Day 3 in the Ashburton Fusion Kitchen!

Cooking extreme – still extreme!
So, Woeful Wednesday came around, and there was much excitement tinged with a (strong) hint of fear.  Oh good lord, chef – you seriously think we’re going to cook pig skin and ears, make both a parfait and a sorbet, turn raw celeriac into a fabulous ravioli casing, make a pea jelly, pané and deep fry ravioli, slow cook hens’ eggs, infuse acres of Szechuan peppers in milk ready for tomorrow, sous vide our pork for the afternoon – AND make potato AND apple “parisienne.” Oh, and did you just say this is all before lunch??!  Seriously, you are having a laugh mate! I mean Chef.

Oh ok, so maybe it turned out this was not so impossible. In the words of Wingman Darren, we were ON IT. In fact we were so totally brilliant that the afternoon required an impromptu, but very welcome coffee break, just to take the speed off.  Oh, by the way, did I mention we may have been to the pub for “just the one” tonight??  

Anyway – here is just some of what I learnt during the morning (ref. sentence above for why I don’t remember more of what I learnt just at this precise minute!):

• Pigs’ ears are really really ugly, and a bit veiny too – but in a good way, if there is one
• If you don’t take the wax out of pigs’ ears with a cotton bud before you boil them, they will explode
• Sorbet will hold for longer if you put a bit of gelatine in it
• Deep frying celeriac at a low temperature makes it pliable enough to turn into ravioli
• You can make a horribly yellow glue with an egg yolk and cornflour
• Gelatine will keep on setting things a bit firmer according to time/temperature, whereas agar agar is a “one off” – done, nothing further will happen once initially set
• Pigs’ ears are a bit hairy, and will burst into giant flames if you don’t pluck them
• “Parisienning” potatoes and apples is a tricky task, best left to one’s co-chef if you don’t want a flat bottom, and who would?

After all this learning, we had lunch, and it was pretty damn good!



Celeriac and apple parcels, slow cooked hen's egg, pea and mint jelly, micro herbs

Lunch interval! Yes, I said interval!

Because we had been so well behaved, we were allowed almost 30 mins for lunch, so we all took the opportunity to play on twitter -  but since we’d all been totally botally focused (yes, focused) in the morning, none of us had tweeted each other, so it was all a bit disappointing.

Further to lunch, it turned out there was even more to do.

First Chef Rob had to burn some leeks – and then he made some windows so that we could work out how to do the same. After which we made our own windows, but with an extra touch of basil, and they were called opaline tuiles. These were “biscuits” that looked just like plate glass windows – but with teeny cool bubbles in – and also tinged very slightly green and tasting of basil (evidently to compliment the strawberry dessert!) You could almost see the lightbulb over Chef Rob’s head as the basil idea hit him. From which I learnt that a chef’s creativity is never done!!!

It's all about the pig!

The afternoon was largely about pigs --- so we made popcorn crackling (from dehydrated pork skin), and then there was “real” crackling made by boiling pork skin, drying it in an low oven for hours and hours, then shocking it in a very hot oven, crispy pigs’ ears, and some lovely smokey Saucisson de Morteau (oui, un saucission francais, bien sur)!   Our nice hunks of pork loin went in the bubble bath for 3 hours – Chef Rob had the runt of the litter, and no, he did not let us forget this.

AND best of all – I learnt how to clean my smoking gun properly, without totally mashing up the essential little wire nets, and all with just the use of one paper clip! Not to mention learning exactly how to fashion the pen lid I may now have stolen, so I can introduce a useful little funnel to the end of the pipe supplied with aforementioned gun.

I think that was a bit of an added extra – what actually happened was that we made an amazing smoked caramelized apple purée, which I think any of us would happily have bathed in.

It’s the small things that count – and today I learnt how to finely shred cabbage. Simples! But only if you know how, and until today, I did not!! This is akin to yesterday, when I suddenly learnt how to chop chicken bones without losing a finger.  Which, to be honest, is really quite handy!

Anyway, amongst all this – we prepared strawberries with lime sugar, basil and a “small” drop of strawberry liqueur, blended our glass windows (aka tuiles) into a powder and then turned them into amazing shards, and made the most amazing pork jus with layers of flavours, and a touch of Armagnac right at the end. I believe royally in Armagnac personally!

Despite having a coffee break, and not feeling woeful in the least – Wednesday came to an end with a lovely pork dish, and my favourite dessert so far! 

Slow cooked pork loin, popcorn crackling, smoked apple purée, parisienne apples and potatoes, choucroute(ish) with saucission de morteau, calvados pork jus, and CRISPY PIGS EAR.

If under oath, I may admit it was me who ate all the extra strawberries soaked in liqueur with lime sugar. But only if under oath.

Vanilla parfait, strawberries and lime with opaline basil tuile and strawberry sorbet

"Just-in-time!" award of the day: Chef Rob for totally not forgetting the pigs' ears at all, ever.

Push on!