What the experts say
The rise of brown butter
Brown butter “has suddenly become the flavour of the moment”, says Hannah Evans in The Times: it’s increasingly common in recipes (see below) and restaurant dishes, and is even appearing in supermarket products. With an “intense hazelnutty taste that’s almost toffee-like”, it is good in savoury and sweet dishes – or can be spread (once cooled) on toast. While the process of making it is pretty simple – you melt a block of unsalted butter in a pan until it turns a dark golden hue – it takes care and precision to get it right. There’s basically a “five-second gap between deliciously nutty brown butter and bitter burnt butter”, explains chef Tommy Banks, of the Black Swan The Black Swan at Oldstead. He recommends using a light-coloured or stainless steel pan – so you can really see the solids changing colours – and stirring or swirling the butter regularly as it colours. It will splutter at first, then start to turn brown. Look out, he says, for a deep golden colour, and a “lovely smell of toasty hazelnuts or praline”: that’s the moment to take it off the heat. The whole process should “take about five minutes from start to finish”.
The “epicentre” of zero waste
Copenhagen is known for its amazing restaurants, says Mary Holland in the Financial Times – such as the legendary Noma. But Denmark’s capital has also become the “epicentre” of a new approach to food waste. At Amass, a restaurant on the Refshaleøen peninsula, one of chef Matt Orlando’s dishes – squid- and sausage-stuffed dumplings – “looks like any course you might expect to find at a high-end restaurant”. But the dumplings are made not from flour, but from fish bones that have been mashed into a “pulp”. This same philosophy is now being applied more widely, as innovators find novel uses for “spent beer, coffee grains and old bread”. For instance, Beyond Coffee collects organic coffee grains from office buildings – and uses them to grow mushrooms. “Any kind of food innovator I meet in Copenhagen is working with some kind of byproduct,” says the firm’s CEO, Ebbe Korsgaard.
In search of affordable truffles
“Previously reserved for the highest echelons of society, truffle is now an almost ubiquitous flavour,” says Marianna Hunt in Spectator Life: supermarkets stock truffle crisps and truffle ketchup; Sainsbury’s does its own truffle hummus. Most such products derive their flavour from truffle oil, which is generally made using an artificial compound. To get the proper truffle experience, connoisseurs maintain that there’s no substitute for the “prized fungi” fresh. And with the truffle season under way, many London restaurants are serving truffle dishes – some of which are surprisingly affordable. At Ave Mario, a “funkily modern” Italian eatery in Covent Garden, mafaldine pasta with truffle mascarpone sauce and fresh black truffle costs £18. Pizzeria Santa Maria – with five outposts across the city – does a delicious pizza for just £12.95: its base is “primed with mushroom and truffle cream”; smoked mozzarella, sausage and parmesan are heaped on top. But for those who want to feast on truffles, and have money to splash, the place to go is Davies and Brook at Claridge’s, for its poussin stuffed with black truffle and foie gras, and ricotta gnudi (dumplings) with white truffle and parmesan.