Tuesday 8 July 2014

Ashburton Cookery School - MORE Advanced Course

Cooking Extreme!
So the day I’ve been waiting for – for what seems like about 4 years – finally arrived!  Chef Rob Spencer FINALLY got round to running his new MORE Advanced Course at Ashburton Cookery School – and my plaintive tweets must have had the desired effect, since I got an invite to the inaugural session, hurrah!!
July 6th saw me head off on my favourite First Great Western route to Devon – and as usual, being a classy punter, I sat in First Class eating my egg & cress sandwich with added “flame grilled steak” crisps, all washed down with a can of M&S “Cosmopolitan” (no ice, but I did get a paper cup instead of swigging from the can, for I am posh). 
I waited till the cows changed colour from black & white to red, and then disembarked. This time I even remembered to get my suitcase off the train – I am ON it, I thought, this bodes well!
Day 1 in the Fusion Kitchen
As the merry band of six headed towards our kitchen home for the week, a worrying number of “folks-in-the-know” seemed to be wearing an expression that mixed pity, horror and I like to think a hint of envy. However, as Chef Rob introduced the course, he moved quickly to cheery expectations of a “Woeful Wednesday” – and I started to get their drift.
In a matter of minutes I was handed a large bowl of eggs and sugar and an even larger whisk.  Apparently I had just volunteered to whip this madly until it all thickened! Perhaps I raised an eyebrow, this has been known?  Anyway, as luck would have it, we didn’t have quite enough eggs to use the machine instead, but since I brought both arms this week, we were in business.

Once the bitter toffee and calvados ice cream made its way to the machine, we turned our attention to lunch, and here is what I learnt:
  • American roeless scallops come in a handy ice cream tub, and are very lovely things
  • To make scallop mousse: 1) purée scallops madly in blender 2) pulse in a little cream carefully 3) add the rest while stirring by hand with a spoon (because only a MUPPET can overwork the scallops this way). No pressure.
  • Tiny cubes of blanched ginger root taste greeeaat, and can be kept in sugar syrup indefinitely
  • Raw alcohol can be used at the end of cooking (not cooked off) to counteract richness/add specific flavor
  • Biro lids are a great device to connect smoking gun pipe to cloche valve (this one stored for another day)
  • Picking crab is still a bugger!
Food at last!  Here's lunch:

Steamed crab and scallop parcel, crab bisque sauce, baby vegetables
“There’s always one!" award of the day: “Mmmm, this’d be great with a big hunk of crusty bread”

Ere we go, ere we go!
Afternoon got off to a great start with the making of a nearly deconstructed (but put back together again) ratatouille – a spot of lamb butchery – some hollowing out of patty pans – the toasting of garlic croutons – and making of a lamb reduction.  Somewhere among all this Chef Rob’s wingman got himself fired – but fortunately redeemed himself within the hour, so lives to fight another day! Being the lone man on a course must be soooo hard, poor Darren!
Evidently all this was totally insufficient for one afternoon – so next we made a “tarte fine” with puff pastry and apples. I was somewhat perturbed by my Leaning Tower of Pisa-like outcome, but geometry has never been my strong point – so overlapping semi-circles within a circle is a tough ask.
There had been practically NO danger at all up to now – so to remedy this, we all heated pans of sugar to thousands of degrees (well ok, 160C?), and then threw in cream to ensure volcano effect. More mad whisking was required at this stage, and then we put some butter in to make sure it was healthy.
After all this, it was finally time for tea!

Roast saddle of lamb, basil mash, patty pans filled with ratatouille, garlic croutons with tapenade
Dish of the day: saddle of lamb – best lamb ever, someone tell the butcher!

Apple tarte fine, with calvados caramel sauce and bitter toffee calvados ice cream - oh yes.

Slightly inappropriate remark of the day: something related to orgasmic effects of the apple tart. I'm still waiting.
Best random nugget of the day: there is a thing (let’s not call it a chemical) that turns “things” into powder, but when eaten, has the original mouth feel. I intend to get a bucket of the stuff!!
Push on!

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