{"id":5016,"date":"2016-03-09T15:32:05","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T14:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/?p=5016"},"modified":"2016-03-09T15:32:05","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T14:32:05","slug":"ready-steady-cook-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/?p=5016","title":{"rendered":"Ready, Steady, Cook"},"content":{"rendered":"

When leaving the last Sunday session of the Mastery of Cooking<\/a> programme, each participant was handed a bag of ingredients, and instructed by Jean Torn\u00e9 to plan and create a meal based on these elements, in an exercise which recalled the popular TV series ‘Ready, Steady, Cook.’<\/p>\n

‘A few peas, some watercress, 2 potatoes, 1 avocado or half a zucchini, one leek, some herbs, an orange, a piece of fennel. Create a dish from these ingredients. Cook it. Serve it to your partner or family or to one another and ask them how they received it.’<\/p>\n

The invitation was to take part in this process, to observe one’s own participation, to assess (and be assessed) on the results.<\/p>\n

And so, I made a ‘Rock pool’ style clear broth soup, inspired by a soup we cooked during an earlier session. The base was a vegetable stock I’d made earlier, which I infused with the Kombu and fresh herbs. (Thyme, Bay Leaf, Rosemary). I cut the Cauliflower into small florets, cubed the Potatoes, and carefully cut the Leek Whites into strips. I blanched all these ingredients separately. I made a Pesto\u00a0 with Watercress, Basil, Coriander and Pine Nuts (left over from a previous cooking session). I served the soup in a shallow bowl with a few Watercress leaves on top, and some dabs of pesto. I made a pressed fennel salad with Pear and dill, served with an Orange Vinaigrette on a bed of sliced Avocado. This was plated up with some Short Grain Brown Rice, and some Tofu chips marinaded with Sweet white Miso, Rice Vinegar, then pan-fried.<\/p>\n

As for the assessment: (I ate the meal alone) I was pleased with the soup. Initially the broth had a strong taste of Rosemary (probably a bit much to use as an infused herb) but the whole dish was balanced out when I added the veg, the pesto, and the watercress leaves. It was a little cold by the time I ate it. I liked the ‘half submerged veg’ presentation but it didn’t make for a particularly large dish – more of a starter. The pesto was a real winner, and helped to balance the flavour of the soup, as well as adding a touch of intrigue to the dish. A suitable ‘Algal’ accompaniment to the Rock Pool.<\/p>\n

I was really happy with the pressed Fennel Salad, in combination with the avocado. I added the dill leaves far too early so they became a bit wilted and lost their vibrant colour. In future, I would add these right at the last minute, as a garnish. The marinaded tofu was delicious. Again, this was a small dish, more of a starter. But it worked well in combination with the short grain rice.<\/p>\n

\"readysteady1\"<\/a> \"readysteady2\"<\/a> \"readysteady3\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When leaving the last Sunday session of the Mastery of Cooking programme, each participant was handed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344,612],"tags":[9,611],"class_list":["post-5016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinners","category-mastery-of-cooking","tag-jean-torne","tag-mastery-of-cooking","comments-open","has-comments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5016"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5021,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions\/5021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wholefoodkitchen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}