Buffet in Slimbridge near Stroud

With a pig roast on Friday and a hen party on the Saturday night it was on to Rectory Park in Slimbridge near Stroud early on Sunday (the weekend before last) to cook breakfast then Sunday lunch and leave a large buffet for the guests to serve themselves in the evening.

It's always difficult deciding what to have on your buffet menu. So why not just choose everything? That is almost what we served - a buffet with 21 different items, all made from scratch either on the day or the preceding days. It wasn't all for that night though - the family was staying at the house for a week so it was going to go over a couple of days.

With so much going on there was scarce time for photos so I just got a few quick snaps of the buffet items that haven't appeared here before......

Chorizo, sweetcorn and cheese bakes



I can't quite remember now where I got this idea - I think it was seeing them in a bakery, but I loved it. They are made with puff pastry, and I use welsh rarebit for the cheese part - if you chill it you can cut it and mould it on top of the chorizo and corn, then it melts as it cooks.

Mini burgers with carrot and cumin sesame buns

Everyone loves a burger. Even more when they're hand made. These were made with Home Farm minced beef, cooked onion, chopped italian parsley and seasoning. Once chilled into shape they were grilled.


I was looking for a good burger bun recipe (you need milk in there with the water to make the buns soft), and came accross this one which I really liked. What Dan Lepard doesn't say in the recipe though, is it's best to use his pastry scraper technique to knead the dough. It's so wet that if you try and do it by hand it will just stick. Yes you can add more flour - but if you do that you end up with a drier, heavier texture. Using the pastry scraper instead of your hand to stretch and knead the dough is much easier, and you keep scraping it up and turn it round as you go.

Ham and pineapple pizza

I leave the pizza toppings open to whatever anyone wants, and this is the one they asked for. I grilled a piece of gammon and used some fresh pinepple.

A good tip from the pizza expert is to halve the amount of yeast so the dough doesn't rise too much. The simple tips are always the best.

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Of course the day wasn't finished then though (there are 25 hours in a chef's day after all) there was just time to get back to Upper Court and cook a barbecue with tarte tatin for dessert for another party.

Finger buffet menu

Related posts:

Other buffets we have served in the past

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Assiette of desserts

Our collection of 5 mini desserts has quickly become popular. This latest line-up was served at Rectory Park last night on their wonderful Booths china - where we served the first assiette of desserts last year.

Each time we serve it, it is slightly different depending on what guests choose. While the assiette of desserts I delivered to Upper Court, on the same night, was the same as the one I served in December because they liked the look of that, this one consisted of:

• Mini crème brulee in Japanese spoon
• Chocolate dipped strawberries
• Glazed lemon tartlets
• Mini chocolate éclairs
• Raspberry shortbread (with crème patisserie piped in the middle)

Mini chocolate eclairs The secret to successful eclairs is beating the mix after adding the flour and returning to the heat - that gets the air in there which means you have light airy eclairs rather than shortbread.

Piping éclairs earlier in the day

The thing that puts me off supermarket, and even some bakery eclairs is the thin coating of chocolate icing on top that, in any case, normally sticks to the bag on the way home. I prefer the Hugh version here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chocolateeclairs_82376.shtml. With this thick, rich chocolate coating you've just died and gone to heaven! Related posts:

Previous assiette desserts we have served
What does 'assiette' mean? Assiette of desserts 12 July 2008

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Potato rosti

Yes. You can if you want to. Use a normal grater that is. But it just won’t be as good.

Fillet steak with rosti and roast artichokes, Rectory Park, June 2008

My ideal rosti potato is crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. And for this I use the mandolin to cut spaghetti like strands. If you use a grater, by the time the rosti is cooked, the potato has disintegrated to mash, so you may as well have used mash potato in the first place. If using a mandolin whatever you do use the guard - it saves a trip to the local casualty department. Half a baking potato just does one portion – so it’s an idea to have a another one as spare. Salt it quite well, then leave it to macerate for 10 - 20 minutes. The salt brings out the water.

Then squeeze the potato in a tea towel, a little bit at a time so it is really dry (without the water content they go crispy). Mix in corn flour and a beaten egg (I probably use about one whole egg for 6 - 8 rosti, and maybe 2 tbsp corn flour, but I never measure) and black pepper. The egg and cornflour bind it together so it doesn’t fall apart. If you have egg white left over in your fridge after using just the yolks, use this for your rosti - it's an ideal opportunity for using left overs.
Then you fry them like my crispy noodles - there are some good tips there on frying them.

When cooked on both sides place rostis on a baking tray, then they just need about 5 - 10 minutes in the oven to finish cooking the middle. Then you can chill them if doing them in advance. They need just 5 - 10 minutes in the oven to re-heat when you are ready.

Additional notes

• How to make a stainless steel pan non-stick
• If you make very thin, crisp ones, they don’t need extra cooking in the middle.
• If you leave the raw potato salting for more than 20 minutes it will start discolouring badly.
• A lot depends on the type of potato you use. Desiree, King Edwards, Estima are all very good.
• You can make a large one - the size of the whole frying pan and cut it into pieces.
• They also freeze very well - so you could do them in advance. Just put them flat on a tray in the oven frozen like you do roast potatoes.

Related posts:

Hash browns
Fondant potato
Dauphinoise potato
Rosemary roast potatoes pronto
Boulangere potato
Mashed/ creamed potato
Sunday roast

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Murder mystery evening at Rectory Park

Someone's dead - must be the food. Although it could have been the poison found in the drawing room.

Mini fish pie canape glazed using kitchen tip #8

Yes we catered for another Saturday evenings entertainment with Murder to Measure, this time at Rectory Park in Slimbridge.

Canapes, some of which you have seen before, were on the menu, eaten outside on the terrace in the last of the evening sun, while guests started their detective work.

Japanese spoons of wild mushroom risotto with

smoked salmon blinis in the middle

Asparagus and parmesan made a nice light summer starter, and grilled fillet of beef with runner beans, roast artichokes, rosti potato and a horseradish jus, the main course.

Then, after some revelations from the detectives, there was a specially requested assiette of desserts:

Dark chocolate tart

White chocolate and blueberry cheesecake

Japanese spoon of creme brulee

Strawberry and champagne tartlet

Shotgass of raspberry sorbet

All we had to do then was clear up the dead body.......

Murder mystery companies we have worked with:

Murder to Measure
Murder Meals

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