Monday 28 February 2011

Oh hello Ashburton Cookery School. Nice to see you again.


So, it's third time around for me at Ashburton. I feel that we have a long-term happy relationship. This time I'm doing the Advanced 5 Day Course. The 'natural' progression from the Diploma course.

I got there early (I know, surprising for me....haha so very funny) and we were briefed by chef tutor Joe. He outlined the week ahead, which sounds jam-packed full of treats and then we were straight into the Dartmoor Kitchen in the new ACS building by the A38. I was pleased with this as although I like the Garden Kitchen which I did the Diploma in, the new kitchens have funky gadgets to play with such as inductions and fancy hi-tech ovens that have settings like '3D Hot Air', which makes sure each oven shelf is the same temperature throughout the oven. Not that normal ovens and gas hobs aren't any good...

Anyway, the first order of the day was a scrambled egg challenge. We had to use two eggs and anything else we wanted out of butter, milk, double cream, salt and pepper. Once it was made we took it up to the MasterChef judges, Joe and Rob. I normally do alright with scrambled eggs, so I wasn't particularly worried. I melted my butter in a saucepan and then added my whisked eggs. I don't use cream at home as it's unnecessary calories, but I wanted it to taste heavenly, so in it went. However, in my naivety, I put it in once the egg was starting to scramble which immediately smoothed out the mixture and I started to panic. I thought it was going to turn into some sort of savoury custard! But luckily after a while on the heat it started to scramble. My good friends salt and pep went in and I took it up to Rob for tasting. He said the consistency was good, but it was under seasoned, but a good try. Damn!! At least it wasn't over seasoned. You can always add more but you can't take away! We were allowed to eat it if we wished and then we moved onto the next challenge. I tried mine, after adding a bit more seasoning and oh my good golly, cream certainly makes things taste divine! Scrambled eggs with cream are definitely the way forward. Maybe not, health-wise, but taste-wise mmm mmm!

The next challenge was to chop and onion and a shallot as finely as possible. Fact fans rejoice, because here's one coming up! Chopping onions as fine as possible is good for many reasons it increases the surface area, making them sweat and cook faster, bringing out the onions' natural sugars and makes them nicer to eat. No one wants to chop on a huge bit of onion! The onions didn't like being chopped and retaliated by bringing tears to my eyes. Every time! We then got started on lunch which was pan fried scallops with a lentil and coriander sauce. We opened the scallops, cleaned up the meat and saved the roe for another dish tomorrow. The corals were dried out in a low oven which will then be blitzed into a dust and sprinkled over some salmon. Can't wait! The sauce to go with the scallops was then made from brown lentils, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, cream, butter, fish stock and cardamom pods which is where the spice in the sauce comes from. By the time we'd done all of that it was time to eat! We pan fried the scallops in some clarified butter and then finished it with a squeeze of lemon juice. We were told not to squeeze in the juice until the last moment and off the heat or there may be a bit of a flame. I added my juice as I was just taking the pan off the heat, but in true Hannah style, it caught a bit of the ring flame and the next thing I knew, the pan whooshed up in a massive fire! Gave me a bit of a shock to say the least. Whoops!

Sauteed scallops with a spicy lentil and coriander sauce with creme fraiche, caviar and edible flowers

Lunch was absolutely delicious. Definitely worth almost singing my eyebrows! The scallops were wonderful and the lentils were amazing! The flavours were so fresh and light. I also loved the caviar. They were like little pods which released a flavour sensation that danced on your palate when popped. Yummy.

After lunch, it was time to crack on with the evening food. We made a basil foam and a basil oil to go with the main course of steamed stuffed chicken roulade. The basil oil was really simple to make. Basically, you just heat olive oil with finely chopped shallot, garlic and basil and leave it to infuse for half an hour, then strain and blitz with some blanched basil leaves. The result is a bright green oil that looks and tastes fantastic. We also made a basil foam to drizzle over the finished dish that looks like snow but tastes of fresh basil.

For the pudding, we made a yogurt 'crackle' ice cream which was made from greek yogurt, honey and popping candy to add an element of fun and surprise to pudding. Then we made some pine nut and black pepper tuilles. Joe told us to put quite a bit of pepper in them as it should have a strong flavour in the biscuits.

Time to return to it to the main course. We butterflied a chicken breast and then tenderised it with a rolling pin. We added some skinned, shredded sweet red pepper and blanched leafy greens and then rolled up into a sausage and wrapped it in cling film, ready to be steamed. Whilst the chicken roulade was steaming, we prepared the aubergine puree. It was simply aubergine roasted with thyme, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic and then blitzed to a puree. I don't normally like aubergine, but it was really tasty. We also made vegetable spaghetti out of a carrot and courgette. Sounds complicated, but it's simply very fine thin strips of the vegetables. Then it was time to plate up. Unfortunately, the foam melted on the hot food, so you can't really see it in the photograph, but I can assure you that it was there and was lovely and fresh.


Local chicken breast stuffed with roasted red pepper and local greens, served with spaghetti vegetables, aubergine puree, basil oil and a basil foam

The chicken was so moist and the red pepper brought a delicious sweetness to the overall flavour. The basil oil was amazing too and the vegetable spaghetti was brilliant. I plan to experiment with this notion of vegetable spaghetti and create some kind of vegetarian spag bol. Watch this space! The dish was deliciously fresh and light and relatively healthy. Probably the healthiest thing we'll eat all week!

Griddled pineapple, yogurt 'crackle' ice cream, black pepper and pine nut tuille, pineapple crisp, eight year aged balsamic and toasted pine nuts

Pudding was fabulous. I wouldn't have ordered it if I saw it on the menu at a restaurant as I don't like spicy things such as the tuilles and I wouldn't have thought that the balsamic vinegar would go with it, however, it was totally scrumptious! It's hard to see, but there's a tuille spiral balancing on the hole in the pineapple crisp. The griddle pineapple was so juicy and the ice cream was deliciously creamy, finishing with the rich balsamic and spice of the pepper biscuit. I'd definitely make it again. It's not that bad for you. There's one of your 5 a day in there!

And that brings us to the end of the first day. One down, four to go. What a yummy start to the week. I shall leave you with a taste of what's to come tomorrow. Confit salmon and 75% cocoa solids chocolate that costs £40 a kilo. Goodnight.