a creamy fish sauce…

Hello Friends, Long Time No See…

I’ve had things to sort out before the Festive Yuletide and so have not posted anything so here is a short note.

First of all, I’d like to wish a Very happy ‘New Year’ to all my loyal readers!!

Now, I don’t know about you but I have made some serious plans for this year!  One of them is finishing my first book, well an e-book about sauces because I know a lot of people seem to get a bit uneasy when it comes to making a sauce, or let say a bit of a fancy sauce!  Oh no, what do I do now?  Well, if I was to tell you that making a good sauce doesn’t have to be a pain at all, would you believe me?

Maybe not but if it was made easy for you to follow a step by step guide, surely you couldn’t go wrong!   My book will be easy to follow and in plain language.

You’ll be able to create outstanding sauces for your dinner parties or for any occasion without having to work in a professional kitchen for 10 or so years!

Actually I would like some feedback on this, so please sent your comments or views to admin@gusvanauden.com  about this coming e-book I’d surely like some of your opinions!!  Great.

Further I’d like to say for now, keep checking this Blog as there’s lots of stuff to come this year.   First an e-book but also video tuition is on the way in the near future.  And much, much more so stay in contact folks and I’ll see you soon indeed!!

Keep these resolutions going…

Chao for now…

Oh what a night…

Preparation

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the cloves, cardamoms, cinnamon stick and curry leaves until the cloves sort of swell and the curry leafs slightly colour dark.

Add the onion, garlic, chopped ginger and chillies and fry until the onions start to brown slightly.

 Add the curry paste and turmeric and fry until the oil separates.

Add the chicken pieces and mix this well.  When the chicken is evenly sealed add enough water to cover.  Add the stock cube, chopped tomatoes and pumpkin, cover with lid and simmer gently until chicken and pumpkin is almost tender.

Add the creamed coconut, pinch of sugar and  simmer for another 10 or so minutes.

Add salt to taste and make sure the chicken and pumpkin is cooked through.

Mix well but gently as not to break up the chicken pieces.  Add the chopped coriander and serve with a naan bread and a chutney like Mango or any chutney of your choice.

I hope you enjoy this curry as much as I do!

Have a good night…!

See you later and don’t forget under need is a wonderful
beef stew in a pumpkin as well…the choice is yours…

stew in a pumpkin…

Pumpkin Beef Stew

This is a show-piece and tastes good too!

Use a 4 to 4.5 kg pumpkin for about 4 people, that’s plenty mind but indulge yourself!

Wine sugestion:  A Cabernet Sauvignon or a Cotes du Rhone

Ingredients

1 kg beef stewing, shin or skirt cut into 1 to 1.5 inch cubes

Chorizo to taste cut into cubes

1 large onion shopped fine

5 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced, not to thin, more if you like

2 red fresh chillies seeded and shopped, you can use dried as well to taste

half bottle of red wine

2 beef stock cubes melted in warm water

tomato puree

flour

2 large potatoes in small cubes

3 carrots peeled and sliced

2 hands full of frozen peas

4 bay leafs

Prepare

Put a pot on the hob and add a knob of butter.  Melt until brown but not burned.  Add the beef and sear over high heat until brown all around.  Take the beef out of pot and put aside.  Add some olive oil, chorizo and the onions and simmer until golden brown.

Add the beef, garlic, chillies and sprinkle with some flour.  Mix through with a wooden spoon and pour over the wine.  Simmer for a few minutes to let the alcohol evaporate then add the stock enough to cover. Add the potatoes, carrots, bays and some tomato puree.  Put lid on reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for about an hour.   Add the peas and salt to taste and simmer for a further 15 mins or so.

Preheat oven to 170°C, 325 F, gas mark 3.

 While your stew is on, carve the pumpkin.  Cut the top of first and scoop out the middle with the seeds. Make enough space for the stew but also leave ample flesh on the side.  When stew is at the point of 1 hour 15 mins pour stew into the pumpkin and place on a baking tray in middle of the oven for a further hour or so.  Check if the pumpkin is soft by piercing the flesh from the top, not to spill stew through side holes!

Put pumpkin with stew on the table and scoop out flesh as well. Serve in warm bowls with crusty bread if required… Sprinkle some chopped fresh coriander or parsley on top…

For a vegetarian version just add more veg of your choice without the meat and chorizo of course…

Hope you enjoy…and have a spooky night…

part deux…

Sauces and Sauces…Yes Important!

In my experience, I have always learned the importance of cooking and all the discipline, but you have to realise and absorb the fact as when time began with the likes of ‘Chef Escoffier’ that one of the oldest, most important facts, being that of sauces!

Classic sauces have been around for centuries.  Let’s take the great sauces, powerful, elegant, and very rich, those are sauces for special occasions.  Sauces you won’t prepare on an everyday basis but for that really special something.   It takes a lot of time to prepare!   But WOW, what a result if you have the patience.

We now look at the easier sauces, which can be prepared in an easier way and could accompany dishes like, meat, fish, chicken, pasta etc…  A lot easier to prepare but don’t get this wrong, always spend a fair amount of time getting a sauce just right!  What I mean is, don’t just go: ‘it will do’.

Please do not threat a sauce as something to put on your dish!!  Spend some time putting the important bit of yourself into a sauce with some guidance from me  for instance and hey, what an experience!

To close this post for now I would like to talk about the basic facts to create sauces.

When creating sauces you have to understand the importance of good quality and fresh ingredients, fresh herbs, spices, stocks, wines, alcohols, aromatics and most of all, it has to be chosen with a lot of care!  Spend some time with this and you’ll be so  happy you did!

This is part deux of my sauces posts and there’s more to come soon, like some cool recepes!

Thanks for comming back and till soon…au revoir mes amis…

the sloe berry

Hello

Sloe berries grow all around on hedges and are easy to find.This time of year you’ll see a lot of people picking these berries for all sort of reasons.  Most people pick them for the Sloe-Gin but I’ve met some old person who told me recipe for coughmix with sloe’s!  I use them for the Gin version and below is what I learned to do with them.  I also believe there are different recipes to make this delicious drink.  This one in the next blog is the one I use and is very nice indeed!

Well its time again to make our Sloe-Gin ready for Christ-Mass!

This time of year, the hedges are full of sloe berries ready to pick and also free so go take yourself and the family or friends and fill up some bags as we going to make some delicious Gin ready in about three
months.  This is an easy way to make.

Once you got your sloes take them home and wash them in cold water.  Now normally you would have to prick each berry but of course that’s ridiculous!  So an easier way to do this is to out them in the freezer for 24 hours or so.  When you take them out you will see that the skin of the berries are split…job done!

Get yourself a glass jar with a lid or a stone pot with a lid, actually better as they stay in the dark which is better.  A glass jar is also ok though.  Put 1 pound/450gr of berries in the jar.  I just round it up to 500gr/half kilo.  Pour the same amount of sugar as berries and add a bottle of Gin.  Put lid on the jar and make sure it doesn’t leak when you turn it op side down.  Now put the jar or jars if you make more than one, in your pantry if you have one.  If not place them in a dry, cool, dark place and leave.

Now every week you shake the jars and place them back.  Do this for three months. When ready be careful how you drink this as I won’t be held
responsible for falling over or if you start slurring in an unrecognisable language!!

No, just enjoy this delicious drink; it’ll warm your cockles!

Don’t forget do it this week end at the latest if you want
this for X-Mass!

Good luck and happy picking…and bottle-ing!

Au revoir and see you soon…

Paris by night…

Paris

When I was younger I got the chance to work in Paris which, needless to say, I grabbed this opportunity with both hands.  I gained an enormous amount of experience there and I’ve earned, what’s known in the chef’s language, my stripes!  Which means that you’ve done some serious apprentice-ship!  Life there was hard; we would be in the kitchen for 14 to 15 hours a day!  Occasionally even more!  We shared a room with four of us and only sometimes we where able to go out for a drink, too tired!  The restaurant was in the ‘Bois De Boulogne’ which is Paris’s version of Soho and of course very expensive but we managed.  Now we learned the ‘French’ cuisine, which, to be more precise we learned the ‘Escoffier’ way.  Auguste Escoffier was the king of the chefs.  Born in 1846 in Provence at the age of 13 his father took him to Nice where he became an apprentice in his uncle’s restaurant.  Later in life he met Cesar Ritz the two of them paired up and changed the hospitality business in a big way.  Escoffier invented the ‘a la carte’ menu and made a strong point of using seasonal foods/ingredients.  To me he’s the master of the kitchen and to have one of his books is essential for the culinary enthusiast in my opinion.  I have added a couple of links on the side bar if your interested.

It was also there that I discovered my love and understanding of cooking with fish.  Now then, cooking fish is not easy to get perfect.  You can easily either over under cook it so timing is essential; however, I seem to have this feeling for it.  Strange really but I don’t time this at all.  I just cook with fish and know exactly when it’s perfect.  Mind you there have been some occasions where I got it wrong as well, we all make mistakes sometimes.

 Provence

So I worked in Paris for around seven or eight months when one of the young chefs I worked with and also befriended said to me one day, lets go have a drink after work, I’ve got something that might interest you.  After yet another long day we finally got out a bit earlier than usual and went for that well deserved drink…or two!

Now he had a contact somewhere in the south of France in the Provence region and he could go there to work but they also wanted someone else.  Would I like to go with him to work in Marseille for a while?  He said why don’t you have a think about this?

I said I will and the answer is yes please!  That’s when I did a fantastic time in the south of France and learned all there is to know about the famous Provence fish-stew, the ‘Bouillabaisse’.  It has since become my favourite dish of all time and I make it a lot.  Delicious!  I will reveal the recipe soon, much easier as one thinks!

Well, just a few words to start of the week…thank you for visiting all you folks…

Cheers for now, till soon indeed…salut maintenant…

This post was to be published last Friday but…yes technical ‘things’…

I spoke to some friends from abroad the other day and we were on about the food in Brittan and to  my surprise there’s still some, or could I say a lot, of misunderstanding about the British food.  So I thought, why not explain something about the ‘real’ British food and today I thought why not start with the classic…Fish and Chips!

When I first came across to London early eighties I fell in love with it straight away and ate it so often I had to give it a rest because of the oil of course, once a week is good!  This dish was rapped up in news paper, wow, never seen anything like it!

Now, as I started to work around the country I was delighted to found my new favourite everywhere and enjoyed all these different takes
people had adopted over the years I suppose.   Then one day I arrived in Yorkshire and of course I went scouting for my favourite, I’d heard a lot about the northern fish-and-chips way, and let me tell you something, this was out of this world!!  What an experience!

I have served it in all the places I have worked and made it a little my own, which, I like to share it with you today because, it’s Monday, it’s
raining again, what’s new? And you know what?   Let’s get cracking…

Before we start we need a good FRESH fish, sorry but I can’t stretch this enough how fresh your fish has to be.  I think you know what to look for in the fish-mongers or a good supermarket.  So get a good skinned fillet of either Cod, Haddock, Hake or even a nice piece of Pollack.  All these are white fish which is what you want and of course the choice is yours, they’re all luscious. Ask your fish monger to skin it for you.

Next is the frying oil, I use a good quality oil as this will make it taste just that bit nicer.  Then we move on to the ‘batter’ which is the coating around the fish and you should make this a while in advance as it needs to rest for about an hour or so, covered with cling film and in the fridge.

To make my batter:

Put some plain flour and a pinch of salt into a mixing bowl, I’m not going into measurements with this one as it is so easy to do, now ad a good quality beer like a British real ale.  If this is not available where you are just use a strong lager, it will taste delicious as well.

So flour in the bowl, pour the beer on to the flour while whisking without sort of beat the bubbles out of it and try to get to a consistence like a pancake batter.

When you have enough batter for your amount of fillets put a good tablespoon of baking powder in the batter and mix, put cling film over the
bowl and keep in the fridge for about an hour.

Now start cutting your chips nice and thick, wash, dry in a tea towel and keep on the side while your oil is heating up to 160C.  Once hot enough fry your chips until soft but not crunchy and keep on the side.

Take your batter out of the fridge after resting time and pick up your fillet of fish with thumb and index finger right at the tail end of the fish and drag the fish through the batter until fully coated.  Let the batter drip of a bit and gently place the fish in the 160C oil and let it fry, half through turn the fish over with a spatula.  Cooking time is hard to tell, depends on the size but when your fish is golden brown it is ready to take out
and keep on kitchen towel to drain the excess oil.  Repeat the process until all your fillets are cooked.  Keep them warm in a low oven with the door open so they don’t get soggy.

When all fried return your half cooked chips into the fryer at 180C to crisp them.  Serve your chips on a plate with your fish on top and serve peas with it.  Now you put malt vinegar and a lot of salt over it and… A good squirt of tomato ketchup is very nice with this and all I can say now is…..

I like to be left alone now as I’m enjoying mine….bon appetite mes amis and salut maintenant…
Thanks folks hope you enjoy

Copper is best…

Welcome back

No, this is not my biography, by all means, but I like to carry on from the previous blog because I want to talk about sauces.  Soon I’ll have a product available teaching you all about sauces.  When I was moved to that section within the kitchen years ago I probably went through one of the best times of my life.

The sauce department is by far one of the most difficult sections you could be involved with!
From preparing the stocks to the prepping of the ingredients to then eventually the making or executing of the sauce itself is quite a process which you have to be so precise and have a ‘feel’ of what your doing.  Not to talk about how developed your palate is!  See, if you don’t have a good knowledge of what ingredients taste or smell like you won’t get very far in this section, or…in your own home kitchen if you want to impress your dinner guests.

A good sauce makes your dish without a doubt!  A good ‘Saucier’, sauce maker, is well sought after within the industry and earns a good wage with it!

Chefs like Raymond Blanc, Ramsey to Marco Pierre White and of course the family Roux to name but a few drive on the way they prepare their sauces and all have put their own stamp on those as well, which is The sign of chefs who care and have great craftmanship!!!

I hope you will watch this space because I am going to give away some secrets very soon and hope I can get you motivated enough to start preparing some delicious sauces yourself for that special occasion where you can be proud of.  Friends will envy you but also respect your ability to cook that something special!

Till next time…

Brrrrrr

I can remember when I started to have an interest in cooking; I was around 6 – 7 years old.  My family went out dining at least once a week and, It was in those places I got that butterrfly feeling you get in your tummy  when you get excited about something and I knew then…I was going to be a chef!

I loved everything about those restaurants, the ambiance, the fast pace those waiters hovered around the place and yet almost invisible, the smells and of course the food itself!

I felt at home there and I knew that one day I would be working in one of those places and create fantastic dishes for people to enloy the same way as I did.

I quickly started to help out in a restaurant at the age of 12, in the week ends of course.  In those days this was allowed with your parents consent naturally.  There I was indulging myself in this highly rewarding work learning everything I could meaning, I had my eyes open and nothing escaped me one little bit.

A couple of years onwards and I got myself into the catering college because it is always good to have a ‘proper’ foundation course.  I found a combination of college and working some nights in a restaurant at the same time which is perfect.  Sort of best of both worlds and you do learn
at record speed as well.

As the new kid on the block in a restaurant you will always start at the bottom of course and my place was prepping and preparing salads and anything cold, hence the term, ‘the cold kitchen’.  I loved it.   After a while they, the head-chef and sous-chef, will move you some where else so you start to learn different stations within the kitchen.  They moved me to the sauce station!  Now that’s one of the best stations to be involved with but this will be another blog soon…         Cheers folks