RESTAURANT MARK GREENAWAY BLOG

-6 egg yolks

-120g caster sugar

-500mls homemade strawberry coulis (no sugar)

-6 Sheets gelatine (soaked in cold water)

1. Put everything in the thermomix and blend on number 6 until 80c is reached

2. Add gelatine and continue to blend for a further 3 minutes.

3. Pass through a fine strainer onto a Cling filmed tray, pull Clingfilm back until 1cm thickness is achieved.

4. Set in fridge for 4 hours and then cut into 1cm cubes, place back in fridge until ready to use

-150g egg whites (room temperature)

-280g caster sugar

1. Whip meringue on medium speed until soft peak is achieved, slowly add the sugar in a steady stream until all incorporated and stiff peak is achieved.

2. Spread thinly on silicon paper and try out in an oven with the pilot on overnight or alternatively in your hot plate set at the lowest setting.

3. Once dry break into shards and store in an airtight container.

-600mls fresh Strawberry juice

-150g caster sugar

-6g gellan gum

1. Rub gellan through sugar
2. Mix strawberry juice with sugar

3. Bring to the boil slowly

4. Pass through chinoise

5. Chill in a suitable container for approx 30 minutes

6. Once set blend on medium speed for approx 10 minutes until smooth and pass through fine chinoise

7. Put mixture in a squeezy bottle until required

-100g strawberry puree

-80g icing sugar

-½ tea spoon of crispfilm

1. Blend all ingredients and pass through a fine chinoise onto a silicon matt, either dry out under hot lights or in a dehydrator.

2. Cut into triangles whilst still warm and store in-between greaseproof in an airtight container.

-11 leaves of gelatine
-245g cold water
-450g granulated sugar
-375g glucose
-125g water

-½ teaspoon salt
-3 vanilla pods
-caster sugar for dredging

1. Soak gelatine in 245g cold water and melt in same water pour in to mixing bowl and start whisking

2. Combine sugar, glucose and 125 g water and boil hard for 1 and a half minutes

3. Pour boiling syrup onto gelatine mix and whisk for exactly 12 minutes

4. Scrape into tray lined with Clingfilm (oil tray before putting in Clingfilm) and press fresh cling film into it to flatten it out

5. Leave to set in fridge for 4 hours and cut up, dredge in caster sugar and then eat as they are or toast

-400mls double cream

-Seeds from 1 vanilla pod

-60g icing sugar

1. Whip all ingredients together until soft peak.

2. Store in airtight container until required

-20 strawberries’

-Frozen raspberry cells (freeze raspberry and then break up, store in freezer until ready to use)

-1 packet of micro red basil

1. Gather together all your prepared items and 4 cold plates

2. Wash and Cut ½ of the total strawberries in half leaving the other half as they are

3. Scatter the strawberries’ evenly between all the plates,

4. Place 4 cubes of the custard jelly onto each plate and dot the fluid gel around the jelly and strawberries

5. Cut marshmallow into 1cm by 3 cm and dredge in caster sugar, using a blowtorch lightly toast the top of each marshmallow.

6. Quenelle 3 tea spoons of crème Chantilly onto each plate

7. Scatter the meringue and frozen raspberry cells around the plate.

Ok Folks this is my first blog so I thought I would start by giving you a sample of my new cook book I am trying to write. Although I still need a publisher to edit and arrange it here is a little sample.

Why on earth I got in to this trade is often a question I am asked. Was it because I spent summers picking berries in the fields in Scotland or shucking oysters in the south of France or vanilla picking in Madagascar on school holidays.

Not bloody likely. I went to Butlins for my holidays. Spent one summer in a caravan in Wales. Never even new what vanilla was let alone oysters or even where berries came from, and as it turns out our back garden was full of them I just had no interest and was to busy climbing trees, chasing girls and trying to be cool like all the other cool kids at school. Unlike a lot of chefs that tell you in there books that it was an early calling or they fell into it. It was never a decision I ever thought about until I was about 14 and it has been a decision I have never regretted and wouldn’t change even if I could.

I was 15 ½ years old when I started. Sitting in my bedroom telephone stretched in from the hall (there were no cordless or mobiles) picked up the yellow pages for my local area and started phoning local hotels and restaurants telling them my want to be a great chef and was willing to work for whatever they were willing to pay me, as luck would have it about the third or fourth call I made my luck was in. I spoke to a very nice chef called Alistair (never got to know his last name that was the only time I was allowed to call him Alistair, after that it was Chef) from the Cartland Bridge hotel just out side Lanark in Scotland, who told me a position had unexpectedly came up and would I be interested .I was to start in 3 days and to be there at 8am ready for my first day. I ran through to the living room shouting to my mum the good news. I was going to be a chef.

Elated is not a strong enough word about how I felt .My mum was so proud her little boy getting such a great job and ultimately a career in such a posh hotel. The next morning after a very sleepless night my mum and I jumped on a bus to go shopping for my first set of chef whites. After a very long and tiring day we managed to find some. The following day was a write off my mum was on the phone all day telling everyone about her boy and the big posh hotel and I was too busy trying on my chef whites a million times to do anything else.

I reported to the reception at the Cartland bridge hotel at seven thirty sharp (a whole half hour early wanting to make a good impression) I spoke to the girl behind the desk who pointed me downstairs to the kitchen. After speaking to the chef for half an hour I was told to get in to my uniform which I had bought two days earlier. I was sharply pointed to the pot sink to clean the breakfast dishes and stock pots that had been on the simmer all night .Perfectly normal I thought for my first day as apprentice. After finishing I was sent to the still room to wash up all plate’s cutlery and teapots, which took me about an hour after which I was swiftly sent back to the pot sink.This continued all day until 11.30 at night.

I managed to speak to chef before I finished and asked why I wasn’t cooking anything and only washing up .I was told the position that I was given was for KP which is what he told me. Of course I had no idea what a KP was and presumed it was another name for apprentice chef. How ridiculous I must have looked standing there all day with full chef whites on, tall white hat, long white apron and chefs jacket elbow deep in dishwater sweating like a pig washing dishes with the grand allusion of being a great chef. I told chef I wouldn’t be coming back unless it was to cook as I wanted to be a chef not a KP and he told me to come back the next day at 9am to start my apprenticeship.

Needless to say I got the Mickey taken out of me for months and have had full appreciation for KP’S ever since