Of all of the one million food related shows on TV ‘Masterchef' has always been my favourite. The one thing that propels it ahead of shows like Raymond Blanc’s The Restaurant' is its almost tireless mission to stretch the abilities of its contestants with seemingly undoable challenges. 'Obviously' part staged but never the less impressive feats, that give us hope in our fellow humans ability to do something they and we didn’t believe was possible a few weeks before.
'The Restaurant' on the other hand seems to showcase a different
viewpoint on our potential. Not
one that sees the best in people but in fact the opposite. It’s the television
equivalent of school kids pulling the legs of frogs and racing them round a
obstacle course made from bits of random stationery. It’s the Apprentice, its Big Brother, its I’m a z-rated celebrity get me out of here, its one of Simon
Cowel’s awful ‘ripping down our confidence piece by piece’ shows that make me
want to scream and break things. Very
entertaining yes, but only for that moment. Only for that moment will I find
entertainment in some loveable chavy chef, hopelessly putting together one of
the worst plane shaped cakes I have ever seen. Though his humility and
embarrassment will undoubtedly stay with him for some time to come, for me the
memory will last only as long as Jedwards pop career.
Which is some strange way brings me to the Blaggers Banquet. Here we were with an opportunity to take over Hawksmoor a restaurant in London for one whole day, none of us restaurateurs. To make it even more difficult we had to source all the food for free, not pay for any staff, sell the tickets ourselves and for sell them for a whopping £75 each. This wasn’t for TV ratings, it was in Aid of Action Against Hunger and so therefore brings with it a whole new level of pressure.
My task was simple enough. All I had to do was cook the main courses, something that I knew was well within my potential. So I set about planning a menu from the current information I had. So far I had been told we had secured a random selection of winter veg, some buffalo steaks and some stewing lamb and pork as well as some random bones for making sock.
I instantly knew what to do with the Laverstock Park buffalo steaks. My opinion was that if everything else was a complete disaster then some well cooked steaks with some nice chips and a good helping of béarnaise should prove a well-timed distraction. This much I was pretty sure I could handle even for 50+ people.
With the lamb I had no real idea at this point but with the pork I had a secret weapon. I have done on a few occasions a very successful Mexican pork stew. Pork braised slowly in cider, chicken stock and chipotle chillis. Served with some warming winter vegetables and some cooked ceviche (in lime juice) I figured I was on pretty safe territory for success. I fussed over the last ingredients I used and worked out some rough timings for a 10kg batch of pork. It all seemed doable, so I began to relax.
I spent the next week concentrating on my final exams and Tante Marie, content in the fact that all I had to do was come up with a lamb dish to go along side my other two full proofs.
Two days before the event came, one exam left to do and I was in for a shocker. NO PORK!
In fact the night before the event I was still a little in the dark about what meat we would actually have. It reminded me a lot of the Masterchef challenge when they take them to a school or army barracks and have to cook for unfeasibly large numbers. It was similar and perhaps more daunting considering this was
a) not a school
b) people were paying £75 a head for this food
and
c) this was not a television show with cuts and edits.
In fact with
all my exams and everything going on around me with new jobs and other things, it was
only the night before the event that the enormity of the task eventualy hit me
and for once kept me from going to sleep. Instead of sleeping I tried to think up with a few recopies I could use the next day. I think it was about 3 in the
morning when I finally decided on my menu. It wasn’t until I got up the next
day and had a quick shifty around the Internet that I would discover if either
were remotely doable.
These are my two stews I came up with.
Braised Beef cooked in Beer with winter veg and chipotle en adobo
Beef supplied by
10k of braising steak, fat trimmed as much as possible
8 Bottles of Curious Brew Admiral Porter
2 ltr chicken stock (beef or veal probably better but lack
of prep on the day forced it to be chicken stock, which is actually fine in
practice and in some cases makes for a lighter more flavourful broth)
I large tin Chipote chillis in Adobo sauce ( I wanted this
to be a subtle undercurrent. If you want a spicy stew add a lot more. )
2k of carrots diced
2k onions diced
1k leaks diced
bay leaf/thyme sprig (bouquet garnie. I don’t use parsley,
as its flavour is never transferable)
Peppercorns
Various winter veg cut into large chunks or batons
smoked salt and white pepper
The process is simple enough. Brown the beef in a hot pan to develop the browning flavours for the broth. Remove and add the diced veg. Add a touch of salt and stir until soft and let the moisture pick up all the flavourful brown bits on the base of the pan. Once soft I add the chillies and sauce and stir for a few minutes.
Add the beef back into the pan and cover with beer and chicken stock. Bring to the boil then skim of some of the scum and cover with some wet greaseproof paper and leave on a simmer for about 2-3 hours.
You could if you like transfer this pan to the oven and cook covered for the same time at about 140oC. I prefer cooking ii on the stove, only for the reason that I can constantly check the texture of the beef during cooking. Because this is cut into chunks and is not on the bone, the time in between tender 'melt in your mouth' and over cooked and dry is much shorter. If you know your time exactly stick it in the oven but if your are unsure use the hob as opening and closing the oven to check the tenderness will have you there for hours longer than necessary (especially when cooking 10K+ of beef).
Once you think you have a beef that you can easily slice with a spoon take it immediately of the heat and leave it to cook in all the cooking juices. This is as essential with braises as resting the meat is with roasts or frying steak. As the meat cools to around 60oC it sucks back a great deal of the cooking liquor and makes it even more moist and flavourful. It is this step in my mind that separates the men from the boys.
At this stage we did an awful lot of skimming the fat. The meat we had received while beautiful was pre diced. So the time it would have taken for one person to trim 10k of fatty beef would have been far too long, so I trimmed what I could and skimmed the rest here.
Drain of half of the skimmed cooking juices and strain into a separate container. Place the winter veg in a pan and cook until softened and slightly browned. Add the juices and boil the liquid, cooking the veg though and reducing the juices. When you have a nice consistency of the juices begin to season until the flavours pop out at you.
Add back the beef and warm though before serving.
Lamb Hot Pot.
Lamb supplied by
10k lamb neck diced
2 ltrs chicken stock
1 bottle of white wine
2k of carrots diced
2k onions diced
1k leaks diced
bay leaf/thyme sprig (bouquet garnie)
Peppercorns
2k onions finely sliced
750g unsalted butter
lots of potatoes (juts lots)
As before brown the lamb in a pan, remove, add diced veg and gently season. Add back lamb and add chicken stock. Cook with the bouquet garnie and peppercorns until tender as before. Leave to cool.
Skim, pass and reduce the cooking liquor until it can be used as gravy.
On the night I must admit this was the area I had most of my problems. I wasn’t at all happy with the tenderness of the lamb despite good reports. The issue came not from the lamb but from the fact that Hawksmoor only had one pot big enough to braise on the stove and it needed to be placed in the oven and braised in a covered tray. This would have been fine if the oven hadn’t stopped working 1 hr into cooking time and left me rushing about braising at high temperatures and cooling in flat trays at the end to make up time. As I said not prefect but I think we got a decent result in the end.
The other components to the dish are very simple. Onions cooked very gently in butter and then in white wine. Using a frying pan either on a very low setting or just to the side of the direct heat gently cook the onions until incredibly tender in the butter. Once tender add a good helping of white wine and reduce slightly then season.
The last element was the triple cooked chips that would act not only as the top of the hotpot but could also be served with the steaks. Slice the potatoes into 2cm thick pieces and cook in boiling water that is as salty as the sea. When they are at the verge of breaking up remove from the water and carefully place on kitchen paper and blot dry. Place in the fridge until completely dry. Fry the potatoes in oil at 150oC until slightly coloured, then remove and dry again in the fridge. At service fry at 180oC until brown and crispy.
Serve the lamb on top of the onions, pour on a little gravy
and place the potatoes in a ring on top.
Crispy chicken skin Bites
Chicken supplied by
Not one of my main courses but instead something that I knocked up for the canapés. We were given some chicken to use for stock. Instead of discarding the skin I took it of whole and laid it flat in an oven at 140oC with a little salt and lemon juice. The lower the oven temperature the less it shrinks. I let it cook until dry for a long time then crispened it up at 180oC for a few mins. Chopped it into pieces and seasoned it with togarashi and Maldon salt. Save the oily fat its great on practically everything.
Special thanks go out to Ben, Raluca, Cara , Charlie and our leader Sig who was awesomely prepared for the day. Also a big thanks all the staff at Hawksmoor that lent a hand and all the suppliers mentioned and unmentioned. And last but not least Niamh for being the organiser and excellent commander in chief.
Doing what we did took a Herculean effort, which I am pleased to say we pulled off (much to my own surprise). The kind of attitude this task took in the kitchen was one of heads down and work hard until its time to crack open the wine at the end of service. Thankfully that’s what I got from all our helpers and fellow chefs. There was no mucking about, no going out for a skive or a fag, and no having a few glasses of wine during the day. It was as professional as most of the kitchens I have worked in my career. My hats of to everyone that helped out, it simply couldn’t have been a success without them.
On reflection there were a few things I would have done differently and better but given the randomness of the ingredients I was pretty pleased with how it all turned out. I feel in the end that we started off facing 'The Restaurant' type humiliation but ended up looking like Masterchefs, which is the way we had hoped it would turn out. A lot of money was raised and is still being raised and a lot of people gave up their Sunday and many days in preparation and worked hard for no reward and fed a lot of people a lot of great food…. Job done.
For more info and reviews see http://blaggersbanquet.wordpress.com/
all photos nicked from foodbymark or someone else.
