One more Restaurant in London: trendy and fascinating: The Wapping Project

I used to visit London several times a year as my daughter lived there to make her studies. Before she now moved back home (and as I presume that we will not be so soon once again at London) we went to some really great Restaurants this time to celebrate her final degree. A very intresting and quite new Restaurant  is the WAPPING PROJECT.

In a former hydraulic power station near the Thames they installed a Restaurant and combined it with an Art Project.  At the moment they show an installation from Yohi Yamamoto. Over a water bassin hangs a dress that is reflected in the water. With a small boat one can turn around the installation.... In the restaurant area you sit inbetween the former machines, candles are all around and on TV screens you can look at a Yamamoto runway... But there are so much other things to look at...

The menucard is not a big one but the dishes are very smart and prices are more than affordable. To start we became bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We had to reorder more than one time the fresh baked bread..... As main dishes we had some goats cheese stuffed courgette flower respectively a pan fríed skate. For dessert we savoured a chocolate mousse, polentacake with icecream and a strawberrie pavlova with cream.

                                     

We lived a very funny evening with fine food and enjoyed a great and unconventionel location!

Breakfast in London at Yotam Ottolenghis restaurant

When you ask someone about british kitchen there are few that will tell you that it is a great cuisine. But beneath Jamie Oliver there are quite great cooks in Great Britain and especially in London one can find marvelous tarts and mediterranean inspired dishes. This time I´ve been for breakfast at one of the Restaurants from Yotam Ottolenghi (hhttp://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/locations/islington/). Apart from having breakfast there till 11am one can have lunch there or simply buy the treats for taking away. The resaturant is modern styled but nonetheless very charming and relaxed. We ate there a delicious french toast made out of a brioche and served with fruit compote, 

a very tasty granola, a variation of sweet spreads for our bread basket (the chocolate-hazelnut spread was heaven!) ..... The rest of the day we did´nt need anymore food :).

Mascarpone - Strawberrie Tartelette

Going to the Market at weekend is one of my little highlights and pleasures.. At the moment one can find there the richness and flavour of springtime and starting summertime. This means strawberries, raspberries, blueberries in abundance... So I could´nt resist to buy a whole basket with strawberries, delicious to savour just as they are but also delicious with some cream... The following recipe combines the sweetness of the fresh strawberries with some Mascarpone. One can either do some Mascarpone - Strawberrie Tartelettes or a Strawberrie - Mascarpone Cream or both :). Basically it´s a Mascarponecream combined with crushed, sweetened strawberries.

You need :

400 g Strawberries

250 g Mascarpone

150 g Heavy cream

1 Vanilla pod (scraped) or vanilla paste (3 dashes)

3 Tbsp. icing sugar
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
3 plates of biscuit (if you wanna do the tartelettes)
4 steel dessert-circles

How to prepare:

1. Whippe the heavy cream with 1 dash vanilla paste (or half of the scraped vanilla pod)
2. Mix Mascarpone, lemon juice, rest of vanilla and 2 Tbsp. sugar
3. Fold in the heavy cream 
4. Cut out of your biscuit plate rounds with the dessert-circles and place them at the base of your dessert circles. Cut some stripes about 4 cm out of the biscuit and cover the sides of you circles

5. Fill in the cream

6. With a fork mash the strawberries and add 1 Tbsp. sugar

7. Place the strawberries on your cream.

8. Remove your circles and cover all around with cream.

 If you wanna do the cream simply put your Mascarponecream and strawberries in layers in a bowl.With a fork slowly mix a little bit cream and strawberries.

Refrigerate until savouring....

 

 

glazed green Asparagus with poached Egg...

Time passes and the asparagus season will soon be over.. I prefer green Asparagus also because one has less to peel.... So coming home on sunday morning after having been "on duty" the whole saturday, I had to decide if I would like to have Brunch rather than a simple Breakfast.. I decided to have Brunch.. But before getting lazy I decided to learn a little bit (still Controlling). My sister came over to help me learning and was pleased to hear that she will get something (hopefully delicious) to eat... Quite for long time I wanted to try poched Eggs.. So we decided to make a sort of an interpretation of Egg benedectine. From the bakery I had some fresh, soft Ciabatta, green Asparagus in my fridge and eggs of course...

You need (serves 2 Person)

- 500 g green Asparagus

- 2 Eggs (to poach)

- 2 Tbsp. icing sugar

- some vinegar

For the Sauce Hollandaise:

- 2 Eggyolks
- 50 g butter
- 50 g Creme fraiche
- 3 Tbsp. Verjus (or lemonjuice)

Some salt and pepper to season

To prepare:

1. Peel the Asparagus as needed (mainly the lower third when using green asparagus)

2. Cut the Asparagus diagonally in pieces

3. Heat up the icing sugar in a non-sticking pan an let melt. When the whole sugar is melted and start getting caramelized, add the Asparagus pieces an stir form time to time (Takes about 12 minutes). Season with a little bit salt.

 4. Preheat some water in a pan big enough to place a bowl over it without touching the water.

 5. Place the bowl over the hot water and mix in the bowl Eggyolks, creme fraiche, Verjus (or lemonjuice), some salt and pepper and butter until you get a creamy consistency. Remove from the heat when your sauce is ready.

6. Meanwhile bring in another big pan some water to boil, add a good luck of vinegar. Stir the water with a spoon. Give one egg after the other to the water. As the water is "in movement" the eggwhite will turn over the yolk. So between every egg stir again the water.

7. Place the Asparagus on your plate, top with the poached egg and Sauce Hollandaise. Don´t forget the fresh Ciabatta..... Lazy Sunday here we come...

Parmeggiano-basil Cracker

Once again I should learn... next week I have my next exam: Controlling... not really fascinating... During learning I need something to crunch... Chips are already gone.. So I went to the kitchen and made my own crackers. This time with parmeggiano and basil. Easily done, so I could soon start again to look into the papers... But first I wanna share the recipe with you and then I promise I´ll look into those books :) !

You need (makes about 30 cracker, amount depending on the size of your cookie cutter)

100 g fresh grated Parmeggiano

100g melted butter

100g all purpose flour

a small bunch of basil

To prepare:

1. Knead together butter, parmeggiano, flour and the chopped basil leaves

2. Roll out the dough on a parchement paper dusted with some flour until the dough is about 3 mm thick

3. With as cookie cutter you cut out the crackers and place them on a oven tray armed with parchement paper

4. Preheat the oven to 200 C and place meanwhile the oven tray with the crackers in your fridge for 10 minutes
5. Bake the Parmeggiano-basil crackers for 10 minutes until slightly golden brown

Mmmhh who cares about controlling :) ?