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 :)

Pineapple and lime sorbet, spiced berry smoothie, strawberries in citrus cream

I brought a blender last week and have been blitzing anything I can get my hands on!

Heres a fun dessert ive created today, which is quite simple to make in large quantities and very interchangeable with the ingredients.

For the pineapple and lime sorbet:

- 1 Whole pineapple
- 2 Limes
- 100g Sugar

Peel and core the pineapple, then coarse chop the pineapple and add to the blender, zest and juice the 2 limes, dicing the zest as fine as possible and also add with the pineapple.

Create a sugar syrup to the soft ball stage (120 celcius on a sugar thermomometer) and let it cool slightly.

Blitz the pineapple mix down, then slowly add the sugar solution to the mix blitzing bit by bit, when fully mixed, scrape out and freeze, with the sugar solution and the various acids of pineapple, this is a good sorbet to freeze without the aid of a churner as it wont solidify into a solid block like most frozen fruits and will be quite malleable and scoopable, theres nothing worse than making your own frozen products to find you have to break them with a chisel and hammer!



For the spiced berry smoothie

- 1kg of whatever berries you have to hand, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries etc
- 250g caster sugar
- juice of 1 lime
- 5 spice
- 100ml double cream (coconut milk is a fun and healthier addition too)

blitz all down to a puree, chill and serve




Citrus cream

Whip double cream with a handful of caster sugar to a very light peak, then slowly whip in either lime or lemon juice, as if you were making a syllabub, adjust the sugar quantity to keep the tartness of the citrus at bay

Pancake day! Served with strawberries and a vanilla bean sauce

Well its shrove tuesday and that can only mean one thing, so heres my pancake recipe.

200ml Milk 50ml water
2 large eggs
140g flour
20g sugar
1 tsp salt
zest of a lemon

whisk up the eggs with the sugar and the lemon zest, then add the milk, then from a height sieve the flour and salt into the mixture whilst whisking, then briskly whisk the mixture until smooth, I then usually chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

The quality of the pancake really only depends on the quality of the pan, you need a good thick based pan which preferably is non stick and never used before, rarely is this the case, so its best to salt your pan and have it on a high heat for 10 minutes, then carefully remove the salt (now extremly hot so be careful!) and wipe pan clean with a dry cloth, then add a small amount of butter or oil, making sure the pan is evenly coated, after which remove the excess oil, making sure that its not too hot that the oil starts to smoke.

When you have finally got to this stage, add a small ladle of the batter and swirl it round to get an even smooth covering, cook on one side for about 1 minute until the edges crisp and start to lift, then attempt to flip it (or use a spatula)

You can add various things into your mix, for example, the seeds of a vanilla pod, cinnamon, five spice, various fruit zests, blueberrys, cardamom...to name a few


enjoy :)