An Ode to the hotellier

An Ode to the Hotelier

Last night as I lay sleeping
I died or so it seemed,
Then I went to heaven
But only in my dream

Up there St. Peter met me
Standing at the pearly gates,
He said "I must check your record
Please stand here and wait."

He turned and said "Your record
Is covered with terrible flaws,
On earth I see you rallied
For every losing cause,"

I see that you drank alcohol
And smoked and used drugs too,
Fact is, you've done everything
A good person should never do.

We can't have people like you up here
Your life was full of sin,
Then he read the last of my record
Took my hand and said "Come in."

He led me up to the big boss and said
"Take him in and treat him well,"
He used to work in Hotels.
He's done his time in hell"

Mackerel

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)  originally accredited the Mackerel Fishery, firstly the hand line fishery, followed by the pelagic fishery. They are now removing the Mackerel Accreditation because they do not think the stocks are healthy. The MSC is an organisation that get paid to accredit fisheries.

The stock biomass according to the scientific data is above the level that is recommended and that is reflected in the quota allocation for 2013. The quota for the UK is approximately 160,000  tonnes and the E.U quota is approximately 330,000 tonnes.

Fisherman in the South West have been hand-lining for Mackerel for more than four decades, from our point of view there is a fixed allocation put aside for the hand line fishery (approximately 18,000 tonnes). The fish we purchase from our daily markets and direct from the local boats is from the hand-line fishery.

The Venison Wellington

The Venison Wellington

A definition

“The  Wellington is a traditional English preparation of beef tenderloin coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked in the oven until golden brown”

The quality test of a good Wellington is to cut it open and have a fantastic aromatic pate and beautifully pink piece of prime meat inside.

It was an obvious choice, The Wellington at The Wellington, all I have to do is to do it justice… So many times I have seen this classic dish ruined by bad craftsmanship, that to take it on, develop it and show case it at The Wellington was both a challenge and a pleasure. The importance of the Venison and duxelle are critical to the end product. The venison was covered, Simon from Cornish game had bought in a saddle of the finest Roe Deer hind I had ever seen, He shot it 2 days prior and within 15 miles of the kitchen… you don’t get better than that. My plans were to serve it simply, two ways, show casing both the fillet as a wellington and loin nicely seared. I wanted to use some smoked Roddas cream to create a fine mashed potato and use some blue cheese, blackberries, and beetroot. Together with some organic purple sprouting broccoli that Darren had sourced for me, my dish was created.

Venison ‘Wellington’ Seared Loin, Smoked Pomme Puree, Helford Blue, Blackberries and Beetroot, Purple Sprouting Broccoli

So to the cooking, Firstly The duxelle, I had cooked it in the past quite fine and almost pate like, but wanted to end up with a more rustic filling so went to work. After some development we ended up with this recipe, it makes for a fantastic mushroom and chicken liver farce that you will be proud of.

Chicken Liver and Forest Mushroom Duxelle

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 large                   Banana Shallots

500 grams            Mixed Wild Mushrooms (most supermarkets will stock a good selection)

1 clove                  Garlic

20 grams              Fresh Thyme

100ml                    Madera

Salt & Pepper

50 grams              Parsley

150g                       Chicken Livers (available from your local butcher)

Pomace oil for cooking

Method

Firstly set to work preparing your ingredients for cooking, roughly chop all your mushrooms into ½ cm size pieces, finely chop your shallots, garlic and thyme and lastly your parsley. Keep all the ingredients separate ready to add as we cook. It is a good idea to put them all in little ramekins or containers to make the cooking easy.

To prep your chicken livers is fairly easy but your butcher will help with this if you give them a bit of notice beforehand. On a separate chopping board, look carefully through the livers removing any unwanted muscle and sinew, and roughly cut into 1 cm pieces. 

And now for the cooking, a non-stick frying pan is Ideal for this as large as is possible to allow nice even cooking of all the ingredients. Drizzle your pan with some good quality pomace oil, allow it to heat up a little and add the shallots and garlic, sweat these off but don’t let them brown, at this stage add you mushrooms and seasoning sprinkle over your thyme and saute for around 4/5 minutes, stirring regularly. The idea here is to render down the mushrooms, to intensify the flavour. Time to add the chicken livers and again cook these out a little, Ideally the livers will remain a little pink. Time for some cheffy fire,  add your Madeira and carefully set it alight, sauté for a couple of minutes and set the pan aside to allow to cool down.  Lastly fold through your parsley and your duxelle is finished. Time to taste for seasoning. It is crucial that your duxelle is seasoned enough as if the seasoning is not right now the final product will suffer. Seasoning is very personal but be a little bit generous and you will reap the benefits later.

Pancakes

2                              Whole free range eggs

1                              Yolk

100g                       Strong White Flour

½ pint                    Roddas Semi Skimmed Milk

Just a pinch of Salt and fine black Pepper

The pancakes will be used to encase the venison and duxelle, before you wrap it in puff pastry. It is important that you have nice strong yet thin pancakes that will in turn protect the venison and hold in all the fantastic cooking juices created when cooking your wellington.

Using a whisk and mixing bowl, mix the eggs and flour to a paste and slowly add your milk season and allow to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes

In a large non – stick pan ladle a small amount of your pancake batter (around 4 fl oz) into the pre heated pan, swirl it around, creating a thin covering on the bottom of the pan, cook on both sides until lightly browned this is a skill that you will master after a couple of attempts, persevere here as the results will pay dividends later. Allow to cool on some greaseproof paper, make around 5/6 pancakes any leftover can be enjoyed later, as a dessert or kept in the fridge for a later date.

The Venison

4 x 150g pieces of venison will make for a nice portion sized wellington

For the Wellington in the restaurant we use the fillet of venison, but on saying this, the ‘sirloin’ is more than acceptable and will make a fantastic wellington. You should be able to get some good venison from your local butcher, if not give Simon a call at Cornish Game and I’m sure he will be able to help..!

We need to seal our portioned venison to hold in all the fantastic flavour from the fillet, before assembling our wellington. Firstly season your venison with some sea salt and black pepper, be generous, you will always hear me harping on about seasoning, it can make or break anything you cook. Using your non stick pan, drizzle some pomace oil in the pan allow to get nice and hot and carefully place your pieces of loin or fillet in the pan and seal on all the sides, this should be a quick process and is not meant to cook the meat all the way through.

Now for the assembly, time to see all your hard work come to fruition.  

In the Restaurant we make our own puff pastry, but it is equally as good to buy some pastry from the supermarket, there are some fantastic products available.

You will need,

Duxelle

Pancakes

Sealed Venison

Puff Pastry

 An egg wash (whisk 2 eggs with a fork and a dash of water for best results)

Cut a square of pastry around 20cm by 20cm per portion,  Put your pancake on the top spread a layer of the duxelle on top of the pancake, just a little bit bigger than the venison, put your venison on the top of this and finish with a little more duxelle. Fold up the sides of the pancake, like a parcel, so they overlap, you are aiming for a small parcel of the venison with a 5mm layer of duxelle wrapped in the pancake. Now turn over the parcel, place back on the puff pastry egg wash all around the parcel to help it stick together. Repeat the process folding up all the sides in turn to make a square parcel. Next to egg wash the wellington ready to rest in the fridge for 30mins. At this point you can decorate the top of the wellington with 5mm strips of pastry final egg wash and sprinkle with some sesame seeds and small sprigs of thyme.

Finally the cooking, In a pre heated oven 180ºc for approximately 15 – 20 mins until the pastry is golden brown rest for about 3 to 4 minutes and serve. The results are fantastic, a great dinner party dish and a real show stopper. Have fun and enjoy.