Great British Chefs

Going Live!

Events

Pan Roast Strawbs! Great British Chefs asked me to join in their live Google+ hangout on Thursday night. Chef Josh Eggleton was stationed in Stratford’s Westfield Centre demonstrating his dish of Pan Roasted Sweet Eve Strawberries, Spiced Eggy Bread and Warm Elderflower Cream. All I had to do was set up my webcam in the kitchen, log in to the hangout and cook along with Josh, sounds simple…

Ingredients were all good to go, particularly excited about using the elderflower liqueur and after scouring the neighbourhood managed to “acquire” a sprig of fresh elderflower! Ssshhh!
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Pots and pans all lined up ready…
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…now to precariously perch my laptop on a step ladder!
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At about 2 minutes before the cook-a-long was due to start my laptop decided not to recognise the ethernet cable so I had to rely on the wireless connection. My laptop is quite old (I won’t insult it too much in case it crashes whilst I type this) and the router is upstairs so let’s just say it struggled, so I wasn’t able to ask Josh my question live on air (they had to cut to someone else) the joys of live filming!

But, I did manage to finish my dish on time, whoop! If you want a giggle you can watch the whole thing here – Great British Chefs Google Hangout.

I’m the second one in on the bottom row (mostly in shadow, oops!)

I particularly loved making the Elderflower Cream, which was a Sabayon flavoured with Elderflower Liqueur. I had tried sabayon once in Paris (ooh err!) and just assumed it must be ridiculously complicated, but it’s not! Hurrah! There is now a danger that I might become a little bit obsessed with it and start serving it with everything!

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I must admit I did get Richard to do the blowtorch bit, simply because I was far too chicken! We don’t have a kitchen blowtorch so we were using his brother’s DIY one (don’t try this at home kids) it was probably more suited to doing something dangerous with roofing felt but it did the job of caramelising the sabayon beautifully, thanks Rich!DSC05087

Great British Chefs have uploaded a whole load of Strawberry recipes on their site worth checking out and I’ll let you know as soon as Josh’s recipe is available, blowtorches at the ready peeps!

Have a lovely, sunny weekend xx

Toad in the Hole

Recipes

National Butchers’ Week starts today! Great British Chefs asked me to cover this for their blog pages so I went to one of my favourite shops in the East Midlands. The full article is here.

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I had a great time at John F. Pitchford’s butcher’s shop as you can probably tell so for my favourite blog readers (you!) here are some extra photos from my visit:

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Local Football Team Photos

 

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Outside the shop

 

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Southwell Minster

 

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Ray showed me a picture of some prize winning beef

 

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Ray with the beef in the cool room

 

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Yum!

 

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Ray (left) Adrian (right)

 

Southwell Minster

Southwell Minster

 

Whilst in the shop I picked up 6 of their handmade sausages which I made into a big tray of Toad in the Hole for dinner. Why not grab some bangers from your local butcher this week and have a go!

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Toad in the Hole

Serves 3 -4

Ingredients

300ml milk
3 eggs
60g self raising flour
60g granary bread flour or other wholemeal variety
6 sausages
1 tablespoon of sunflower oil

1) Preheat the oven to 200°c

2) Mix the eggs together with the milk in a jug

3) Put the flours in a bowl and the add the milk and egg mixture, whisking to make a smooth batter, place in the fridge to rest until required.

4) Bake the sausages in the sunflower oil for 20 minutes in the oven,

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5) Pour in the rested batter and quickly put back into the oven for another 15-20 minutes or until well risen and golden brown

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6) Serve with steamed veggies

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I hope you have fun checking out your local butcher but if you fancy visiting the Pitchford brothers I can highly recommend it. Southwell is great for a lil’ day trip, have a look round the Minster, check out the WI vegetable market on a Saturday and go say hi to the guys in the butcher’s shop.

John F. Pitchford, 1 Market Place, Southwell, Nottinghamshire, NG25 0HE

Getting Festive

Recipes

It’s the first weekend in December so I have been given permission to put up the decorations!

I’ve been itching to get the baubles and crepe paper out ever since I spied a thrifty Christmas tree alternative out the window, in the form of a rather enthusiastic shoot on the bay tree in the front garden. It’s the perfect Christmas tree shape (in my eyes anyway) and I thought if we lopped it off our housemates might think we’ve been busy doing some really helpful garden pruning (two birds, one stone – hurrah!) ..and bay smells great, triple win!

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Bay Christmas Tree

I decided that putting up the tree (albeit a few hacked off branches set in a tin filled with plaster of paris) should be celebrated with a festive treat. I often turn to Great British Chefs when I want inspiration for a special meal. Their recipes are easy to follow and their website and apps have some wonderful foodie photography.

For a festive lunch for us hard working streamer-hangers; I whipped this up from their Christmas collection:

Salad of smoked trout with horseradish crème fraîche by Geoffrey Smeddle

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Ingredients

  • 8 small smoked trout fillets
  • 4 tbsp of crème fraîche
  • 1 tbsp of horseradish cream
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 1 pinch of paprika
  • 200g of mixed salad leaves
  • 1 cooked beetroot, sliced
  • 1 lemon, cut into wedges
  • olive oil

1. Ensure the trout fillets are trimmed and cleaned
and the skin is removed. Check for small pin
bones, removing them with tweezers

2. Place the fillets on a plate, cover with cling film and refrigerate until later

3. Stir the horseradish cream into the crème fraîche, adding paprika and lemon juice to taste

4. Arrange slices of the beetroot in the middle of the plate

5. Arrange the smoked trout fillets on serving
dishes. Dress the leaves with some olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice

6. Arrange the leaves beside the fish fillets and spoon on a generous dollop of the horseradish crème fraîche, either on the fish itself or just to one side

7. Serve with a wedge of lemon on the side to squeeze over the fish, and eat at once

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I’ve tried this recipe with hot smoked salmon and the combination is still fantastic. The crème fraîche with horseradish is wonderful with smoked fish and I stained the lemon juice and olive oil dressing with beetroot to adorn the plate as much as the tree!

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