Recipes: Retro Dinner Party
Mrs Bainbridge’s Cottage Pie (pictured above)
Serves: 4-6 For the ox cheek:
5kg ox cheek (trimmed)
4 carrots (peeled, roughly chopped)
1 onion (peeled, roughly chopped)
4 sticks celery (peeled, roughly chopped)
1 large leek (peeled, roughly chopped)
10 button mushrooms
10 juniper berries crushed
20 white pepper corns crushed
1 star anise
150g spelt flour
Red wine to cover (1-2 ltr)
Place the trimmed ox cheeks in a large bowl or tray and add veg and spices. Cover with the red wine. Marinade for 24hrs. Strain the ox cheeks. Place in a frying pan on a high heat, season with salt and seal them off on both sides, once golden place back into a heavy based pot, repeat with the vegetables.
In a large pan reduce the red wine by 3/4 and pour back over the ox cheeks. Bake off 150g of spelt flour until golden and add to the ox cheeks. Top up with water (or veal stock) approximately 2-3 ltr, bring to the boil and cover with tin foil. Place in the oven at 120c for approximately 3-4 hours or until the ox cheeks are wanting to fall apart when picking them up.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Once cooled place in the fridge over night. The next day remove the ox cheeks from the jellied sauce, portion into sizes of your choice and place into a heavy bottomed dish. Bring the sauce back up to the boil, pass through a sieve and continue to reduce to a rich sauce consistency. Then pour the rich beef sauce back over the ox cheeks and place in the oven at180c for 10-20 mins to heat through. When hot, season heavily with white pepper.
For the buttery mashed potato:
3 kg Red Potatoes
Table salt
150g Salted Butter (cut into cubes)
250g Double Cream
250g Whole Milk Nutmeg for seasoning
Pre heat the oven to 200c. Place a layer of table salt onto an oven tray and add potatoes on top. Score an X lightly on top of the potatoes and place into the oven for 45mins, or until the potatoes are cooked.
In the meantime, place the cream and milk into a pan and bring to the boil. Once the potatoes are cooked remove from the oven and cool for about 5-10 mins. Scoop out the potato and push through a sieve into a bowl, then slowly mix in the milk a little at a time (if you add it to quickly this is where the mashed potato will turn lumpy). Once all the milk is added, add the butter and mix until smooth (try not to use a machine as this can over work the potatoes and become like wall paper paste!).
Season the mashed potatoes with salt, white pepper and grated nutmeg. Place back into a pot and cling film the potato making sure the cling film is touching the mash to help not form a skin.
For the garnish:
Small salad leaves or pea shoots
Fried shallot rings (slice shallot into rings, lightly dust in plain seasoned flour and fry in hot oil until crispy)
Wilted spinach or greens
To dress:
Using a Ring or mould (this could be a piece of piping or pastry cutter) spoon a LARGE spoon of the mashed potatoes into the mould, then add the spinach or greens and place the ox cheek on top.
Garnish with the salad leaves and fried shallot rings. Remove the mould, add a little extra sauce and serve!
Prawn Cocktail
Serves: 4
Ingredients
500g Peeled Prawns
2 Whole Baby Gems
8 Cherry Tomatoes (washed and halved)
1/2 Cucumber (washed, peeled and cut into cubes)
2 Slices of Stale Sour Dough
Fresh Raspberries (washed)
For the Marie Rose Sauce
2 Egg Yolks
1 tsp Cider Vinegar
1 tsp Dijon Mustard
50 mls Whiskey of your choice or to taste
250 mls Rapeseed Oil
4 Drops of Tabasco
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
The sauce:
Place egg yolks into a bowl with the vinegar and mustard and whisk. Slowly start to add the rapeseed into the egg mixture whiles you are continuously whisking (you can do this in a food processor as well if you wish) once all the oil has been added it should start to look like a rich golden mayonnaise. Now add the tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, tabasco and the whiskey to taste. Place in fridge until needed - it will keep for up to 4 days.
The sour dough crumb:
Take the stale sour dough and place in a food possessor and blend until a rustic crumb. Place a small frying pan on a high heat. Once hot, add a little Rapeseed oil and add the crumb. Fry off until golden and crisp. Remove from heat and place the crumb onto a tea towel to drain. This will keep for up to 4 weeks in an air tight container.
The baby gem:
Slice the baby gem in half, length ways. Heat a frying pan on a medium heat. Once hot, line the pan with rapeseed oil, Sprinkle the half of baby gems with salt, lie in the pan and colour on one side until golden and light crisp. Remove from the pan.
The prawns:
Lightly wash the prawns and season with salt, pepper and a little lemon juice.
To dress:
Place the baby gem in the middle of the serving plate. Sprinkle the prawns over the baby gems.
Place your Tomatoes and Cucumbers over and around the Prawns. Take a few raspberries per person and rip apart over the whole dish.
Spoon a big spoon full of the marie rose sauce where you see it fit and last sprinkle the sour dough crumb all over the dish just before serving. Enjoy!
Rice Pudding and Raspberry Jam
Serves: 4
For the rice pudding foam:
500ml milk 125ml double cream
¼ vanilla pod
3 strips lemon zest
1 ½ tbsp sugar 2 tbsp short grained rice
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
Place all ingredients in a ban. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat. Cook on low heat for 30 minutes until very soft, then remove and allow to cool a little.
Place in a blender and blend until smooth, then place into a whippy gun, charge with 3 charges and rest for 6 hours. If you do not have a whippy gun, semi-whip 200mls of double cream, fold through the rice pudding and let set in the fridge for 1 hour.
For the raspberry jam:
1 Punnet of fresh local raspberries
2tsp icing sugar
Place all the ingredients into a bowl and crush lightly with your hands, cover with cling film and place on the side for 1 hour or more. After that time the raspberries would have produced its own jammy juices. Leave until ready to use.
Garnish to finish the dishes:
Good quality vanilla ice cream
A handful of great granola
To dress the dish: Place a spoonful of the raspberry jam into the middle of the bowl a large scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Take the granola and sprinkle over the whole bowl.
Place a scoop (or spray, if using the whippy gun) the rice pudding mousse just to the centre of the ice cream.
Finally, cuddle down on the sofa with everyone in front of Bulls Eye! Oh, the memories of the 1980s.
To sign up and get your free fundraising pack visit www.mariecurie.org.uk/dinner or call 0800 716 146
Photographs by Katja Bainbridge