Lobster Newburg & Cherry tomato tarte tatin

Six years on and I've cooked at some amazing houses - add to this now The Folly, Didmarton near Tetbury - such a lovely country cottage!
Get the angles of the butchers block in the kitchen - 'interesting' to work on.....

This is taken from the dining table so it's one of those open kitchens where you watch it all happening in front of you while you eat - quite good when lobster is on the menu!





The host had chosen all her favourite dishes, unfortunately before her nutritionist had put her on a special diet, so she wasn't able to eat 2 out fo the 3 courses and I prepared something special for her (future post on dietary & allergy cooking coming up).

Cherry tomato and wild nettle tarte tatin with nettle pesto

"What's next chef?"

Lobster Newburg with roasted purple sprouting broccoli  with sides of new potatoes and kale with pomegranate and cashews 

Last year one of the clients we cooked for asked for lobster Newburg - her son's favourite dish. I realised how good it was so offered it to more people - the way most things take off really. It's all in the sauce - a brandy and sherry cream sauce with a little cayenne whisked into egg yolks just before serving to thicken. It's a slice of luxury! This was a half lobster, made slightly larger because one of the guests had had to return home to London early. You can also do this with a whole lobster.
You can see more on cooking lobsters here.

Freshly cooked while you're eating your starter

The chalkboard wall in the kitchen is a great idea - especially for the children!

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Fish and chips

".... and some of our guests are American so I thought we could introduce them to english food.... could you do fish and chips?"
Fish and chips? Well it had been a while. 3 years in fact since I filled in a few times at The Bluebell gastro pub in Henley in Arden (near Stratford on Avon) when they were between head chefs.

Cod in Cotswold Way Ale batter

675g self raising flour
1 litre Cotswold Way ale

(Makes enough for c. 20 fillets - maybe you could reduce it to the original recipe for smaller numbers).








Chips

I'm a maris piper convert (contrary to what I said last year). Blanched at 140 oC then crisped at 180 oC. As it was a delivery meal they just needed re-heating in the oven. If you crank the oven up high (220 oC +) they crisp up really well if you use maris pipers.









Triple Cooked Chips

Updated Feb 2019
Then triple cooked chips came into our lives.
For a long time I thought why? Kitchen life is hard enough. Then I tried them. Instant convert. They taste better, they crisp up better. People who eat them say "these are the best chips I've ever had!". That's what you want.

Method

1. Cut Maris Piper potatoes into chip shapes. 
2. Place in a large saucepan and cover with salted cold water. Bring to the boil. Cook till soft inside but not falling apart. There's an optune softness which you find after a few goes at making triple cooked chips. 
3. Drain in colander carefully so they don't crush in the colander. Lay out on clean tea towels to steam and dry. The tea towel absorbs water. The chips can stick to kitchen paper at this point which you then have to peel off before frying- no fun.
4. Heat frying oil to 140 oC. Drop the chips for about 5 minutes till blanched. They should be soft inside with a hard skin on the outside, but blond NOT the finished golden colour. 
5. Take out of the fryer and drain on kitchen paper. If you want to work in advance you can store them in the fridge at this point, or in the freezer if you want to keep for a longer time. 
6. When ready to serve heat the fryer oil up to 180 oC and once up to heat drop the chips for about 2 minutes till golden. Drain and season with salt, then try and get them to the table without anyone stealing one. 

Note - if you don't have a deep fat fryer you can also do this in a shallow frying pan if you cook on an electric hob - I wouldn't advise doing so if you are cooking on gas due to fire risk. I did the frying pan version on holiday and they worked a treat!

Mushy peas

Well minted pea puree Heston style.













Tomato ketchup

When you make your own you wonder why you brought it all those years - this just tastes too good. Recipe from Gary Rhodes' New British Classics.










And I whizzed up some tartare sauce too.

Fruit salad

What you need after this gluttony is some fruit. They had asked for fruit salad. I looked for some more interesting ideas for it and suggested this (no idea where I found it from now sorry).

Pineapple
Mango
Mandarin segments (was segmenting against the clock - where did the time go?)
Toasted blanched whole almonds
Fresh diced coconut

As I was really pushing it for time I took the coconut and finished it at Wellacres - which the hostess was happy with actually as she picked up the coconut opening tip? What? You want it as well? OK - you wrap it a few times around in clingfilm so it is well sealed. Then you need a solid floor this one was stone or paving slabs outside your kitchen door work really well too. Then throw it hard at the floor (great anger management technique) and it shatters inside, but the milk is kept inside the clingfilm. Open into a sieve over a bowl so you collect the milk (can use this for risotto or coconut and mango lassi), then you can de-shell coconut with a spoon. I also peeled it for this.

I made some coconut crisps for them to sprinkle on top too.


Related posts

Fish and chips on the barbecue

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Lamb kofta with millet seed, cherry tomato and watermelon salad

Some people say you shouldn't trust a slim chef. Well I'm sure my chef jackets shrunk in the wash recently.

When I'm talking to the guests I cook for one of the most common things they say is along the lines of 'do you cook for yourself as well' or 'when do you ever get time to eat yourself' or 'you can't want to cook for yourself after all this.....'. But it's when you cook for yourself you throw things together and come up with new flavours or combinations, or quicker, more efficient techniques. 24 hours a day, 363 days a year (there was one day - the first day of holiday last year when I didn't cook) you eat, sleep (I've done a record number of functions in my sleep this week) and live food so not cooking would be like not breathing.

I cracked the 5 minute lunch when working at Claridges - if there wasn't a queue in the canteen I could be away from the larder, grab lunch and be back in 5 minutes. There was no time for lunch yesterday really - Adam who was helping me pack up and then cooking at Wellacres was stuck in traffic getting back from Wales, but I knew I had to fit in lunch somehow because it would be so long till I could get time to stop again (and sure enough it was after 2am), so it was 2 minutes of getting it together and 3 minutes eating while answering an email at the same time. Busy.

I'd been experimenting with millet seed earlier in the week (I've really become a new fan of grains & pulses this year) and still had some left so combined it with left over cherry tomatoes, watermelon and basil from the goats cheese starter. Added some sesame oil and coriander. It needed some acidity - lime zest/ juice would have been good, but as I put the sesame oil back on the shelf I passed over the rice wine vinegar so added this instead. Millet, being similar to cous cous, worked well with the left over lamb kofta.

Related posts:

Pork tenderloin curry in a hurry

Ratatouille macaroni cheese

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