30th birthday canapé cookery event - learn how to make canapes in your own home

Dear James,

I just wanted to say a big thank you to you and Gill for such a fantastic day and evening on Saturday. The canapé making was absolutely brilliant and everyone really enjoyed it. The food in the evening was delicious. 

I will certainly be recommending you to people in future and I expect we will be back at the house at some point.

Many many thanks again and please do pass my thanks on to Jill and the 2 waitresses.

Best wishes, 

Victoria

Another cookery event success! We seem to be going cookery event mad - this canapé one was followed by a corporate one 3 days later and the next canapé one is a week on Saturday - rock and roll!

For this one we went for a mix of The Apprentice and Hell's Kitchen - I did a few canapé demonstrations at the beginning to help everyone out, then we split the group into 2 teams in two different places in the kitchen. Then those 2 teams had to split themselves into teams of 2 or 3 to take on one canapé each (we gave them recipes in a recipe booklet), do all the preparation (enough for about 20 portions to have later) and do one good one as a display canapé which would be judged at the end in a grand finale. After this we were going to serve their own creations as canapés mid evening before also serving their evening dinner party. 

With so many people to go round helping out & showing things to, clearing up a bit in between we didn't really get too many pics - usual story, too busy. I'm hoping one of the party might send some ;)

 Cold Canapés

Sushi – vegetable and cooked prawns

Sushi making corner

Using their initiative they came up with a creamy wasabi paste to  add to the sushi. The 2 sushi teams were most excited - they'd both always wanted to know how to make it........

One canapé chef decided to marinade smoked salmon in pickled ginger juice. When I saw it I thought it would make a great wrapping for the sushi. So prawns and spring onion were wrapped in nori and this became the centre - turned out very well!

 Mini beetroot rosti with smoked salmon and dill mustard

Rush hour at the stove. Play nicely now! Beetroot rostis are in progress. I gave away my rosti tips. The last rosti was a large whole pan size which magically disappeared - some people couldn't wait for their canapes.

 Hot Canapés

Saffron risotto balls

See these above next to the ginger-smoked salmon wrapped sushi. They had to make risotto from scratch. When we ran out of space on the stove one pair used the microwave. Innovative! 

One guest took the name of the recipe 'risotto balls' and went off on a tangent...... her results are x-rated. Won bonus points though!

Mini Yorkshire puddings with roast fillet of beef
Everyone's favourite canapé. Think that's definitely one they'll be trying at home - you get the recipe booklet to take home.

Spoon of scallop wrapped in pancetta with asparagus puree and shitake mushroom

Searing scallops

 2 different presentations from the 2 teams. We had to judge on presentation and also taste. The first one looked more messy, but had more puree so you got more of the asparagus flavour. The second looked much better - less is more - but you missed out a bit on the apsaragus hit..... judging's not easy..... :)




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Corporate cookery event - learn how to cook your own dinner party

Results time!