Learn to cook just like the restaurant chefs - at home.                                  L`ENCLUME - my restaurant of the year  

Sped`s Recipe of the month for june 2004 - a dessert on the theme of lavender 

I`m inspired, to cook and create, free food from the wild and it`s all down to Simon Rogan ,chef /owner of my new discovery..... .L`enclume gastronomic restaurant, about an hours drive from my home (click on this  link to get to Simons site) Food hasn`t been the same since my 3 visits. I now look everywhere to see what`s edible and what I can take home to cook with. Here`s my variation of three  appetisers from L`enclume.

1.Warm Ratte potato with oven dried tomato and wild thyme cream.

2.Roasted red pepper mousse,bloody mary jelly.

3.Cream of wild nettle and asparagus soup.

4. Garnished with - Clover,chive flowers,nasturtiums and lavender.......all edible

To the left , a tasty quick supper dish literally knocked together in 15 minutes. Crispy skin Rainbow trout rubbed with thyme and thai flavours with a warm ratte potato and balsamic onion salad.

In the middle is one of my Simon Rogan inspired dessert  plates for the festive season, 3 mini desserts consisting of - 1.Pear poached in a Blackite and damson syrup on a round of caramelised clementine. 2. Cinnamon/vanilla panna-cotta 3. shot glass containing a rosemary scented sauternes /orange jelly topped with cardamon orange risotto.

 On the right  is my Lavender milk flan ,lavender tuille, and a lavender scented strawberry syrup.Great if you`re a lover of........lavender.

Far right  is a warm salad of gurnard , poached in an aromatic broth on a potato salad,lemon and a sea scented mayonnaise.

This is the main course I devised for Channel- 4s chef for a night with Roy Ackermann.

Breasts of corn fed chicken, steamed over new seasons pine shoots with wild woodland mushrooms and saffron cream.

This is a really interesting method of cooking chicken breasts, and also creates an unusual topic of conversation around the dinner table. It`s rather strange to use christmas trees in fine cuisine and you may think that the trek to find them isn`t worth it, but please make the effort and you`ll be rewarded with a new exciting dish for your collection, and a fine tasting one at that. The sauce for this dish I have chosen carefully so that the perfume of the pine won`t be lost, it`s a saffron cream sauce which marries perfectly well with the flavour of the chicken.

INGREDIENTS ( serves four )

A generous hand full of new seasons pineshoots

4........good quality free range chicken breasts

1.......Pint of good vegetable stock

2 tbsp.....Dry Vermouth

1 tbsp.....Orange juice

2 tbsp.....Double cream

A generous pinch of saffron strands

1 -1/2 oz.......butter (30 - 40 g )

METHOD

1. Place the pineshoots into the top part of a steamer and top them with a layer of pierced tinfoil, add water to the bottom part of the steamer. Lay the chicken breasts on to the tinfoil, place the lid on and gently steam for 20 to 30 minutes.

2.Meanwhile make the sauce. Reduce the vegetable stock over a high heat until approx. 150 ml remains. Add the Vermouth , orange, double cream, and saffron then allow to simmer gently for about 30 seconds, whisk in the cold, cubed butter to thicken the sauce slightly then season to taste with salt and pepper.

TO SERVE

Place a mound of buttered sesame cabbage on to the centre of the plate, top the cabbage with a round of potato cake .Cut each chicken breast into six pieces and arrange around the plate. Place a sauteed wild mushroom in between each piece of chicken then sauce carefully around. Garnish with a sprig of fresh pine ,serve, and enjoy. YOU ARE VISITOR NUMBER

 
Diamond Rings