5 Simple Recipes – Day Two
Mushroom Sauce This simple sauce is great with pan-fried salmon, chicken, steak, pork or most white fish. What you need 2 shallots 1 glass of sweet Vermouth 350ml whipping cream Quarter bottle of fruity or sweet white wine 300g button mushrooms 2 teaspoons chopped chervil Lemon juice Butter What you do Gently fry the chopped shallots and sliced mushrooms in a little butter. Add the white wine and Vermouth and boil rapidly until it has evaporated by about two thirds. Add the cream and bring to the boil. Simmer until the sauce is creamy – it should coat the back of a spoon when ready. Season with sea salt and lemon juice, and keep warm until needed. I’ll share another recipe tomorrow. – Paul...5 Simple Recipes – Day One
Marmite Butter Today’s simple recipe is Marmite butter, a delicious accompaniment to steak or grilled fish that’s easy to make – though you’ll either love it or hate it! What you need 1 dessert spoon of Marmite 125g butter What you do Mix the Marmite into the butter till smooth. Shape into rounds and refrigerate to cool. Put a round of Marmite butter on hot steak, grilled fish, pasta or boiled potatoes before serving, so the butter begins to melt. I’ll share another recipe tomorrow. – Paul...Tips and tricks for the Kitchen – Day Five
Poaching the perfect egg. Ask five different chefs and you’ll get five different answers. I think the golden rule is not to put salt into your water as it will break down the egg. Adding vinegar is certainly important. Then there are a number of different techniques. Personally, I like swirling the water into a whirlpool whilst it is boiling fiercely, and then dropping the egg into the centre. Cracking the egg onto cling film and twisting the cling film to make a pouch works as well and can certainly work if you want to do five or six at the same time. I suppose it’s quite strange unwrapping the film to find a perfectly formed egg – but it does work. But one thing’s for sure, you will never get a perfectly formed egg without it being fresh – that’s the most important part. Here’s the complete menu for the wine event and Fiona’s matching wines: Canapés Radish with sour cream & savoury soil, Rice Krispie fish finger sandwiches, whipped goats cheese eclairs *** Burrata, beetroot, horseradish & rapeseed oil Orballo Albarino, Rias Baixas, Spain *** Scallops ‘just cooked’, lime & caviar Turckheim Riesling Vieilles Vignes Alsace *** Flat iron steak, nettle risotto, beef reduction 1489 Chianti Riserva Baroncini *** Blacksticks Blue, dolcelatte, roquefort Maury Chateau St. Roch Agly Valley 2009 *** Apple & blackberry charlotte, Normandy cream Somerset Pomona If you want further tips on wine pairing, I would suggest you join us on June 5th and ask more of one of the UK’s finest...Tips and tricks for the Kitchen – Day Four
Do you often cook some meat, fish or potato in a pan and it sticks? You then spend the next five minutes chiselling it away, only to end up with scraps not fit for the dog. The answer is really simple. If you find the food sticking, lift the pan away from the heat, leave for 3 or 4 minutes, don’t touch it, have faith, come back and try to remove it gently. It usually works more often than not – I promise. And finally, here is the fourth course for our June 5th wine evening featuring Fiona Beckett: Blacksticks Blue, dolcelatte, roquefort Tomorrow, another tip and the full menu with the wines Fiona has picked to go alongside. – Paul...Tips and tricks for the Kitchen – Day Three
Cooking for a large numbers often sends many into a panic; pans of vegetables boiling away, broccoli heads dissolving, greens going brown, potatoes overcooked. This would be natural in any good professional kitchen as well, so we don’t cook every vegetable when somebody orders it. A professional kitchen would prepare and trim what is required, drop it all into pots of salted, boiling water and when almost cooked, take it out and drop it into large bowls of iced water and allow it to cool before storing it in the refrigerator. Therefore the vegetables remain green, slightly firm and just undercooked, ready to be reheated for just a minute or so when an order is taken. You can do exactly the same in your own house to avoid getting into a spin! Extra tip: What I do at home is cook all my vegetables as above first, place them in the fridge and concentrate on the main course – the one that takes the majority of time, without any pressure. And finally, here is the third course for our June 5th wine evening featuring Fiona Beckett: Flat iron steak, nettle risotto, beef reduction Tomorrow, another tip and another course, and I will let you know what Fiona matches with this at the end of the week. – Paul...10% Student Discount
Students can now enjoy The Olive Press Preston's authentic range of Italian pizzas, pasta and grills for 10% off their usual price. Just book in advance and bring a valid NUS card when you visit us. Terms & conditions apply. See link below for details.