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come dine with me
Interview: Andrew Simms
NO matter how talented the Army chef or the quality of the rations at their disposal, home-cooked food features on the most-missed lists of the majority of those serving in the forward operating bases of Afghanistan.
With a combat medic as a cousin, this appetite for fresh fare is not lost on Michelin-starred Nathan Outlaw who believes that Britain’s fighting men and women deserve to be served up the very best of British on their return to home soil.
“I think there’s a lot of truth about troops being passionate about their food and they must miss it,” the chef told Soldier from the kitchen of his intimate and eponymously-named restaurant at the St Enodoc Hotel in Rock, Cornwall.
“My cousin has been a medic in the Army for nearly ten years now and always tells me the sort of dishes he craves when he is away, and when I appeared on the BBC’s Great British Menu a couple of years ago I spent some time with a group of submariners and got a good idea of the sort of food Service personnel enjoy.”
With this inside information in mind, Soldier recruited Outlaw – fresh from winning the south-west heat of this year’s series of Great British Menu – to devise a homecoming feast fit for Herrick’s heroes.
The mouth-watering fruits of his labour, a ten-course taster menu, feature below.
“I tried to imagine the sort of meal that I would want after being away for a long time and the sort of dishes that would mark a celebration,” said Outlaw, who followed his father’s footsteps into a professional kitchen and developed his pan-frying prowess under the tutelage of Gary Rhodes and Rick Stein. “There is a sense of nostalgia in a lot of the menu.
“All of the dishes featured are great on their own but by making the portions smaller they can all be enjoyed together. Cooking everything would take a real effort but when you have been away from family and friends for so long, what better way to mark your return home than by inviting everyone round for a real celebration of the nation’s favourite British dishes?”
The seafood specialist was quick to stress that troops’ hunger for home while on operations should not be seen as egg on the faces of those Service chefs in theatre who “work wonders with the resources available to them”.
“I’ve taken part in a few competitions in which I have come up against guys in the Forces and their standard of cooking is always brilliant,” said the 32-year-old. “I’ve got some good friends who served as chefs and really enjoyed it.
“One of them, Kevin Viner, used to help train Army chefs in Aldershot and went on to get a Michelin star, while another served in the Royal Navy for 15 years and now has his own restaurant and is doing very well for himself. I’d recommend it [a career in military catering] to anyone.”
Indeed, had it not been for the offer of a job in a top hotel, the man being hotly-tipped by guides and peers to become one of the UK’s best chefs could well have found himself in a field kitchen.
“I’d picked up a few leaflets [on joining the Army] and was considering it, but I got given the opportunity to go to London and train and took that over going into the Services,” he said.
Despite the possibility of an Army career going up in smoke, Outlaw’s chosen path has not been without its similarities to a life in uniform.
“You have to make a lot of sacrifices to succeed,” he added. “[Being a chef] is hard work and often means being on your feet for 18 hours a day. There are much easier ways to make a living.
“There is a lot of discipline in good kitchens, which are not too dissimilar to some aspects of the Army,” he added. “There is a hierarchy and when you are training you quickly learn that the chef is the boss and whatever he says goes.”
Now the general in two kitchens, Restaurant Nathan Outlaw and the Seafood & Grill, the champion of British cuisine described his command style as “organised and relaxed”.
“I’m a big softie in the kitchen,” he said. “I believe you should lead by example. I work as hard as everyone else and try to pass on all that I have learned over the years.
“Being calm and organised under pressure is key. If you can’t keep your cool in a situation where every customer comes in within the space of half an hour, you are going to churn out terrible food and the customers are going to be upset.”
It is a calmness that Outlaw says he would be delighted to demonstrate to soldiers.
“Would I cook for our troops in Afghanistan? Too bloody right I would,” he concluded.
A quick glance at the culinary cache opposite suggests that there would be few dissatisfied diners if he did.
Banquet for the brave
British vegetable broth with garden herb dumplings
A heart-warming, nostalgic soup will bring comfort to anyone who has been on a long operational tour and the addition of small garden herb dumplings give this dish a great British aroma. The best thing about a broth is that it can be made in advance and benefits flavour wise by doing so.Adding seasonal vegetables to any type of stock base will produce a really flavoursome broth.
Tip: To source the best ingredients for this opener get friendly with a few allotment owners and keep your fingers crossed that they have grown too much!
Seafood cocktail
No British menu would be complete without a prawn cocktail – made with fresh and juicy prawns it is one of our best dishes. I like to make a few tweaks from the traditional recipe by using lobster, crab, baby gem lettuce and adding a touch of fresh basil, but you can make it with any salad leaf you fancy.
Tip: It’s worth the effort of making your own mayonnaise for the Marie Rose sauce using really fresh free-range eggs and some great British virgin rapeseed oil.
Fish and chips
It goes without saying that in the culinary stakes there is nothing more British than fish and chips and with a little extra effort it is a dish worthy of any celebration. First of all pay a bit extra for the fish – go to a good fishmonger and ask for some line-caught cod or pollack, use a really good ale to make your batter and add a hint of English mustard to fresh mayonnaise for the tartare sauce.
Make your own chips using maris piper potatoes, simmering them in salted water until they start to break at the edges. Drain them and let them cool on a tray before cooking them in hot oil until golden and crispy.
Mushy peas you either love or hate, but if you want to make your own it’s really easy. Take some dried marrowfat peas and cover with water. Add a few teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda and leave overnight in the fridge.
To serve, place all the ingredients into a pan and simmer until the peas are broken up and cooked, then season with malt vinegar and a little salt.
Tip: Sprinkling a little sea salt over the fish an hour before cooking will draw out extra water, firm the fish up and give a nice chunky finish when cooked.
Fish pie
When I say fish pie, I don’t mean a dish full of leftover fish pieces. Let’s do this the right way and get down to the fishmongers and ask for some undyed smoked haddock, super fresh scallops, salmon or sea trout and some cracking prawns. Make yourself a really nice white sauce, but instead of milk use some fish stock in which the smoked haddock trimmings have bathed. Chop up a few shallots and a clove of garlic, pick some fresh curly parsley and chop that too. I usually put some hard-boiled eggs in fish pies but for this taster menu I’d use a few boiled quail’s eggs instead. To top off the pie make some fluffy mash using maris piper potatoes, some unsalted butter, double cream and cheddar cheese. Build the ingredients into individual dishes and place in a hot oven until golden.
Tip: Keep things simple and serve with some nice buttered leeks and carrots.
Beef and horseradish
Not a traditional plate of roast beef with all the trimmings, but a super, simple recipe using the finest fillet of beef. Take a fillet with plenty of fat marbling and season with salt and black pepper. Heat a frying pan big enough to hold the whole fillet and sear all over until golden in colour. Allow the fillet to cool and then cling film tightly and place in the fridge. To serve, slice the beef thinly and plate alongside watercress dressed with lemon and oil and a spoonful of mayonnaise and creamed horseradish.
Pork, apple and bubble and squeak
Perfect crispy pork belly with an acidic apple puree, which cuts through the melting fat, is the supreme meat and fruit combination. To make the accompanying bubble and squeak, boil some charlotte potatoes, blanch some cabbage and dice some onion and garlic. Using oil or pork fat, fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes before adding the potatoes, then season with a bit of salt and pepper and add the cabbage. Remove from the frying pan and mix and mould into little cakes. Fry off before serving.
Tip: Place the pork belly in a roasting tray and cook in a hot oven at 220C for 40 minutes before turning your oven down to just below 100C and cooking for a further two hours or until the meat is falling apart.
Lamb with mint sauce
Lamb chops are a great hands-on eating dish, are easy to prepare and simply delicious. Make your own mint sauce by hand-chopping the mint and putting it in some white wine or red wine vinegar with a touch of sugar and salt. Serve with some fresh new potatoes, cooked with a little mint and tossed in butter, and some
fresh peas and broad beans.
Tip: Ask your butcher for some hogget chops – from a lamb over a year old – which have a stronger, more mature taste and more importantly are bigger in size.
Welsh rarebit
No menu is complete without cheese and instead of a selection at the end of your meal, why not include this classic? Welsh rarebit is basically cheese on toast, but this is not any old cheese on toast – it has a couple of British favourites in it in Worcestershire sauce and beer. Serve on a piece of brown bread with a refreshing celery, pickled walnut, apple and watercress salad finished off with a mustard and honey dressing.
Tip: Use good quality cheddar and strong ale so the flavour really comes through.
Trifle
If I go to a party and there is no trifle on offer then I am not happy – it is my ultimate dessert. Sherry trifle is the classic, but you can make any variation as long as the custard is good, the fruit is in season and the jelly is set. My personal favourite is raspberry and elderflower. Start by making an elderflower jelly using elderflower cordial, water and sugar and set it with gelatine. Next, make fresh custard using duck eggs, milk and vanilla sugar and add a bit of corn flour to thicken. Whip up some double cream and sprinkle with plenty of fresh raspberries. Finish with hundreds and thousands because no trifle is complete without them.
Apple crumble and cinnamon ice cream
To finish off a great menu you need a great dessert and apple crumble is the most popular in the UK. Apples at their best and great crunchy crumble, what more could you want? Well how about some cinnamon ice cream? Apple and cinnamon is a marriage made in heaven.
Tip: Cook your crumble mix off before you put it onto your apples. Mix some flour, oats, butter, demerara sugar and ground cinnamon and lay and bake on a tray. |
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