Despite feeling pretty average this morning, I dosed myself with cold drugs and headed off to the first day of the Masterclass weekend.
Interesting points and dishes for me were:
Martin Bosely- who pointed out the duh! factor in chefs propounding 'seasonal eating'. 'Many chefs think it's something new but its just normal to cook and eat whatever is best and in season'' Bravo! I think we've overdone the 'regional' eating too. If I hear one more chef pontificate about how their style cooking 'eating seasonal, regional food'', I think I'll vomit! It should just be the norm by now.
Bosely, who specialises in seafood, never uses seafood stock- it doesn't have enough fat, he says plus it's just hard to make a good one.
Loved Michael Richard of Citronelle in Washington's 'Beluga pasta'. He made it as a sort of tongue in cheek present for a friend with health problems whose doctor had banned real caviar. It's Israeli couscous, cooked in butter, onion, stock white wine and squid ink served with lobster,hollandaise and a poached egg. I suspect his mate's Doctor still wouldn't approve, but it was divine and so clever, served in a little caviar style tin.
Everyone's but everyone's doing sous vide. We had some different demos on how to do it, from the special sealing machine thingys to DIY with glad wrap.
Xavier Pellicer (who has a team of 35 in his kitchen to serve 55 odd customers!)made a fantastic deconstructed Spanish Omlette which, although horribly time consuming and fiddly proved the point, that you CAN have that type of super modern gastronomy that still eats like comfort food.
George Calombaris was good value- but as he told us he only uses Greek olive oil made me wonder. Surely it's not going to be as fresh as the local stuff (and what about all those air miles and talk of regional/seasonal hey?)plus if you're doing 'new Greek' in another country why do you need to use old country olive oil? While I got the deconstructed Greek salad, I didn't really get why it was served in one of those jars with the seal you'd normally store rice or something in?
The olive oil chocolate mousse I thought was kind of interesting, but I didn't really like the texture and I thought you could probably only eat about the amount we were given as a tasting- a spoonful. I think it would get very sickly. By far the best dish was his lamb neck--a lighter, more modern version of a Greek classic that was melt in the mouth good.
Not sure I'll make it tomorrow- need to go to bed with a hot toddy and stay there. All in all, a very worthwhile day out though
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