Street Market Fun and a House Full!

My Dear Wild Cooks,

What could be more daunting…a 22 minute taste of fame on Street Market Chefs tonight at 7:30pm on Channel 5 or a house full of 11 mates watching it?! 

Steph foraging for flies!

It has been great fun to be involved in Street Market Chefs and the filming for the programme flew by! I could not believe that it took five hours to film 22 minutes (how naive am I?!). The whole day went really well and Rob Ramsden, from Deli Fresh, and I are delighted to have been involved. However, that said, neither of us have watched the program yet! I saw Rob at Harrogate’s Countryside Live Show on Sunday 24 October, where he was doing a cookery demonstration in the Deliciouslyorkshire cookery theatre, and I think we are both as nervous as each other about watching our big moment!

As you can probably imagine there was a distinctively foraged flavour to the dishes I chose to cook.

Dish 1

Please find the recipe for my Mackerel with Gooseberry Jelly and Fresh Pea Salad here.

Dish 2

Please find the recipe for my Loose Birds Honey Roasted Duck here.

Steph, Amanda and Rob

Mackerel with Gooseberry Jelly and Fresh Pea Salad
Loose Birds Honey Roasted Duck

Steph x

Off to do some hoovering!!

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Quintessentially Quince

“Steph it is that time of year Love?” said Mrs N, an old family friend. “Mr N and I are going on a cruise next week. You will have to come and get the quince yourself dear – you know where the trees are, don’t you?” said Mrs N in her usual bubbly voice “All we want is a jar of quince jelly for us!”

Following on from our conversation, I set off to Settle to pick some quince. They are found on prickly little bushes and Mrs N needn’t worry about me locating the trees, I know exactly where they are…oh yes! I love autumn and quince picking time is fine by me.

Steph foraging in Mrs N's garden!

My batch last year was not as good as the year before. However, I must admit I was so eager to show these quince some love, and nurture a great jelly, I had no reservations to set off straight away to pick them again this year.

What is a quince …..? These are little sour punchy apple like fruit and are full of flavour. My dear wild cooks, the quince is a difficult fellow to know, not very hospitable to pick as the thorns may get you, but like all ingredients that are a touch more difficult to prepare, wow – what great jelly these unfriendly fruits can produce! The flavours bounce around your mouth like a ping pong ball.

Peter, one of our other wild cooks and Managing Director of the luxury hotel, golf and spa Rudding Park, is the preserve king so I hope this jelly can live up to his Rowan Berry Jelly, challenge on!

What would nicely accompany this quince jelly folks? How about a mean addition to a cold meat platter or served alongside some roast pork, or why not with a ham sandwich for a quick lunch?

Quince Jelly

This free food is worth that extra effort…

Quince jelly recipe.

Steph x

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Steph is in her element with Jean Christophe Novelli and Hermant Oberoi

It was an amazing weekend, the rain poured down continuously but the crowds still flocked to the “World Curry Festival” at Leeds Millennium Square. I got an amazing opportunity to do a cookery demonstration on a line up of some of the world’s best chefs!

Steph's "Yorkshire Curry" Demonstration

Billed as “The Yorkshire Chef”, the curry I cooked had to have a real Yorkshire twist and, amongst these culinary heavies, it had to live up to a really great curry! I cooked Yorkshire Style chicken saag, and even managed to include some foraged ingredients! Click here to read the recipe and try doing it yourself.

Jean Christophe Novelli now runs a Chefs Cookery School and it has been voted as one of the top twenty five cookery schools in the world. I asked Zulfi, the organiser of the World Curry Festival, for some photos with the chefs, so when Jean Christophe asked “you wanna picture?” I did not hesitate and jumped right in! Thank you Jean Christophe Novelli – what a genuinely nice guy and it really meant a lot to me that stars like him are so giving.

Steph with Jean Christophe Novelli

To meet the chef of the Taj Hotels was also a truly great honour. Another great chef and with his restaurant, Wasabi, being the 54^th Restaurant in the World on the S.Pellegrino list, I felt very privileged to be in his company. Chef Oberoi is in charge of the food in the finest group of Hotels in Asia; 103 hotels over many countries including UK, America, Maldives, Africa, to name a few. He was a really knowledgeable chef and he even offered the local Leeds City College students the opportunity for one place, all expenses paid, for a student to go and work over in Mumbai with his team.

My Yorkshire style chicken saag recipe.

Steph x

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Foraging is in with The Times!

Wild Cooks, we are trend setters! Even Giles Coren from The Times newspaper is writing about foraging.

Rene Redzepi, the amazing chef from Noma, took Giles for a trip into Denmark’s countryside, and showed him what foraging was all about.

It is amazing to remember the food I helped Sam Miller, sous chef from Noma in Copenhagen, to prepare on the 5 August this year, along with some other local chefs at The Cooking Rooms in York. It is still so fresh in my memory, truly a great event and you can still read all about it here.

Cooking alongside Sam Miller Post.

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