Thursday, June 5, 2008

Great British Menu Final

The judges and the British public have voted about 2 weeks ago who will be cooking for Heston Blumenthal and his guest in the Gherkin in London and the winners are:

Starter: Jason Atherton's Bacon, lettuce and tomato with Croque Monsieur for London and the South-east
Fish course: Stephen Terry's Organic salmon and smoked salmon with crab fritters and cockle 'popcorn' for Wales

Main course: Jason Atherton's Dexter beef fillet, ox cheek, smoked potato purée and marrow bone for London and the South-east

Dessert: Glynn Purnell's Marinated strawberries with tarragon and black pepper honeycomb with burnt English cream surprise for Central

I am thinking if I should cook this menu for the next dinner party but not sure if I can get all the ingredients. For the ox cheeks I will have to ask the O'Flynn brothers in Marlboro Street and it will be a lot of work.....but I think it will be a challenge.

If we were going for the Irish Great Menu.....what would that involve? Bacon & Cabbage??? What else....let me know your dream menu and I might cook it for the next dinner party.... :-)

4 comments:

Will said...

Hiya Elke,

If you do manage to find a supply for Beef cheeks let me know where, because I have been looking for a supplier of these for a while. Every butcher I have asked doesn't even know what I'm talking about... Funnily you should mention Bacon & Cabbage as Kevin Thornton has just published a recipe for a delicous Bacon & Cabbage terrine on his blog (http://foodforlife.typepad.com//foodforlife/2008/06/bacon-and-cabba.html).
I think the real difficulty in cooking this menu would be sourcing the quality of ingredients that these chefs have access to, even the beef (dexter)that Jason Atherton uses is impossible to source...
What are you doing trying to cook delicious meat dishes anyway?

Cheers,
Will

Elke said...

Hi Will, I love cooking meat dishes cause my friends love meat and if I could eat meat I would (I tried it as a child and hated the texture from the first bite) and meat is more of a challenge for me. I will go to see O'Flynns butcher on Saturday and hope that they can help. Will let you know. I know that the quality of the ingredients will be a challenge but I am eager to 'stuck my teeth' into something more advanced. Don't think that I will be ordering from the UK tho to keep the food miles down. I am sure Irish beef should be sufficient (so I hope) ;-)

Watch this space for updates.

Will said...

Elke,

Any joy finding beef cheeks? I was in a couple of Butchers in Dublin over the weekend and was told that I would never find these in ireland. Health and Safety is too strict and they won't release any head meat at all.

Cheers,
Will

Elke said...

Hi Will, ha....go back to the butcher in Dublin and tell him that we Corkonians are better in sourcing things....found them in the English Market at Bresnans. They have them on a regular basis as they have a plant themselves and use all the animal. Dexter Beef is definetely out but O'Flynn's brothers promised me a nice pieces of tender beef. So, after next week I will be starting to test-cook.Will let you know how this goes.