Risotto verde

Here are some photos of a recent dish done for work, it is a light and summery risotto made with baby asparagus, sugar snaps, peas, spring onions, tossed with a bit of pesto and topped with parmesan shavings.




To get the risotto green its best to make a white wine and cream reduction with spinach blended in for the colour, then save this for finishing the risotto, blanche all the vegetables so there al dente then chill, make up the risotto with white wine and veg stock, when it is al dente add the whitewine/cream/spinach reduction.
Add the vegetables last, cook whilst constantly stirring to make sure it doesn't stick for a couple of minutes, then serve in a deep bowl with some shavings of parmesan, and a sprinkle of fresh herbs, here it is mixed with a bit of pesto and dressed with a bit of olive oil, but a nice herb oil (basil, thyme,chive) or truffle oil would work well.

Confit of Belly pork with mash, braised cabbage, crackling and red wine jus

Heres a favourite of mine, slow cooked belly pork.

After stripping down the belly of excess fat carefully 'butterfly' the belly to double its surface area, rub it all in chinese spice, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and dried chilli, add some fresh herbs then roll tightly and tie.
Add it to a large tin filled with seasoned oil (1/4 olive 3/4 veg), cover in tin foil then place in the oven for 4 hours at 140 degrees.



The black pudding puree is made by pan frying some black pudding slices, blending them down with butter, red wine, a dash of cream and seasoning.

The braised cabbage is finely diced and added to a hot pan with a knob of butter, as it starts to soften and break down, add a cup of red wine and cook until soft.

For the crackling, I take it off the pork belly (ask for it with the belly from the butcher), rub it in oil and seasoning then place it between two racks to stop it warping, place in an oven for an hour or so on low, the idea with crackling is to dry it out more than cook it, so its best done slowly until all the fat is rendered out of it without burning the now dessicated skin else you will end up with either underdone chewy crackling, or with it burnt with an acrid taste.

The red wine jus is made by reducing 1/2 a bottle of wine by 2/3's with a dollop of redcurrant jelly and a handful of sugar.

Once the pork is cooked its best to let it cool for an hour then wrap tightly in clingfilm so it chills in a nice circular shape, afterwards slice and re heat in a pan or in the oven.

Rabbit terrine, with whisky, carrots and buttered leeks, served with pea and shallot puree.

Its been a while since my last update, been doing some ridiculous hours but found time to smuggle my camera into work and make some food (Loving the excuse of the 'specials' board)

So heres my rabbit terrine, I got two rabbits from the butchers fresh from the market, on top of that you will need : 3 carrots, 1 red onion, 2 celery sticks, 2 shots whisky, 1/2 a bottle of red wine, 1 leek, basic mirepoix, thyme, rosemary, 2 whole garlic, 3 leaves gelatine, seasoning (peas, 2 shallots, veg stock, white wine for the puree)

I washed, seasoned and trussed up the rabbits with thyme, rosemary and sliced garlic, then placed them in a deep tin, with the mirepoix and red wine underneath, then covered in tin foil and put it in the oven for 3 hours at 160'c, taking it out every hour to baste with the juices.

After its cooked I left it to settle for 20 minutes, then put on a few pairs of gloves so I could handle it hot then shredded every available scrap of meat off them, using a small pairing knife to dig it out of every nook, then added finely diced celery and red onion to the mix, I sieved the juices, then reduced them with 2 shots of whisky, then added the gelatine and mixed into the meat, squeezing the meat to take up the juices.

To build up the terrine I did it in layers of meat, stripped carrots and buttered leeks, then pressed it overnight with a large weight.

For the pea puree, flash boil some peas in veg stock and white wine, drain and then blend with roasted shallots until a fine puree, pour slowly into a sieve without pressing it to remove excess moisture, then place in a tub and stir in some small cubes of butter and a dash of cream for gloss and clarity, then refridgorate.

Had great fun doing this, and all in all took less than an 1 hour 30 preparation time!

Practising my food photography

Been playing with my gear today, seriously considering looking into the food photography buisness as at the moment it combines my two favourite things! Click on the photos to enlarge

Salmon and spinach terrine, lime & dill creme fraiche, herb oil, pea shoots

Heres another starter from work.

For the terrine you need:
1kg salmon (about 2/3 of a side, make sure the entire piece is larger than the mould.
6 eggs
1 pint cream
50ml white wine
150g butter (clarified)
200g fresh baby spinach leaves
2 lemons
small bunch of fresh flat parsely, chives
seasoning

To make the terrine, first prep the fish (skin, take out pin bones, remove most of the belly and brown meat) cut up the fish in the shape of the terrine mould and make a 1cm thick piece of the same size, this will be the middle part of the terrine, then dice the remaining fish up and place in a blender, blend down for 30 seconds, then add eggs, blend, then add the cream, white wine and butter. Blend for a few minutes until you have a really smooth glossy consistency, pour this out into a mixing bowl, add the zest of the lemons, lemon juice, chopped herbs and season, wash the spinach, pat dry and coarsely chop, adding this to the mixture.

Once this is done line the terrine mould with clingfilm, add part of the mixture, then place the salmon piece on top 1/2 way down mould, press it in and then add the remaining mixture until the mould is full, then fold clingfilm over tight, then wrap entire mould in clingfilm a few times until fully airtight.

Cook the terrine in a steamer until a core temperature of 70 degrees is reached, for a normal terrine mould this is around 2 hours, once done, let it cool naturally for about 15 minutes, slit the clingfilm to drain excess juices from the fish & steamer, then add a folded cloth to the top of the terrine and weight it down with weights and leave to chill overnight.

Next day, unmould it, re clingfilm the terrine, tidying up edges, then leave for an hour then slice with a warm wet knife with the clingfilm still on.

For the Lime & dill creme fraiche:

50ml creme fraiche
zest & juice 1 lemon
dice a small bunch of dill

For the herb oil:

Blend 100ml olive oil with a handful of spinach leaves, and remaining dill parsely and chives (can use stalks of all these) blend with a small amount of salt and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, then pass through very fine sieve (or muslin).

Pan fried salmon, pea puree, vichy carrots, parmentier potatoes

Here is my starter from the same ingredients as last blog, this time I went for a smaller starter, using the scraps from my main salmon dish.
Firstly I pan fried the remaining scallops in seasoned butter, then knocked up a pea puree, using petit pois cooked in vegetable stock with white wine, then blitzed down with cream, adding small amounts of butter at the end, then the rest was remainders from the main course I had prepared before!

Practising with various lighting and plates at the moment as still getting to grips with my new camera, enjoy :)

Poached Salmon, vichy carrots, sweet potato parmentier, brazed beetroot & coriander emulsion

Here is a dish I created at home today, All food was brought from around the Birmingham market, a great place to pick up cheap fresh seasonal ingredients!



- I cut the salmon with a pastry ring, then sealed the salmon in a pan with the ring on, then added fish stock & white wine to pan and let it poach, removing ring at end.

- I peeled the sweet potato (a northern whiter variety) Then diced it into 1cm cubes, then the parmentiers were sealed in a pan then oven roasted till soft.

- The carrots were washed, peeled, trimmed and then boiled, when soft drain then quickly sauteed in butter and sugar to glaze.

- The beetroot washed, peeled, left to soak for 10 minutes, then sliced on a mandolin then perfect circles cut with a small pastry cutter, these were the slow roasted for 20 minutes on 130degrees then dipped in boiling water for 5 minutes until tender and excess juice has come out.

- The coriander emulsion was made my making a paste of chopped coriander in a pestle and mortar with a clove of garlic and smoked malvern sea salt, then olive oil slowly whisked into at a drizzle at a time.

I made a starter using roughly the same ingredients and will blog this in the coming week.

Playing with my new camera :)

Got a new camera this week, so thought I would take a few pictures at work of the various starters and desserts on the menu this week.


Starting at the top we have my chicken terrine from last week, im slowly refining my recipe each time I make it, almost happy with it now and when I am finally satisfied with it will update the recipe below.

After that we have portobello mushrooms, raspberry vinagrette dressing, poached pears and pine nuts; I can't stop eating the pears off this one, they are slowly poached in just white wine and sugar for about 30 minutes until soft and the wines starting to reduce.

Third is a dessert, warm cherries (in port and kirsch) with vanilla icecream rolled in toasted almonds and a caramelised cherry on top, the twin sauces are a cherry liquer and a light cherry syrup

Next we have some chocolate dipped strawberries for one of our romance packages.

The Next two photos are of our chocolate marquis, served with a lime creme fraiche, caramel sauce and some sugar work/garnish.

Finally the last two are of some of the starters and preparation for them, on there is the mushrooms dish from before; a tomato/smoked bacon bruschetta; pea, poached egg & peashoots soup; seared tuna nicoise salad & last the home made gravlax with a horseradish cream and dill scone.

Got a busy week ahead then looking to do some home cooking next monday for here :)

Chicken, Leek & Pistachio Terrine, grape chutney, pistachio oil

Heres my new terrine for our menu at work this week, a chicken, leek & pistachio one, don't really have a recipie as just went with it, but I shall jot down the jist of it!

Main base is a chicken parfait, I cooked the breasts in the oven over leeks submerged in white wine, then blitzed them down with cream, white wine, butter (amalgamated with a few egg yolks), there own stock, seasoning and a few chives for colour. You want a good thick paste, with about 60% Chicken 20% Butter 10% double cream 10% Wine & stock mix as a rough guide, but I did it to taste more than measurements.

For the internal pistachios I blanced them, then coated them in salt and sugar and roasted them till they crisped, but still had a soft inside. About 15 minutes on 160

The Leeks were stripped, washed, then sauteed in butter and seasoning and left to soften for about 15 minutes on a low heat

Chicken strips were chargrilled and then roasted, cooled and sliced into thin strips.

Then I slowly filled the terrine mould with the parfait at bottom then stripped leeks lengthways and the chicken and a small handful of pistachios, then another layer of parfait, and so on until full. then chilled overnight.





The outer crust is roasted pistachios ground down and rubbed into the chilled terrine then re moulded and clinged tightly to help set. Hoping to use some better pistachio kernels to get a greener colour next week when there remade.

For plating, I used home-made grape chutney (which Ill add the recipie at a later date), a pistachio oil dressing (blitz pistachios down in a bit of herb oil and sieve) and dressed the plate with pea shoots and micro red amaranth.

Enjoy :)