March 2010 Archives

Nigella Lawson, Tom Aikens and River Café co-founder Ruth Rogers worked with Seasoned Events caterers to create delicious three-course dinner for the Institute of Contemporary Arts' (ICA) annual fundraising event.

Held in Camden's Koko, over 200 guests including Tracey Emin and Vivienne Westwood attended the dinner and auction that followed a Veuve Cliquot Champagne reception.

Lawson's recipe for roquemole - Jalapeño-spicy avocado and bluecheese dip, with tortilla chips and sugar snaps - kicked off the dinner. It was followed by chicken breast marinated with lemon thyme and lemon oil with a lemon risotto, with instructions provided by Michelin-starred chef Aikens. The River Café created the dessert: pear and almond tart.

The dinner was enjoyed on bespoke tablecloths created specifically for the event by fashionista Westwood. An auction followed the meal with guests bidding for a selection of one-off porcelain vases decorated by world-renowned artists including Marc Quinn, Antony Gormley and Peter Blake.

The event managed to raise an impressive £200,000 which will go to support the ICA's artistic programme.

A French restaurant in Edinburgh has become the first restaurant in the UK to offer diners horse meat - "saucisson de cheval".

L'escargot Bleu already serves a wide-range of delicacies such as pigs trotter, tripe sausages and pigs head pate.

After three months of serving donkey meat the chef decided to start offering horse meat and it has not looked back.

"Food has changed very quickly in the last 10 years," restaurant owner Frederique Berkmiller told Sky News.

"We eat horse meat in France and so do a lot of British people when they're over there. It's very lean, very tender and anyone who likes red meat would love it."

The dish, served as a steak with peppercorn sauce or as steak tartare, has proved popular with his diners.

But some animal charities have critised the idea of eating meat, claiming that the dish would not be popular in the UK because Britons have not culturally eaten horses.

"Our close relationship with horses, as with other animals such as cats and dogs, has shown us how intelligent and sentient these creatures are," said Ross Minett, from Advocates for Animals.

"They have thoughts and feelings. As a result we don't want to eat them.

Read more at Sky News here >>  

 

 

If a new survey is to be believed (and very often they aren't), the British are now 'better' cooks than the French.

Apparently, the British cook more often and produce a greater variety of dishes than their French counterparts according to the sounding, which has, perhaps unsurprisingly, caused a certain amount of disbelief in France.

French magazine Madame Le Figaro and the BBC's food magazine Olive polled a total of 3,350 people (2,000 of them French) and found that 72% of the British cook at home daily, compared with 59% of the French.

Meanwhile, one British cook in two spends more than 30 minutes preparing a meal, while only 25% of the French take that amount of time.

Four per cent of the French polled admitted they never cook, four times as many as Britons questioned. And nearly twice as many British people as French make their own bread.

What the survey doesn't seemed to have asked is how the efforts of the Frogs stack up against the Rosbifs in terms of flavour and presentation. Although British cooking has improved substantially since the days of spam, powdered egg, spam, spam and spam, it is probably a little early to write off French cooks...

We all like to get merry with the Irish on St. Patrick's Day and it wouldn't be the same without a drop of the black stuff.

But if pints of the stout don't really float your boat, perhaps a collection of Guinness-inspired recipes will.

Published last year to coincide with the iconic brand's 250th birthday, Guinness tells the story of the beer, the people, the memorable advertising and the science behind the perfect pint. 

The book by Paul Hartley and Jane Birch includes 18 recipes such as steak and Guinness burger and honeycomb and Guinness ice-cream.

As well as telling the history of the Irish stout, which began in 1759 when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on a small Dublin brewery, the book contains some of the classic adverts including the fanous Toucan bird.

So if you can't get out to the pub tonight under the pretence that somewhere in your lineage there's an Irish uncle/grandfather/someone who wore green a lot, you could stay in and enjoy an Irish feast of sausages with Guinness gravy and colcannon followed by iced chocolate, Guinness and orange cake.

A two course dinner like that is bound to get even non-Irish eyes smiling.

The World Cup is nearly upon us so brace yourselves for lots of slightly silly football-themed food and drink promotions.

Take Oxfordshire-based Brother Tom's Pies, for example. They've just launched a set of six World Cup-themed pies, all ready for kick-off in June.

So, if you are an England fan you get Steak & Stout flavour. Meanwhile South Africa is represented by Chicken Peri Peri. Other flavours include Bolognaise for Italy and, Patatas Bravas for Spain.

But sadly the company has only come up with pies for the World Cup host nation and the top five seeds. Just imagine the potential if it had gone the whole hog and produced a flavour for each qualifier - Nigerian Goat Stew flavour, Australian Kangaroo flavour, Chilean Llama flavour  - the possibilities are endless. Although it gets a little bit more difficult when you come to North Korea...