My First Professional Experience

Hi Everyone! Hope you’ve been enjoying the first couple weeks of the new year. As I mentioned previously, I’ve taken up a new role back in finance. So with commuting and working, it’s been tough to find time to sit down and blog. So nearly a month later, I finally found a Saturday afternoon to share a few pictures of my very first professional experience.

Just one town over in Amersham, the Seasons Catering team were gracious enough to give me the opportunity to cook with them one evening at a private party. It’s a bit of a story how it came about, but needless to say I’m a big fan of the Seasons group which includes Seasons Cafe in old Amersham, another at the Rowan Garden Centre and their traditional Sweets shop also in old Amersham. Chris and I are frequent customers of the Cafe in old Amersham where we have brunch on the weekends. We love sitting up at the counter, reading the paper and having our huevos rancheros or super fluffy scrambled eggs on corn toast. It’s a really cosy place with a deli too – selling all sorts of treats, bread, pies, sandwiches and more.

Chef/Co-Owner Claire and I

So for my catering experience, I arrived a private home in Amersham to meet Claire and the team. It was so impressive how much equipment they brought with them! For about 60 guests, the team provided a pop-up bar and staff who served up a few different canapes and ‘small-bowl’ food. You are probably asking what I did – what is small bowl food?? It is apparently a new trend in the catering world. Rather than having a buffet, catered events are now offering small bowls of food served by wait-staff. As you’ll see in the pictures below, they are literally small bowls. The portion size is a few bites and is similar in size to Spanish tapas or Chinese dim sum. The staff serve them on trays and then pick up the empty bowls afterwards.. Got the concept? It’s brilliant isn’t it?! All the guests were well fed and were able to socialize and mingle about.

Right, the most important party – the food! The first canape we did was Coconut Crusted Prawns with sweet chilli dip. As you’ll see below, Claire is amazing at presentation. She had a collection of gorgeous platters and add a fresh touch of orchids, lemon grass and chillis.

Coconut Crusted Fried Shrimp

While these look simple, they were incredible. The coconut added such a great, unique flavor with the shrimp. I’ve only ever seen a coconut crust once before with chicken at a Caribbean place in L.A. If you ever order from Seasons, I highly recommend these! There were a few other canapes served that evening including Fresh Scallops Wrapped in Bacon and Lobster Bisque with Paprika Crositini. But I was too busy prepping to take more photos. But here are some of the small bowl foods we prepared that night..

Small Bowls of Bangers & Mash with Caramelised Onion Gravy

Small Bowls of Thai Green Chicken Curry with rice

Small Bowls of Tandoori Lamb, Pilau Rice, Mint Raita and fresh Poppadoms

There was one more dish that night that I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of.. And what a shame because I think it was my favorite! It was Duck a l’orange with Dauphinoise Potatoes. So all in all, you can see why I was so blown away by my first catering experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to help out with all the prep. Claire took care of all that and brought a lot of the food prepared. I just helped out with prepping and serving the dishes. But it was such a great experience. The team worked so well together! There was so much going on – from getting the timings right to ensuring all the dishes were being served hot and being cleared for more. The team even bring all glass, crockery and cutlery and even take it with them to wash up. So the customer’s experience is completely stress free!

To the Catering Team at Seasons, thank you so much for the experience and I hope to work for you again some time soon! In the mean time, I’ll see you around in the Cafe 🙂

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The Pleasures of Slow-Roasting..

As I just finished watching BBC’s Saturday Kitchen (as I do most Saturday’s if I can help it, check out another post on the show), I wanted to quickly post in response to the viewer’s call-in question about lamb shoulder. I’ve been meaning to catch up on my posts to write about the slow-roasted lamb shoulder I made last week, so I thought this was a good a time as any!

Last Friday, Chris and I had some friends over for dinner and I wanted to make something different, not too difficult but still have some ‘wow’ factor. I remembered that I recently watched an episode of Food Network UK’s Street Feasts (with British Chef Andy Bates who is renowned for his award-winning pies, check out at EatMyPies.co.uk). He’s been exploring the ‘street food revolution’ in the UK and then making his take on dishes back in the kitchen. On a side note, I went to check out Andy’s stall yesterday at the Whitecross Street Market and was a bit disappointed he wasn’t there, but his mum was delightful and very sweet.. My spirits were quickly turned around when I tried his chorizo pie and traditional pork scotch egg..

One of his creations is a Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder with Feta Salsa. I’ve never actually cooked lamb shoulder before (chops/rack yes, but no other cuts), and I’ve never ‘slow-roasted’ anything either. Since I had the time that day, I thought I’d take a stab at it. And let me tell you.. There was definitely WOW factor. I marinated it in the morning (not overnight as I forgot!) and it was just fuuulll of flavor. And the smells that were coming through were incredible. There’s something to be said about the satisfaction of slow cooking anything.. kind of like the feeling you get when you bake I think.. The effort, love and care you put into it and the patience you have to have when the delicious smells are permeating your clothes and house.. all of it is worth it when you take that tray out of the oven and sigh with relief that it looks just as amazing as it smells. My only regret is that I didn’t take more pictures because I was hosting, but that only means that I’ll have to make it again! This dish was so straight forward to make. The simplicity of the ingredients makes the flavors wholesome yet bold and comforting. Mmm I’m remembering how the meat just melted off that bone.. And that feta just melts into the rich garlicky olive oil. I was amazed at the depth of flavor that the lemon zest provides without being ‘lemony’ too.. I highly recommend this dish! It is particularly brilliant for a dinner party as it’s interactive. Also, because it’s slow-roasted.. it allows you to clean all your cooking up before guests arrive. Ours were amazed at how clean the kitchen was when they came in (our kitchen/lounge is open plan). All I had to do was pull the lamb out and pour the salsa over.

Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder with Feta Salsa

Now whether or not my starter was a classic pairing isn’t exactly certain, but I wanted to keep with the Mediterranean theme. So I made a dish I’ve made before which is also straight forward, doesn’t require a lot of cooking and lets you clean up before your guests arrive – Scallops with Sauce Vierge (Click here for the original post on it). It’s a great starter as it’s got lots of flavors and freshness with the herbs, but isn’t too heavy at the same time. I served it with a side of ciabatta toasts. I prepared the sauce in advance whilst my lamb was cooking and let the flavors marry whilst I cleaned up. Then when our canapes were finished, I just seared the scallops in some butter/olive oil until they were just golden brown. Happy to say they were perfectly cooked!

Scallops with Sauce Vierge

So for the canapes.. I have no idea how I came up with this but it suddenly occurred to me the night before our little dinner party.. Here’s my Steak, Roasted Onion, Crouton Canape with a homemade Roasted Garlic Mayonnaise (click here for my post on making mayo).. For this mayo, simply take a whole head of garlic, chop the top off (to expose the garlic cloves), place in foil, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, close it up tightly and roast until the cloves are just melting. Use this olive oil to make the mayo (add more oil of course if need be) and squeeze in the bits of roasted, creamy garlic. These were such a hit and fairly easy to make! If you don’t want to make homemade mayo, just add the roasted garlic oil to store bought mayo.. Hope you try this one! Again, easy but with WOW factor 🙂

Steak Canapes with roasted red onion and croutons

To be a bit cheeky, I presented them on little plates with the mayo in egg cups!

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My Ongoing Love Affair With Meat

As you all know I am quite carnivorous. I do love my veggies and am improving on my fruits, but nothing can really beat a juicy steak or Sunday roast (except for maybe anything fried).  So I thought I’d share a little slide show of the meat I’ve been eating. Hope you enjoy! 

Sunday Roast - Rosemary Garlic Lamb

Perfectly crispy, fluffed, roast potatoes

So many people give the Brits a hard time about their “plain” food, but as I’ve come to learn plain is just another word for simple. And if you have good quality ingredients, you don’t always need a whole lot of them. The above is courtesy of Mr. Chris Hutton (the boyfriend). Lamb was the very first thing Chris ever cooked for me, and three years later I’m still around! He stuffs garlic cloves and rosemary into the meat and rubs English mustard powder and a bit of flour on the outside. Since rosemary is such a fragrant herb, it can really stand on its own. (Tarragon and sage are other unique, distinct herbs) Be sure to keep it covered ~75% of the cooking time so moisture isn’t lost. It’s SO simple, but when done right it’s such a comforting meal.. Especially when it’s accompanied by perfectly crisp, fluffed potatoes! It’s not fair the Brits get such good potatoes. I have neeever been a potato person, but I’m definitely a convert! A classic trick is to use some goose fat to brown your potatoes in. It’s a natural product and will give you super crispy results! For crispy fries/chips, ensure you have dried, cooked potatoes before frying. Stick them in the oven for just a minute or two to finish off the drying process and voila! 

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NY TRIP (PART 3) : COMFORT FOODS CONT’D

I find it amusing that this is my third post (there will be one more) about my 7-day trip to New York. Clearly I eat a lot. I’ll admit I went a little overboard. This is what happens when you’re a foodie and you’re deprived of New York. Thank goodness for the good weather while I was there and all the walking to offset it.

As promised, I’m writing about the rest of the comfort foods I enjoyed on my trip. (Please see previous post for comments on comfort food, if you haven’t already) Almost all of the places in this post were favorites of mine when I was living in the city.  And I was absolutely delighted to find that nothing had changed. Quality, ambiance, staff – everything was exactly as I had remembered it. That’s something I adore about New York. When New Yorkers find a good thing, they make sure it sticks around for a long time. There’s a loyalty that seems to be inherent in the city. Once you find your favorite bar or favorite brunch place (what have you), you will be damn sure to go there as frequently as possible.

A quick note on the foods I’m about to share. They’re not in chronological order. And they’re in completely different categories of goodness. So please take each into consideration on its own. If you think about them all at once, the combination isn’t entirely pleasant. 🙂

First up – ZAITZEFF.

This place has great memories for me because it was literally around the corner from where I used to live in the Financial District. It was one of the first places I ate at when I moved to the city. And like all great neighborhood joints, I grew to have a really friendly rapport with the chef whose name I could never remember. Most importantly though, the food was TO-DIE-FOR.

Zaitzeff is a burger joint. It’s a hole in the wall with only a couple large wooden (park-bench-esk) tables. The one downtown seems to cater mainly to professionals who order delivery or only have time for take-out. But this means that the main focus is the quality of the food. Just take a look at what Serious Eats had to say (they agree with me).

This trip I wasn’t able to visit Zaitzeff at a respectable burger-eating-hour, so I went for breakfast. Don’t be mistaken. Their breakfast sandwiches sure beat any Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts sandwich any day. And their secret – what I have never had anywhere else – is the bun. A Portuguese roll. It’s like an English muffin but lighter and with a slight sweetness to it. I had a very simple egg and cheese sandwich but it was SO fluffy and really hit the spot. However, I left a little sad that I didn’t get a chance to have my favorite – the ½ pound Kobe burgers served PERFECTLY medium rare and juicy with caramelized onions, Vermont white cheddar, avocado, lettuce, tomato and bacon. But I borrowed one of the pictures from Serious Eats to share with all of you. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this burger since there’s much to talk about this post, but I do want to emphasize that in addition to the fantastic rolls this place uses grass-fed beef which makes the taste and quality of this burger THAT much better. So if you ever venture into the Financial District or East Village (this one’s open late), I highly recommend!

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