Said Simon to the Pieman

A couple of years ago I spent a day at the Cookery School at Braxted Park. Back then it was basically a marquee that with a catering kitchen. It was great fun and I was lucky enough to have won a competition recently to get a free lesson at their new and improved Cookery School. The theme for the lesson was flavours of the Mediterranean and the Chef in charge was 2006 Masterchef winner, Peter Bayless. If I tried to write about the day it would probably make this post far too long. What I have done instead is to post a few pictures and some notes and can say that it was a great day which I thoroughly enjoyed. Peter is an inspirational chef and a great talent. I learnt a few new tips and techniques and have already put some of those to use at home.

Anchovies prepared for the Pissaladiere

The finished Pissaladiere

Freshly made gnocchi

The gnocchi goes into a tomato and spinach sauce, this was delightful.

Peter looks thoughtful as someone tries to gatecrash the Teacher’s side. I’m actually searing the lamb there ready for a tagine.

This is where the lamb ended up. An apricot cous cous was made to go with this.

Peter folding the filo pastry over for the Spanakotiropita or a Spinahc & Cheese filo pie.

Spanakotiropita out of the oven

And for pudding we had Ravani which is an orange scented and syruped semolina cake.

We almost made some bread so here follows the before and after pictures. I learnt a useful tip, if the dough looks like it has cellulite, it’s not ready and requires more kneading.

If you are interested in these lesson please contact The Cookery School at Braxted Park

www.braxtedparkcookery.co.uk or follow them on twitter @BraxtedCookery

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It is a bit late but I thought I’d finally put the pictures of our Jubilee buffet. I haven’t put the recipes on as most were from books, magazines and the web. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

This is a tomato and red onion salad with home-grown rocket on top. This dish was inspired, by Maman Blanc. I was reading Raymond Blanc’s A Taste of my Life and he wrote about a salad his mother made with a Dijon mustard dressing. The dressing is amazing, mustard, red wine vinegar, bit of water and you have the base for it.

From left to right here we have a red & white onion dip with feta & creme fraiche, home-made coronation chicken and a salsa of tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion & chilli.

This is a selection of Cajun chicken breasts and barbecue chicken kebabs. They were fresh but came ready seasoned by my friend Tony at Farm 2 Table.

I have been making this potato salad this year as I needed something that didn’t contain mayo for a pregnant person. So simple, chopped mint, olive oil & seasoning as the dressing for the potatoes.

The full spread, nice use of flags we thought. Then on to the dessert…….

I spent two days making these jellies and yes that’s all there was. I am actually very proud of these as I made the jellies from scratch using gelatine leaves. On the left are Pimms jellies and on the right are my Jubilee Jellies, the bottom layer is prosecco jelly with blue food colouring, then creme fraiche jelly and raspberry jelly.

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