masterchef

The winner of MasterChef 2008 is....

maki — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:58:29 +0100

The three finalists of the BBC’s MasterChef 2008 wait anxiously for the winner to be proclaimed…

And the winner is James Nathan, an ex-barrister.

This was his final winning 3 course menu. The starter was smoked mozzarella ravioli with cherry tomato sauce and basil cream:

The main was tea infused venison with roast potatoes, pickled red cabbage and rich port sauce:

And his dessert was chocolate and orange sponge pudding.

There’s no denying that James deserved to win. He was the most consistent contestant in most of the final week challenges, and the semi-final week challenges too. He’s undoubtedly a very good cook, and he has a good chance to fulfill his stated goal of opening his own restaurant. For that matter, so does Jonny Stevenson, the banker slash single father from Belfast, who makes simple, hearty, crowd-pleasing type of food that I’d be happy to eat any day of the week.

But around Chez Just Hungry the contestant that excited us the most by far was the youngest MasterChef contestant ever, 18 year old Emily Ludolf. Our nickname for her was “Hester Blumenthal”. In a nutshell, she’s a budding molecular-gastronomist type of chef, but unlike Marcel from Top Chef 2, who was clearly copying the ideas of his mentors for the most part, Emily was entirely original. She made us sit up and take notice when she made a chocolate dessert that she called a ‘mud pie’ - inspired by, she said, mud pies she used to make in the garden. It was a chocolate mousse with raspberries and sugared tarragon leaves. She also made amazing things like a rhubarb soup.

Then, in the semi-final rounds that aired last week, she made this dish which she called “bacon and eggs”, which was actually chorizo, ricotta and soft egg ravioli with crisp parma ham and pea shoot coulis. It made three very jaded newspaper food critics exclaim “WOW”.

These were Emily’s final three dishes, starting with “Tagiatelle” of beetroot juice and smoked salmon with apple, mint and horseradish:

The main she made was rabbit saddle and languoustine mousseline with carrot, lemongrass and ginger purée. I think this dish let her down, as beautiful as it is. Rabbit and langoustine together? It also has a pear and water chestnut salad. (I am assuming she used regular Western pears. Maybe Asian pears might have worked better.) Nevertheless I’d love to taste it.

Her dessert was similar in concept to her earlier mud pie, a chocolate and paprika sorbet with marshmallows, truffle and pine nut sugar and passion fruit syrup. It was, she said, inspired by memories of toasting marshmallows and such on a campfire.

I am fascinated by what this young 18 (now 19) year old girl will do in the upcoming years. It seems she’s now at university enduring student food. She says she wants to combine English skills with her ‘hobby’ - “perhaps by becoming a food critic”. Nooooooooooooooooooo. The world does not need yet another food critic or ‘tv food personality’. I really hope Emily pursues her cooking career seriously and becomes a brilliant multistarred chef. Then she can use her earned celebrity chef status to write books or whatever she likes.

So, another terrific series of MasterChef, the show that puts every other cooking competition TV show anywhere to shame, is done. I can’t wait for the next one next year, and seeing how the 2008 finalists progress with the pursuit of their dreams.

The return of MasterChef, plus the best food TV shows of 2007

maki — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:33:05 +0100

MasterChef (they seem to have dropped the Goes Large part) is back for a new season (or series, as they say in the UK), starting tomorrow! It’s still my favorite competition cooking-reality show. Even the short Celebrity version is not bad. I think the reason why it stays consistently watchable is that they take the food, and the contestants, very seriously. Unlike other shows there’s no soap opera drama, and no gaming. It’s just about food and cooking skills, as it should be. I do sometimes I disagree with the two host/judge’s decisions (and I still can’t remember who is Greg and who is John) but most of the time I think they are quite fair.

Can it be improved? Sure - they should take the opinions of the professional chefs that participate in the ‘restaurant round’ (where the contestants are thrown into the fire of a busy restaurant kitchen for lunch service) a lot more into account. Or maybe a guest judge would be nice. Or, maybe they should keep things just as they are. In any case I’m looking forward to another eight weeks of fun.

I won’t play along with the show every day as I did two years ago, though I may try some of the combinations. I may do a weekly recap. Regardless, if you get BBC Two where you live, don’t miss it! It’s on later in the evening this time, at 8:30PM BT / 9:30PM CET, Monday to Friday. My DVR is set.

The best Food TV shows of 2007

Here is my list of the best food-related TV shows of 2007. Noting of course that most of the shows I get to see ‘live’ are from UK television. US shows I grab…however I can. (There are some German food programs, mainly on TV Gusto and RTL Living, but so far their original programming leaves a lot to be desired. TV Gusto shows are so boring and all look they same, that they just put me to sleep. Maybe it will get better…)

MasterChef Goes Large 2007 had several interesting contestants and ended on a really high note. Unlike 2006, I think most people were happy with the winner. The spinoff show Celebrity MasterChef was not bad either, since it kept any annoying behavior from those ‘celebrities’ at a minimum.
Kill It, Cook It, Eat It was an eye opening program on BBC Three that took us into a real abattoir and a real chicken processing plant. I was repelled and fascinated at the same time. It made me really think anew about where my food comes from.
There were two great programs on BBC Four about the Edwardians and the food they ate, Edwardian Supersize Me and The Edwardian Larder. A great combination of history and food.
Kitchen Criminals was a surprisingly entertaining cooking contest show. I hope they can bring it back somehow, though the surprise element would be lost. (I talked about this and several other shows here).
The Restaurant, a reality competition show rather similar to The Apprentice that aired on BBC Two, had Raymond Blanc in the Boss role, and the winning couple got to run their own restaurant within his group.
Ever Wondered About Food is always shown after Saturday Kitchen (BBC One) on Saturday afternoons, when I am never in front of the TV, so I keep missing it if I forget to DVR it. Nevertheless it’s a great combination of food science and cooking, presented by a very hot host.
Indian Food Made Easy (BBC Two) made me a fan of host Anjum Anand’s way of cooking Indian with a light touch.
Top Chef Season 3 was better than season 2, which sunk quite low. I was happy with the choice of Hung as the winner.
The second season (series) of Heston Blumenthal: In Search Of Perfection (BBC Two), was a bit over the top, even for him, but he capped it off with an sensational Christmas show.
Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes (BBC Two) was another great food and travel show from the amiable host.

Honorable mention: Jamie (Oliver) At Home (he returns to top form); the UK version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares; Sweet Baby James (James Martin cooks great desserts); Neneh and Andi Dish It Up (ex-popstar Neneh Cherry has become an earth mother and cooks great Caribbean-fusion food); Rosemary Schrager’s School For Cooks (a Masterchef wannabe but not too bad); The Roadkill Chef (mmm, braised hedgehog); The Truth About Food (a nutrition myth-debunking show, very entertaining); Cook Yourself Thin (cheesy presentation, great ‘lighter’ recipes that are right up my alley).

And ones I didn’t like…Nigella Express, the latest offering from Nigella Lawson, was disappointing. I want the serious Nigella back, not the one with the cheesy grin and the pseudo-fast-food. The US version of Kitchen Nightmares suffered from horrible editing and voiceovers and needless crap that watered it down unacceptably. The Next Iron Chef and The Next Food Network Star proved that the Food Network don’t know how to do competition-cooking shows right; they both started out promisingly but really went downhill. As for Hell’s Kitchen, both the US and UK versions were awful, for different reasons, and had little to do with food.

The Winner of Masterchef 2007 is...

maki — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:55:31 +0100

[Update: Steven has a very gracious post about his win on his blog.]

The winner of Masterchef 2007 is Steven Wallis, a trend analyst from London. Here’s how he looked when he was proclaimed the victor.

As with previous seasons the final three-course original menu test was the one deciding factor for determining the winner. While both Ben and Hannah tripped up a bit on at least one of their courses, Steven really excelled with all three of his dishes.

Unlike last season, where the perceived failings of eventual winner Peter in tasks leading up to that final three-course test lead to some dissatisfaction about his being declared the winner over crowd favorite (and hottie) Dean, this season’s finalists were fairly even in the tasks during the final week. For me at least there was no clear favorite going into the final episode.

There were definite stylistic differences though. Ben was the avant-garde pseudo-molecular gastronomist - sort of like Marcel from Top Chef without the attitude and the hair. He had foam in one of his final dishes, and earlier on had an ‘anise salt’ on the plate of one of his desserts which got the jaded food critics who were the tasters on that occasion quite hot and bothered. His very ambitious dessert for the finals, which had a sweet biscuit (cookie for Americans) with olives in it and a sort of fennel marmelade, didn’t quite do it for judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode (or as they are known affectionately on the BBC Food message boards, Pasty and Toad :)).

Hannah, labeled the ‘country cook’, seemed to do best when she cooked homey, no-frills, traditional English food. Although she did rise to the occasion at times and execute great looking fancy dishes, especially an amazing looking chocolate dessert plate that got raves from a panel of top class chefs including Raymond Blanc and Pierre Gagnaire, overall she had ongoing self confidence problems which lead to a lack of finish. Her final dishes, while really mouthwatering (especially that squid starter!) really didn’t look as finished in presentation as those of the others, though the judges raved about the way they tasted. But, what ultimately let her down was the fact that she undercooked the lamb for her main dish. She had timing problems before, and it hurt her again at the last hurdle.

Steven, who had serious problems with time management mainly due to being over-ambitious or over-fiddly, really got it together for the final round. Here are his three winning dishes (screenshots here since the BBC Food site doesn’t have them).

Starter:

Dandelion salad with poached quail eggs, lardons and mustard vinaigrette (recipe on the BBC food site)

This really got my attention. So simple, yet potentially tricky - poaching quail eggs perfectly? Yipes! And it looked so amazing. It was as sophisticated as Ben’s dishes, but not as precious, and more elegantly presented than Hannah’sdishes.

Main:

Duck breast with smoked potatoes, glazed baby turnips, leek crisps with buttered winter greens and duck jus (Recipe)

Smoked potatoes! I just have to try this. The baby turnips looked amazing (that’s how they are often prepared in Japanese cooking, incidentally, with a bit of the green tops left on). The duck breast with jus sounded perfect.

And dessert:

Poached pears with vanilla ice cream and a serious to-die-for chocolate sauce (a.k.a. Poires Belle Hélène) (Recipe)

Ohhh my god, was all I could think. Vanilla ice cream studded with vanilla seeds! Perfectly poached pear! And…that chocolate sauce!

So, Steven really deserved to win I think. I hope he can achieve great things from this.

Overall it was another great Masterchef competition. Once again they proved that it isn’t necessary to put ridiculous gimmicky twists on things or to dwell on the interpersonal soap-opera aspects, to make a cooking competition exciting. If I lived in the UK I would seriously consider applying myself, but alas, unless they extend their eligibility to the rest of Europe that is not possible. Even if one doesn’t win, if one can make it to the finals, the experiences that contestants get to experience are just amazing. I’m not sure about the tasks like cooking for an army battalion or lunch for schoolkids (though both of those would be a serious challenge and could be fun), but what serious cook wouldn’t love to do things like this:

Work in a starred restaurant kitchen. The three finalists got to work a lunch shift at three starred Paris restaurants: Le Meurice, Hélène Darroze and Le Relais d’Auteuil, and had the respective head chefs of said restaurants to comment on their dishes.
Be judged by a panel of top class chefs like Pierre Gagnaire, Raymond Blanc and Michel Roux.
Get a personal instruction session with Heston Blumenthal (that was in season 1)
Cook for dignitaries or food critics in settings like the Ritz, the Savoy, or even 10 Downing Street - for Tony Blair and the Irish Prime Minister.

I guess the only minor nitpick I have is that the winner seems to be determined 100% by the two main judges, Gregg and John, who have their own personal prejudices and such. It would be fun to invite in a guest judge or two with real say in the proceedings, especially for the final round.

My predictions for where the three finalists will end up, culinary career-wise:

Steven - becomes a ‘food consultant’
Ben - becomes a caterer in Cheltenham (where he has a cheese shop)
Hannah - gets hired as the head chef in a historical country estate-turned-catering hall (she looks the part)

Masterchef Goes Large 2007 finale is tonight!

maki — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:02:30 +0100

A quick reminder to everyone within viewing range of BBC Two: the one hour finale of Masterchef Goes Large 2007 is on tonight at 21:00 CET / 20:00 BT! Will it be artistic but palate-deficient Ben, passionate but nervous Hannah, or the man with a fine palate who has a problem with time management, Steven? It’s too close to call…and besides last year we all thought Dean was going to win and Peter won instead, so who knows what will happen? Although I haven’t written much about this season, it’s been a great one, with some amazing challenges. I’m really looking forward to tonight!

MasterChef Goes Large 2007 (Season 3) starts today

maki — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:49:45 +0100

Update: The season is over and the winner is announced.

MasterChef Goes Large, the best competitive cooking show on television today*, starts its third round today. If you live in the U.K. or anywhere else where BBC Two is viewable (that includes Switzerland if you have a satellite dish aimed at Astra 2D or the right package from Cablecom) don't forget to tune in, or set your recorders, for 7:30 CET / 6:30 British time tonight! There will be a special, MasterChef - What The Winners Did Next, right after the first episode of this year's competition, following up on the three finalists from Season 2.

I won't be doing all the daily challenges as I did last year, since it sort of took over my life for a few weeks and I'm too busy, but I will probably pick out one or two interesting ingredient sets a week to try out. Following along last year really helped to expand my repertoire and made me think about what it takes to come up with 'original' menus and dishes on the spot. I highly recommend it if you're up for a great cooking challenge.

(It's much better than Top Chef, Iron Chef America, or any of the Food Network competition shows, and is on a par with (but totally different from) the original Japanese Iron Chef. Yep I've seen them all. I know, I need a life.)

Food and being green on the BBC

maki — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:13:33 +0200

I am eternally grateful that the BBC broadcasts free-to-air on satellite, and that I live within reception range. I feel a bit guilty that I don't have to pay anything to view the Beeb as UK residents do, and believe me if they started to bill me something I'd pay it without question. The BBC has the best programming, bar none, of any network I've ever seen in any country. (I'm even a closet East Enders watcher, but don't tell anyone.)

Tonight the Celebrity version of MasterChef Goes Large, the best cooking competition show on TV (yep, much better than Top Chef) started. Usually Celebrity-anything is pretty horrible, but the first show of Celebrity MasterChef was not bad at all - mainly because they kept the format of the original. No pandering to celebrity egos, no having professional chefs teach them hand and foot to mimic their dishes. The celeb contestants had to create their own dishes, just like the people on the regular MasterChef. And even though there were three female celebrities on the first show, there was absolutely no cleavage on display! Amazing. (Correction: a male viewer points out that Sarah Cawood had a bit. Of cleavage that is. But it was discreet.)

Longtime readers of this site will know that I played along with the MasterChef season 2 challenges earlier this year. I'm not going to do so with the Celebrity version, but I'll be watching. Linda Barker from Changing Rooms won the first day - although her presentation was rather messy, the lady can clearly cook. (Uhm, Charlie Dimmock has been eating a lot of her own cooking it looks like.) U.S. viewers shouldn't miss season 1 of MasterChef which will be airing soon as Nicole from Slashfood has noted.

Another great food show on the Beeb started a new season this weekend. Ever Wondered About Food is a program produced by the Open2.net, the TV programming for the Open University, so it's part food science, part cooking. The recipes are few but they are really good, and the science parts are very interesting too. Above all the host, Paul Merrett, is terrific. I'm not sure why he's not higher up on the Celebrity TV Chef scale - he's dynamic, passionate about food, and really cute too (imo). He did have a show some time ago called The Best, with two other adorable chefs, Sylvana Franco and Ben O'Donoghue. Why all three of them haven't become food mega-stars is beyond me. The companion book (UK link) is one of the best of its type - think Jamie Oliver with more variety. Anyway, I hope that Ever Wondered About Food also filters around the world. (I've seen older seasons on BBC Prime, the stripped down poor version of the BBC we get on cable in continental Europe.) In the meantime, check out the Open2.net web site for recipes and more.

Finally, on the local BBC London station they are making a typical London family go through a "greening" experiment. The web site has plenty of information, and it's interesting to see what they recommended the family do and compare it to your own situation. Some areas I'm good (I bring my own bags along to the supermarket instead of relying on their shopping bags), and some not (didn't have the time to grow veggies in the garden this year beyond a few herbs...)

MasterChef wrapup

maki — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:37:35 +0100

MasterChef is the BBC cooking contest program to find the "best amateur chef in the UK", ended last Friday. The winner was Peter Bayless, a 60 year old former advertising executive. His selection was quite a surprise to a lot of people, and the discussion about this on the BBC Food message boards has been quite heated, to put it mildly. He wasn't my pick: I was rooting for either Daksha, a very excitable 44 year old mother of 2 whose speciality is food from the Gujarati region of India; or Dean, a very sincere 28 year old who showed the most cool under pressure. Peter did produce some delicious looking French food along the way and did the best in the final 3-course cooking test. But I don't know, his food did not excite me at all - it was actually sort of yawn-inducing. On the other hand some of Daksha's Gujarati dishes had me flipping through through my Madhur Jaffrey books to see if she had a similar recipe, and her attempts to meld her own flavors with European cooking techniques and ingredients were truly impressive. And Dean probably has the most potential of the three. He is also very cute. He's the overwhelming favorite on the message boards.

I watched almost every show, and did the Invention test, so needless to say I really liked it. I can sort of understand why many people are upset at the choice of winner, but neverthless I think this was the finest cooking contest type program in recent memory. Here's why.

Plenty of time was given for the show - 40 half-hour episodes, broadcast every weekday over 8 weeks. Compare this to the U.S.'s Top Chef, which will have 10 45 minute episodes. This meant that the four finalists, Dean, Daksha, Peter and Becky got really tested repeatedly. (Becky, an American girl who specialized in a sort of Cajun/Creole/Southern type cooking, was eliminated at the end of the penultimate week.)
There were 30 preliminary round contestants, plus 6 more that were callbacks from the previous season (Daksha, my favorite finalist, was one of those callbacks). You really got to see the difference between the people who thought they were good cooks, to the ones who really were.
There was a focus on food and cooking, with a refreshing lack of soap opera elements. You did see some personality clashes, especially in the final 2 weeks when the finalists had to work closely together, but they weren't played up more than necessary.
A variety of challenges for the finalists, from straightforward cooking assignments to those that tested their ability to cope with stress (cooking in a field kitchen for a ravenous RAF troop in frozen northern Norway, doing made-to-order eggs for the breakfast buffet on the QEII).
It gave a peek into the amazing variety of fine restaurants operating in England, and the great selection of fresh produce available.
The variety of contestants was great - you had young and old, male and female, posh-sounding and not-so posh. It wasn't even limited to British people - it seems that the requirement is that you are a UK resident. An American, Becky, was even in the finals. I found this very refreshing. Best of all, most of the contestants seemed really passionate and dedicated, in a non-fake kind of way.
Lots and lots of delicious looking food!

I really hope that the Food Network can license the MasterChef format, because a similar contest in the U.S. should be really exciting. It would give great exposure to various restaurants that agreed to participate in various challenges, highlight lots of ingredients, engage the audience in furious debate over the results, and just be tons of fun. And I think only the Food Network can do justice to the hard core foodiness of it all. Let's hope some execs are reading!

Residents of the U.K. can apply for upcoming MasterChef series here.

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Closing thoughts on my MasterChef challenge

maki — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:43:34 +0100

Seven weeks ago, when the second season of the UK food contest show MasterChef Goes Large started, I set myself a personal challenge: to play along and make a dish (or for the last week, 2 dishes) with the list of ingredients provided in the Invention Test that was the first part of the preliminary rounds. I've made 26 different dishes, based on 23 different ingredient lists (I skipped one day).

It's been a very educational experience, and it has reinforced my belief that this challenge (to come up with an original plate of food from a set of specified ingredients) really is a great way to test someone's cooking abilities.

It has taught me how creative cooking can be when you are forced to come up with original creations. Of course, I drew upon the recipes that I had filed away somewhere in my brain, but ultimately I had to make something that was tasty, fit well together, and could be cooked within the allotted 40 minute time limit (50 minutes and 2 dishes for the final week). I didn't always succeed, but overall I was happy with the results.

It also made me pay a lot more attention to plate presentation. I do try to make the food I serve reasonably attractive, but sometimes I get too tired to bother. But simple things like mounding spaghetti cleanly in the middle of the plate instead of slopping it on, or paying a little bit of attention the color balance of a salad, makes so much difference - not only for the sake of the photographs you take for your blog or flickr stream, but also to the way the people that you serve your creations to react.

It's also helped me to discover what kinds of flavors I really like to cook and eat Just keeping up this site since late 2003 has helped to define my food personality, but this concentrate exercise has accelerated that process. While I may be a culinaric polyglot, I have an instinctive urge to add a Japanese twist to most of my creations.

The one thing that continuously bothered me throughout the challenges was that I was forced to cook out of season, because as I noted several times, it was quite obvious that the show was taped during the late summer or early autumn. But I now realize that emphasizing the importance of cooking "within the season" was one of the points of the cooking challenges presented throughout the show. If they were taping the show right now I'm sure they would have included ingredients like rhubarb and omitted ones like pears.

If I had one quibble with the ingredient selections, it's that I think they occasionally threw in an intentional clunker: the sticky rice on Day 22, which is the only day I skipped, comes to mind.

Many of the ingredients pushed me out of my comfort zone, which was rather stressful at first. I did think about chucking the whole thing several times. I'm glad I didn't though, and I'm glad I was pushed out of my comfort zone, to explore unfamiliar combinations and tastes. While I'm relieved that it's all over and I can move on to new things culinarically speaking now, I'm really happy that I did it. It's really changed and refocused my food life.

The show itself is about to enter its final week. I can't wait to see who is going to emerge as the MasterChef. And, my respect for all the contestants who entered is limitless.

Finally, here's the Best Of list of recipes that were born during the challenges. These will be entering my regular rotation for sure.

The Really Asian Fusion Soup I made on Day 2. I've already made this several times since, though with chicken breast instead of monkfish. Salty-sweet-sour yumminess!
Tomato-cream-saffron fish pie, made on Day 6. That tomato-saffron combo is really nice.
Seared Tuna, Arugula and Basil Linguine salad made on Day 8: if only fresh tuna was more affordable, I'd eat this every week.
The Vegetable and Mussels Risotto I made on Day 10 was good not because of the mussels, but that sweet combination of veggle flavors produced with minimal added fat.
The Fish Quenelles in Soup I made on Day 15 were surprisingly good, and another great low-fat, low-calorie dish. I need to develop more of those.
Putting tofu into the frittata on Day 17 really worked out great. I love frittata anyway but I think I will be doing the tofu things more often now.
I re-discovered Syllabub for Day 18, and it was very very good. So were the tuilles.
The Anchovy Bread Pudding made on Day 21 sounds odd but it's so easy and so tasty. It also looks great when it comes out of the oven.
And last but not least, the cider, prune and apple sauce I made on the last day is really good.

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Masterchef challenge day 24: Pork chops in Cider, Prune and Apple Sauce With Red Cabbage; Rhubarb with Two Creamy Cheeses

maki — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:34:53 +0100

It's the final day of the Masterchef ingredient test challenge that I set out to do some weeks ago. My thoughts on the whole experience will follow, but here is the last ingredients list:

Red cabbage
Apples
Swede
Cream cheese
Cider
Prunes
Pork chops

I can't say that this last list was overly inspiring to me, but I made a dish that while not particularly photogenic, did taste pretty good. The key here is the absolutely yummy sauce, made from cider, apple cider vinegar, chopped up apple and prunes, chopped leek, light cream and the pan juices from the pork chops. I cooked the red cabbage in cider also, and they came out crispy yet tender. Accompanying this was some good old mashed potatoes.

A key ingredient is the cider. Cider in this case means a sort of apple wine, that is fermented with about 7 to 8% alcohol. It's not the kind of fresh apple cider you see in the U.S. It's sort of similar to hard cider, and you can certainly use that. In my case I used something called Apfelwein trüb, which is an unfiltered, lightly alchoholic (4.4%) unsweetened apple beverage with about 10% pear juice.

For my second dish, I cheated just a bit by using rhubarb again, with a big spoonful of a mix of equal parts cream cheese and quark with a bit of sugar. But I think one of the basic ideas pushed by the Masterchef series is that how important it is to cook with seasonal ingredients, and that's what I'm doing here. If I were doing this at the time when the show was filmed, then I would have done some sort of baked apple thing.

Quark is a type of fresh cheese that is sold in Germanic areas; it's rather similar to French fromage blanc. Fromage blanc is sold in "gourmet" stores in the U.S. (I've seen it at Whole Foods and Fairway in New York.) You can substitute plain yogurt, which would be a bit more loose and acidic, so you may want to add a bit more sugar. In the U.K. you should use Greek yoghurt. Please follow the very easy recipe for baked rhubarb in my recent entry.

To finish this meal within the alloted 50 minutes, start preparing the rhubarb and putting it in the oven. Then peel the potatoes and get them boiling. Shred the cabbage and start cooking them, sear the pork chops, make the sauce, and finish off the pork chops. If you have more time though, I would recommend slowly simmering the pork chops in the sauce for at least 40 minutes or more longer. Meat is a funny thing: first you have tender, rare-to-medium stage, then you get rapidly get to tough as leather stage. After that though if you cook it long enough it will soften and relax. So remember: for tender pork chops, cook then briefly or very long.

Unused ingredient: swede. A swede is the British name for those big, purple-necked turnips. There are very few vegetables I dislike, and swedes are one of them. I love the tender little white Japanese turnips but these big, flavorless, often woody swedes are not worth coming near a plate, in my opinion.

The following amounts serves 4 people.

Red Cabbage In Cider

1 small head of red cabbage, core removed and finely julienned
1 large onion, sliced thin
Buter or oil for cooking
2 cups cider
1/2 cup sugar
Salt and pepper

Heat butter or oil or a mixture of both in a large heavy pan. Add the onions, sauté a little then add the cabbage. Add the cider and sugar. Let it cme to a boil then lower the heat the cook, stirring frequently, over a medium-low heat for about 20 minutes or until the cabbage is crisp-tender. Season with the salt and pepper.

Pork Chops in Cider Apple Prune Cream Sauce

4 medium pork chops
1 cup chopped white part of leek
1 small apple, peeled, cored and chopped up
about 10 pitted pruned, roughly chopped
1 cup cider
2 Tbs cider vinegar
1 cup light cream (US: half and half)
Butter
Salt and pepper

Lightly season the pork chops with salt and pepper. Heat up a large nonstick frying pan. When the pan is hot, add a little bit of oil, and put in the pork chops. Brown the pork chops on each side, then take out of the pan and set aside.

Add about 1 Tbs. of butter to the pan, and sauté the leek until limp. Add the cider and vinegar, and add the apple and prunes. Stir around to loosen any bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. If you see any juice coming out of the pork chops, add that to the pan too. Let cook for a couple of minutes, then add the cream. Lower the heat and simmer for about 5 10 minutes over medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the pork chops to the sauce. At this point either simmer for a couple of minutes then take off the heat, or (better) simmer for 40 + minutes longer.

Serve the pork chops with the red cabbage and mashed potatoes, spooning plenty of sauce on top.

Two Creamy Cheeses

This is barely a recipe at all.

4 Tbs. cream cheese
4 Tbs. quark, fromage blanc, or plain yogurt
2 Tbs. sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract

Blend all together until the sugar melts.

Serve on top of cooked fruit, such as Baked Rhubarb.

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Masterchef challenge day 23: Tarragon Chicken and Spinach pie, Mushroom Lemon Soup

maki — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 10:57:06 +0100

Despite being discouraged by the previous day's ingredients, day 23 revived my interest. The ingredients are:

Puff pastry
Spinach
Brie cheese
Leeks
Wild mushrooms
Pear
Chicken breast

Now, I have not bought readymade puff pastry in years. I have this general philosophy that certain very rich foods should only be consumed in its best possible incarnations, because the taste has to be worth the caloric sacrifice one makes. Things like pastries, cakes, ice cream and fois gras fall into this category. The last time I had something made with storebought puff pastry, it was flaky all right, but had a rather dry texture and a very slight acrid, chemical undertone. It had none of the buttery, unctuous goodness that a proper puff pastry should have.

Nevertheless I went to the store to discover what is out there in readymade pastry land, and was pleasantly surprised to discover one that has real butter in it. I know, I am probably way behind the times in this arena. I don't think this will convince me to buy more readymade pastry, but for those of you who are similarly snobbish about pastry but are afraid or too time constrained to make your own, you should know that decent stuff is out there now.

What to make with this pastry? I did ponder doing something sweet, but once again faced with a totally out-of-season fruit (pears and March do not even belong in the same sentence) I decided to do a savory freeform pie. Savory pies are called pastete in Switzerland. This one is filled with chicken that has been gently cooked in a creamy-leeky sauce flavored with fresh tarragon, layered with simply sautéed spinach.

The creamy filling went marvelously with the tender, buttery crust. Consumed for Sunday lunch, it disappered with amazing speed.

To accompany the rich pastete I made a light mushroom consommé with lemon. Mushrooms with lemon? you might wonder, but sour and mushroom do go quite well together. Just think of pickled or marinated mushrooms. The soup is not nearly as photogenic as the pie, but was tart and delicious. I didn't have wild mushrooms (again, the seasonal thing) so I just used brown mushrooms, otherwise known as chestnut mushrooms.

Unused ingredients: brie, pears (if pears were in season, I'd just serve a juicy fresh one with a wedge of ripe, runny brie as a cheese course / dessert).

Technorati Tags: masterchef, mushrooms, pastete, pie, soup, spinach

Mushroom-lemon soup

250g / about 8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced thinly
Beef or vegetable stock cube, or canned or homemade stock
6 cups of water (if you're using stock cubes; use the same amount of liquid stock if you're using that)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup dry white wine
about 1 cup of the white part of leek, finely chopped (you can use onion instead)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 Tbs fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/2 tsp dried thyme
Butter
Salt and pepper

Sauté the leek and garlic in butter until limp and translucent. Add the mushrooms, and sauté until the volume reduces considerably and the mushrooms are quite brown.

Add the water with stock cube (I find beef works best, but vegetable is fine too) or canned or homemade stock. Bring up to a boil, then reduce the heat. Add the white wine, parsley and thyme, and simmer for 20+ minutes.

Add the lemon juice, and season to taste with salt and pepper. You can optionally swirl a spoonful of creme fraiche, sour cream or yogurt on top of each bowlful.

Chicken and spinach pie

1 readymade puff pastry sheet made with butter
300g / 10 oz. boneless chicken breast, sliced thinly
200ml / about 1/2 pint cream
1/2 cup dry white wine
about 1 cup of the white part of leek, finely chopped
1 Tbs fresh tarragon, finely chopped
300g / 10 oz (well, like 3 BIG handfuls) fresh spinach leaves, well washed and stems removed
Pinch nutmeg
Butter
Salt and pepper
1 egg

Note: remember to keep your pastry sheet in the refrigerator until you need to roll it out.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 360°F. Line a baking sheet with a silicon non-stick sheet.

Sauté the chopped leek in butter until soft and transclucent. Add the wine and cream, bring up to a boil then simmer over low heat until it has thickened considerably. Add the tarragon, and season with salt and pepper.

While the sauce is cooking, heat up some more butter in a very large pan. Add the spinach; you may need to add it in stages. Stir about until the spinach has reduced to a little pile. (I always find it amazing how much the volume of spinach goes down when it's cooked.) Season with salt, pepper and a little freshly grated nutmeg. Drain into a colander or sieve. Set aside to cool a bit.

Add the chicken to the sauce, and turn off the heat. This is to prevent the chicken from overcooking - it cooks from the heat of the sauce, and it will also continue to cook in the oven.

Beat up the egg.

Open up the refrigerated pastry sheet on the lined baking sheet. Put the spinach down the middle of the sheet. Layer the chicken-sauce mix over the spinach. Carefully bring up the pastry sheet over the filling to cover, and crimp up the ends. Slash the top with a sharp knife, or poke all over with a fork. Paint the top with the beaten egg.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Some of the sauce may leak, but don't worry about it.

To serve, cut into wedges. This is good piping hot or at room temperature.