Lunch at the Fat Duck - Part 4

Moving on to course 5

SNAIL PORRIDGE

• Iberico Bellota Ham, Shaved Fennel

This is another of the well known Fat Duck dishes, perhaps mostly because of the name. Several in our party had been looking forward to this with scepticism, if not outright fear. This is not, however, a porridge made of snails. This is really a porridge made from oats (that have been sieved to get rid of the powdery bits that ruined the consistency according to the cookbook) parsley butter, ham and, resting on the top, braised snails and shaved fennel.

I had no idea of what to expect, I was quite excited about it but was actually a bit disappointed. It was ok, but nothing more. My daughter did not want to taste it, but tried one bit including a snail, and that was enough. Now, to her it was the thought of snails that ruined it, not really the taste. Also, the other female part of the party left most of it untouched, also due to the thought of snails. I have no problems with snails, and ate it all, but for some reason this turned out to be the one dish of the day that I found un-interesting. Which is quite interesting. We all agreed that this was the low point in the meal.

Next one up:

ROAST FOIE GRAS

• Rhubarb, Confit Kombu and Crab Biscuit

I love foie gras, the texture, flavour and richness of it. This one was perfect. Heston B has devoted countless hours to researching how to treat this ingredient in order to get perfect results. One of the troubles with foie gras is that it can take on a grainy texture in stead of the preferred velvety one. It turns out that the liver, being full of enzymes, starts deteriorating much faster than most meats. 

The solution is to very quickly freeze the liver using liquid nitrogen to -18 degrees right after the slaughter and keep it there. Then, to avoid oxidation and to preserve the texture, it is cooked sous vide at 60 degrees. After that it is cooled again and refrigerated for 48 hours to for the flavours to mature. It is then re-heated in a sous vide bath to 60 degrees and finally seared using  blowtorch before serving. 

A fat dish like this needs some acidity, and the rhubarb fluid gel really lifted the whole thing up a notch. Nice!