Through The Cooking-Glass #5: Sopa De Fideos (Redux)

When I proposed my series of posts Through The Cooking-Glass, allowing you to peer through the glass partitions that separate me and my fellow chefs from our customers and learn something of the food we prepare, I was expecting to demonstrate all the dishes myself. But I've found some video clips in which someone far better qualified than me demonstrates trademark dishes from the Comerç 24 repertoire.

Surprisingly - given that I host my own video clips on YouTube - I'd never searched YouTube for clips of the restaurant before. So when I discovered the other week that Executive Chef Carles Abellan had made a series of demonstration videos for internet videoblog Ver y Cocinar (To See And To Cook), I was delighted. Even more delighted when I realised that the mis en place for several of the video clips was prepared by my own fair hands. After a year in a professional kitchen, I can recognise my own knifework from a fair distance.

Back in April I posted about the infusion technique central to our sopa de fideos dish. Here's Chef Abellan demonstrating how to make it (somewhat confusingly, the clip is mislabelled Infusión Fría de Dashi). I've re-drafted the recipe from Ver y Cocinar in English and published this below. The process should be clear enough for viewers without Spanish if you keep an eye on the recipe while watching the video.

Video clip courtesy of Ver y Cocinar (To See And To Cook)

Ingredients 1 lime 1/4 courgette 1/4 carrot Edible flower petals 50g shiitake mushroom

black sesame seeds 1/4 daikon radish kombu seaweed 1/2 bunch green asparagus

Szechuan pepper flowers 1/4 green (unripe) mango grated ginger 1/2 packet asparagus shoots

Preparation Submerge the shiitake in water for a period of two hours. During this time, bring it to the boil as if it were a tea, then grate the ginger and add this along with the kombu seaweed. Then tightly cover the pan with cling film and leave it to naturally cool over a period of at least six hours. Meanwhile, cut the julienne of vegetables. Service In the teapot filter, introduce more grated ginger, raw kombu seaweed and small pieces of lime. Pour in the cold infusion and set aside. In a bowl that has a fitting lid, introduce the juliennes of vegetables, the flower petals, the lime, black sesame seeds, and a pinch of Szechuan pepper flower. At the table, serve the infusion into the bowl and leave for one minute so that all of the aromas of the dish can combine. The dish is to be consumed as if it were a cold tea.