasonably well. What particularly pleased me was that after failing them miserably for years, my yorkshire puddings rose like little angels.

Salut/Hi Mark Lipton,

le/on Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:48:59 -0500, tu disais/you said:-

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

The tension, it seems to me, that faces great creative chefs, is between keeping the dishes simple enough for the ingredients themselves to sing, while at the same time letting their creativity loose. In some respects roast beef is a good example. Perfect beef, perfectly hung, cooked in such a way as to bring out the best of the meat (and I'm not saying this solely because of the slow roast I just did - the same would apply to any other magnificent ingredient) is so wonderful that one has NO need to "gild the lily". When we ate at the French Laundry, the lobster particularly was of that quality. I have seen the recipe that he's published and fundamentally the treatment of the shellfish was designed to let the flavour of the ingredient shine. The antithesis almost if that in classical cooking is the something like Lobster Newberg, where there is so much brandy and cream and messing around that one can't really tell much about the intrinsic quality of the lobster.

I must certainly accept Santiago's comments on El Bulli, he's been there and I haven't. However, I've only twice been faced with white truffle. Once was at an ill fated menu in Italy, where the very celebrated chef Dominici created a menu to go with 10 (iirc) Sapros wines. After 5 variations on cream sauces with wine added to make it go with the dish, we then had a fonduta (I think it was) with white truffle. Completely and utterly over the top. The second time was (paradoxically) at the French Laundry, where Tom Shudic had a risotto with White truffle. It was at some amazing supplement, and maybe to justify the hike, the waiter just kept ON shaving it over. The white truffle totally dominated the rest of the dish and I think it fair to say that Tom rather regretted having ordered it. I do hope Santiago's experience with it was better.

Of course we do. Interesting comparison too. As between Williams Selyem on the one hand, and Domaine de Romanée Conti on the other. Both vinifying Pinot Noir, both making extraordinary wines, but with an approach that is utterly different and results that are also completely different.

Again, thanks for that - we have one of those fan driven electric ovens which goes down as far as 50C - but I will test it before hand to ensure reasonable accuracy.

The secret being..........?

Regards

I defer to you on the subject of El Bulli, as you've eaten there whereas I have not. However, such differences in approach between chefs are most certainly real. A famous anecdote concerns the reaction to the cooking of Alice Waters, doyenne of California Cuisine, when she cooked for some well-known French chefs in Paris in the early 1980s: one was heard to remark after her cooking demonstration that "it's not cooking, it's shopping," a clear swipe at lack of artifice in her cooking.

I am not placing a value judgement on those approaches (in contrast to Mr. Nossiter), though I do tend to prefer wines made by the "peasants" (as Michel Rolland so engagingly referred to those vignerons). However, I also take issue with your point that wine is manipulation. It is fairly certain that the first wine was "produced" when someone allowed picked grapes to sit in a clay vessel for some period of time, during which the weight of the grapes crushed the lower ones and fermentation took place. Wine is really not much more complex than that, although as you point out there have been many refinements introduced over the years. However, we can still find vignerons in the S. Rhone who use concrete fermenters -- not far removed from the terra cotta originals. As usual, there are no absolutes: those "non-interventionists" still use SO2 to stop fermentation (at least most of them) and temperature control their fermentations; and there are no doubt some modernists who practice biodynamic farming. But talk to Marc Ollivier or Catherine Breton in the Loire about their approach to winemaking and how they feel about M. Rolland (stand back a few meters when putting that question to them). I guarantee you that they see themselves as practicing a wholly different craft than the oenologists of Bordeaux.

I agree 100%. To cook well, you must use technique. It is only the relative importance of technique to ingredients that I see as the variable here. As usual, if you were to poll 100 great chefs you would find much more similarity than difference in their approaches, though even 75 years ago they were bemoaning the demise of haute cuisine in France...

No offense taken, Santiago. I enjoy hearing your views on the matter even if I don't agree with all of them.

Mark Lipton

Salut/Hi st.helier,

le/on Mon, 31 Oct 2005 12:17:22 +1300, tu disais/you said:-

You should be fine then.

A recipe which used an extra egg white, based on one by Gary Rhodes.

Yorkshire Pudding (Gr-Ish)

beef, british, dairy, side dish

Put flour, egg, egg white, just over half the milk and the salt in the bowl of the blender. Blend well, then push down the sides with a spatula and reblend to make sure all the flour is properly incorporated. Leave to rest several hours.

Just before cooking, add remaining milk and whisk together.

Take a 12 hole yorkshire pudding or muffin tin, put 1 tsp oil/dripping in each hole, and heat to very hot in 225C 450F oven. Remove and over heat, add the batter as quickly as possible. Return to the oven and cook for 20 minutes. Do NOT open the door for the first 15 of those minutes.

Yield : 12 puddings

What IS tricky, is to cook yorkshire puds at 450 and beef at 55.

Sorry for what must seem a very tardy response, but I've only just found this group...

Having eaten at both Tom Aiken & The Fat Duck this year (plus #28 Le Manoir last year) I doubt your cardiologist would have anything to worry about at these restaurants. Light and elegant would be the best descriptors of both Tom Aiken's & Le manoir - not a cream sauce in sight and only modest amount of fois gras! Light and mind blowing mind games played with every course would be the best description of Heston's tasting menu.

pk