Thai Beef Stir Fry

Thai Beef Stir Fry Portions: 6

Ingredients:

• 800g Beef Fillet tails
• 500g Baby Carrots
• 500g Beansprouts
• 500g Green Peppers
• 300g Shitaki or Enoki Mushrooms
• 1 Bunch of Spring Onions
• Corriander
• Cashew Nuts
• 1 Red Chilli
• 2 Star Anise
• 30ml Soy Sauce
• 3 Limes
• Tiriyaki Marinade

This recipe is my most recent creation, I made it at work for a special and seemed to have gone down well. I got the inspiration from working at my last job which was at a Thai restaurant. They served a similar which was one of my favourite dishes, the only thing was it was unbearably hot and spicy! So I have adapted it to make it even better than what I remember.

This is one of the easiest recipes I will ever put up, so if you are on the lazy side then try this one for sure!

The Beef

I have chosen Beef fillet tails to use as they are lean but not as expensive as a fillet. Its a hard one to toss up between how to cook the beef. I would choose either to cut it into small strips and flash fry it, however personally I would slow cook it in the marinade for at least 5 hours in a bag at about 80 degrees Celsius. Doing it this way means you will collect every bit of meat flavour that comes out along with the marinade and all of this will make the basis of your stir fry juices even more amazing! Once you have cooked the beef, cool it down and shred it into smaller pieces and separate from the juices

The Juice

Once you have separated the juices from the meat, to make the liqueur. Put it in a saucepan and heat up with star anise, lime juice, soy sauce, coriander stalks and half a chilli (but if you want it hotter, throw the whole chilli in) Bring this to the boil and then pass off through a sieve to remove all the big and small bits. Remember to taste it and add more of anything if you feels it needs it.

 

The Vegetables

 

 

The Vegetables are so simple, cut the baby carrots into small pieces lengthways, thinly slice the green peppers and fry in a hot pan or wok with the bean sprouts for a couple of minutes. Add the Enoki mushrooms, and if you cant get Enoki mushrooms then Shitaki Mushrooms will work just as well. Then add the spring onions and beef along with a drop of the liqueur make sure it heats up well.

And just to finish add some crushed cashew nuts and roughly chopped coriander and that is it!

If you really cant be bothered to make this recipe you should be ashamed! So wonderfully tasty as well as being simple the should be no reason not to do it, especially if you enjoy oriental foods!



Lamb Cutlets, minted mash and glazed baby onions

Lamb Cutlet Portions: 4

Ingredients:

• Lamb cutlets (3 each)
• 1kg King Edward Potatoes
• Bunch of mint
• 3 Garlic cloves
• 10g of Parmesan
• 10g of Pine nuts
• 50ml Olive oil
• Half a Lemon
• 200g Baby Onions
• 200g Carrots
• 100ml Double Cream
• 200g Butter
• 20g Sugar

This recipe was one of my first recipes that I served at the restaurant I am at, the Prism. The CEO of the company wanted to see how I was getting on with my progress and asked me to cook her a menu for her, as well as my head chef and the managers of the restaurant.


Lamb is probably one of favourite meats to eat, the flavour is like nothing else and is just as versatile as beef. Using cutlets or chops to some people is a real gift to work with, an expensive cut but cooked right and served well I think it is the most rewarding cut of lamb to use. It can also be cooked in so many different ways. Growing up, I can remember my dad marinading lamb chops in a tandoori mix and just grilling it, crisping up the fat and I can say to this day there is not a lot better to me. But it can be roasting whole, or pan frying as individuals pieces, as well as stewed.


The Lamb


For the purpose of this recipe I have prepared the chops for a restaurant standard, cleaning the bones, trimming and cleaning up the rack, and if you do spend the time to do this you can really impress your guests. However yo can ask your butcher to do it if you wish.


Take the full rack of lamb and cling film up the cleaned bones to prevent the bones from burning when in the oven. The first stage is to brown of the meat in a hot pan. Do not put any oil in the pan, placing the lamb fat side down first will provide enough oil to cook the meat. Render down the fat until golden and do this on all side and the place in the oven to finish cooking. Depending on the size, it should take about 10-15 minutes to cook to a medium rare, which is what I would recommend but if you like it cooked more then leave it in for another 5 minutes or so.

Once you take it out leave it to rest for 10 minutes, the lamb will be horrible to cut, as well as to eat. The fibres need to relax and release from the cooking making it softer and more tender to eat. You should do this for any meat, especially red meat or game.


The Mash


Use King Edward potatoes to make your mash as there is no better! Place them to boil on and once boiling, turn down the heat and cook slowly and more gently. Once cooked, mash up and pass through a drum sieve for the ultimate smoothness to your mash. At the same time warm up some butter and cream on the stove to be added to the mash, AND DONT BE SHY! You may think that adding all this butter and cream to your mash is bad but for the best mash it is essential. I think it was Marco Pierre White that said 'The potatoes is there to stop the Butter from splitting' and who’s to argue with him?

Once your mash is made the mint pesto needs to be added to it. Place in a blender with your mint leaves, a sprinkling of roasted pine nuts, grated parmesan, chopped garlic. As well as a drop of lemon juice and a good helping of olive oil. And blitz it, but not for too long. Blitz it until you have a paste and that is it, the longer you blitz it the more brown the mint will go. Season and add it to your cream smooth mash.


The Vegetables


To be honest I would say serve this dish with whatever vegetables you are comfortable with and that you love. Personally I would glaze some baby onions and some carrots and no more. Glazing is a simple but effective process that I don't think is used enough in house holds, and it works for nearly every vegetable but works best with root and ground growing veg.


Put the vegetables in a pan with some melted butter, sugar and salt. Season the vegetables a little and pour in a drop of water. Just enough to cover the ingredients and no more. This water needs to have evaporated once finished, leaving you with some deliciously sweet and caramelized vegetables. It is important to place what kitchens call a 'cartouche' which is simply a piece of baking paper that is cut in to a circle to cover the vegetables. We use this instead of a lid because where as a lid will allow for know evaporation, a cartouche will steam as well as allow for evaporation which is essential for this process

Finish this dish of with a jus or a home-made gravy and you wont feel let down!

The Ultimate Chicken Curry

The Ultimate Curry Protions: 6

This recipe comes from the days of kitchen work when I have to make food for the staff. It is an important time when working in hospitality because its hard to get time to sit down and eat a proper meal. It also means that you and your work mates can sit down and catch up and bond building the relationships between each other

The most important thing to remember is to play around with the recipe that suits you and that there is no right or wrong
After making different food for everyone for what feels like a hundred times, I feel like I have perfected it some what and need to pass on the recipe now!

Ingredients:

• 1kg of diced chicken thigh
• 1 Aubergine
• 1 Medium spanish onion
• 6 Garlic cloves
• 1 Tin coconut milk
• Ground cumin
• Ground Chilli
• Ground Corriander
• Ground Turmeric
• Ground Fenegreek
• 2 Lemons
• Fresh corriander
• 50ml Double cream

Yoghurt Raita:

• Yoghurt
• Lemon juice
• Fresh coriander
• Ground Cumin

To Marinade the chicken

I chose to use diced chicken thigh because I believe its more moist, soft and flavoursome than chicken breast however you could use chicken breast or legs for the same dish.

It is important to marinade your chicken if you have the time to do it because it can be a bland meat to use and cook with but if you could it properly and in the right ways, then it can be just as good as any other.

Start off by preparing the marinade. Place all the dry spices in a dry pan to cook off a little bit otherwise you might find you will get a grainy texture to your curry which you can feel the spices. Don’t be shy with the spices because these are the only spices you will be adding to your dish. Add roughly equal amounts of all the spices except the chilli which I will leave to you how spicy you want it, but usually only a drop will do. This will only take a minute on a medium heat, then add some sunflower oil and and the lemon juice of 2 lemons to make a paste, bring to the oil and take off to cool. Once cool, pour over the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Place this into the fridge for at least 24 hours to marinade.

To cook the chicken

You can cook this dish in two different ways, which I find both are just as good as each other. One is frying in a pan but the way I prefer is roasting in the oven. Roast the chicken in the oven, evenly spread out on a roasting tray and roast for about 20 minutes at 190 Celsius, but depending on the size of the pieces it could be longer or shorter.

Once cooked, take the tray out and take the chicken pieces out leaving all the roasting juices and spices in the pan.

To make the sauce

Using this pan, place it back on the hob on a lower heat and place your thinly sliced onion and garlic and cook them off slowly until soft. Remember to season onions at the start of cooking! Dice up the aubergine and cook them as well. If you wanted to add pre cooked potatoes then now would be the time to do so. Make sure you are not burning anything, especially the garlic as this will give you a bitter flavour to the curry.

Finish it by adding the coconut milk and a drop of cream as well until you have a nice silky consistency. Finish it by adding chopped fresh coriander and checking the seasoning. Add the chicken back and bring back up to temperature.

To serve......

Personally I would serve it with some basmati rice, with chickpeas or garden peas. I would also serve it with a yoghurt raita, made with mixing yoghurt, lemon juice, chopped coriander and a drop of ground cumin. But again remember to experiment and I hope you enjoy!

English Breakfast Consommé

English Breakfast Soup Portions: 4

I thought of this dish when struggling to think of the soup course for a competition. The theme was best of British, but I didn’t have any soup recipes that I liked. I sat down and thought about the most British dishes we had to offer, and that is when I thought of de-constructing the 'English Breakfast and making into an stunning soup course.

It did take a lot of work to get the concept of the dish right, with a balance of flavours that worked together, as well as making the dish look as amazing as the flavours. And for such an amazing dish it is so simple to make.

Ingredients:

• 800g Ripe plum tomatoes
• 200g Celery
• 100g Button mushrooms
• 100g Diced pancetta
• 70g Cherry tomatoes
• 1 Loaf crusty bread
• Parsley
• 3 Sprigs of thyme
• 3 Cloves of garlic
• 100g Butter

Tomato Soup

The Soup or Consommé part of the dish is actually so simple to make. The original way to make a clear soup is by using the traditional French way of whisking in egg whites to draw out the impurities leaving a clear soup, but I find this is to complicated and variable. A lot of things can go wrong so using my method is so much easier and user friendly.

Simply put the plum tomatoes in a robot coupé or a blender along with the celery and a drop of salt and a half dozen of peppercorns. Adding the salt at this point will help draw the moisture from the tomatoes. Place the mixture in some Muslin cloth or any other fine cloth and hang it in the fridge for at least 24 hours, and what you should get at the end of it is a clear stock of concentrated tomato juice which will be the basis of the soup.

The Soup Ingredients

For the ingredients of the soup, fry off the pancetta lardons in a pan in a drop of oil until they are evenly golden brown. Pick out the pieces and place on some absorbent paper, leaving all the pancetta flavoured oil in the pan which will be used to fry the mushrooms. Half the mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes and then add a nob of butter to finish and drain them off as well .

The Granish

For the 'sugar' element is made up from sun dried tomatoes and croutons. To make the sun dried tomatoes, simply cut them in half and place them on a tray with some olive oil and place them in an oven for about and hour at 100 Celsius. Doing this will withdraw the moisture from the tomatoes leaving a sweet tomato. You can buy sun dried tomatoes which are still good quality.

To make the croutons, pick out the flesh of the crusty bread, they don’t have to be perfect and the same size. Heat up butter in a pan until foaming on a medium-high heat and add the thyme sprigs and garlic cloves. Leave these a few seconds before adding the bread and toast these until they are golden brown, and once they are done drain them on some absorbent paper.

All that is left to do is assemble the cup of tea. Pour the tomato consommé in a jug, place some chopped parsley at the bottom of a tea cup and cover with a few of the lardons and button mushrooms, and fill up up a small ramekin bowl with the croutons and tomatoes to play the roll of the sugar which completes the perfect cup of tea.

This dish is a real favourite of mine. Building a cup of tea but with the ingredients of an english breakfastgives a quirky take on an English classic with a dramatic twist, which makes this dish really entertaining, but yet a wonderfully tasty and satisfying way to start any meal and break the ice. If you decide to make this dish then you will be in for a real treat!

Harwood Arms

27 Walham Grove
London
SW6 1QR
020 7386 1847

Hours:
Mon-Thu, Sun 12-11pm;
Fri-Sat 12pm-12am

Stars: *****

A while ago I found myself browsing the internet for a restaurant that would both offer me good value for money, as well as an amazing, gastronomic dinning experience. Although I was going for a friends birthday, I also wanted my first experience of  a Michelin stared restaurant to be an amazing one, and as soon as I was seated in the Harwood Arms, I knew I wasn’t in for a disappointing evening.

This gastro pub is located away from the hustle and bustle of the inner city madness, tucked away in the centre of Fulham (a short walk away from Fulham Broadway tube station). The Pub is a collaboration between Brett Graham of the Ledbury, Mike Robinson of the Pot Kiln and Edwin Vaux from the Vaux brewery working the front of house.

The aim of the establishment is to provide a relaxed experience, but at the same time offering some of the finest British ingredients, made even better by interestingly simple cooking methods and flavour combinations that the menu offers. As a result of the sophisticated food and homely setting, Harwood Arms were awarded a Michelin star in 2010.

When you enter you immediately get a warm feeling. From the rustic old wooden tables and chairs, to the smell of the freshly made bread in the restaurant, waiting to be served to eagerly awaiting locals who you sense are regular visitors, and for good reason.

The room, filled with rustic ornaments and early 19^th century décor is split into two halfs. In one half you can enjoy one of a range of tasty pints of ale and possibly a Roe deer scotch egg if you fancy a nibble. The other half used more for the dinning.

The staff are as dressed to suit the rest of the establishment, serving the food and drinks table side in jeans and footwear that would never usually be associated with Michelin restaurants.

The food was heavenly right from the word go. The freshly baked bread which was served for two in a small, quaint woven bag which made me smile and immediately kicked off a whole conversation with my companion. This was swiftly followed by a game dish which the pub is renowned for. I chose a beautiful pigeon dish, formed of perfectly cooked skewer of legs and breast as well as a breaded option croquet, served with a separate glaze which you could add when needed (in my case, a lot it was that good!). Across the table opposite from me was a very appetising veal schnitzel which looked just as good.

The mains following consisted of sumptuous lamb chops served with curly kale and confit shallots, cauliflower croquets and a lamb jus. I went for a perfectly slow cooked, warm ox cheek which was served in its own juices, along with celeriac puree and sautéed mushrooms. A simple dish don’t get me wrong but with every element cooked and made as well as this, it was warming and satisfying in every way.  Conversation had halted between us as we concentrated and in awe of the food we were eating. The only communication being the looks of amazement we would give each other occasionally.

The dessert we both had to choose the marmalade filled doughnuts served with clotted cream. So warm, lightly and fluffy its nearly indescribable, with the warmness of the doughnuts cutting through the clotted cream, it was the perfect way to finish off the meal (along with a bill of around £40 each). Before leaving overly satisfied and wondering when to make time to go again and visit.

If your looking for somewhere that you and a group of friends can go to eat amazing food, served by

attentive staff that will intrigue you with their knowledge of the food and their bubble personality. If your wondering where to go that isn’t overpriced, and you can enjoy your company with conversation and laughs, along with a light hearted atmosphere and approach to things then look no further than the Harwood Arms!  

Sea Bass Ceviche

Sea Bass Ceviche Portions: 4

This dish is a really tasty, fresh dish that will bring your taste buds alive! With sweet, soft, sour, crunchy and smooth texture it really does bring amazing flavours. The best thing about it is it is so simple to make and good for you as well.

This is a recipe was introduced to me by my sous chef, and friend of mine Phil Leicester who needs a mention when giving this recipe, nice one!

Ingredients:

• 2 sides of sea bass fillets (1 whole)
• 25ml coconut milk
• 2 limes
• 20g palm sugar
• 25ml fish sauce
• 25ml sesame oil
• drop of soy sauce
• 2 ripe avocados
• olive oil
• coriander
• a red chilli
• sesame seeds
• mixed cress

Ceviche Dressing

To make the Ceviche dressing and marinade, simply enough melt down the palm sugar, and then its simple, just mix the juice of 1 lime, the palm sugar, fish sauce, sesame oil and soy sauce together and season with salt and pepper. Taste the dressing as you go to understand the transformation it goes through as you add the ingredients. Once finished taste and add a drop more of one or the other, the marinade should have a zing and a sharpness to it as well as a creaminess from the coconut milk


Avocado guacamole

Although i call this a guacamole, it is not really and has the oriental taste to it. Simple take the flesh from the avocado and chop it up roughly. Chop up as fine as you can the red chilli with the seeds out, however if you do like hotter food, leave them in! Mix chopped coriander leaves with olive oil just to combine the ingredients, keeping it quite thick.


Sea Bass

With the Sea bass, if you do have it filleted and boned then brilliant but if you don't and are stuck then your fish monger can help. Simply thinly slice the bass on an angle with the skin off and thats it! Marinade the fish in the ceviche for a few minutes or if you have the time a bit longer

Place the fillets on the plate with a few generous blobs of avocado. finish it of with a few micro cress herbs such as coriander cress. Garnish with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a drizzle of the dressing

Enjoy!

Open Ox Cheek Lasagne

Ox Cheek Lasagne  Portions: 3-4

Ingredients:

• 400g Ox cheek, 
•  6carrots
•  1/2 leek
• 2 onions
•  3 stalks of celery
•  4 cloves of garlic
•  1/4 bunch of thyme
•  2 bay leaves
• 700ml beef stock
• 200ml red wine
• 200ml double cream
• 1/4 a bag of Petis pois
• 2 spring onion

Pasta Dough

100g 'oo' flour 

1 medium size egg

Pasta is easier to make then you think so if you can, try and make it. But if your too busy you can buy pasta sheets. The pasta dough ratio is 1 medium egg to 100g of 00 flour (00 flour is a lot finer than plain). Mix ingredients in a bowl together and work this until you have a nice elastic dough.For the best results, leave the pasta in the fridge up to an hour to rest. Once rested, run through the pasta machine and go until just over 1mm thick. Cut into square pieces ready for blanching in boiling water which will take about a minute to cook

Ox Cheek Mix

The Ox cheek is going to be braised down, if you cant get your hands on ox cheek, cut of beef that benifits from braising or even neck of lamb will be just as good.

Seal the meat in a pan making sure all sides are coloured evenly, then add your miro poux (carrots, celery, leeks and onion) along with garlic, thyme and bay leaf. De-glaze with a splash of red wine and then cover with your beef stock (if you have your own even better but stock cube will do) bring to the boil and cover and place in the oven for at least an hour and a half depending on the size. Check as cooking.
Once cooked it should be soft to touch, remove from the liquid which you will need to pass and put back onto the stove to reduce to a slightly thick consistency (jus). Shread your ox cheek, mix with the reduced jus and add some petit pois.


Carrot Puree
For the carrot puree, sweat down onions with garlic and season with salt and pepper. When soft, add peeled chopped carrots, add a drop of water and cook until the water has evaporated and the carrots are cooked, add cream and blitz and pass.

To plate up, place some puree on the bottom of the plate, and a layer of the ox cheek mix, sheet of pasta on top  and continue till 3-4 layers up. For an extra crunch and freshness top with some thinly sliced spring onions. Add some of the extra jus to finish and enjoy!