Joe Strummer once told me that, after the Clash split, he'd seen the Pogues and been so rapt by their music that he joined the band more or less on the spot and spent the next couple of years touring with them. The unlikely union of a punk ambassador and a drunken massacre was a fulfilling one for both parties. I was reminded of this conversation as I set off to spend the evening working in the kitchen at the pub. I felt I was following my heart and I was really quite excited. There was nothing at all I'd rather have been doing.
I've become fascinated by the Kingham Plough in Kingham, Oxfordshire. I eat there twice a week, sometimes more, and I'm constantly dazzled by what comes out of the kitchen. It's simply brilliant: innovative without being fussy or pretentious. To put it in perspective, Emily Watkins, the chef at the Plough, was number two under Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck for two years. The Fat Duck is one of the world's two best restaurants and this pub is Emily's first solo venture since graduating from there. As works of art go, the chips at the Plough are as good as anything Damien Hirst has done and you can eat them, too. And you can afford them. Everything on the menu, which I've worked my way through systematically, is absolutely gorgeous. This is 'plate modern'. There are parallels with the booming food and art worlds. Where people might have turned their noses up at a Tracey Emin a decade ago, and dismissed her work as elitist, they are now talking about her on the bus. Not many people wanted to eat rabbit 10 years ago either, but now it's back on the menu at the pub.
I first met Emily a few months back. She'd just left the Fat Duck and, while the pub was being rebuilt and turned into a food laboratory, she was spending some time researching ancient local recipes and endeavouring to source all her ingredients within a five-mile radius of the pub's front door. She came to see me about buying some of our lamb and we talked for ages, about brining, mainly, I think. She'd done her homework all right. I sensed an attention to detail that is the hallmark of genius; and madness, for that matter. It's always intriguing to meet someone who really is what they do. Comedy writers constantly crack jokes. Film people talk about films the whole time when they're not watching them. You couldn't talk to Emily for five minutes and not know that you were talking to a passionate food expert. She breathes it. She's a flood of information and ideas.
The pub, when it finally opened, lived up to all expectations and I kept asking her how she made this and how she did that, until she asked me to come and help out in the kitchen and find out for myself. I'm no stranger to behind-the-scenes restaurant action. My granddad was a chef and my first job was working in a gungy hotel kitchen, washing up, for 90p an hour. I managed to find some chefs' whites, scrubbed my fingernails and reported for duty in the late afternoon.
Emily and I sat in the sun smoking and she talked me through the bill of fare. The bar menu consisted of Cotswold rarebit, potted rabbit, snails, quails and real ales, and then five starters, five mains, cheeses and five puddings. Emily concurs with Gordon Ramsay that, as long as there is a comfort dish like a pie (cock-a-leekie in this case) and something fresh and light (one for the ladies if you like - poached halibut with sauce gribiche and orache), this is quite enough choice. There was a print-out from Daylesford Organic, the local greengrocer, that listed all the produce currently available from their market garden. She got sidetracked when she noticed that the belles de Fontenay potatoes were being harvested and spent some time explaining how they make the ultimate mash. The forager had delivered 25 rabbits the previous day, which Emily had skinned, jointed and stewed for eight hours with chardonnay, lemon zest and green peppercorns. I'd be helping to make the potted rabbit.
The team had all arrived by 4.30pm and we sat down to staff dinner. Emily went through the new items on the menu. 'Orache is like silky spinach. It grows wild. It's delicious, OK? I'll make sure you all get to taste it. The Evesham lentils are not from Evesham, but it's a traditional Evesham recipe. They used to grow lentils in Evesham 200 years ago. OK? Also we've got Alex's potted rabbit, OK? Saddles will be on the menu tomorrow if anyone asks. Now just a quick word about how we cook the fillet steaks. We do them sous vide OK? Not boil-in-the-bag! The reason we cook them sous vide, that's vacuum-packed, is that frying them draws all the moisture out. We poach them at a constant 65.5°C in the temperature bath until they are uniformly medium-rare all the way through, then we sear them off in a hot pan to finish them. I'll cook one for you all to try later. Then you'll see how tender it is. This is not what boil-in-the-bag is, OK? Sous vide. Got that?' Much nodding of heads.
I had a whizz around the cellar in case I was sent down to fetch anything from the stores during service. There were barrels, bottles and complex manifolds galore. The most noteworthy thing down there was the Coca-Cola generator. Apparently the concentrated syrup, the elixir of the drink, is the world's best hangover cure. The kitchen is a pristine operating theatre full of excellent machines. Emily set me picking the cooked rabbit from the bones and began to singe the hair off a piece of pork belly with a blowtorch. She was worried that the roast pork belly wasn't quite crispy enough; she's found the answer, but I couldn't really follow the full explanation the first time around. It may well be a bit like the solution to Fermat's last theorem. Only the person who found the answer to that really understands how it works. She conducted a whole series of experiments on the spot and invented a fantastically crispy, meaty pork-belly crackler and I was still administering Troy weights of slow-cooked wild rabbit to a huge bowl that didn't seem to be getting any fuller.
She told me to have a rest and showed me her workstation. Each of the three chefs has their own terminal, and their own preferred tools. Emily is very proud of her knives, which are frighteningly sharp. The night before the pub opened, she spent three-and-a-half hours bringing them to a razor edge, and she tends them every day. She has spoons galore, acidulated water for cleaning, cooking salt, a selection of big bowls, plenty of paper towels. All her food ingredients are well-organised in a chiller cabinet below the work surface.
Emily's day starts at 7am and it doesn't seem to stop. The food has been prepared during the day, and during service it is mainly a question of finishing the cooking. The chips, for example, have already been cooked twice, once in water, once in a mixture of goose fat and rapeseed oil and now they just need finishing in very hot oil. The ducks' eggs have already been covered with breadcrumbs and just need a quick whirl in the goosefat fryer.
The huge extractor fan over the range was glugging away and the temperature in the kitchen was pretty comfortable. 'The fridge blew up yesterday!' said Emily. 'Nightmare!' She showed me the dry-store, full of sacks of flour and lentils. The potwasher arrived, and the other two chefs and we were at our stations by 5.45pm. I continued with my rabbit-picking. Emily tasted the meat.
Emily tastes and tests everything. She added more pepper and parsley, then some lemon juice, showed me how to fudge the meat into ramekins, and went to clarify some butter on the range. I'd made a scant couple-of-dozen potted rabbits out of all that cooking and preparation and this is only a bar snack. Emily poured on the clarified butter and whipped the ramekins into the blast chiller; a very satisfying freezer that billows ice vapour into the room every time it's opened. She mainly uses it to cool stocks very quickly to fridge temperature so they don't go bad.
The first order came through from the dining room. The kitchen receives the orders with newsroom glamour on a printout like an old-fashioned Telex machine and by the time the order comes through is written on a whiteboard. The first one was slightly disappointing. One halibut, and one chocolate mousse, which wasn't even on the menu any more. Emily shouted out the order to a chorus of yeses from her sous chefs.
The next order was also a bit of a damp squib: two chips and a side salad. There were 42 covers booked, plus walk-up. It was eight o'clock and all we'd had so far was four half orders. 'We're going to get smashed in a minute!' said Emily. 'Smashed to bits!' There was nothing to do but wait. The atmosphere was just like backstage at a gig before going on to a packed house. I watched the meringue machine whirr. It was calming, mesmerising and I floated off into my thoughts. Suddenly all the bread had disappeared and the front-of-house staff were yelling for more butterballs like there was a fire that could only be extinguished by butterballs. We were off, under Emily's supreme command, as she deftly managed the limited resources.
'Don't be a hero Simon! Get Alex to help. Alex, three artichokes and a side salad from the walk-in fridge please,' she sang, while rescuing a liver pâté, deep-frying a duck egg and studying the next order. 'One rabbit!' (Cheers all round the kitchen for my first order.) 'One rabbit, one rarebit, one omelette.' I put a rarebit in the oven and watched Simon whisk an egg white to a foam and stir in the yolk with butter. It was more of a soufflé. It looked delicious, so hypnotically delicious I nearly burnt the toast for the rarebit. It was like being in a cavalry charge. I didn't know which way to look, but I knew I was fighting for the true and just cause. The finished dishes arrive at the plate-warmer, which lights them up like balls on a snooker table. It was like looking at a photograph.
Emily checks everything before it leaves the kitchen. There was so much happening, butter emulsions bubbling, grill on full-blast, a pot-washing frenzy. It was like being on stage: live, live, live. The waitresses keep us posted on what's happening on the other side of the door: 'It's amazing out there, really good atmosphere.' 'Can we get table 18 starters? They're complaining!' 'They love the steak on table seven!' Emily's sold 86 steaks in five days and word has got around that they are rather special. 'Who's reducing water here?' she says, exasperated at an empty pot hissing on the range. The blowtorch is out again and a baked Alaska flies out of the door. Poached nectarines and chocolate doughnuts follow. I learnt more tricks that night than I ever have on a cookery course. I want to work there every week and find out how they make everything. I'd thoroughly recommend working in a top-class kitchen. It's therapy, making stuff, especially food. Rock'n'roll is dead. That's why you'll always find me in the kitchen at parties.
· Watch Alex James's Cheese Diaries videos on our food blog
· The Kingham Plough, Kingham, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire; 01608 658327; www.thekinghamplough.co.uk
