Food

Lasarte - Martin Berasategui - probably my favourite chef

Pick up a copy of Jane Grigson, French Charcuterie and Pork Cookery. You may not need anything else.

I can't remember the name of the amazing place I went to 4 years ago, but some of the best stuffed squids ever. I'll give you a shout if a lightning strikes my stupid mind.

Check your Google maps timeline...

Nothing there.. I just remember it was not far from Placa del Sol

I’ve been in living here for 18 months now... if you’re still here, try El Pachuco for tacos, Robata for sushi, Bodega 1900 (if you can get a booking) for excellent tapas, Parking Pizza for err, Pizza and El Xampanyet for a crazy busy/fun cava and tapas experience.

Like beer? Try Garage for a decent selection. Coffee: Satan/Syra/Nomad.

Have you got any 'after' pics from this? Interested in the result. Just dusted my slow cooker down, want to put it to work this week. Thinking of starting with a beef randang but this also looks a lovely option...

Pea and ham soup was amazing. I’ve added some potato and leek to the leftovers to make it go further. It’s still incredibly rich.

Should give about eight meals at ~£1.15 per portion.

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I've been waiting for pictures..

Well it was delicious, and I highly recommend giving it a go. On the day I cooked it we ate it like a brothy soup. That’s how I’d intended it, with a half remembered early Jamie recipe in mind... and it was good. But evthe leftovers evolved a bit today into a much superior form. I’d used quite a bit of pearl barley, maybe 150g and it expands like the clappers, and lent slightly creamy edge to the broth which intensified overnight as it was absorbed. So I thought I’d roll with that and turn it into a kind of risotto (sorry, I forgot to warn you to sit down @giofox haha). I added a little double cream, some peas and fresh mint, topped it with some of the pulled, crisped ham hock and a poached egg.

It took all of 5 min to start and 10 min to finish.

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^want that for breakfast

I've made this twice now.

It's delicious, and cheap, and easy.

Thanks!

I'd approve that as a risotto, although I would have served it with eggs and beef on the side, not on top. I like your use of pearl barley, I'd be curious to see you with some spelt too!

I love pearl barley too, made a quick pulled chicken and spring onion stir fry the other day for luch.

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We sometimes make a cheating spelt risotto- boiling spelt with wine and stock while softening onion and veg in another pan and combining at the end. Rather than slowly adding stock to veg and spelt. Slightly less laborious.

On the risotto front, made a pea, asparagus and mint risotto at the weekend. Based it on a Gordon Ramsay pea and mint recipe. Risotto was delicious.

Part of the recipe was a mint oil - wash and pat dry mint leaves, place in 80degree oven for three hours and then put dried mint in oil and heat on low for an hour, and then filter through muslin. This was an utter fucking waste of time- it made a green oil but had barely any discernible mint flavour. The mint sprig garnish had more impact.

tl;dr

Made awesome risotto, wasted time making mint oil

+oil

80degree oven for three hours

I would expect this to volatilise, (and lose), low molecular weight flavour chemicals,
and,
start to degrade higher molecular weight flavour chemicals.
Bit late in the UK, but ambient airdrying should retain more flavour chemicals.

I was surprised but assumed the shouty chef would know more than me.

This looks incredible. Going to get my ham hock on this weekend...

Wow this really looks amazing!! Off the supermarche before lunch is over to aim at something like this for dinner Hmmmmmmmmm

If you have the time and enough mint,
I would try some fresh mint, (as it is clearly too late to air dry in the UK now),
probably 'opened' up with herb scissors.

ambient airdrying

LN2 ftw

shouty chef

I reckon bald speccy chef has the edge on this sort of thing

LN2 ftw

?

Liquid nitrogen. Freeze dry the leaves, crush, infuse, strain.

All the flavours.