These days, however, it’s “just common sense to have as many gluten-free dishes on your menu as possible”, so you could also thicken the sauce with cornflour, “although I find that a little gluey”, Borthwick adds. Borthwick remembers one chef who kept “a five-litre tub of margarine mixed with flour under his work bench, which he’d then mix in a big stock pan with all the day’s leftover veg and trimmings to make a base sauce for just about everything. The French will argue about cooking until the cows come home, and in some quarters even the likes of beurre manié are seen as a bit cowboyish. “Whisk in a ladle of the sauce first, then stir into the stewpot.” However, Borthwick, who was trained in the traditional Gallic school and has worked with the likes of Michel Bras, Gordon Ramsay and Angela Hartnett (or Mrs Neil Borthwick, as she is now), advises never to chuck it straight in. That could take the form of a classic thickener, brown roux (equal quantities of flour and butter, melted together into a biscuity paste) or beurre manié (an uncooked mix of flour and softened butter). “It’s just how I’ve always done it, though you have to be careful, because flour burns much more quickly than meat.” With other braises, however, Borthwick, like most professionals these days, thickens the sauce towards the end. Neil Borthwick of The French House in London’s Soho agrees that flouring meat is antiquated, but admits that he still makes daube de boeuf the old-fashioned way. It also spaffs out a dodgy-looking, watery residue into the pan. That’s one reason it’s wise to buy the best meat you can afford: “Intensively farmed meat tends to boil no matter what, which is why you end up with grey rather than browned meat,” says Turner, who is also the driving force behind the annual Meatopia flesh fest. Caramelised blood intensifies the flavour of meat, while browning helps it cook out properly.” Turner, who, before becoming Britain’s meat ninja, was a classically trained chef (he worked under two legends of the UK restaurant scene, Marco Pierre White and Pierre Koffmann), adds, “Your reader is spot on with his observation that the flour gets in the way of the Maillard reaction.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |