Lockdown treats
The cheeseburgers at Noma...
Diners at Noma – widely regarded as one of the world’s best restaurants – are usually offered a 20-course tasting menu costing £300. But if you can get to Copenhagen, you can now eat there for a fraction of that: having closed its doors in midMarch, Noma reopened in late May as a temporary outdoor bar. Gone is the sixmonth wait for a table (the bar does not take bookings) and gone are dishes such as “egg yolk sauce with ants” and “reindeer tongue with pine on skewer”. Instead, the menu features two items: a cheeseburger and a veggie burger, both costing around £20. “This is a new experiment where the door is open to everyone and it feels quite exciting,” Noma’s chef, René Redzepi, told Bloomberg. He claims to be serving a “burger as we know it”, but his patties aren’t devoid of innovation: the cheeseburger, for instance, contains garum, a sauce of fermented beef. Noma plans to bring back its more familiar repertoire in a “second phase of reopening”, a date for which has yet to be fixed.
... and El Bulli’s crisp omelette
Arguably the most influential culinary revolutionary of them all, Ferran Adrià spearheaded the cuisine known as molecular gastronomy. Diners at his legendary restaurant El Bulli, which closed in 2011, were offered smoke foam and lobster gazpacho. But staff ate simpler dishes, including a Spanish omelette made with crisps instead of fried potatoes. With only three ingredients, and taking no time to prepare, it feels “just right for this moment”, says Alexa Weibel in The New York Times. To make it, crack 12 eggs into a bowl and whisk vigorously for four minutes. Fold in 170g of salted crisps (the best-quality possible), let sit for a minute, then pour the mix into a ten-inch non-stick frying pan containing one tablespoon of good olive oil, heated over a medium flame. When the bottom of the omelette has set – three to four minutes – cover it with a large upside-down plate, flip the pan over, and slide the omelette onto the plate. Add another tablespoon of oil, slide the omelette back in, uncooked-side-down, and cook for two more minutes, until fully set. You can add chives, paprika or cheese to the egg mix if you like, but “textural, salty and rich beyond expectation, the potato chip omelette needs nothing else”.
Homemade ice lolly hacks
Ice lollies are “easy-peasy” to make at home, says Xanthe Clay in The Daily Telegraph: you don’t even need moulds. Yoghurt pots, ice cube trays or paper cups can all be used instead, and if you don’t have lolly sticks, use rigid plastic straws or even plastic cutlery. Make sure, however, to “allow the mix to freeze for about an hour before plunging in the sticks, or they won’t stand straight”. As for fillings, tinned fruit salad works well: “freeze until firm and top with a dash of evaporated milk if you like”. Or fill the moulds threequarters full with cola, then cut away the peel from slices of orange and lemon, and push the flesh into the cola to fill up the moulds, before freezing. Dipping frozen lollies in chocolate gives them a “delectable crisp coating”. In a bowl set over a pan of hot water, melt 200g of chocolate with three level tablespoonfuls of coconut oil, stir and pour into a mug. Once it’s cooled to room temperature, dip the frozen lollies into it, before laying them on a tray lined with non-stick parchment and returning to the freezer.