Wedding catering at Brockworth Court Tithe Barn, Gloucestershire

There are lots of houses in the Cotswolds called Dove Cottage or Dove House - a few hundred years ago they were kept for their meat. In a lot of houses and barns you see dove holes in the stone walls - but here at Brockworth Court Tythe Barn was a real dovecote. Makes a great talking point as this is where the guests were congregating for their reception drinks. 

Edible flower pots on the table! When I was clearing up the next morning all these had gone - they must have had a serious sugar rush!

Roast butternut squash soup with beetroot pesto served in a bread bowl - do you ever get so hungry you can eat the bowl? 

See how to make the bowls here.

Gill and Anton put together the other starter: ham hock, broad bean, mint and basil pearl barley risotto with beetroot pesto

Matador pie for the main course - similar to this one from a wedding a few years ago. This time we served it with dauphinoise potato, french beans and red wine braised red cabbage. At the tasting they said it was the matador pie that first switched them on to us - they had had the pieminister version at another wedding they had been to but much preferred ours. Not one to argue!
There was also a haddock, tiger prawn and mussell pie with sweet potato mash topping and a meditteranean vegetable pie with crispy filo topping.
When we were clearing up the next day there were compliments from the parents of the bride and groom The pies were the talk of the wedding apparently!

Trio of desserts - strawberry and gooseberry crumble tart, lychee and pommegranate panna cotta and chocolate & blackcurrant brownie

Related posts 

Other weddings we have done

Matador pie 2011

Lychee and pomegranate panna cotta 

0

Triple chocolate panna cotta

So we made this for a party last Saturday. 

This is one we turned out this morning to have a look. As you do. Oh and eat it of course. As you do.

We used this recipe - but just altered it to suit working on our 150ml moulds. Divided the mix into 3 and then  alternated white chocolate, milk and dark. Added a bit more dark chocolate to get a better differentiation in colour.


Related posts:

Passion fruit panna cotta

2

Gift voucher for a dinner party cooked in your home (2)

"I was looking for an unusual gift voucher..... and found yours...."  That was 4 years ago. The lady buying the voucher was buying it for her sisters birthday - you can see the meal we cooked for her here. She enjoyed it so much she in turn brought a gift voucher for her brother which I served a month ago near Bath. Keep it in the family!

Blacksticks Blue cheesecake and the ever popular smoked salmon blinis

When you live in Britain you have to make the most of those balmy evenings - and this was one! The guests gathered outside on the terrace for drinks and canapés while they watched their meal come together in the kitchen.

Trio of smoked trout - Ballottine of salmon wrapped in smoked trout, smoked trout tartare and smoked trout fillet on courgette carpaccio

Smoking the trout fillet before I left - this is something you can't do at the venue - who wants the smoke billowing through their house?

Honey and lavender marinated leg of lamb

Leg of lamb for the main course - marinated in honey, lavender, soy, grain mustard, five spice and a few secret ingredients. Served with crushed Jersey royals - just coming into season at that time

Salad of grilled butternut squash, asparagus, feta and pomegranate with lime and olive oil dressing 

The good thing about large desserts you can serve yourself at the table is you take as much as you like! And of course you get left overs for the next day - they had a barbecue the next day.

Large passionfruit panna cotta - see 'recipe' here

Large apple tarte tatin - it was virtually demolished!

 See more info on our gift vouchers here.

Related posts

Gift voucher for a dinner party cooked in your home (1)

0

Passionfruit panna cotta with pistachio tuile

As served at Wellacres last night (Though this isn't the same one - didn't have the camera.....)

Cooked cream, or Panna Cotta (the Italian sounds better) has to be on the top 10 of everyone's favourite desserts. Previous incarnations have featured caramelised figs and vanilla poached plums. When I was looking at new spring menu ideas, I noted from Eat The Seasons website, passionfruit would still be in season - ideal for a passionfruit panna cotta.

While I rarely use recipes for savoury cooking, for anything pastry/ baking/ dessertwise I mostly do - they're more scientific, and if you get the measurements slightly wrong things can collapse, not rise, or come out in odd shapes. Panna cotta is the exception though.

How much gelatine do I use for panna cotta?

A sachet of gelatine sets a pint (c. 570 ml), and it's a mix of milk, cream, caster sugar and vanilla bean. If it's a warm summer's day (you can wish) and the fridge isn't keeping very cool one sachet for a pint is a good idea so it sets. The rest of the time, if you like your panna cotta softer - more like crème brûlée - use less. This time I used 2 sachets for 3 pints (1.7 litres) and it worked ideally. That made 15. If you use leaf gelatine this will be even easier to measure - 6 leaves of gelatine sets one pint firm, so in this case it would be 4 leaves to a pint for a 'creamy panna cotta' set.

Waiter, there's something in my..... panna cotta

As I was browsing various presentations on google images I came accross this passionfruit panna cotta posted by Johanna at The Passionate Cook.

This gave me the ideal base

I didn't follow her (or effing Gordon's) recipe for the top though. Instead of the normal vanilla panna cotta, I made a passionfuit flavoured version - a mixture of milk, cream, caster sugar and passionfruit coulis till it tasted right. At a guess it was 1/2 milk, 1/4 cream and 1/4 passionfruit coulis and sugar to taste. It totalled 3 pints to which, as I mentioned above, when warm I added 2 sachets of gelatine. Then - as I found out - you have to wait for the mix to cool down before you ladle it on top of the passionfuit jelly - if it's still warm it melts the jelly and the seeds float into the panna cotta mix and you've lost your two tone effect.

Set in the fridge. To de-mould either use your blow torch or them run them under hot water - just remember to catch them....

Pistachio tuile

The pistachio tuiles I made in between serving the children and the adults was the same tuile mix as for the tuile basket, but using a different shaped stencil and with chopped pistachio sprinkled on top. As you take each one out of the oven fold them over the side of the table and use a mug or other weight to hold them in position while they cool. Remember though - if folding over your worktop, just don't open the drawer while they are still there (it all happened yesterday I can tell you!).
You can also make the tuiles a couple of days in advance and keep them in a airtight container.



This has been bookmarked for anyone else who wants to try it on the virtual recipe drawer that is Bookmarked Recipes - your one-stop shop for tried and tested recipes from the food blogger community updated every Monday.

Related posts

Previous bookmarked recipes

2

Vanilla poached plums

After much trial and error (and plum puree) I found the best way is to cut your plums into segments first (or halves if you prefer).

I make a sugar syrup first and thicken it - which you can do with either cornflour or arrowroot. Then remove from heat, scrape the seeds from a vanilla pod in to it, and leave the pod to infuse for ½ an hour.

Then re-heat thickened syrup, cut plums (firm ones are better - less likely to puree) and drop them in to the syrup and cook for around 5 minutes. Keep checking them - they overcook to a puree very easily. It is best to take them off the heat before they are cooked, as they carry on cooking while they cool down. Place in to large roasting tray to cool - the more more surface area they are in the quicker they will cool/ stop cooking.

Ideal served with panna cotta.

2