007 course meal - James Bond theme dinner party - Cooking for a stag party weekend in Kidderminster, Worcestershire

The name's Benson. James Benson. License to cook.
".....as many courses as possible really here as the stag is a bit of a gourmand, and if possible, James Bond themed" had been the brief back at the begining of February for the dinner party last Friday night.

It took quite a bit of research to come up with some dishes - this was done on the only quiet week I have had the whole year - back in April. A bit of help from Twitter followers then too - that's how I got the idea of linking it to the cocktails, so thanks everyone. Then a few weeks ago it was time to put together the rest of the weekend's food too - Saturday breakfast and afternoon barbecue and Sunday brunch. There were also vegetarian alternatives to think of. How many courses for the Friday night meal though? Well it has to 007 doesn't it?!

I don't cook for many stag parties it has to be said - most holiday houses don't allow them, because they have a certain reputation, but some houses allow more well behaved parties. This was the second stag party I had done at Park Hall near Kidderminster. I still have vivid memories of pigeon feathers blowing around the terrace from the last one, blowing in through to the hall and all over the kitchen..... great fun. It certainly is the most sumptuous house - like having exclusive use of a luxury hotel but with the freedom of a self-catering house, and when you've got someone like me, the catering is all taken care of.

While Hannah and I looked after the kitchen, Anna and Holly of Party Angels took charge of front of house in party dressed as classy Bond girls.

James Bond themed 007 course meal

As James Bond had a certain penchant for cocktails, and this was a stag party (they do like a drop or two) I thought it would be good to take some cocktails that James Bond enjoyed in the books, or may have enjoyed on his travels, along with dishes which feature in the book too.

1: Canape - Blinis with caviar
Caviar and blinis straight from the James Bond books. As a vegetarian alternative I used tapanade instead (looks so similar). We served these with their pre-dinner drinks outside at the front of the house.








2: Starter - Grilled mohito prawns with marinated vegetable salad
Prawn cocoktail comes up quite often in the James Bond books. When I had first seen the mohito chicken recipe I had been wanting to try it out with tiger prawns - and this seemed the ideal opportunity. The prawns had been marinading in the lime, garlic, rum, mint and olive oil while we were in Gloucester serving up a pig roast for a wedding. These were then grilled and threaded on lemongrass skewers. Vegetable salad I cut while the blinis were going out - celariac, carrot, cucumber, coriander, mint, rum, lime, spring onion.

3: Fish course - Crab with whisky and raspberry vinaigrette

Whisky and soda crops up everywhere in the Bond books - apart from the shaken not stirred, possibly the most common. Crab salad also features, so with this course I combined to the two. I crushed up some raspberries with white wine vinegar and passed this through a sieve added whisky and blended it into a dressing with a little dijon mustard and olive oil.

For vegetarians there was avocado and artichoke salad.



4: Main course - Dark and stormy steak with homemade chips
I had given them a choice of 3 main courses and this os the one they went for - classic stag party. Also classic Bond - steak and chips crops up regularly. I had also suggested Duck with kir royale jelly or gilled sole. One of the cocktails I came accross was the dark and stormy - rum, ginger beer, lime and ice. I thought this would go really well with the steak. And it did. The steak too was also marinading in the rum, ginger beer and lime while we did the pig roast. The first largish event I did a few months after starting the buisness over 4 years ago was a caribbean themed canape and cocktail party and I had been hooked on ginger beer for a few months afterwards. It's nostalgia value.
As time was so short I was just going to sear the steaks when I got there - but the le creuset grill pan was a bit too large for the aga, so in the end it wouldn't get hot enough and there was only one thing for it - directly on the aga top, before finishing in the aga oven. The marinade was turned into the sauce, along with some beef stock.

Asparagus and hollandaise was another dish from the Bond books (Moonraker), and this made a nice vegetarian alternative to the main course.

Rooster potatoes made the best chips. I was considering what to put with the steak the day before during making the last minute shopping list and both Adam and Hannah said "Peas!" Well they had a point - buttered peas often turn up in the James Bond books - so they became petit pois a la francaise. Needless to say the stags loved them.



5: Pre-dessert - Shotglass of roasted peach, cranberry curd and candied orange zest
Oh come on - it was a stag party, and there was a running theme of cocktails, so how could you not do something with the sex on the beach cocktail?

Like the apricots for the apricot and frangipane tart we served a few weeks before I roasted the peaches coated in caramel used for tarte tatin apples and a little vodka - extra flavour. Cranberry curd recipe here and orange zest made like the lemon zest.

6: Dessert - Coconut and chocolate tart topped with hazelnuts
This had been staring out of the Marie Claire Food Fast book I had been given for a while. Big coconut fan - I had just forgotten. Another of the cocktails I came accross was the German chocolate cake cocktail. So I took those flavours and applied them to this dessert - hence you have the coconut, white chocolate sauce, toasted hazelnuts. It got the seal of approval from the Party Angels - so it must have been good ;)

As I was plating up the next course one of the stags came into the kitchen routing through the drawers and cupboards. I asked if I could help "I was just looking for scissors and a bowl" he said. There didn't seem to be any scissors in the drawer so I offered mine. "You probably wouldn't want to use them after what we're using them for...." OK - sometimes it's better not to ask......

7: Cheese course - Gorsehill Abbey Farm organic St. Eadburgha cheese with black velvet paste
Originally this was going to be St. Oswold, but the organiser of the stag party had a joke organised for the stag involving the nose of the brie - it is really bad manners to cut the nose off the brie. Apparently. So I changed it to St. Eadburgha which is similar to brie. Black velvet - an unlikely combination of guinness and chamagne seems to have a lot of fans. Guinness goes well with cheese - think that marbled cheddar with guinness or welsh rarebit. I set this with (vegetarian) gelatine and cream of tartar.

With a bit more time for the next time we served this James Bond themed meal I did the cheese slightly differently - as seen here.

Just time for coffee and homemade chocolates.

Then as we were clearing up the camera had an argument with a leaking bowl of water being used for cleaning glasses ("...If a glass comes back with a warm liquid in, it's probably advisable you don't try it...."). That's why I don't go for expensive electronic equipment. Similar thing happened with a mobile phone and a leaking tap a few months ago. So that was it for photos of the weekends' food. Shame because there were some other great offerings the following 2 days too such as the barbecued lamb meatballs and orange, ginger and cashew rice salad for the Saturday barbecue and the chelsea buns, waffles and smoked haddock kedgeree with curry sauce for Sunday brunch. But you know what? There'll be another time.......

Related posts

James Bond themed 007 course menu replay - next time we served this we were able to refine a few things -  take a look!

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Chef in Venice #5 - Grilled langoustines with aubergine caviar and rocket salad

“You go” says my holiday companion (in all fairness she does organise the whole holiday) “while I get changed….”
What? On my own? In a food market? You should have seen the dust move.

Food markets for chefs are like the row of chic jewellery, clothes, textiles and glass shops that run from the Rialto to San Marco’s are to the rest of the world. You need it.

You’ll know about the Rialto of course. Even if you haven’t been to Venice. It is the market, the meeting place - and that’s back in the times of the Merchant of Venice. But as you become a more experienced itinerant (as Venetians call visiting tourists) you start to learn the secrets. And one of them is the market stalls in the Campo Margherita.

Venice is really just a serious of very small islands all joined together by bridges. Each of these small ‘islands’ has its own campo (square) and church. The Campo Margherita is one of these secrets. The new glass bridge in Venice, much ridiculed for it’s over-spend and delays, has sealed the fate of many traders in that it takes visitors directly from the Piazzale Roma (the main entrance point, and the end of the road literally - for any road vehicle at least, to Venice) over the bridge and on through Cannaregio passed the Rialto to Piazzale San Marco. If you there just for the day (perish the thought) you might never cross onto the San Palo/ Dorsoduro side.
This is why, walking through the Campo Margherita, you see mainly locals. At the weekends you see the Italian locals too. And when you see the locals you know you’re on to something good. Like the Rialto the fish stalls (there were 3 of them there) start early - while the rest of the city is waking up, and by lunch time they’re packing up. But unlike the Rialto, the prices are much more reasonable. On Saturday and Sunday you see a real market place - antiques, clothes, fabrics, Murano glass - everything you see elsewhere in the city - again, everything but the inflated tourist prices. Yes - the Campo Margherrita is really the place. And while you’re considering your purchases you might just rest in one of the many tavernas for a cappuchino. There’s so many things you can do with langoustines. But sometimes they are such good quality you want to just enjoy them as they are - less, as they say, is more.
I went down the simple route. Turn them oven and cut them straight through the middle.

Then place on a baking tray. Drizzle generously with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and place under the grill till cooked. And I served them with aubergine caviar as shown in the last entry and rocket (dressed with olive oil and lemon juice).

What else could you do with my langoustines?

• You could also grill them on a flat grill, or griddle - the taste that the cooking shells impart - there can be no better taste.
• You could also sprinkle over chilli and garlic as they cooked, or chilli oil.
  You could also serve them raw as sashimi (not advisable for children, the elderly or pregnant ladies).
• You can also drop them in court bouillon for a minute so they cook that way, leave the body on but peel the tail, so you pick them up by the head and dip the tail in flavoured mayonnaise.
  

Notes

Always buy your langoustines live. As soon as they die the flesh deteriorates. Like lobsters the flesh goes to a mush. They may be cheaper in a supermarket, but it’s worth finding out a real fishmonger who sells them live.

It’s hard to find a good high street fishmonger these days in the UK - the old business model just doesn’t work with the reality of supermarket shopping. Many fishmongers have moved from the high street to obscure sites on industrial estates from where they serve the catering trade. Many of these are also open to the public - such as Simpsons in Stratford opn Avon and New Wave in Cirencester which I have been to - though I see now that New Wave have opened a shop in Cirencester (which I will have to investigate) - that is a good step forward.

It’s worth looking these up in the yellow pages, and you can phone them an order to pick up, or if you‘re on their delivery route they may well deliver.

For more Venice dishes see here - http://www.thecotswoldfoodyear.com/search/label/venice

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Chef in Venice #4 - Aubergine caviar

Cut your aubergine (I used the local variety) in half, then score down to the skin (taking care not to actually cut through - you don’t want to dice it).


Drizzle generously with olive oil (aubergines really soak it up) and season with salt, pepper, and any spice if you want to - cumin is nice. As we had rosemary in abundance I studded it with these, pushing them down in to the flesh, so as they cooked it would impart the flavour. You can also use whole garlic cloves. These roasted for around 45 minutes or so at 180 oC.
Once cooked you can take a dessert spoon, and run it along the skin to scoop up the roasted flesh. Then chop it, mix with crème fraich/ or marscapone/ yogurt (depending on what you have), olive oil, lemon juice and season. Ideally you add chopped fresh coriander too.

What else to do with aubergine puree

• If you want a strong roasted flavour leave them uncovered - if you want a lighter taste and colour cover the tray of aubergines in foil while they are cooking.


• You could puree the cooked aubergine in a food proccessor and add the resulting puree to you red wine sauce.


• It makes a great vegetarian sandwich topping.
  
• Instead of roasting like this you can put it directly on the gas flame of your stove. Keep turning every 5 minutes or so. By the time it is cooked in the middle it will be well charred on the outside. This gives the resulting puree the most wonderful smoky flavour.

For more Venice dishes see here - http://www.thecotswoldfoodyear.com/search/label/venice

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