Wales vs England - Hen party canapé cookery competition - a fight to the bitter end! .... or not :)

Hi James, I just wanted to write and say thank you so much for what was incredible activity on Saturday. The girls had such a brilliant time and it was exactly what we wanted. The canapes were fabulous and all the girls have commented on how brilliantly you organised us all! You have such a wonderful business and we wish you well!

We will all be recommending you to friends of ours as it was such a perfect event for a hen party. The bride to be loved it! 

Vicky
[There's a PS right at the end of this post - wait till then.......]

The 'before' team shot - Let's go!

"Suprise!.... Today we're all doing a cookery lesson"

"I don't cook!" said the horrified hen's mother

"You do today!"

"Ooh - I love an assertive man!....."

Oh yeah - you've got to love hen parties!

Somehow the hen's friend who had organised the whole weekend had managed to keep this part of it a secret - to everyone. They'd all paid for something, just didn't know what. 

Once again we were crossing The Apprentice with Hell's Kitchen - a cookery event is good, but it's so much more fun when you're competing against your friends. In this case there was a welsh team and an english team. 

Snowy Cotswold hills from the terrace of hill house - like you're transported to the Dolomites

After a few demonstrations from me of techniques they would find useful it was over to the team captains to organise their teams. It may look daunting at the beginning, but actually - as they quickly found - when you split your group up into sub groups which take on one canapé each, actually it's quite straight forward - and rather enjoyable.

As always they had their trusty recipe booklet with all the info and I was going round everyone to give a bit of help, support & tips.

Complete with recipe booklet

Cold Canapés

Vegetable sushi

Mini beetroot rosti with smoked salmon and dill mustard

Hot Canapés

Saffron risotto balls
Mini Yorkshire puddings with roast fillet of beef

Spoon of scallop wrapped in pancetta with asparagus puree and shiitake mushroom

Beetroot and potato on the mandolin to make beetroot rosti

Making smoked salmon rosettes to go on rosti  & cutting brie for risotto balls - eyes down!

When you run out of space in one kitchen you overflow into the next kitchen. Making  asparagus puree here.

Yorkshire puddings fresh from the oven - haven't they risen well!

Seasoning sushi rice - vitally important you taste it! Their's tasted great!

Rolling arancini

Plating up time (note the beer bottles - these events are relaxed affairs!)

And when you run out of space in both kitchens you spill over into the dining room to make your sushi!

Judging time!

• Vegetable sushi

We judge on presentation & taste. On the left was the english team - much more uniform round shape. But the seasoning of the rice of the welsh team (right) was much better - don't forget the seasoning dulls down as the rice cools, so it needs to be slighty more seasoned than you think it should to take account of this. This is why supermarket sushi tastes so awful - it's too old by the time you buy it. 

The carrot decorations got bonus points though!

• Mini beetroot rosti with smoked salmon and dill mustard

The hen with her beetroot rosti & smoked salmon.  "Good enough to be on Ready Steady Cook!" I quipped. Actually she had been. "Ainsley Harriot!" gushed the hen's mother "Such a lovely man - gave me a great big hug!" Everyone loves Ainsley!

The english team on the left again, and the welsh on the right. Equal points on taste - it's just so good. But on presentation -  maybe the english teams rosti could have been a bit more bite size - such a good effort & labour of love though! Great result from the welsh team!

• Saffron risotto balls (arancini)

The welsh team above - an iphone is never far away......

Any dip? Quick ransack of the fridge turns up some tomato salsa - great dip!

The english team goes more rustic (above).

Well presentation-wise the welsh teams were much more uniform shape. Also turned out more flavoursome risotto. The english team's risotto maker had added a lake of stock half way through to try and speed it up. Turns out it's better just to wait and let the rice absorb the stock naturally - rice ends up more creamy: well you live and learn! :)

• Mini Yorkshire puddings with roast fillet of beef

What a great job on these - everyone's favourite canapé. The english team (left) went for a bite size canape version, while the welsh team went for a more rustic brunch size version. Who's right? Both are good! Slight overcooking on the beef though for the welsh team - not sure what my wedding guests would say if I served them like that - so I think the english team won through on the taste there - judging's a hard thing!

• Spoon of scallop wrapped in pancetta with asparagus puree and shiitake mushroom

Welsh team above and below right. English team below right.  On this one both were as good each other! A national tie!

Final results though as I added up the marks - the welsh team won by 5 points - hoorah! for Wales. And hoorah for all my canapé chefs and their wonderful creations - you all did a wonderful job! Amazing what you can do really - isn't it!

The 'after' group team photo - cheers!

"Seemed like a lot of faff at the beginning" said the hen afterwards "... but then you get going, and get into doing your own thing - and it's really quite easy and so worth it - it all tastes amazing!"

Yay - fun time was had by all!

PS - Thanks for choosing Wales as winners - always good to get one up on the old enemy!

Well... 'choosing' had nothing to do with it - it's a fair & honest contest!



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30th birthday canapé cookery event - learn how to make canapes in your own home

Dear James,

I just wanted to say a big thank you to you and Gill for such a fantastic day and evening on Saturday. The canapé making was absolutely brilliant and everyone really enjoyed it. The food in the evening was delicious. 

I will certainly be recommending you to people in future and I expect we will be back at the house at some point.

Many many thanks again and please do pass my thanks on to Jill and the 2 waitresses.

Best wishes, 

Victoria

Another cookery event success! We seem to be going cookery event mad - this canapé one was followed by a corporate one 3 days later and the next canapé one is a week on Saturday - rock and roll!

For this one we went for a mix of The Apprentice and Hell's Kitchen - I did a few canapé demonstrations at the beginning to help everyone out, then we split the group into 2 teams in two different places in the kitchen. Then those 2 teams had to split themselves into teams of 2 or 3 to take on one canapé each (we gave them recipes in a recipe booklet), do all the preparation (enough for about 20 portions to have later) and do one good one as a display canapé which would be judged at the end in a grand finale. After this we were going to serve their own creations as canapés mid evening before also serving their evening dinner party. 

With so many people to go round helping out & showing things to, clearing up a bit in between we didn't really get too many pics - usual story, too busy. I'm hoping one of the party might send some ;)

 Cold Canapés

Sushi – vegetable and cooked prawns

Sushi making corner

Using their initiative they came up with a creamy wasabi paste to  add to the sushi. The 2 sushi teams were most excited - they'd both always wanted to know how to make it........

One canapé chef decided to marinade smoked salmon in pickled ginger juice. When I saw it I thought it would make a great wrapping for the sushi. So prawns and spring onion were wrapped in nori and this became the centre - turned out very well!

 Mini beetroot rosti with smoked salmon and dill mustard

Rush hour at the stove. Play nicely now! Beetroot rostis are in progress. I gave away my rosti tips. The last rosti was a large whole pan size which magically disappeared - some people couldn't wait for their canapes.

 Hot Canapés

Saffron risotto balls

See these above next to the ginger-smoked salmon wrapped sushi. They had to make risotto from scratch. When we ran out of space on the stove one pair used the microwave. Innovative! 

One guest took the name of the recipe 'risotto balls' and went off on a tangent...... her results are x-rated. Won bonus points though!

Mini Yorkshire puddings with roast fillet of beef
Everyone's favourite canapé. Think that's definitely one they'll be trying at home - you get the recipe booklet to take home.

Spoon of scallop wrapped in pancetta with asparagus puree and shitake mushroom

Searing scallops

 2 different presentations from the 2 teams. We had to judge on presentation and also taste. The first one looked more messy, but had more puree so you got more of the asparagus flavour. The second looked much better - less is more - but you missed out a bit on the apsaragus hit..... judging's not easy..... :)




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Warm fillet of salmon gravadlax with rosti potato, cucumber noodles, beetroot and a dill mustard dressing

So much wonderful food in the last week, but all I have to show for it is this one dish. So busy with 87 people over 5 parties in 2 days there wasn't much time for photos. So no photo of the pigeon salad ("the pigeons are in the courtyard, they just need feathering and gutting.....") with celariac puree, black pudding, parsnip crisps and mustard vinaigrette, no photo of the pheasant au vin with pearl barley risotto, or the canapes (savoury and dessert), or the rack of lamb dish finished, or the white chocolate and blueberry cheesecake which I rather like. What we have here though is the salmon gravadlax for another new dish.
I've always loved warm smoked salmon - thinly sliced and warmed slightly under the grill it makes a great starter with a beurre blanc and a little salad. When I was looking at new menu ideas around new year I thought of using gravadlax instead.

Gravadlax was always a Saturday night job at Claridges - late after all the banquets had been sent. You had to hide the whole salmon fillets deep inside your fridge so the fish section wouldn't use them during their service, and then do it on Saturday night in case they came in early on Sunday to hunt them out. It takes a minimum of 2 days, preferably 3 to marinade, so if you had to wait till Monday you ran the risk of running out of time.


These were done on Thursday morning for Sunday night. Having done this so many times I never use quantities, but you start with orange and lemon zest and equal amounts of sugar and salt. If you have any caster sugar left from making candied orange or lemon zest this is ideal to use because it has extra flavour. To this you add a few juniper berries pounded in the pestle & mortar (or broken with the back of a knife), milled black pepper and chopped dill. Sprinkle this over the salmon and press it on. If you are slicing it thin, like smoked salmon you use skin on salmon which makes it easy to carve. Make a little nick in the skin so the marinade flavours go through the skin. Here I am using 150g fillets to serve it as a main course. You can also add vodka, cognac or gin which give you an extra flavour. Also beetroot to make the russian style gravadlax.

After this I put another tray on top, wrap it well so it doesn't get exposed to the air which would dry it out, then it is pressed (if you haven't any heavy weights you can use a saucepan full of water) at the bottom of the fridge - that way any juice that drips out doesn't go over anything else in the fridge. The pressing along with the salt helps remove some of the water content in the salmon which cures it.

2 or 3 days later you remove the marinade layer of salt, sugar, zest etc and sprinkle them with a small amount of fresh chopped dill to just coat the top, and you can bake them in the oven. Because it is cured you don't have to cook them all the way through.

Gill took these ones away to Hill House to cook for a hen party, while I was cooking pigeons, pheasants and lemon tart for a stag party at Park Hall near Kidderminster so I will get a photo of the finished dish this coming weekend when I re-create it at The Boathouse near Stratford-on-avon - watch this space.

Edit - Photo added above, taken rather hurriedly as Delia was rushing to take it to the table while it was hot - only right really.

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How to make potato rosti

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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.

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