Well this blog has been neglected somewhat hasn’t it!

The reason for my silence is I’ve been very busy setting up my new catering business Eliza Welsford food & events

It’s been an exciting few months building up the business, lurching from euphoria to despair with the joys of website development (I am a wordpress genius – ahem, honest!), branding designs, new menus, sourcing suppliers, building networks etc etc.

Come over and join us at our new home elizawelsfordfood.com. We would love to know what you think!

We’ve catered for intimate dinners, canape parties, business meetings, and birthday celebrations, and will be catering from our first wedding in May.

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See you there!

A sneak peak at some of our food:

Has it really been 5 months since I wrote a post? Needless to say, like everyone else I’ve been busy!

Since my last communication I have

• Taken and passed my Wine exam with a distinction
• Sat through the Leiths diploma theory exam and stood through a 5 hour practical and passed!
• Enjoyed a lovely long weekend with my family on the outskirts of Rome
• Spent a month taking in the sights, hospitality and divine food of Hong Kong, Cambodia and Vietnam
• Fed nine hungry golfers for a week at a gorgeous villa in the hills of Catalunya
• Worked freelance for various catering companies
• Baked an enormous and rather delicious chocolate cake for a 50th birthday party
• Run my first independent canape and bowl food events to great success

So whats’ next?

You might remember my post: Lessons from work experience as I considered my options post Leiths. One of the greatest things about a life in food is that it is constantly evolving, you can never stop learning new styles, techniques and recipes, from yourself and from others. I wanted to do something I loved and to be my own boss so I have taken the first steps to setting up my own catering and events business. Details of what I will be doing will follow, and cookery classes are comings soon. But in the meantime here is a recipe (especially for Hayley) that makes use of a fabulous ingredient currently in season: Fennel

Fennel and lemon risotto with prawns
Serves 2

1 fennel bulb
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter, plus 1 tbsp to finish
1 onion, finely chopped
180g risotto rice
1 large glass of white wine or vermouth
600ml vegetable stock
zest of 1 lemon, and juice to taste
25g parmesan, grated
6 peeled, raw large prawns

Finely chop the onion. Trim any green fronds from the fennel bulb and reserve for a garnish. Cut the fennel bulb in half and thinly slice three slices from each side using a mandolin or sharp knife. Finely chop the remaining fennel.

Very gently simmer the stock. In a separate pan gently sweat the chopped onion and fennel in olive oil until soft and translucent. Add the rice and stir until coated in oil. Turn the heat up and add the wine or vermouth. Stir until evaporated. Turn the heat down and add a ladleful of stock, stir from time to time until it has reduced. Repeat until the rice is al dente (has a slight bite). You may not need to use all of the stock.

Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan and add the fennel slices. Cook until golden and then gently flip over. Add a ladleful of stock and allow to simmer until the stock has evaporated and the fennel is soft and golden.

Devein the prawns, make a shallow cut along the length of the black line and lift the intestinal tract out using the tip of a knife.

When the risotto is al dente, add the zest, butter and parmesan. Season to taste. If you would like a more lemony flavour, add some lemon juice. Cover  the pan and leave for 5 minutes while you cook the prawns.

Push the fennel slices over to one side of the pan. Turn the heat up and fry the prawns on each side until pink.

Spoon the risotto into bowls, top with  three fennel slices, three prawns and the fennel fronds.

p.s apologies to any followers that received an earlier email notifying them of a new but only half written post. The new changes (probably not so new anymore) to wordpress temporarily confused me!

This week Mark Best, owner of Marque in Australia, was in London for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants (he came in at number 61). He was also promoting his new book ‘Marque’. While he was here, he dropped in to Leith’s to demonstrate 3 of his dishes. He said these dishes represented the Marque style and showed the evolution of cooking since opening. I have to admit, when they said Mark Best, I had no idea who he was, though I was told he was ‘big’ in Australia. By the end of the demo, I was asking for work experience in his restaurant. Slightly out of my way being in Sydney!!!!

The dishes he showed us encouraged us to think about ingredients in alternative ways. Squid for example became rice in one dish and noodles in another. Every ingredient be it an onion or caviar is as important as the other. In this dish ‘Risotto’ of squid flavoured with cauliflower puree and leeks, is covered with a prawn that has been flattened and arranged into a circle, and served with a prawn broth foam, topped with crispy curry leaves. It was absolutely delicious but no longer on the menu, as apparently it is a bit dated.

A much more contemporary dish was Ike jime squid (as noodles) with smoked goats curd, young coconut and black radish.

This dish is about contrasting texture and colour. It was amazing.

But we’ve been learning to cook less contemporary dishes! We’ve roasted and jointed a duck which was served with orange and almonds (alla Prue Leith) and Pommes Anna. Apparently this was her signature dish (in the 1970s)! Remember this is about classic techniques.

I’ve also temporarily (I hope) been put off lemon sole having whizzed it in a magimix and pushed it through a drum sieve to make fish quenelles. These were served with savoury tuilles which I decorated with sesame and poppy seeds.

Do not serve with 4 squares of concasse tomato as I did – odd numbers only!

Finally a dish with a number of component parts; roasted pollock with sweetcorn puree, sweetcorn and tarragon salad and mushroom mousseline

All in all a busy week. Coming up a demonstration by Yotam Ottolenghi, gnocchi and tortellini. I’m a happy girl!

Oh and Mark’s response to work experience at Marque was positive once I’ve saved my pennies for the flight.

I’m still here and two weeks into the advanced term of the diploma. Since my last post I survived and passed the intermediate practical and theory exams and spent the Easter break doing various work experience placements with a catering company, a restaurant, at Olive Magazine and assisting at cookery workshops.

So what did I learn?

Three days in a restaurant helped me understand its lure despite long hours, for little pay. I worked in an establishment that is a bakery and lunchtime cafe during the day and a restaurant at night, so I gained an insight into all three. The best of British seasonal produce was served and I was trusted enough to be thrust a load of ingredients and told to get on with making soup for the evening service. Not something I expected, so it was a thrill to see if go out to paying customers. The buzz during service is certainly alluring and were I doing this 10 years ago it may be a direction I’d pursue. Some further restaurant stints may be on the cards.

Professional catering is definitely an area I am interested in and has been a consideration for a while. It appeals to my events management background and need for variety and projects. In the longer term, is something I could set up from home.

Recipe testing, going on photoshoot or assisting in the office were three things I could have found myself doing as I walked into the BBC Media Centre for a day working at Olive Magazine. As it turned out I was working on the later, and interesting and informative as it was, the experience reminded me of where I have come from and why I chose to do the diploma: I no longer wanted to work in an office environment. While I really appreciated my day there I do not think it is something I wish to return to … yet.

My last work experience stint was assisting David Bailey, formerly Head Chef at Saf, and now owner of the very successful Wholefood Heaven with his raw food workshops. David is an amazing chef who went from committed carnivore to vegetarian following health issues. He now runs Wholefood Heaven with his wife and won Best Main Dish at The British Street Food Awards with their Buddha Bowls. I found the day really inspiring, it was so interesting to learn about raw food techniques, though it is not a diet I would follow. Helping others to learn new techniques, improve their cooking and diet or just have fun with food is really rewarding so teaching is another area I’m interested in exploring further.

All in all, the experiences were great, though I’m still not sure what happens at the end of June, a scary 8 weeks away!!!

So back at Leiths, things have stepped up a notch. Foundation term could be described as home cooking, intermediate as gastropub and advanced as fine dining. Marking is getting tougher and precision is the word of the moment, if you’re serving concasse of tomato make sure all pieces are identical in size and shape and they are all the same way up!

We’ve been introduced to jus, gastriques, fancy vegetable garnishes and making our own puff pastry, (though I think it is easier than making flaky), and the highlight for me; consommés and clearing. I’ve done a rubbish job of taking photos and wish I had one of a strawberry suspended in clear lemon jelly. It was pretty cool.

Dishes have a greater number of components requiring consolidation of, or learning new skills and next week I’ll try to take photos of some of the dishes which include Roasted Pollock with sweetcorn puree and mushroom mousseline, roasting and jointing a duck and serving it with a gastrique, Pommes Anna and orange and watercress, and learning to make yeasted pastries. For now though I leave you with a picture of a suckling pig which struck quite a few students because it was so young and looked like “a sleeping baby”

In my opinion, whilst it may impress some at a dinner party, it’s worth letting the pig run around in the mud for a few more months for a better flavour!

When was the last time you saw the classic meringue cuite recipe; meringue basket? So long ago that I’ve failed to find an image of one through Google. I wasn’t that keen to make one in our creative meringue cuite session, but what to do with it instead? A search for “meringue cuite” came back with very few responses save a few seals and an albino hedgehog – I assume ‘cute’ was meant. But I had decided on an exotic fruit soup, and realising this might look like a lake I resurrected an old classic:

From swans to ducks. This was one of the most delicious things we cooked last week –  caramelised duck breast with honey and ginger, served with rice noodles, chili, coriander, spring onions, sesame seeds and lime.

We have had the opportunity to flex our creative muscles where a little like Masterchef we are presented with a load of ingredients to turn into a culinary masterpiece but, unlike Masterchef we have days rather than 20 minutes to think about what we are going to do. In creative lamb I cooked lamb steaks marinated in Chermoula, a butterbean and caramelised onion puree, roasted red peppers and wilted spinach which was described as a very flavoursome plate (whoop!). I didn’t have the chance to take a photo but next time I cook it I shall post my recipe.

What I have photographed is my genoise commune cake smothered in coffee buttercream.

But this is no ordinary butter cream. For this very smooth, rich and exceptionally buttery butter cream, a creme anglais is made which is then mixed with butter and flavoured with coffee, chocolate or whatever takes your fancy. It’s a lot more faff that an ordinary butter cream but the smooth result justifies the extra effort for a special cake.

The birthday boy certainly enjoyed it!

Leiths Coffee buttercream

170g sugar
225ml milk
3 egg yolks
170g salted butter
170g unsalted butter
coffee essence to taste

Gently bring the milk and half the sugar to the boil.

Beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar.

When the milk has come to the boil, pour it on to the egg mixture and mix well. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir over a low heat without boiling until slightly thickened. To test it has reached the correct consistency, coat the back of a wooden spoon with the mixture and run your finger up the back. If you rock the spoon from side to side the line should remain. Once thickened strain into a bowl and leave to cool.

Beat the butter until creamy and gradually whisk the custard mixture in to it. Flavour with coffee essence

The lovely Rachel of Blissfully Scrumptious has bestowed me with a Liebster Blog Award which is given to talented and loved bloggers who have less than 200 followers. I understand it started in Germany to give small bloggers recognition for their efforts.

Rachel certainly deserves recognition for her lovely cakes and bakes, as well as healthy eating recipes. Do also look at her website  www.blissfullyvintage.com  and blog http://blissfullyvintage.wordpress.com for gorgeous vintage china.

The rules:

• Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
• Link  back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
• Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.
• Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.
• Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

I suspect some of my chosen blogs have more than 200 followers but all deserve to be noticed:

Roswensian - beautiful baking and more

Limited Literature – very talented poet, influenced by all sorts, often found baking with a 2 year old

Pepper & Sherry – fantastic collection of recipes and anecdotes. I love Juls’ writing and honesty

Appledrane – a gorgeous food and photography blog

Footprints in the butter - scrumptious recipes

In the past couple of weeks  I have probably consumed as much, if not more,  butter, cream and meat than in the six months previous. Sweating onion in olive oil is a distant memory, everything is cooked in butter. I’ve pot roasted partridge with lentils and pancetta, made veal and ham raised pie, baked creme caramels, ridged, rolled and folded flaky pastry for my chicken pie, made gougeres, risotto, hollandaise, and enjoyed trout en papilote.

Demonstrations are great, yesterday we munched our way through various offal. I enjoy calved livers but rarely venture beyond them in restaurants or in my own kitchen, so I was pleasantly surprise to love lamb kidneys, faggots, and slivers of pan fried ox heart. Tripe less so – just because it is so bland! I will definitely be more confident ordering offal dishes in future.

They warned us we would be exhausted by the end of the first two weeks and they were right. My fatigue was enhanced by completing the cooking for 50 challenge, where 4 of us cooked for the harshest of critics, fellow students. It was up to the wire – making vast amount of rough puff pastry took longer than I thought but my right angles are now near perfect –  we made it and the majority seemed to enjoy it. We get feedback next week…

On the first day 19 or so excited yet nervous new intermediate chef school students entered the glass doors of Leiths School of Food and Wine. Some confident in their abilities, others wondering if they should have done the foundation term. We were issued with chef jackets, blue check, elasticated trousers, skull caps, neck ties, aprons and the most hidious kitchen shoes known to man. This certainly isn’t a fashion parade! The first morning was spent learning a little about the course, assessment and what we would be covering in the first week, with many references to “this should be revision to you, you should know this”. Cue nervous glances from nearly every student in the room. Did we know enough? We were about to find out…

Dressed in our chef whites for the first time, our knife skills were put to the test on an onion and a carrot. My onion chopping skills passed muster, my carrot batons needed a little practice to be at the required 90 degree angle demanded by our firm but friendly teacher. Next up was preping and cooking a rack of lamb which made a delicious lunch before an afternoon of demonstrations.

Thursday was a whole day in the kitchen, we’d all made a timeplan the night before and set to putting our shortcrust pastry skills to the test by making Quiche Lorraine. Now I’m not usually a fan of Quiche Lorraine, a bit retro, a bit naff, but done properly, I had to admit it was rather delicious. Beef Carbonnade was even better and Mr W. appreciated the Lemon Sole Meuniere for dinner, even though it had been reheated – not great for fish.

Friday concluded with an afternoon of wine tasting, I’ll admit to swallowing the wines I did like, it was Friday afternoon afterall but I won’t be repeating it in the morning class. Perhaps not a great idea when one has to brandish knives in the afternoon.

So at the end of the first week I still have all my fingers and have yet to burn myself but I did along with 80% of the class gain a blue plaster after cutting myself on my very sharp new knives. Fortunately, it is only a teeny cut, there were worse – much worse! Even better I met the required level to join the foundation students whom I meet tomorrow along with my tutor.

I had so much fun making this gingerbread house with the architectural expertise of Mr W. From mixing the gingerbread to icing and assembling, and finally, seeing the grin on our two year old goddaughters face when she saw it!

The gingerbread mix is from the BBC Good Food website and it behaved perfectly when baking, however, you do have to work quickly with it as it becomes crumbly, so make sure your baking sheets and templates are prepared in advance. I upped the spices to give it a bit more of a ginger kick and a hint of warming spices. There was plenty left over to make Christmas trees and stars for stocking fillers.

The  royal icing was left over from icing the Christmas cake and had been whisked to stiff peaks so it was nice and thick and stayed where I put it. It also gave me a chance to practice my new found piping skills.

Finding brightly coloured boiled sweets at the local newsagents and supermarket proved a bit of a challenge so the stain glass is not as bright as originally planned but overall I’m very pleased with the end result.  In fact, it turned out better than I could have hoped!

The gingerbread house was placed on a silver tray which was dusted all over with icing sugar. Trees were stuck to the tray with more royal icing, though a few blocks of mini toblerone were required to help it stay in place while setting. Inside the house was a gingerbread tree decorated with green icing, surrounded by marzipan presents.

I’m entering my Gingerbread House into the Great British Baking Club December Challenge

Fingers crossed!

Gingerbread

250g butter
200g light soft brown sugar
105ml golden syrup
600g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
11/2 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spice

Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut out 3 sheets of baking paper to fit your largest baking tray.

Melt the butter with the sugar and syrup in a saucepan over a low heat.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the butter mixture into the well and quickly bring together with a wooden spoon to make a dough.

Take about 1/4 of the dough (cover the rest with clingfilm to prevent it from drying out) and roll out to the thickness of a £1 coin. Lay the two roof panel templates on the dough and cut round with a knife. A metal ruler will help you gain straight edges. Stamp out trees, stars or any other shape that takes your fancy into the dough around the edges.

Remove the excess dough from around the cut outs and remove the templates. Lift the baking paper with the cut outs on it on to the baking sheet. Bake in the top of the oven for 8 minutes or until golden brown (your oven may vary, the original recipe for this mix suggested 12 minutes, you may wish to do some tester biscuits first – chef’s perk ).

Repeat with the walls and side panels. If you wish to create stain glass windows. Cut out your shape, remove the dough and fill with crushed boiled sweets.

Allow the gingerbread to cool and harden before placing on a wire rack. Once completely hardened and cool you are ready to decorate and then stick your house together with thick royal icing.

First pipe royal icing along the edges of the front wall panel and push the side panels into them. Repeat with the back panel. Support them with a big ball of icing wrapped in clingfilm or whatever you can find in your kitchen – in my case forks and ramekins worked well. Once hardened and set pipe along the top edges of the walls and put the wall panels in place. Support until set.

Pipe icing to create icicles and stick on any chocolate or sweets you wish to decorate your house with.

I think I might make this a Christmas tradition, it certainly seems more popular than Christmas cake.