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Recipe of the weekOne-pot seafood casserole 9. ONE POT … A CLASS CASSEROLE
AND THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER Now, if you were having this at the Alderley Restaurant I would probably be making it with offcuts of lobster, scallops, langoustines, sea bass, halibut … But at home there is no need. I like to think mine would be better than yours but, really, you can make a stunning one-pot seafood casserole with salmon, cod, lemon sole, haddock, mussels… Why? Because the sauce is the thing. Add the fish and vegetables and cook it all together … turn it off … serve with bread … absolutely fantastic. It’s the simple way of cooking seafood perfectly. Just how difficult can it be to poach a piece of fish? I created the sauce for a friend who was genuinely scared to cook seafood. It’s a citrousy chicken-based broth into which the fish releases its own natural flavour to enhance as it cooks. And, being a posh dish, of course, the sauce contains saffron - one of the most expensive ingredients you can buy. It’s up there with winter truffles, at going on £2,000 a kilo, but in the right hands it’s an aromatic godsend. Careful though. Too much and it can produce a medicinal taste. Correctly balanced it becomes one of the building blocks in a one-pot dish that has loads of class. The simplicity or extravagance depends on what fish you put into it. The world is your oyster. For vegetables – see the panaché of new potatoes, asparagus, peas, broad beans, fine beans and cherry tomatoes that we will look at next week. One-pot seafood casserole(serves 6-8)
Ingredients
2lbs chicken wings 3 pints chicken stock 2 glasses white wine 6oz butter 4oz flour zest of half a lemon 2 cloves garlic 3 shallots 1 white leek 2 sticks of celery 2 bayleaves 8 peppercorns 6 sprigs thyme ¼ gram saffron strands 1½ tblsp mild curry powder sea salt and white pepper juice of 1 lemon 2 ½ lbs seafood – anything from cod, haddock, halibut and salmon to scallops, mussels, clams and king prawns. Method
Finely chop the shallots, leek, celery and garlic and sweat slowly with butter. Add the thyme, peppercorns, bayleaves, lemon zest and curry powder until tender. Add flour and gently fry for about 5 mins. Deglaze with white wine and lemon juice. Reduce by half. At this point add the saffron, chicken stock and roasted chicken wings, simmer very slowly for about 30 mins, stirring occasionally. Season with sea salt and white pepper, pass through a fine sieve and set aside to cool. The sauce is now finished and can be frozen or stored for up to 3 days in the fridge. Having made your choice of seafood, dice it into half-inch cubes – making sure the fish is even in size. Season with sea salt, pepper and lemon juice and place in a saucepan with a selection of precooked vegetables, cover with the sauce and simmer for no longer than 5 mins. Then leave to sit in the sauce for 1 minute. It’s now ready to serve in large bowls with freshly baked sour dough. WINE Alderley Restaurant: Emile Chandesais Pouilly Fuisse 2005 Home: a fruity, oaked white
Passionfruit with lime and ginger cream, roasted mango and warm amaretti cookies 8. THAT LOVING FEELING
This dessert sounds so “restaurant” … but it’s just the easiest thing to make. And the bonus is that, apart from the cookies, it can all be prepared well in advance – so there’s no last-minute rush. Simplicity itself. Ideal for Valentine’s Day in a couple of week’s time. Just a few ingredients with bold, impressive flavours and a dramatic eye-catching appearance that looks straight off a restaurant menu. In essence it’s derived from the popular panacotta - but this dish does not have to be turned out of a mould. It can be served up in a cocktail glass, set like a jelly with the intense taste of passion fruit alongside pan-roasted mango pieces. But it’s the finesse of the warm cookies, contrasting with the cold cream that sets the cook apart. They are the only things that need to be done at the last minute and added fresh from the oven. So - if you are one of those people who drive themselves crazy, dashing everywhere on the day of a dinner party – just relax. If stored correctly, you can make most of this the day before and keep it on hold. A nice little light dessert for special occasions. Passionfruit with lime and ginger cream, roasted mango and warm amaretti cookies(serves 6-8)
Ingredients
Passion fruit cream: 750 ml double cream 225 g castor sugar 5 seeded passion fruits 3 soaked leaves of gelatine ½ seeded vanilla pod 2 lime zests 50 g ginger Roasted mango
3 mangoes 75 g castor sugar ½ seeded vanilla pod 1 shot of Amaretto Amaretti cookies
8 oz room temperature butter 12 oz sugar 8 oz plain flour ½ vanilla pod 8 oz crushed amaretti biscuits 1 egg Method
Passion fruit cream
Place the cream, sugar, lime zests, ginger and vanilla in a pan and simmer for 5 mins on gentle heat, add soaked gelatine and pass through a fine sieve. Add the passion fruit seeds, divide into cocktail glasses and place in fridge for four hours to set. Roasted mango
Peel and dice the mango. Mix the sugar with the vanilla and coat the mango. Quickly sear the mango pieces in a very hot pan for one minute and flambé with Amaretto. Leave to cool and refrigerate. Amaretti cookies
Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in a blender, add the flour, then the egg and then the amaretti biscuit and make into a sausage shape. Wrap in greaseproof paper and refrigerate. Assembly
Pre heat the oven to 180oc, cut the amaretti cookie to about twice the thickness of a £1 coin, place on a baking sheet, bake for 8 mins and serve warm, dusted with icing sugar. Place the roasted mango on top of the passion fruit cream and serve with cookies. WINE Alderley Restaurant: Brown Brothers late harvest Muscat 2005. Home: a new world
7. KEEP MUM ... AND LAP UP THE PRAISE
This versatile dish could be a main course but here it’s a starter, in a tartlet shell, that just oozes skill and flair.
This is typically accessible fine dining. A restaurant dish that’s easy and, in most cases with a little thought and preparation, you will even be able to join your guests for drinks when they arrive. How’s that for casual confidence? Like the Lancashire Hot Pot that we looked at last week the original recipe started life as a high end version of a classic poor man’s dish – but there are shortcuts you can take that still make it an impressive opener for an ‘extravagant’ dinner party. It can be done well in advance – at least 24 hours - and then put together at the last minute to make a nice little winter warmer. Fish accounts for around 75% of our sales at the Alderley Restaurant. Possibly because people seem to be scared of doing it at home and often ruin its natural beauty by overcooking. Treat it delicately but, equally importantly, get the sauce right. That’s the aromatic binding that provides background flavours from the lemongrass, chilli, ginger and citrus zest. At work I would use a stock base to make a classic velouté sauce – but at home you could easily get away with a good supermarket fish stock. Fresh crabmeat is great … but tinned crabmeat works here too. And I would normally make mashed potato topping by putting choux pastry through to lighten it - but that’s not critical so long as it’s smooth enough to pipe.
And there you have it – complete with short-cuts. Just serve, don’t give away your secrets … and lap up the praise.
FRAGRANT LANGOUSTINE AND CRAB FISHERMAN’S PIE(serves 6-8)
Ingredients
Short pastry
225 g plain white flour 6 oz salted butter 1 egg Water to bind
Fish
Any amount of different seafood can be used. In this instance I use: 6 oz fresh peeled langoustine 4 oz fresh white crab meat 1 oz brown crab meat 10 fresh scallops
Velouté sauce 1½ pints high quality langoustine stock – or tinned shellfish consommé A roux of mixed butter (4 oz) and flour (4 oz)
The following ingredients need to be sweated in 20z of butter. Add the herbs when cooled and then mix into the velouté sauce: 1 stem of lemongrass ½ red chilli zest of ½ orange zest of ½ lemon zest of 1 lime 3 finely chopped shallots 1 clove garlic chopped parsley, basil and coriander
2 lbs potatoes – mashed until light and fluffy, let down with 4 egg yolks and some milk, seasoned with salt and white pepper.
Method
Short pastry Rub together flour and butter to fine crumb, add egg and little water to bind the dough. Refrigerate, covered, for 1 hour. Roll out to about 3mm.
Butter and flour 6 x 8cm Diametto tartlet tins and line with pastry. Refrigerate and rest in fridge.
Line with greaseproof and fill with baking beans, blind bake for 12-18 mins on 180oc. leave to cool in the tin.(this can all be done a day in advance)
Velouté sauce
Heat up the langoustine stock, melt butter in a pan, add flour and cook for 2-3 mins on a low heat, stirring occasionally. Whisk in the langoustine stock and, again, cook on low heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
To the velouté sauce add the sweated-down aromatics and leave to cool. When the velouté is cool add the peeled langoustines, white and brown crab meat and scallops (chopped if necessary). Note – the velouté sauce with aromatics can also be done at least one day in advance. Only mix in the seafood when ready to build tartlets for serving.
Place the seafood mixture into the tartlets making sure it is just below the pastry top. Pipe mash on the top and place in a pre-heated 180oc oven for 12 mins until golden and piping hot. Leave to stand for 1 min before carefully turning out onto plate. At the Alderley Restaurant we would serve with young spinach or watercress lightly dressed with lemon vinaigrette or shaved fennel.
WINE
Alderley Restaurant: White Haven Sauvignon Blanc, 2006 Home: A New Zealand Sauvignon is a 'must' - crisp, fragrant, with a real fresh taste but a slightly bitter bite to cut through the lemongrass.
6. FINE DINING ON PEASANT FOOD Here we go again … another hotpot! What is it about this Lancashire speciality that makes every chef worth his salt want to take a new twist that turns a classic Lancashire poor man’s dish into high-end fine dining? Well I reckon, as a Rochdale lad, I have a right. I grew up with hotpot and even though I’ve never really been a fan of braised meat I really do like this. At the Alderley Restaurant it takes three days to transform a simple, traditionally thrown-together, one-pot peasant meal into a really special gourmet dish. That’s 24 hours to marinate two different cuts of the meat – neck (the best for braising) and shank (for that important textural difference as much as anything else). Another 24 hours to slow cook on a very low temperature so as not to stretch the proteins in the meat. Then let it cool and sit for another 24 hours so the flavour of the stock can be drawn back into the meat. And, meanwhile, we cook the potatoes separately and press them before cutting out to arrange on the plate. But in this recipe we simplify the process, with a few short cuts, so you can reproduce restaurant fine dining for your own home dinner party. We’re going to cook it in three hours - with the potatoes going in half way through. Not quite the same … but equally nice.
And. instead of red cabbage or beetroot, we’re serving it with a specially developed pickled red cabbage and beetroot chutney. You can make a decent size batch of this, if you like, and provided you store it properly, it will keep for six months or so. You can use it as a regular chutney on anything from a cheese sandwich upwards.
Lamb Hotpot, cabbage and beetroot CHUTNEY
(serves 6-8)
Ingredients
Oil Seasoned flour 3 necks of lamb 2 shanks of lamb 2 sticks of celery 2 carrots 1 red onion 4 cloves of garlic 1 white leek salt and pepper 2 tblsp Worcester sauce 6 deseeded plum tomatoes 1 large glass white wine – reduce by half 1 large glass red wine – reduce by half 5 tblsp red wine vinegar – reduce by half 1 tblsp red currant jelly – reduce by half 2 stems of fresh rosemary 2 pints of veal stock 1 pint chicken stock 2 lb thinly sliced potato 3 thinly sliced banana shallots Chutney1 small head red cabbage 5 fresh beetroots 50 g butter 2 sprigs of thyme 4 juniper berries 2 bayleaves 2 cloves garlic 1 red onion 1 pint balsamic vinegar 450 g demerara sugar 1 glass red wine Method
Take the bone out of the lamb shanks (or ask your butcher to do this for you). Pass the necks of lamb and the shanks through seasoned flour and colour on all sides in hot oil, gently fry the chopped vegetables with garlic and rosemary, add the wine reduction, Worcester sauce and tomatoes. Place the sealed lamb in a suitable earthenware dish and cover with wine, stock and vegetables. Check seasoning. Cover with tin foil and braise very slowly at 140oc for 3½ hours. Remove from oven. Place the sliced potato in a bowl of seasoning with salt and pepper. Layer the potato and shallots on top of the lamb, cook again in the oven for about 40 mins until potato is soft and golden. Red cabbage and beetroot chutney
Thinly slice the red cabbage and red onion, peel and chop beetroot into half centimetre cubes. Crush the garlic and juniper berries in a pestle and mortar. Fry the onion, garlic and juniper in butter until onions are translucent. Add cabbage and beetroot to the pan, with all other ingredients and simmer gently for 1 hour. Set aside. Check seasoning.
WINE
Alderley Restaurant: Gevrey Chambestin AC Rousseau, 2000 Home: A Red Burgundy such as Fleurie, Brouilly or a new world Pinot Noir - 1 light fruity wine to match the delicate lamb. Bringing plum and duck together always makes a perfect marriage … but this time we’re also using it to provide the perfect dinner party. Perfect - because this meal is actually much better if you start preparation two days in advance and then cook it 24 hours before you need it – so you can leave it to improve overnight. That’s 48 hours to make – but it’s well worth the effort. Proper preparation is one of the simple ways that you can recreate the equivalent of a fine dining restaurant experience in your own home. I would be surprised if it’s as good as you would get from my kitchen at the Alderley Restaurant but I hope the difference is not as great as you might expect. First - using legs is less expensive compared with duck breast - but make sure you get the larger legs of the male bird. By curing them overnight the raw meat itself will draw flavours from a dry marinade of salt and spices. The seasoning gets into the meat instead of just sitting on the outside. This can be more effective than using a wet brine marinade where there could be a risk of washing the taste away. And the slow cooking, at low temperature for several hours, means you have plenty of time to put it in the oven and go out to do other things while it’s cooking. Then, whenever you braise anything it pays off in spades to let the meat cool down in the liquid that it’s been braised in ... so it draws flavour back from the stock. And the tart just adds something a bit different … it’s like an upside down version of tarte tatin.
SLOW BRAISED DUCK LEG WITH CARAMELISED PLUM TART
(serves 6-8)
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