Post wedding buffet near Blockley, Gloucestershire - Beef wellington and salmon poached in wild elderflower

This was the 3rd leg of the wedding celebrations explained the bride's father as he made his opening speech while we put the finishing touches to the starters. The wedding had been in California where the couple live and there had been a 2nd leg in Spain, and this was the English leg for guests who hadn't been able to get to the wedding itself. If you're going to do things there's no point doing them by halves.Wellacres makes such a great venue for a more relaxed wedding - we have done so many events there now I know it better than my own house. This comes in useful when you have to make the most of the available space. The kitchen/ dining room is the size of a house in itself, so seating 43 wasn't a problem with some extra hired chairs and tables and we used the central aisle as a buffet table with the waiting staff serving from there. This week was the start of Easter, so it had been so busy with events on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and then this on the Saturday, and then more on Easter Sunday morning. In between I tried to catch up with all the enquiries and other things, so there was little time to photograph food till we had got to the main course.

Canapés

Served with champagne 12:30 – 1:30 in drawing room & cinema room

Smoked trout roulades

Beef, horseradish and rocket on parmesan shortbread

Baked new potatoes with asparagus and hoummous

Mini stilton cheesecakes with red onion marmalade

King prawns in filo with pesto mayonnaise

Buffet Menu

Served from c. 1:30pm in kitchen/ dining area

Homemade walnut, raisin and rosemary bread rolls

XXX

Tartlets of Gorsehill Abbey Farm St. Agnes cheese with caramelised red onion

Marinated melon in mulled wine

Niçoise salad with balsamic dressing

XXX

Beef Wellington with peppercorn dressing

"That's quite a pie" said one guest as they gathered around the central aisle.
I tied up the beef fillet in string, sealed and roasted for 10 minutes at 200 oC. This keeps the right shape as it cooks in the pastry. Then allow to cool, place on rolled out puff pastry and top with mixture of chicken liver parfait, blanched spinach and duxelle field mushrooms. The chicken liver parfait really infuses a great flavour - and great meaty smells waft around as you slice it open in front of the guests. Cooked to 52 oC ish. I had started putting these together at 13:00 as the canapes were on the go and I estimated they were due to be served at 14:00 - 14:10. As it turned out the guests took a bit of time getting to the table, then the host made a speech which all added to the time. I was a bit nervous at one point, as the wellington keeps cooking inside the pastry even after you take it out of the oven due to the steam inside the pastry. So I turned down the heat of the oven and took them out a bit early so it would keep cooking ouside the oven. It all worked out well in the end and every single bit went, even the pastry crust ends.

Elderflower poached salmon with cucumber salad

In the summer when elderflowers come out I pick loads, soak them in water with a bit of lemon stops it going black) for 2 days, strain it and then freeze this liquid for use throughout the year. I used it to poach the salmon for this dish, along with some vegetable stock. It went in the oven as soon as I had finished the beef wellington. Once cooked I drained off the poaching liquid and turned this into an elderflower sauce to go with the salmon.

Salad of free-range chicken with tarragon mayonnaise

The (Madgetts Farm free range) chicken was the first thing to go in the oven when we got there. Celariac remoulade underneath.

Sweet potato cakes with wild mushroom stroganof

The sweet potato for these went in the oven along with the chicken as soon as we got there, and I was mixing it up as the host was making his speech as the guests sat down. As I was frying them up, I flipped one over and accidentally my elbow hit one of the guests lightly as they took their starters. Not exactly the conditions you're used to in a normal wedding venue, but that is the point - it's a more relaxed venue, and all the better for it. Some people I think expect a sweary loud chef (certain TV programmes have a lot to answer for) but in reality, as the bride's mother said afterwards, we're cool, calm and collected, and they often forget we're actually there in the corner.

5 children x chicken goujons and homemade chips

All served with:

Mixed salad

French beans and celery

Glazed Chantenay carrots

Mustard and honey dressed new potatoes

XXX

Glazed lemon tart with rapsberries

Fruit salad

Pineapple, mango, strawberries, passionfruit and blueberries in rosewater and mint syrup and served in a watermelon

Like the fruit salad they had requested for the meal I had delivered to them on Wednesday I knew I could make this one more interesting too. Instead of putting everything in a fruit salad, reducing it to a few really nice things seems to be far better. It's a while since I had used rosewater, and it tasted so good - rhubarb and rosewater would be such a good combination.

There was also a chocolate cake which they had supplied themselves. While I do so many things, cakes are not something I specialise in.

XXX

Coffee, tea and handmade chocolate, pistachio and almond fudge

I had also made english muffins the day before which and we left these with bacon from Home Farm and homemade tomato relish for them to serve themselves later in the evening. We also left any left over food in the fridge so they could graze through the evening or have for lunch the next day.














Related posts:

Other buffets we have served in the past
Homemade fish and chips which I delivered to them on Wednesday

4

Ballottine of duck

I have now updated the previous entry here: http://www.thecotswoldfoodyear.com/2008/07/free-range-chicken-at-smallholding-at.html

0

Barbecue

Summer. Barbecue. Those two words that go together like cheese and bisuits, melon and parma ham, roast beef and yorkshire pudding. It's just something that is.

Back at the Benson household when I was young I had the eponymous role of barbecue lighter, before Dad would come home to take up the role of barbecue chef on the barbecue he made at the bottom of the garden himself from old reclaimed bricks. Along with breakfast chef and kransakake maker it was one of his best culinary roles. We would pick the overgrown herbs from the garden and add them to the flames underneath cooking meat to give it a great flavour, and after the main course had been polished off we would stoke up the coals, add a few logs, switch the lights and the music on, and sit round the fire will after midnight, the sound (and warm breath) of the cows chewing the nettles right behind us.

These days the barbecue spirit lives on, as shown in a recent barbecue at Upper Court.

Skewers of tiger prawns marinaded in chilli sauce with rocket salad and chilli mayo.

Inspired by the quality and intense taste of the Home Farm bacon on the indoor grill at Rectory Park back in January, I added a barbecued bacon, vine tomatoes and St. Eadburgh cheese salad as a starter this year with balsamic dressing. I was lucky enough to arrive at Home Farm one once last year as they were curing their bacon. They take a pork loin, rub in their salt cure, vac pac it and leave it in the fridge for a couple of weeks. The bacon you buy in supermarkets normally bleeds water as you cook it. This is because it has been dropped in brine to cure it - and the bacon takes on some of that brine before it is injected with more water to increase the volume (weight) so you get less bacon for your money and it never goes crisp because it has so much water inside. The bacon from Home Farm is dry cured so loses excess water which means it goes crisp, and that, along with the fact that their pigs are roaming around free in the open air eating natural food, means, along with the bacon from Carol Webb in Chipping Campden it is the best you will ever find.

Barbecued lamb loin fajitas with coriander, iceberg and yogurt pictured just before being rolled up and cut into 3.

Barbecued skewers of salmon interleaved with basil.

Chadbury free range, organically reared chicken poached in Plum and brandy wine from Barnfield winery in Broadway and wrapped in parma ham, then barbcued:

For dessert there were skewers of barbecued caramelised pineapple and barbecued strawberries with white chocolate dip.

1

Wedding at Upper Court, Saturday 22 September

Specially requested main course of coq au vin (free-range organically reared chicken, Oakfield organic portobello mushrooms, Home farm Bredons Norton bacon) with dauphinoise potato, french beans and baby carrots


Coq au vin sauce

The free-range chicken for the coq au vin is taken off the bone before sealing and adding to the tray with onions, the portobello mushrooms, fresh thyme and a couple of bottles of red wine . The bones are then roasted and made into stock - boiling for 6 hours. This is reduced, then seived and the bones put back into the pan, covered with water (refreshed) and boiled for a second time - so you are maximising the flavour. When the chicken is cooked this is seprated and chilled. Later the two stocks are added to the sauce which is then adjusted for flavour & seasoning, a drop of port added and it is thickened.

0

Marquee barbeque wedding breakfast for 120 people

"We were delighted with the catering and so thankful to you and your staff for managing to get here through the floods! The food was absolutely delicious and much commented on by our guests. Very clever of you to produce such a barbecue feast in such adverse weather conditions! Your waiting staff were super too - all very nice people who did their job impeccably. Thank you all so much for your part in helping to make our day so special!"

This is the weekend when the town became Tewkesbury-on- Sea. Unable to get to my house on Friday night (an the rest of the following week) due to 5 feet of water surrounding the town we went straight into Saturday, traversing roads to Newent that saw other drivers take one look and turn around.

There were no vegetable deliveries as our vegetable supplier was surrouned by not flooded roads but lakes, so it was lucky we had been prepared the day before the rains began. It takes more than a few floods to stop us.

Tomato and olive salad
Carrot and toasted seed salad with lemon dressing
Roasted pepper and fresh herb cous cous
Potato, spring onion and chive salad with creme fraiche
Salad leaves with fresh beetroot
An array of dressings

... and barbequed asparagus and garlic butter for steaks

Chicken poached in cherry wine and wrapped in parma ham

Sausages, provided a guest who produces them on his farm

- Sirloin steak marinated in barbeque sauce, here cooked rare. They were barbequed in batches as we served guests to prevent them over-cooking.
- Chicken and leek & chicken and apricot burgers. Thesewere provided by anoher guest, also farmer who produces them.


Friend and ex-Claridges colleague Adam Peirson cooks on the barbque in the catering marquee while we set up front of house.

Related posts

Other wedding events


Link to: Wedding catering at Benson of Broadway

0

Barbeque

Chicken poached in cherry wine wrapped in parma ham
Skewer of salmon and basil
Sirloin steak marinaded in barbeque sauce
garlic Oakfield organic fied mushroom

Served with an array of dressings and salads. More information on our barbeque menu can be seen on our website: http://www.bensonofbroadway.co.uk/summer_barbecues.html

0

Chicken in elderflower

Free range organically reared chicken from the smallholding in Chadbury, poached in elderflowers picked by the river with a creamy grape sauce. The elderflowers are left soaking in water and lemon (prevents discolouration) overnight, then strained. The liquor is used to poach the chicken, and then that poaching liquor is used to make the sauce. New desiree potatoes dug from the garden, with chives and chive flowers picked from the herb garden. All set against the lavender bed of Dove Cottage. Now that's what you call a locally sauced dish. I just can't wait for the grapes to mature on the vines later in the year.

Ref: Elderflowers

1