Back again

Back again. After a small period of adjustment. Hwsgo is now Hwngo; this may or may not be temporary, but it certainly won't get in the way of cooking and eating together. Last night was dinner out at the tapas bar near Borough Market. Which is itself surprisingly close to London Bridge. I'd mentally pegged it as just past Tower Bridge, so the familiar ironwork was quite unexpected at the end of a spooky-if-it-hadn't-been-well-lit tunnel near the station. But at least I know now that it’s a very short walk to the Artisan de Chocolat misfits stand on a Sunday…

The tapas was good; we’d been spoilt by going to Granada last month, but I don’t often get tapas this good in the UK (there’s a little place in Wales, but it’s a long way to go for a croquette). The ham plate looked enormous but the slices were delicately wafer-thin so we still had room for all the potatoes that Hwngo had ordered (I hadn’t realised he liked potatoes so much. No wonder he’s offered to help me dig the potato beds in the allotment). The hams were good: the chorizo properly spicy, and something that we couldn’t identify was good enough to have us both proffering the last piece to each other (then splitting it :-)). Croquettes were almost-Granada, with surprisingly good fried curly parsley on top. Potatoes aioli: good chips, and distracted Hwngo long enough for me to snaffle almost all the olives from the sardine (big, plump, yummy) plate. I rocked the balance a bit with ham cheeks and white beans; good, but we were full and it didn’t quite match the other plates… meat tasty and tender and reminiscent of the stews my mum made when I was young(er). And we washed it all down with sherry, with another piece of kitchen wisdom from Hwngo: if you don’t like the wine list, drink the sherry. And beer. And whisky. And…

...Enough: I have received my ROTW of the week and intend to assail it. Although being a soufflé, the assault may be in quite the other direction…

Souffle de poisson
100-150g smoked macheral (whatever you have), liquidised smooth in a little lemon juice
bechamel sauce [ white sauce ] made from 50g of butter, 50g of flour, 250ml of milk
salt and pepper
grated nutmeg
4 eggs carefully separated into whites and yolks
Put the fan oven on at 190.
Prepare the bechamel sauce by melting the butter in a pan over a medium heat. Add the flour working it in thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Remove the pan from the heat, add the milk and whisk until smooth. Season well with salt and pepper and grated nutmeg. Return the pan to the heat to cook for about 10 mins stirring frequently. Getting this smooth is key to success.
Remove the pan from the heat, beat in the yolks one at a time. Stir in the mackeral.Beat the egg whites to a stiff peaks. Butter the souffle dish. Put the flavoured bechamel in the souffle dish and fold in a third of the whites using a sharp-edged spoon. Add the rest of the egg whites in the same way: do not stir or beat: a hetrogenous texture is better than losing the air in the eggs. Pour into a butter souffle dish to about three quarters full.Place in the oven immediately and cook for 20 mins then increase the heat to 220 for 10 mins and serve without delay with bitter leaves.

Weight today is unknown, but has held at 166.6 for the last few days. Food intake to come shortly.