Squid Squash

Menu

-Sage & Butter Frogs Legs w/ Sweet Basil Seed Sake

-Beetroot, Red Cabbage & Goats Cheese Salad W/ Leluu's Secret Dressing                                       

-Cold Octopus, Sweet Potatoes Tortilla & Garlic Turkish Bread

-Tuna Sashimi & Ferdie Chips With Salad, Pickled Shallots & Wasabi Mayo

-Squid Squash Risotto

-Vanilla, Orange & Vodka Panacotta

 

These Photographs are courtesy of The London Foodie - Copyright 2010

We love cooking seafood - somehow, its fast and we can get the food out on time. This menu is one of our favourite menus to create, cook and serve. We had so many happy people electrifying the room with their good spirits and character.

Luiz from The London Foodie and Chris & Lacey visited for the fourth time, bringing new friends and creating wonderful memories for themselves at Fernandez & Leluu. It was lovely! When we first started out, this is exactly what the objective was - that people can find a place they can come enjoy good food and company.

We even had a waitress on Friday, called Anna,  and she made me wonder - how did I ever do it before without one but on Saturday, I had to do it all again because she couldn't make it - ahh thats how...

The dates we did last weekend were dates we added in recently as all the later ones were all booked up. It is interesting to experience this "fad" of underground supper clubs being the recent trend. We discovered how unreliable and unthoughtful some people could be by cancelling their booking (or ignored it til prompted) at the last minute when we have bought all the food and reserved places for them when in actual fact, other people would have loved to attend if they had any notice at all.

We had 40% of our bookings cancelled on both days, due to all sorts of reasoning. We were able to fill most places when given at least one or two days notice but not the one at 3pm! It was really stressful as we had to prep, we had to clean, we had to turn our flat into a supper club etc etc as well as having to find people to take places. 

A lot of our friends on Twitter - retweeted the places - we had so much support - it gave us both smiles on our faces despite it all. Thank you guys!

In the end, it all turned out good and thats what counts.

We have been assessing how we will take bookings from now on. Our place is about eating good food and being with good friends. We have to make more effort to let people know what efforts we put into our events and the impact everyone who attends or does not attend has.

99% of everyone who has walked through our door has been brilliant - there is just the 1% or so who "forget" its someone's home and has no respect for it whatsoever. 

We don't have clowns, musicians or entertainers. Nor do we create any gimmicks or compete with other supper clubs/ pop ups/ underground restaurants or whatever you want to call it. We just cook - from the best ingredients we can find (this time we tried using Marky Market who got us the freshest fish from Billingsgate)- you can come and eat it. Good food, wine, great company - Fad or no fad - we don't care what the fad is - we like the way we are and we don't want it changed because of the 1%.

Check here for another great post about last week's dinner: EPHEMERETTE

Fish Tales

Menu

Salmon Sashimi With Mirin & Orange Served With Ferdie Chips
-Udon Noodle Soup With Dill Fishcakes
-Tempura White Bait With Lemon
-Garlic Turkish Bread
-Cold Octopus Salad

-Sweet Potatoes Tortilla
-Tiger Prawns With Black Squid Ink Rice & Ali oli
-Ferdie's Bread & Butter Pudding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 11th & Saturday 12th December 2009

How angry would you be if you had prepared all this and 4 people decided to cancel 2 hours before they were meant to arrive. I was quite angry. Considering that we had to buy the freshest of fish from Steve Hatt (Essex Road) on the day (we normally get all our shopping the day before as there is so much to do on the day) so that our guests get to eat the best that there is. We could give extra portions to all those who attend - but we have already considered how much is enough per person. We always have to be very careful how much we give as there is so much food and we want everyone to enjoy every dish without being full to the brim.

So if you would like to attend, please be really considerate about cancellations. You must give us as much notice as possible because we are buying food and preparing it for you. We don't want to waste time, energy, money and good produce. Should this happen 48 hours before you are meant to attend, please ask us for a paypal link to cover our costs and we will happily donate the rest to charity.

Putting that negativity aside and now I got that off my chest, Fish Tales was the smoothest supper club nights we had ever done! We thought that dealing with fish only was a great challenge but we managed to overcome any hurdles. We love fish and wanted to serve simple and delicious recipes where one can enjoy the flavour of fish and all its freshness and goodness.

Here are some very easy recipes you can try:

SALMON

We wanted to use common fish such as salmon and white bait and let their unique flavours speak for itself. I loathe cooked salmon or smoked salmon but love raw salmon. We got a whole side of salmon from Steve Hatt, once for the first night and returned for more for the second night - Simon insisted that he would make the trip because he refuses to serve sashimi that is not bought in on the same day. We served it with our famous chips (Simon still a bit miffed that something was not right about the chips though everyone told me they were amazing!)

I was very proud about my orange & mirin soy sauce. Very tasty. Basically: Tropicana Smooth Orange Juice (50%), Soy Sauce (40%), Mirin (10%) - then wasabi to taste - I suggest not too much.

The reason I used Orange Juice is because I am still seeking for the oranges that smell and taste like orange in London. Even if I buy organic oranges, the flavour is much lost with the soy so I used Tropicana.

 [our dinner before guests arrived]

UDON NOODLE SOUP W/ FISHCAKES

We repeated the Dill Fishcakes Udon Noodle Soup because it was such a hit the previous week at Miss Saigon. This is a really delicious and simple soup to make. Although it tastes so complex and yummy - its because its so simple!

Ingredients & how to do:

-Mature Chicken (You can buy these at Vietnamese Supermarkets) - clean, put in big pot and bring to boil. Watch for the throth - remove it as soon as possible - to keep the soup clear. Then simmer with lid on for about 45 mins with 1 x whole onion

Add the following to taste, take care and love your soup:

Fish Sauce

Rock Sugar (about 100g)

Pork granules by Knorr

Everything will change to become the perfect soup base once you do the following:

Peel (painstaking) two handfuls of shallots, put in blender to dice (to save time) then throw into a hot pan with olive oil. Get it crispy and burnt then throw all the shallots into the soup. It will taste like heaven!

Buy some udon noodles, they will be cold so blanch them in some boiling water for a minute or less (don't let it get soggy), then put them into a bowl, with fishcakes (or chicken or Vietnamese hams) with some coriander, spring onions, and sweet basil or mint.

DILL FISHCAKES for 50 small bowls: knead together all the ingredients below

4 x Grey Featherback Fish Pie

3/4 pack of Dill

4 x tsp Ground Pepper

6 x tsp Pork Granules by Knorr

2 x tbs brown sugar

10 x tbs fish sauce

7 x red chillis deseeded.

Please note: I make things according to my own sense of judgment, please do not follow the quantities I have put down as a rule. Add less, test some (fry a bit) then add more as you can always add more but you can not take things out.

This is extremely sticky, once you are happy that everything is mixed in well together,  add some olive oil - I think I must have used about 6 tbs all in all, but do not put it all in at once - see how you go.

The oil seals the mixture making it easy to set into shape. (Do not make too thick - remember you will cut them up later and is always nice to see and eat golden edges).

Steam the fish cakes for about 25 minutes. Then deep fry until golden brown. When cool cut them up into thin slices.

Simon will post recipes for the rest, including the excellent Croissant Bread & Butter Pudding with White Chocolate which we served on the first night.

Yet again, we had wonderful guests, everyone enjoyed the food and themselves ever so much. We feel so happy and proud to make all our guests happy. We used to cook for all our friends and family to make them happy. One of the reasons we started the supper club was to maintain the buzz it gives to make people happy with food.

We were so happy to meet Jim & Anna, fellow supper clubber : and you will know us by the trail of our bread its nice to hand any advice or tips we have picked up in the last 3 months. We still need more tips ourselves. They were joined by a birthday party organised by Rachel for her meat loving husband Laurence. Apparently, he kicked up a fuss about not wanting to eat fish for his birthday (hehe) but the overall party won and they made it to Fish Tales. We loved this group especially Sean who knows everything about wine and was ever so polite to me and always addressed me by my name.

Second night - full house! Tom & Jen http://tomeatsjencooks.blogspot.com/ booked in with 6 others for the second time and Lacey & Chris came for the third time! We love them! And as always new guests who promise to come back. We try to to always join our guests for dessert. Tim & Emma stayed and talked to us for ages - which we love because we missed out on all the socialising during service. Poor Simon always feels like he'd been let out of the cage by the time we get to dessert. I am lucky, I chose the front of house role and get to talk to everyone but he is stuck in the kitchen.

We are getting massive rewards for doing the supper club. For the time & energy invested in it, the payment we get is very little. But payment in smiles, joy and happiness means more to us and we are grateful that we continue to get bookings and amazing reviews we couldn't have even dreamed about.

We gave everyone a Christmas present on the second night - from a set of chopsticks to fridge magnets to coconut milk and cookies. No one expected it. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Posted By Uyen