Secret Kitchen menu, 19th Feb 2011
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CitrusChicken liver pâté on brioche with blood orange & port syrup
Beetroot, oranges, candied pecans and Bosworth Ash log
Braised chicken leg on spelt, Jerusalem artichoke and
grapefruit salad with chard and Meyer lemon confit
Bergamot lemon panna cotta with candied clementines
and pistachio & cardamom cookies
Liqueur 44
Candied pomelo rind
About tonight’s menu
The Baby Joe is my friend Victoria Moore’s favourite cocktail, and now one of mine. You can find the recipe in her excellent book, How to Drink. I learnt the blood orange & port syrup recipe, and the pairing with pâté and brioche, during a stage working at Zibibbo restaurant in Florence.
Beetroot, orange and goat’s cheese is a classic combo, and this salad mimics one I recall making at culinary school in San Francisco on one of the days when we were allowed to create whatever we wanted. Bosworth Ash goat’s cheese is from Staffordshire.
Inspiration for the main course came from Madalene of the fantastic British Larder restaurant in Suffolk. I have used organic spelt from Sharpham Park in Somerset and free-range chicken from my local butcher, Frank Godfrey’s. Meyer lemons are unusually fragrant and sadly impossible to find here. I made this confit using some which my friend Nicole stashed in her suitcase when she came over from California and am now trying to grow my own…
The special bergamot lemons were supplied by Earth Natural Foods via local delivery company, Hubbub. They seem to be a cross between the bergamot orange and a lemon. The pomelo is one of the three original citrus fruits, along with the citron and the mandarin, from which all others are descended. It tastes like grapefruit and has a thick rind perfect for candying.
And finally, Liqueur 44 is probably a Madagascan adaptation of a homemade French liqueur called quarante-quatre, which is sometimes made with cloves. I infused sweetened rum with an orange stuck with 44 coffee beans for 44 days.
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