19th Oct

Lyonnaise salad, a la Raymond Blanc. No tarragon or chervil in this though; our ingredients were as follows:

-2 baby gem lettuce 

-butter

-pancetta lardons

-chives

-3 pre-cooked beetroots

-quail eggs

Salad dressing:

-white wine vinegar

-mustard

-extra virgin rapeseed oil

-1 shallot

-one clove garlic

Recipe:

1) Heat 2 pans; filling one with water for the eggs, and the other to cook the lardons.

2) Whilst waiting for them to heat, wash and chop the lettuce, beetroot, garlic, and shallots

3) We did the eggs two ways - poached, and soft-boiled. The latter is much easier, as they require a short time in simmering water, but poaching is a little more complex. It's actually a little difficult with quail's eggs, as the ablumen (the egg white) is so miniscule that it doesn't really cover the egg yolk.

a) Soft-boiled: Once water simmers, drop the quails' eggs in for two minutes, and fish 'em out after.

b) Poached. Add vinegar to the simmering water (this helps the whites to coagulate), and stir gently in one direction. Crack the eggs into separate bowls, and, lowering each bowl as close to the surface as possible, drop the egg into the water, still stirring. Once the white has wrapped itself around the egg yolk, lift it out and place into a bowl of cold water, to prevent it from cooking further (you want the yolk to stay runny). This can be done with all sorts of eggs, of course.

4) Pan-fry the pancetta lardons in butter.

5) Put the garlic, shallots, about a tablespoon of mustard, a dash of vinegar, and whisk vigorously. Add the rapeseed oil in a slow trickle, still whisking. If you don't have a whisk, use two forks, and add a determined fury to your whisking. This is your salad dressing.

6) Remove lardons from your frying pan, and replace with the beetroot slices.

7) Put together - lettuce plus cooked eggs, pancetta and beetroot. Sprinkle some chives on top, and enjoy!

-

For dinner, we had a friend over and ate the food that Bean had purchased from Goldmine, a wonderful Chinese restaurant in Bayswater. Duck, Chinese crispy roast pork and bbq roast pork. How amazing does this look? Chinese crispy roast pork is just about the best kind of pork there is, and it's near impossible to reproduce at home - normal ovens don't get the heat required, and it needs to be hung afterwards, to keep it dry.

Beans made a mushroom and pak choi side to go with it. There was rice, too, which I declined. Delicious with or without.

Indulgence occured after dinner - banana fritters. Delish. The batter is made with white flour, egg, golden syrup and cold water. The bananas are dipped into it, then dropped into sizzling oil, as below.

If you're going to indulge, do it well - Haagen Dazs vanilla? Sure.

Crispy fried fritters.

The finished product - no paleo resistance from me. They were the bomb. 

Exercise: 90 mins of breakdance class, and random pushups throughout the day. Not that much, but not shabby either. I think I may be falling ill, so may dial it down over the next few days.

Paleo out

Laulet