Steak and chips, anyone?

The weekend came and went and it was good to have a break and re-charge my batteries. Although, there’s no rest for the wicked, as I tried out some of my new recipes for the family. I made the supreme of chicken this time without the wild mushrooms as I couldn’t find any within the given time, followed by the vanilla crème brulee and a chocolate and cointreau mousse for the next lunch’s pudding. It went well, apart from I made the schoolboy error of forgetting to heat the plates before serving, so the chicken went a little cold too quickly. Whoops! But now I’ve done that, hopefully I won’t do it again! Anyway, everyone seemed to appreciate it. I definitely would like some new, specialist

knives though. Any gifts would be very welcome J

So, Monday morning and it was back into the kitchen. Beef was on today’s agenda. Phil was teaching us today, with James helping too. (James has been on the telly and everything. You might have seen him on ‘The Restaurant’ and ‘Out of the Frying Pan’. After a brief re-cap of Fish Friday, we were told all about the world of beef, including different cuts, ways of cooking them etc. Phil started off the home-made corned beef making process, to use later on in the week soaking brisket in a bucket of salted water for the next 3 days. I’ve never had home-made corned beef, but I’m rather looking forward to it. We then prepared a beef stew (for tomorrow’s beef suet pudding) and then were shown how to roll and mahoosive piece of fillet steak for supper. Oh yes, fillet steak with fat chips for supper. Yum!

Before lunch, we rolled out and blind baked (that’s baking a pastry case before adding the filling so it’s not raw and ruins your pie) individual pastry cases for tomorrow and used the excess to make a treacle tart for Thursday and a lemon tart for tonight’s pudding, which would each serve 16 people. Or 10 hungry/greedy people. Here’s Phil with the cooked lemon tart, before the edges were trimmed. Perfectly cooked and set. Then it was lunch prep. Jonny and Emily picked the meat off the ham hocks that were cooked on Thursday. Then we whipped together a fresh ham and pea soup, with chopped ham at the bottom of the soup bowl for texture and flavour and minted crème fraiche on top. It was so tasty, I’ll definitely make it again. My favourite soup so far!

After lunch, it was on with supper. We made a mushroom and tomato sort of parcel, with a giant field mushroom topped with vine tomatoes, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, roasted to perfection. We put together the béarnaise sauce which was quite easy and really tasty.

Here’s my partner Donna, whisking it together. James took care of the fat chips in the deep fat fryer, whilst I took care of my medium-well steak. Most chefs would say that any well-done steak should be thrown away as it’s no good. I’m getting better with having it medium/medium-well, but I couldn’t have it rare or even blue. Who wants blood-soaked chips?! Phil made his steak blue. It’s raw in the middle! Supper was so so so delicious! Really tasty. One of the best meals yet.

Griddled fillet steak with fat chips, roasted field mushroom and vine tomatoes and a béarnaise sauce. Fantastish.

There was one last thing to do- caramelise the top of the lemon tart, with no cracks. The last, and only time I made a lemon tart, it cracked horribly, however, now I have the recipe for success. Sorry for the pun! The tart was amazing. So zingy and just set. Perfection. I could have eaten the whole meal again. A good start to the week. I’m looking forward to what’s in store!