Recent eating - from the thrown together to the sublime

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and I guess that's what I have been trying to do for almost 60 years now. So I am choosing a photograph of the man and his heart being enchanted by the sublime end of today's post title. Food cooked by somebody else of course, about to eat a dish that in some ways he should not have liked, but which he pronounced as 'divine' - well I'm not sure if that was the word he chose but if not it was something similar.

Since the sublime is the last part of this post really - the birthday present of a meal out at our local fine diner, Mercer's - I'll just let you hold that thought whilst I return to three exceedingly more humble experiments in my home kitchen.

If you remember I told you that I was going to start a project for myself of actually recording my thrown together meals. So far there have been two. Tonight will be another one and that one is still forming in my mind.

A kind of Carbonnade Nïmoise

Carbonnade Nïmoise is one of my favourite Elizabeth David recipes, first made when I was young and learning to cook, and made now and then throughout the years with varying degrees of success. It's a slow cook pot roast - no liquid is involved, just the lamb, some bacon, garlic and some vegetables. The original recipe just has potatoes, but a footnote from Elizabeth suggests that you can add other things:

"Sometimes other vegetables – onions, artichoke hearts, a tomato or two, fennel cut in quarters, carrots or aubergines, unpeeled, but cut into small squares – are added with potatoes."

So I added half a fennel bulb, fairly thinly sliced crosswise, 2 small thickly sliced onions, 2 small carrots in chunks a few green and almost 'gone' tomatoes from the garden plus some dried marjoram and fresh thyme.

In a Guardian post from long ago several famous chefs were asked to nominate their favourite Elizabeth David recipe and Irish chef Darina Allen chose Carbonnade Nïmoise, as hers, so this is what it's supposed to look like. I almost forgot to take photographs of mine, but it was never going to look like this anyway, because my meat was just a chunk of leftover roast lamb. Nevertheless I did indeed cook it for almost two hours, and people, it was absolutely delicious. One of my best efforts at this particular dish. The lamb, as Elizabeth David said, "is so tender that it could be eaten with a spoon." You need the time for the cooking but the rest takes just a short time, chopping and slicing. I actually gave myself 5 stars for this one. It was so indefinaby French.

Marmalade from unpromising beginnings.

I have been meaning to do something with those decaying citrus fruits shown below, for a while now - and they have continued to decay. So when David started muttering about needing more marmalade any day now, and then to emphasise this he bought a bag of oranges, I decided that I would clear this very embarrassing tray. A few - that very brown mandarin and the two almost dry limes - were thrown out, but the rest, when peeled and cut open were fine. The peel and pith was mostly thrown away, although some was added to the orange peel. I have to say that it was hard work peeling off the pith, but look - eight new jars of very tasty marmalade. So don't despair when you see citrus like this. Under that very grungy exterior is perfectly OK juice and flesh which adds the perfect sour note to sweet navel oranges. I used up a half open bag of raw sugar that hadn't fit in it's jar as well. But the next day I found that I had missed a decaying lemon and two oldish oranges in the next fridge tray - buried under chillies and herbs - which was very frustrating.

Soup

I forgot to take a photograph of this, so this is the closest photograph that I could find, even though it's not the same kind of soup. Imagine a few peas floating around in it and this is more or less the finished dish.

It was made from the leftover sauce from my dinner party chicken, the leftover petis pois Françaises, some chicken stock and some grated carrots - 3 small ones. Grate the carrots and stew in a good knob of butter in covered pan over low heat, until the juice begins to flow. Add the petits pois, and continue stewing. Add the sauce and stock and heat/cook for about a quarter of an hour. Remove a few of the carrots and peas, purée the soup with a stick blender, return the carrot and pea mixture, reheat and voilà - done. Serve with David's freshly baked delicious sour dough bread. Also very French and five stars.

Of course none of these thrown together dishes will be made again, because they are dependent on a particular selection of ingredients that were available at the time. But they are templates I suppose for endless variations on themes. And isn't that what cooking is all about?

The sublime - food as art at Mercer's

I've talked about Mercer's several times before. We dine there at least once a year - not often - but then it's special and should be saved as a treat. If you dine out at such places all the time they are not special any more. This is a category of food where cooking tips over into art - the art of appearance which does not forget the art of taste. Because food is really all about taste isn't it? Well no, to be honest, I suppose that sustenance is the main object of food. Without it we die, and fine dining is not about sustenance. Fine dining is also about the performance, the ambience, and dare I say, the temporary pleasure of being waited on, served, and not required to do the washing up. All of which Mercer's does so well.

We chose the four course menu with the accompanying wines option, although David, who hates prawns, had Smoked duck breast, orange and duck liver cigar and red cabbage, accompanied by 2022 Wedgetail Estate Pinot Noir instead. This is the dish he is shown about to eat at the top of the page and which he pronounced as 'divine'. Which is amazing because he doesn't really like duck, and I certainly didn't remind him that he was also eating duck liver, because I think he would have dismissed that outright - and yet that was the bit he liked the best.

Like all fine diners, there was also an amuse bouche - a pumpkin soup with a frothy top in a shot glass. Just a few sublime mouthfuls. It was spicy and when I asked the waiter what was in it, he smiled and said 'I don't know - something magic.' And it was. At this point I remembered that I should probably take photos because of this blog. I wouldn't have otherwise. I would have just enjoyed it. So here below are the dishes in order:

I added my blurry photo of the appetizer goat's cheese, bread, beetroot and hazelnuts - well just to balance it out really - but also because it's mildly arty. We proabably all know Meredith goat's cheese - it was sandwiched between two very crisp rounds of spicy bread. The beetroot was diced and also puréed. David thought it might have been pickled. I've 'done' the duck salad, and I've also 'done' the prawns before because they are the house speciality. The customers won't allow them to be left off the menu. Quite rightly. I think they are still the most delicious prawns that I have eaten anywhere. So juicy, with crispy, thin slices of eggplant below. Steak - cooked to perfection, which I just can't do. David did say that he would have liked some potatoes. I didn't choose the fish which I might otherwise have done because of the squid jam. I have the same reaction to squid as David has to prawns. Just - no. Which I think comes from a squid stew that I once mistakenly ordered in France which was just horrible. Dessert - well you can never really rubbish dessert can you and it did look beautiful. I can't quite remember what all the components were now - a milk sorbet, a lavender mousse?

A final word about the wines - my favourites were the Bobtail Ridge semillon from WA and the Sedona Estate rosé - made from Shiraz - and from the Yea area of Victoria. But then I'm not a red wine fan, and the choice of a mead rather than a wine to accompany the honey laced dessert was interesting.

Loved it all - and it will be very interesting to compare with the Cape restaurant at which we shall be dining on Thursday during our two night stay at the RACV Cape Schanck resort next week. Another birthday present really - a joint one - for David's birthday too is the 30th - although to be honest it's been thought about for some time. We are going with friends - the birthdays are just incidental in this case.

I might have raved about my own cooking experiments - the taste not the artistry or the presentation - but I can assure you that not every experiment in the kitchen is a success. Tonight the experiment continues - some frozen sausages, some mushrooms, bought for a dinner party mushroom tart which got replaced by a pithiviers, and half a can of cannellini beans that must be used. I've scanned the net for ideas, and some are beginning to form - red wine, Worcester sauce, rosemary, onions, potatoes ...? We'll see.

YEARS GONE BY

June 21

2024 - Polenta pizza

2023 - Nothing

2022 - David just can't resist

2021 - A winter picnic

2020 - Deleted

2019 - A first recipe (part 3) - steamed fish dumplings

2018 - Chorizo - not a sausage - a way of life

2017 - Nothing