Chicken rillette, pickled chanterelles & watercress

Chicken Rillette, pickled chanterelles & watercress.

A classic rillette used for a lunch starter in the kitchen, great also for your packed lunch or a picnic. I love it on toast with a glass on wine.


Chicken rillette:

4 chicken legs
1000ml duck fat
10g thyme
1 bulb garlic
100g salt
20g sugar
1 tsp fennel seeds

Blend all the dry ingredients together to make a cure and cover the chicken with it. Cure for 4 hours then wash off the salt. Submerge in the duck fat and cook at 80*c and cook for 10 hours, or until it is so tender that it falls off the bone effortlessly. Let it cool in the fat to keep it moist. Once cool, take the meat out and flake it off the bone. Add a little dijon mustard, chive & tarragon. Just enough to flavour the mix. Add some seasoning and a little more duck fat to help set the mix in a terrine.

Watercress mayonnaise:

50g watercress
650ml oil
100ml egg yolk
3 tbl vinegar
1 tbl dijon
Pinch salt

Blend the watercress with the oil, bring to the boil and pass through a muslin cloth. Chill to 5*c. Place the mustard, egg, vinegar and salt in the blender and emulsify with the watercress oil to produce the mayonnaise. Once ready chill immediately.

Pickled Chanterelles:

90ml olive oil
1 shallot
100g chanterelle mushrooms
25ml lemon juice
25ml sherry vinegar

Sauté the chanterelles in a little oil. Bring everything else to boiling point and pour over the mushrooms. Chill and serve once cold.

To garnish:

Watercress
Lollo rosso

Scottish Brambles

Scottish Brambles

Seeing as its a "Bumper Harvest" this year for almost everything wild & foraged I decided to make some Bramble Jam. I took my 3 year old boy out with me for an afternoons berry picking in Pollock park. Our original intention was to get ourselves some vegetables from the honesty box down by the allotment but it's no longer available to the public, a crying shame if you ask me. Anyway, back to the berries... We really are having a great year thanks to the prolonged summer warmth and sunshine, we managed to get the start of the berries but 65% of them aren't ready yet so the next few weeks will provide some rich pickings.

Bramble Jam:

500g Brambles
500g sugar
1 lemon juiced

Wash the brambles in a little salt water then rinse in cold water. Place them in a pan with the sugar and bring to 105*c then simmer for 5 minutes, stirring every so often to make sure it doesn't catch the bottom, bring off the heat when ready and add lemon juice. Its that simple. Pour it into a sterile jar and keep in the fridge for up to 4 weeks. It's highly unlikely it'll last that long tho. My kids have already rattled half way through my batch for their supper.

Enjoy

TheChefsLarder!
@thechefslarder

Grey Mullet, peas, lettuce & pomme dauphine.

Grey Mullet, Pomme dauphine, pea's & lettuce.

This dish is as much about the pea's as it is the mullet, especially seeing as the pea season is in full bloom. It's good for lunch of a light dinner.

1 Grey Mullet fillet.
50g pea puree
30g pea's
1 Gem lettuce
10ml Lemon dressing
2 pomme dauphines
A pinch of watercress


Lemon dressing:

500ml olive oil
100ml lemon juice
1 lemon grass stick
2 tbl honey
1 shallot
Salt

Bring the lemongrass, lemon juice, shallot & honey to the boil then take off the heat. Add the olive oil and let infuse for 24 hours. Strain and mix. Check the seasoning.

Pea puree:

500g fresh peas
300ml nage
Salt

Bring the nage to the boil, add the peams and salt then puree. Chill down over ice to preserve the fresh green colour. Add the pea's when heating back up so it almost resembles the look of mushy pea's but obviously not mushed.


Pomme Dauphine:

Choux:

125g Milk
50g butter
100g flour
Salt
1 egg
1 egg yolk

Dauphine:

300g Choux
600g dry mash

Bring the milk & butter to the boil, add flour, whisk in then cook out until it comes clean away from the sides. Let it cool and place into a mixer with a paddle. Add the egg one by one then add the dry mash and seasoning. Shape with a dessert spoon. Deep fry at 180*c until it floats.

Steam the baby gem lettuce, scatter the pea puree & pea mix on the plate, place on dauphine, pan fry the mullet and finally add a little lemon dressing. It's light, it's cheap and it's tasty.

Enjoy!

Veal, Langoustine & Cauliflower.

Veal sweetbreads, langoustine, cauliflower puree & shellfish cappuccino.

Veal, a product that people are very opinionated about in the UK. We have the best standards in Europe and we should take advantage of these. Yes, European calves have poorer upbringings thus giving veal a bad rep but our British stuff really should be showcased. It's amazing! Here's a little recipe with our little friend from the Clyde, the Langoustine.

Recipe:

1 veal sweetbread
1 ltr Chicken stock
250ml white white
1 bulb garlic
20g thyme
1 head celery
4 shallots
1 carrot

Throw everything in a pot except the sweetbread and bring to the boil, place in the sweetbread, take off the heat and let it cool naturally. Once cool, peel the membrane off and trim it up into one inch pieces.  

Shellfish Cappuccino:

1 celery stick
4 shallots
2 carrots
50ml good olive oil
10g coriander seeds
1 star anise
10 black peppercorns
1 kg shellfish bones
1 tbl tomato puree
200ml sherry
400ml white wine
1 ltr fish stock
100ml cream
50g butter

Roast the bones in the oven, while you roast the veg in a heavy bottom pan until golden brown. Add the aromatics, cook for a few moments then add the tomato puree and the shellfish bones. Deglaze the pan with the sherry and reduce. Add the wine and reduce the wine by half. Add the fish stock and bring to the boil and simmer. Skin the top every few moments. After 30 mins on the simmer, strain the liquid and reduce it by 3/4's and add the cream, add a squeeze of lemon juice. Mount the butter with a hand blender and the cappuccino is ready.

Cauliflower puree:

1kg cauliflower finely diced
300ml milk
Salt

Sweat the cauliflower down in butter slowly until fully cooked. Add the milk & bring the everything to the boil and simmer until tender. Blend to a fine puree.

To assemble the dish, peel the langoustine and cook quickly in a very hot pan, sprinkle the sweetbread with a little bit of flour and fry in a pan with oil and butter until golden brown, don't be tempted to over cook it. If it feel's spongy but firm then your spot on. Any harder and you've over cooked it.

Place a spoonful of puree in the bowl, add the sweetbread, top with langoustine add a little roasted shallot and some cappuccino. A simple dish bunged full of flavour.

Game season is almost on our doorstep

Partridge, celeriac & sherry puree, salt baked beets with elderberry and pistachio.

This a one from last year but I couldn't not put the recipe up for you guys. Yes, yes, It's not in season for another few weeks but this is to get you a little excited about the coming game season. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's a belter!

Recipe:

1 Partridge crown
1/2 bulb garlic
10g thyme
20ml olive oil
40g butter
10g panko bread crumbs
5g butter
5g pistachio nuts

Puree:
1 celeriac
3 clove garlic
100ml sherry
6 shallots
50g butter
200ml milk
Salt

Beets:
5 beetroot
680g salt
180g egg white

Game jus
20g elderberries
Red vein sorrel
Beetroot tops

Lets start with the beetroot, whisk the egg whites and slowly add the salt to make a meringue, place the beets in a tray and cover in meringue. Bake at 180*c for 40 mins, take out and cool naturally. Once cooled, crack away all the salt crust and peel the skins off and place in fridge until needed.

For the puree, sweat down the shallot & garlic in a littler oil, butter & salt, add the celeriac and cook for a further 5 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the sherry & reduce by half. Add the milk, being to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Place everything into the blender and blend to a fine puree. Taste for seasoning and if it needs a little more sherry then don't be shy.

Blend the panko, butter & pistachio together to a crumb for your crust. Roll out onto greaseproof paper and place into the fridge.

For the crown, stuff it with garlic, thyme and some butter and throw in a little pinch of salt. Heat up a pan, add some oil and place the crown skin side down and roast it on all sides, add a little knob of butter and baste until golden brown. Let it rest in the pan off the heat with the spin of the bird touching the side of the pan and the top of the breast facing downwards. This will help keep the breast moist and stop it from drying out. Top with the crust and flash under the grill for 15 seconds.

Cut the beetroot into desired shape and roast in a pan with a little butter. Place the puree on the plate, add the beets, carve and add the breast, a few elderberries and serve with a little game jus on the side.

Ricotta Gnocchi

Ricotta Gnocchi

A simple little Italian dumpling made without the potato.

Recipe:

250g Ricotta cheese
190g tipo 00 flour
3 egg yolks
50g truffled pecorino cheese
Pinch maldon salt
10g chopped chives

A fairly easy task and can be thrown together in no time at all. Throw it all in a bowl and mix by hand until you have a course dough, tip out and roll into a sausage shape as thick as your thumb.

They  increase in size so don't be tempted to make them too big. Cut with a sharpe knife roughly 2cm in size.

Place them into a pot of salty rapidly boiling water, once they float then place them into a pan of foamy butter and cook until golden.

 Season and serve with anything you like, my favourite is a few mushrooms, pancetta & pea's.

Only the finest from George Mewes

I'm a massive cheese fan, its not always been that way tho because the standard cheese we have on offer in supermarkets  isn't exactly the greatest. A few years ago I was introduced to George and his small but amazingly overwhelming cheese shop in the West End, he was a chef for 25 years and its only natural that it has become the chef's choice for all the best cheeses you can get your hands on. He supplies all the top restaurants in Glasgow and a few special Michelin starred chefs throughout Scotland, his most famous client just so happens to be Scotland's Number one Chef Andrew Fairlie. If you go in with an open mind and ask to be blown away then I'm sure you'll not only walk out with a smile but a goodie bag full of probably the best cheese you'll ever taste.

I bought 6 different cheeses each with equally pleasing flavours, some of which were quite special.

Grand Jura Suisse.
Montgomery's.
Cosne de Port Aubry.
20-24 month old Dutch Gouda.
Ossau Iraty (AOC).
Tomme Crayeuse.

Grand Jura Suisse, a rich nutty gruyere style cheese from the Jura mountains situated between the Rhine & the Rhone on the French Swiss boarder. It has a lot more flavour than standard gruyere but in a good way, I preferred it straight up but my fine lady preferred it with a little smidgen of chutney. However, the left over will be going straight into a croque monsieur for my brunch this weekend.

Monthomery's Chedder is an unpasteurised cows milk from the good old Friesan heifer thats from Manor farm in Somerset. It's quite a hard cheddar, not very crumbly, more smooth than anything. It's got a good age on it so got good body and by heck did it make my mouth water. A must if you want to see what an original style cheddar tastes like.


Cosne de port Aubry, I'm not too sure if many of you have heard of this cheese before but its from a farm on the Loire that has roughly 400 goats producing this little beauty and that famous little cheese called Crottin de chavignol. The farmer had no moulds left to set the cheese in so he set it in his wife's bra, hence the cone shape of the cheese. Just a little fact that George hit out with to give us a laugh.

20-24 month old Dutch Gouda, a hard old gouda that reminds me much of salted caramelised white chocolate but not as creamy. It's still rather creamy with calcium crystals hidden in it that explode on your tongue giving a blast of flavour. I loved it! It's  from southern Holland, made with unpasteurised cows milk and left  to mature for almost 2 years.


Ossau Iraty (AOC), a seriously old school french ewes cheese from the Pyrénées. It's been kicking about for almost 600 years, has a powerful roasted hazelnut flavour that sweetens out and leaves a creamy texture in your mouth that makes it water for more, or a glass of red. It worked really well if the quince paste that George gave us. Definitely one of favourites over the past few years, if you've not tried it then your missing out.

Last by my all means not least, Tomme Crayeuse. This bad ass cheese literally blow me away, its layered with outstanding textures. It's a fairly modern cheese created by Max Schmidhauser in the Savoie region of France that boarders the Swiss & Italian Alps. Crayeuse means chalky in French which refers to the centre of the cheese. The centre is covered in a marshmallow/spongy buttery like coating thats leads to an earthy rind packed with earthy flavours dotted with yellow mould that makes your taste buds tingle. This yellow mould is what is commonly known as ammonia, it stinks like an essex girls hairdressers but it really is outstanding. Throw in a bottle of Pinot Noir and your in heaven.


If your a basic cheddar kind of person or a mad cheese lover then George has it all on offer, he's a specialist so expect special things. Plus it's a fun place to learn a few things with the odd sample thrown in.