Carrot soup

I used to dislike carrot soup although I suspect that is because I have never tried it before. During my Phd years, the school cafe served carrot soup once every week and without any other hot food to eat (only hot food is soup at the cafe), I tried the soup and I have fallen in love with it ever since. Chop up potatoes, onions and carrots and fry them with olive oil till softened. Add chicken stock, a pinch of nutmeg, lots of paprika if you like the kick, bay leaf and the juice of an orange. Simmer for around 40 minutes and puree the vegetables. Return the puree to the pan and the remaining liquid and reheat.

My last picture of carrot soup wasn't exactly that good as it wasn't taken in sunlight. These days, I am starting to develop this habit of cooking enough for three meals so that I have food for lunch as well as be able to take photographs in sunlight.

Fish soup

M doesn't like a lot of things. Vegetables, beef, lamb. The list goes on. Sadly, fish is one of them. Specifically, the cooked fish should not have any bones, it shouldn't taste fishy and she won't eat salmon or trout. Cooking for M requres adherence to a long list of rules and guidelines.

Anyway, fish soup is what I cooked for dinner. All it involves is frying some diced onions, celery and garlic. Add some white wine and simmer for 1 minute. Add canned tomatoes, a bay leaf and fish stock and simmer for 8 minutes. Finally, add diced fish ( I used a mixture of cod, haddock and tuna) and simmer yet again till the fish is cooked. Add some shredded basil and serve hot with bread.

Marcus Wareing at The Savoy Grill

We had a lovely lunch at The Savoy Grill, another one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. The weekend menu is quite good value. 25 pounds for three courses. M had the foie gras parfait, the wild mushroom risotto with poached egg and parmesan shavings and the blackberry trifle. I had the Scottish smoked salmon and gravadlax, served with classic accompaniments, roast rib-eye of Scottish beef with Yorkshire pudding, roasted vegetables, potatoes and beef sauce and the royal chocolate cake.

M really loved her foie gras. She said that it was light but with no concessions to the richness of the foie gras. The prune and raisin compote and the salad were excellent complements to the sweet taste of the foie gras. Interestingly, there may be some japanese influence on the dressing for the salad as we can detect some Japanese sesame oil in it. There's definitely a whole lot of mushrooms in the risotto. It was literally bursting with mushroom goodness. The risotto was light as well. Normally, you get a heavy cream-based risotto and after you eat it,you can't eat anything else. But this risotto was definitely light on the stomach. M actually finished all of it. The poached egg went very well with the risotto as the egg yolk gave a silky texture and an additional complexity in taste to the sauce. The dessert came on a trolley, with everything on the dessert menu laid out for all to see. Its perfect for M as it allowed her to choose the most aesthetically pleasing dessert of them all. Her blackberry trifle was made with real fresh blackberries, not the processed ones you see even in a pot of Marks and Spencer trifle pudding.

My Scottish smoked salmon was sadly nothing exceptional. Perhaps, my tastebuds are not developed or it could just be that they have been messed up by copious quantities of smoked salmon i have had at buffets in Singapore. I can't tell the difference between the smoked salmon you buy at the supermarkets and the ones smoked by the cooks themselves. Of course, we don't really know whether they smoked it themselves. Still, I always enjoy smoked salmon and the potato salad went well with it. My roast beef however was exceptional. The beef was tender and juicy. When you have a bite of it with the sauce, you could tell the difference between the beef gravy and the taste of the beef itself. Its quite possibly one of the best roast beef I have had in my life. Its certainly comparable to the ones I have had at Lawry's in Singapore. My royal chocolate cake was brillant, not too sweet, just the natural taste of the cocoa and dark chocolate.

M considers this her favourite restaurant in London so far and I have to agree with her for the price and the quality of the food