I must confess that I have no idea where surf and turf originated. As if a steak dinner wasn’t expensive enough, why not throw in half a lobster to bump up the price a bit. I would be inclined to agree that it’s not exactly a match made in […]
Recent Posts
French Gastronomic Cycling Loire Valley and Award shortlisting
It’s been that time of year when we’ve been on our annual cycling/gastronomy tour of France. This year we returned to the Loire Valley. This was our first holiday together 8 years ago. A saga I’ll never forget as when I arrived at CDG airport, AirFrance had kindly left my […]
Spiced rack of lamb, whole roast cauliflower and hasselback potatoes
Life has been kind of busy lately. You can probably tell from my infrequent updates. No excuses, but I’ve been promoted at work and had to travel 100 miles a day to a new base. Luckily, I’m now back at my home base after six months and actually have more […]
Chefs Week at The French
The French is a fine dining restaurant at The Midland hotel in Manchester city centre. We’ve been wanting to go since it opened under new direction in 2013. Simon Rogan (L’enclume, Fera) has overseen the restaurants transformation. We were lucky enough to visit L’Enclume with its two michelin stars a […]
Guinea Fowl
I’ve been quite quiet recently on the blogging front, no real reason except life has been really busy. I’m spending a lot of flying days away from base at the minute. Which means when I do get home there are loads of jobs to do and dedicating much of it […]
Sea Bass, Braised Celery, Black Grape Sauce
This is a simple dish, making the best of each ingredient. How many of us buy celery for a ragu and then have twice as much languishing about in the larder for two weeks? Guilty! One great use of it is in a creamy salad like this blue cheese and […]
Roast Cabbage, Mushroom Teriyaki and Truffle Mayonnaise
It is very rare that I carte blanche copy a recipe. I couldn’t help myself though after seeing Simon Rogan on Saturday Kitchen. This roasted cabbage, mushroom teriyaki and truffled mayonnaise looks innocent enough, but is one of the best tasting things I’ve ever made. We went to his famous […]
Vegetarian Gluten Free Lasagne.
Sometimes it’s good to be challenged in life. Trying to make a vegetarian gluten free lasagne without pasta is one of those. There are some gluten free lasagne sheets on the market, but quite frankly, they’re disgusting. Hence I thought I’d make my own. It’s a fairly simple thing to […]
Duck and Squash Hummus
As much as I like playing about in the kitchen, it is so gratifying to create equally delicious food in next to no time. The most time consuming part of this duck and hummus dish was peeling the squash. Most dishes these days go a little further than meat […]