Just wanted to share some of the photos and menu from probably one of our greatest brunch clubs yet. Fearlessly avant garde this was led and styled by our masterful mash-up masticating magician James. The brief? Unexpectedly awesome flavour combinations. Think Mackerel and cherry. Raspberry and blue cheese, Salmon roe with truffles and pork with rhubarb. The menu as it was devised included:
Pickled apple pancakes with slow cooked bacon
and an orange and cardamom syrup
A fairly modest start - so as not to scare the horses. The secret was the intense and zingy syrup which carried and married all of the flavours together. The slow cooked bacon joint was moist and tender and deliciously salty to balance out the sweet and sourness of the pickled apple and spicy syrup. A lovely dish.
Tea smoked mackerel and cherry tart
Not going to lie. This dish caused me mild consternation on paper. As it did a few of our guests going on the early discussions in the room. But it really delivered - and turned out to be several guest's favourite. James had done his testing and confirmed it was awesome and we trust him implicitly in such matters so we went with it and my god was it good. I guess it felt intimidating because Mackerel is a fairly intense and oily fish and pairing it with cherry seems unusual. We smoked it ourselves which was novel and rather fun but I'm afraid to say the smokey tea got lost in the larger flavour profile. But making up the mackerel mousse with creme fraiche and a few other secret ingredients we did a lot of work to balance and season and draw out the relative flavours of each component. Results were epic.
Secret blue cheese raspberries
with watercress and hazelnut
Going with the surprising element - we hid little bursts of creamy blue cheese wonderment inside some of the berries as well as using a combination of frozen and fresh berries to change up the flavours and textures with a nice hazelnut oil dressing to pull it together. A nice and light cleansing dish to prepare for the final three rounds.
Deep fried mushroom with truffled quails egg and salmon roe
Ok ok so truffles, mushrooms and poached egg aren't the most surprising combinations! Of course they go together and my god are they good. However adding a little zingy fishy salmon roe and it took on a new dimension.
Pork & Rhubarb crumble
Right so onto the main event. It immediately grabbed your eye on the menu and the whole room was buzzing once it had been served. It was our playful take on a rhubarb crumble. Rhubarb being a surprisingly good flavour combination to pork being somewhere in between apple and lemon. We slow cooked a pork shoulder for five hours with fairly neutral marination to ensure we had a good solid pork flavour as a base. We pulled that apart with a fork and put in a hearty layer in the base of the glass with some pan juices. We then had some roasted rhubarb which was on the verge of becoming a compote. A nice generous layer of that on top of the pork.
The crumble? We made our own crunchy pork scratchings by deep frying some pork belly skin (a highly dangerous and terrifying prospect for the uninitiated- make sure you cover your oil!) We added some deep fried bread crumbs and crispy shallots for good measure and crumbled the combination on top. If this is making you salivate then you are not alone. I'm drooling just typing this. Needless to say this dish is a keeper and will be making a re-appearance at an event very soon.
The crumble? We made our own crunchy pork scratchings by deep frying some pork belly skin (a highly dangerous and terrifying prospect for the uninitiated- make sure you cover your oil!) We added some deep fried bread crumbs and crispy shallots for good measure and crumbled the combination on top. If this is making you salivate then you are not alone. I'm drooling just typing this. Needless to say this dish is a keeper and will be making a re-appearance at an event very soon.
Poached pears with shaved cheddar and red wine jelly
That crumble was a hard act to follow, but we kept surprising our guests with a slightly savoury dessert that wasn't too challenging. Hints of christmas in this dish we poached the pears to soft firm texture in a light red wine syrup and then served with aged cheddar and red wine jus jelly. And that was that!
A nice way to round of an epic menu. The feedback we got on this menu and event was fantastic. We've certainly got some adventurous gourmet loving fans out there who just lap this stuff up so we promise to be ever bolder and braver with our food in the future.
Heartfelt thanks must go to one of our guests James W. who took the wicked photos for this post. Look forward to having you back buddy!
Heartfelt thanks must go to one of our guests James W. who took the wicked photos for this post. Look forward to having you back buddy!
Keep an ear and an eye on the FB community and your emails as we've got some exciting events popping up in London and Barcelona soon.
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2 comments:
Hi Nick. These dishes look stunning! Keep up the good work.
Best wishes, Alex.
Looks great!
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