Madrid Tales 3 - Tapas de Paco Roncero

The entrance to Estado Puro where Tapas de Paco Roncero is situated.

Cool interior and Chef Melonas on the phone again.

Classic Tapas selection but very modern in interpretation.

The best croquettes made with real Jamon Iberica.

Pork belly fat 'airbread'

Pigs feet with cep mousseline & shaved squid.

The waitress needs to cheer up, but apart from that very good!

We enjoyed the hospitality of Chef Paco Roncero recently after a hard days testing new techniques. Accompanied by Adam Melonas & Quico Sosa, we were invited to try some of the new dishes on the menu at Tapas de Paco Roncero at Estado Puro, situated near the Museum Prado. Lots of dishes were tried and they were all very good. There were quite a few on the menu that Adam Melonas developed during his time as Paco's lab chef, and we can report that the croquettes were the best we have had (and we have had a few)! Other highlights were the slow cooked pig foot, with ceps and shaved squid, sticky and delicious and the 'airbread' was a nice technique as well as tasty. It was all washed down with Mahou the local beer and although it was fantastic, it left us no room for dessert. Which gives us a good reason to return!! On Monday 13th we are off to the UK to work with the food scientists at Leatherhead Food Research which will be fascinating and productive to our project. They also house one of the biggest cookbook collections in the world so we will be bringing the camera and promise to report back on the quick trip back home. Will be nice to have dinner with Mum & Dad and go home even if it is for such a small time.  

http://www.leatherheadfood.com  Leatherhead Food Research

Madrid Tales 2 - Inside The Lab!!!

First day in the test kitchen - getting set up for the next month!

Cool domestic combi steamer is part of the kit for us to use.

The dehydrator is getting a work out.

Lots of goodies for us to test out.

Senor Sosa himself gets to work on some emulsifying techniques.

Here comes the science part!

Great to hook up with Quico Sosa again.

La Terraza del Casino - restaurant shots

Stunning dining room.

Immaculate table decoration - world class.

Hopefully I can find time to dine here before I leave.

Making sure the chairs are comfy.

On the famous Terraza!

The tasting menu at Paco Roncero's 2 Michelin star La Terraza del Casino in Madrid.

Back in the lab, Chef Adam Melonas does his stuff.

After a hard day it's time for something to eat!

Well we have been hard at it for nearly a week now and our project is on course to be a great success. We have been working alongside Grande Chef Adam Melonas at a test kitchen situated in Casino de Madrid. Lots of progress has been made and new techniques discovered. We were fortunate enough to meet up again and work with Quico Sosa the owner of Sosa products and his knowledge and enthusiasm is infectious. He demonstrated some cool emulsifying and stabilising techniques and helped us troubleshoot some obstacles that we have come across. We really are fortunate to work with such true and talented professionals and we can't wait to bring this knowledge back with us to Australia. We pinched a little time during the third day to have a look at the stunning dining room of the Terraza del Casino. Chef Paco Roncero has been charming and hospitable and his restaurant was an amazing site. Fully deserving of the highest accolades it is simply one of the best dining rooms we have seen and the famous terraza is bathed in glorious sunshine. We are trying to squeeze a meal in before we leave for London on the 29th and if we do we will let you know how amazing it was and of course what the desserts were like. Madrid is getting better by the day and we have some cool excursions to come that we will inform you of as they happen. If we have time, tomorrow we will post pictures of our visit to Paco's tapas bar. Until then..Adios!! 

Madrid Tales - Part 1

Mercado de San Miguel

Jamon Iberico

Palacio Real

The gardens at Palacio Real

Stunning architecture 

La Violeta Bombones

Violet Sweets

The English version (which we love by the way)

Boutique Oriol Balaguer

Some of Oriol's product

Fantastic local dishes at Maceira

Restaurant Botin - Famous for two things, suckling pig......

........and it's the oldest restaurant in the world!

Well it is great to be back in Europe and Spain in particular! It is steaming hot here in Madrid at the moment but we are settled and have already had some amazing moments in this city. As you know we are over on consultancy and we will post some information on this in our next post. We have been eating the finest Galician seafood and enjoyed a couple of stunning glasses of wine. Our first stop as soon as we landed was a trip to Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid's equivalent to Barcelona's La Boqueria. Although it is not as vast as the Catalonian version, it is still a special place and we tried some of the famous Jamon which we have been missing after last years trip to Barcelona. Chef Adam Melonas of Madrid Lab was our guide and he took us through this beautiful city on foot and the architecture is stunning. The Palace is spectacular as are the immaculate gardens and everywhere you walk there is something historic and interesting to see. We stumbled upon a cute violet sweet shop and the smell reminded us of violet sweets as a child. On the other end of the pastry spectrum we visited Oriol Balaguer's Madrid boutique and the fit out and packaging (not to mention product) were very impressive.
Lunch was Almejas en Salsa de Albarino (Bi-valve clams in local white wine sauce), and Pulpo a la Gallega (local octopus dish) at restaurant Maceira. This place is always busy and produces stunning simple, traditional dishes at an amazingly low price, we were full but squeezed in a few sweet things to end. So we have had time to settle and work started Sunday on our project, this will be a very informative and innovative period for us and we are relishing the coming month here. Possible trips to London and Barcelona may be necessary and we will update you as and when this happens. Tomorrow we will post as much as we can on our work at Chef Paco Rochero's lab at Casino de Madrid which has been hired for the month, but confidentiality means it will be an ambiguous overview. Check out the links below to what we have seen already and check back regularly for a more in depth analysis of food and pastry in this magical city.

http://www.mercadodesanmiguel.es/
San Miguel Market

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palacio_Real_de_Madrid
Madrid Palace

http://www.lavioleta.es/
La Violeta

http://www.oriolbalaguer.com/
Oriol Balaguer

http://madrid.salir.com/maceiras_huertas
Restaurant Maceiras

http://www.botin.es/web/?q=en
Restaurant Botin

http://www.casinodemadrid.es/sp/gastronomia/rest_terraza/index.htm
La Terraza at Casino de Madrid

What's The Latest News & Gossip?

Spain here we come!

Bernabeu Stadium.

Ben doing his thing.

Ben Shewry's 'Terroir".

Royal Mail chef Dan Hunter

Clean, precise and exquisite food at The Royal Mail.

Matt Bax cocktail king.

Der Raum.

Selvatica range of chocolate from Chocovic.

Lots going on at the moment, apart from a significant increase in orders for our celebration cakes we are excited to announce that we leave for Spain again today. Madrid is the destination this time and we will be working on an exciting new project of which we cannot divulge information at this time. Confidentiality is paramount on this new project but we will try and let you know bits and pieces as time progresses. We will however be blogging from the Spanish capital on other subjects such as the cuisine, pastry shops and chefs from this gastronomic heaven. Top of our list of places to visit will be Restaurant Diverxo, David Munoz the talented chef from there has been doing great things for a while we hear. We are also looking forward to the cafe's, pastry shops, the chocolate and hunting for our elusive Albert Adria 'Los postres de El Bulli'. The main focus of this trip will be working hard in a kitchen/lab on our brief but who knows, we might have time to visit the Galactico's at the Bernabeu! We'll keep you posted!
Last night in Melbourne was the annual 'Good Food Guide' awards and we wanted to take time to say congratulations to two of our friends who picked up huge awards.
Ben Shewry the talented chef at one of our favourite restaurants, Attica, claimed the prestigious 'Victorian Chef of the Year' award. His cuisine is right up there on the world stage and he is rightly getting the recognition he deserves.
Dan Hunter our friend and former colleague was honoured as The Royal Mail Hotel, in country Victoria won the coveted 'Best Restaurant' award. This award hardly ever goes to a restaurant outside of Melbourne so well done to Dan and his team. Although we have not eaten there, it is on our radar, we know first hand how exquisite his food is whilst working alongside him a number of years ago.
Big Congratulations to both Ben and Dan, great ambassadors for Australian Cuisine!!
We are also close to announce details of our upcoming collaboration with one of the world's best cocktail bars Der Raum. We will be working with owner Matthew Bax on at lease two special events to be announce for early next year. Matt is also co owner of The Tippling Club in Singapore and we are very excited to be working with Matthew and his head barman Matthew Rees, These boys are extremely talented in their field and their work is very much admired by ourselves.
We are also in dialogue with our sponsor Chocovic on some exciting events in the planning for early 2011 which could include chocolate demonstrations and talks - we are happy to have an alliance with Chocovic and look forward to some pretty special events.
So, a few teasers for you all but we will inform you in detail when we can of all of our projects and an exciting announcement towards the end of September. In the meantime, we will update the blog next from Madrid, adios!

Links:

Restaurant Diverxo                           http://diverxo.com/
Attica                                               http://www.attica.com.au/
Royal Mail Hotel                              http://www.royalmail.com.au/
Good Food Guide Highlights           http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/good-food-puts-country-towns-on-the-culinary-map-20100830-147ah.html?autostart=1
Der Raum                                         http://www.derraum.com.au/
The Tippling Club                            http://www.tipplingclub.com/
The Cocoa Alliance                         http://www.cocoaalliance.com/

Top 50 Cookbooks Of All Time, Our Favourite Cookbooks & What We Are Waiting For & The One We Can't Find!

Richard Olney's 'The French Menu Cookbook' Came Out On Top

David Thompson Was Australia's representative In The Top 10 

The UK's Guardian newspaper recently published it's annual list of the top 50 cookbooks of all time. This of course is highly subjective and is understandably English-centric coming from the UK, but it does raise the question 'What makes a good cookbook?' A good cookbook is different things to different people, our choices and reasons may differ from another persons, and who's to say who is right?

As you may know if you have followed this blog for some time now, we are passionate about our cookbooks, especially pastry orientated ones. This does not discount the fact though that our favourite books of all time are often from the savoury side. Heston's 'The Big Fat Duck Cookbook' is one of our absolute favourites but it is not found in the list published by the Guardian. This may be because of its accessibility to the home cook (and most chefs!). This exposes flaws in 'lists' and reinforces the fact that one cannot generalise a vast genre into one list. So with that, check out the link to the Guardian articles and if your favourite books are not on there, so be it! They are valuable to you and that's all that matters.

Guardian Article Top 50 Cookbooks 50-11  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/13/50-best-cookbooks-ofm

Top 10

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/15/top-10-best-cookbooks

Here is a list of some our favourite cookbooks (in case you were interested) and in no particular order.

Ramon Morato signing us copies of his 'Chocolate' cookbook.

Chocolate by Ramon Morato http://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Ramon-Morató/dp/3875151135/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282605420&sr=8-1

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal http://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Duck-Cookbook/dp/1596915501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282605546&sr=1-1

Sous Vide Cuisine by Joan Roca http://www.amazon.com/Sous-Vide-Cuisine-Joan-Roca/dp/8472121127/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282605630&sr=1-7

Essential Cuisine by Michel Bras http://burchandpurchese.blogspot.com/2009/05/burch-purchese-recommended-books-1.html

Fusion Chocolate by Frederic Bau http://www.amazon.com/Fusion-Chocolate-Frederick-Bau/dp/8472121178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282605834&sr=8-1

Natura by Albert Adria https://secure.elbulli.com/elbullibooks/

We could go on all day with this and we are fortunate enough to have an extensive library, which is difficult as cookbook collecting can turn out to be an expensive hobby.

One book that you will just HAVE to save your pennies (LOTS OF PENNIES!!) for though is Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold and colleagues.

You know when a book is going to be really special (and pricey), when it has its own website! http://modernistcuisine.com/

This book is really going to be something, out in December 2010 it should encompass everything you need to know about modern cookery. Stunning photography and top quality printing along with years of research will make this a must have for us. 

2400 pages of pure information and essential images and recipes, this is the one we have been waiting for. Chefs Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal wrote the forewords and we are putting our money away and counting the days to is release. 

One book that does elude our collection though is Albert Adria's first release 'Los postres de El Bulli', this is a very rare book indeed and was deleted a short time after its minimal release in 1998. We have only ever seen one copy (two actually - bit greedy!) and that was in Ramon Morato's collection (above) when we visited him at Chocovic in Spain.

Ramon's TWO!! copies.

This is the elusive book that we will continue to hunt down - so if anybody has a spare that they would like to sell, then drop us a line and we promise it will go to a good home!!

Enjoy your cookbooks everyone, hopefully we will have one out one day if we continue to learn, work hard and persevere!