Nami-Nami @ El Bulli: Prologue

5 April 2008, 

Better late than never, they say.

Yesterday exactly one year ago K. and I had a chance to have lunch at El Bulli. A spectacular lunch. A long lunch. A very tasty lunch. A memorable lunch. I-so-have-to-tell-everyone-about-this lunch. Funny enough, it took me a whole year to actually blog about that. When we got home from our 10-day Spanish road trip early last April, I had several deadlines looming. Some at the University, plus I had been commissioned to write some articles about our visit to El Bulli*. I wrote a short piece (one page) for the biggest-selling Estonian food magazine Oma Maitse (May 2008). Then a whole A3-size spread for the main weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress (22 May 2008). And then a richly illustrated detailed review of the menu spread over six pages for the other local food magazine, KÖÖK (Summer 2008). But somehow I didn't get around to writing about it on my blog.

Well, until now. To mark the one-year anniversary of our visit to El Bulli, I'm gonna give you four blog posts over the next week detailing what happened when Nami-Nami went to El Bulli :) (I could do one long post, but considering we had 30 dishes that all looked fabulous, it's easier to split the post into four).

Before we got to El Bulli, we decided to 'get into the mood'. Ferran Adrià is from Emporda in Catalunya, which is (in)famous for its harsh tramontana-winds that blow from the Pyrenees. The Spaniards believe that these very tramontana winds make the locals a bit funny. Who knows. The world's best known Surrealist, Salvador Dalí, is from the region as well, so it might just be true. In any case, as El Bulli is just an hour's drive from the Dalí Museum in Figueras, we decided to visit the museum first and set the mood :)



The road from Roses (the nearest town) to El Bulli is a spectacle of its own. It's narrow and high and zig-zags alongside the coastline (I wouldn't want to navigate it after a merry meal at the restaurant, that's for sure!). The restaurant itself  is surrounded by cypress and pine trees, and overlooks a beautiful Cala Montjoi bay.





Over-excited as we were, K. and I arrived in our rented Mini Cooper (the best and cutest rental car ever!) a bit early. We parked the car and wondered around the garden. Spotted a group of young stagés chatting on the back of the restaurant:



And large canisters of liquid nitrogen - giving an indication of the type of restaurant we were about to visit:


Once inside, we were greeted by Señor Luis Garcia (what amazing blue eyes that man has!?!). He confirmed our reservation and asked if we wanted a small tour of the El Bulli service kitchen. Of course we did! Garcia assigned us a young waiter, who led us to the kitchen. El Bulli serving kitchen is large, some 130 sq m. It was divided into two - the hot and the cold section. We spotted Ferran's brother Albert working on some pastry (top left photo), and numerous young stagé cooks doing various prep work. Apparently there are 40 cooks taking care of the 50 diners each night - and given the number of people we saw in the serving kitchen, that's indeed very likely. Remember, each El Bulli meal consists of 30 courses - multiply that by 50 (the number of diners) - and you get 1500 dishes. No wonder they need such a huge number of cooks (plus waiters!). Compared to the tiny restaurant kitchen I've worked in (I've never really told you about my stagé at the top gourmet restaurant in Tallinn either, have I?), El Bulli's was huge, spacious and looked like something from a space ship - all shiny metal and a bit futuristic :)



Furthermore, the your waiter assigned to us asks if we want to take a photograph with The Chef? Of course we did!!! Here's our million-dollar picture (K's on the other side of Ferran Adrià, but he's camera shy, so I've promised not to show his face on the blog here ;))



After the short kitchen tour we were led into the surprisingly traditional-looking dining room. Luckily for us, we were seated at a small corner table just under the window, meaning we'd have beautiful natural light for taking pictures.

But more about that next time..

Mussels in Apple Cider Recipe

Take note - this is the first time I've blogged about a mussel dish, as well as first time I cooked mussels. But the resulting dish was a great success, and according to everybody who tried this, the recipe is definitely worth sharing. So that's what I'm doing :)

I served this on one of our semi-regular Scrabble nights, and we drank regular and almost alcohol-free French cider alongside this. It was a very good night indeed..

Mussels in Apple Cider
(Siidriga aurutatud rannakarbid)
Serves 4 as a starter or a light meal



1 kg fresh, live mussels
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
50 g shallots, finely chopped
2 to 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
1 lemon
300 ml (about 1 1/4 of a cup) dry French cider (we used Cidre Brut de Normandie)
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

Clean the mussels carefully under cold running water. Throw away any mussels that are broken or that don't close when tapped gently.
Heat oil and butter in a large wide saucepan. Add shallots and garlic and sauté gently, stirring all the time, for about a minute.
Add apple cubes and cook for another minute or two.
Add cider, the grated lemon peel and lemon juice and thyme. Bring to the boil (NB! no need to season with salt).
Now add the cleaned mussels, shake the saucepan a few times and cover with a lid. Cook for about 2 minutes, then shake the mussels again. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, until all mussels have opened (throw away the few stubborn ones).

Serve the mussels with the cooking broth, garnish with some extra thyme. Some white ciabatta-style bread would be a perfect accompaniment for mopping up the cidery juices..

Ambrosia Cake Recipe

Have you ever heard of an Ambrosia cake? If yes, then what's the cake like?

It seems that there is no one single Ambrosia cake. When googling 'ambrosia cake', the Internet search engine returns a number of recipes that seem to contain oranges in one form or another. This version is a Finnish recipe, known as 'Ambrosiakakku'. It's a simple sugar cake that goes well with a cup of tea. Most of the Finnish recipes only use candied orange peel to garnish and juice to make the glaze. I've also added grated orange zest to the cake batter to make the cake even more fragrant and tasty.

Ambrosia Cake
(Ambroosiakook)

Serves 8 to 10

150 g unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
200 g caster sugar
115 g plain/all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
grated zest of 1 orange

To glaze:
100 g confectioners/icing sugar
2 to 3 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

To garnish:
candied orange peel

Whisk eggs and sugar into a thick, pale foam. Add grated orange zest, slightly cooled melted butter, and baking powder mixed with flour.
Pour the batter into a 24-26 cm buttered springform. Bake in a preheated 180 C oven until the cake is done (test by inserting a wooden toothpick in the middle of the cake - it should come out dry).
Cool, transfer onto a serving tray.
Mix icing sugar and orange juice into a glaze and spoon over the centre of the cake, leaving about an inch from the edges clear.
Garnish with candied orange peel.