Leiths Cookery Week – day five

On to my final day on the Leiths one week intermediate cooking course! On Friday we made tarte tatin, followed by monkfish and hollandaise. The demo was about dinner party cooking, and we watched our chef make two three course dinners compromising of tartlets, halibut, and panna cotta; and haloumi salad, harissa lamb, and roasted figs.

I’ve made tarte tatin once before and it was quite different to the way we did it at Leiths. For one thing the first time I did it (also at a cookery class, funnily enough) we used ready made puff pastry. And for another, we did a dry caramel at the previous one, which is a notoriously tricky bastard involving melting sugar in a pan without stirring it. You then have to stick the apples into the caramel as it solidifies and there’s a big risk the caramel will be on the bitter side if you’re not experienced. For the Leiths version, the caramel is made by melting sugar and butter together until it’s gone a wonderful golden colour, then you place your apple slices in and gently cook them for around 40 mins in the pan until the bottom of the apples is browned and golden. The apples shrink down a bit so you need to shove as many in the pan as possible – then you can rearrange them as necessary while they cook.

The other main difference was that instead of puff, we made a rich shortcrust pastry. The Leiths recipe uses some ground rice in the pastry, which gives it a real crunch in the texture. Once the apples have gone nicely golden, you simply place your rolled out disc of fridge cold pastry over the top of the pan, knock off the edges with a wooden spoon so it’s evenly round, and gently pat it down onto the apples. Then you bung it in the oven and bake it for around half an hour, till the outside pastry is golden. It’s important to leave it for a few mins (but not more than five) before you flip the tarte out so that it has a chance to settle. Then when you flip it, leave the pan upside down on the plate for a one min to allow gravity to help any straggling pieces of apple come down to tart level. If there are any stubborn pieces, you can gently encourage them down with a knife. Then you can always neaten up slightly before leaving it to cool slightly before serving. Easy!

The monkfish was quite fun too – after cutting the sinewy stuff off it (it’s a hella meaty fish) we poached it in court bouillon. The real challenge for this one was the hollandaise. Because it’s an emulsion sauce, it has to be made quite gradually by hand and you need to use a bain marie so it doesn’t get too hot, as that can make it split. You have to made a reduction with white wine vinegar and a few other bits, then you start whisking egg yolks in a bain marie while very slowly adding small chunks of cold butter. It has to be whisked constantly and kept on a medium heat so that it thickens to the right consistency. It’s a bit of a pain to make by hand so luckily there is a cheat’s way of making it in a blender, which is what I’ll be doing in future! We ate our monkfish with herby hollandaise on a bed of wilted spinach for lunch and it was divine.

In the demo kitchen we watched two chefs do a three course meal each. Heli did the most wonderful warm halloumi and chicory salad to start, which was divine. I’ve never really liked chicory but if you caramelise it in a pan, it takes on the most wonderful flavour. Halloumi is a firm favourite in my house so I can see us making this one again. The whole things is finished with pomegranate seeds, so it’s visually beautiful as well as impressive! For mains she made harissa lamb served with chickpea tomatoey spicy stuff (I can’t remember the posh name!) and spinach, which was lovely. Harissa is a very intense flavour so it’s best used to dilute the paste with greek yoghurt for marinading. For dessert she did a dish of roasted figs, served with salted caramel almonds tuiles – which was an ad hoc recipe made up on the spot after Heli found some salted caramel almond brittle in the fridge! It was sooo tasty – you just grind up the nuts a little in the blender until they’re fine, then you take some filo, brush butter over it, sprinkle some nuts over the layer, then add another layer, brush it with butter etc etc. You get the idea. You then cut them into triangles and bake them on on 180° for 20 mins – then voila, you have amazing little pastry tuiles to serve with your figs! Delish.

Our other chef Rupert made the most wonderful pea tartlets to start his three course meal. The pastry was made with oats and walnuts, giving it the most amazing texture. You then caramelise a shallot to place in the middle of the tart, then place some peas either side that you cover in the egg custard. They’re not complicated by they were delicious and can easily be made ahead – will definitely be making them again! For mains, he did pan fried halibut fillets with a wonderful, versatile classic French sauce vierge – a sauce made from olive oil, lemon juice, tomato and basil. For the pudding, he did vanilla panna cotta which was wonderful. He served them with batons marechaux – a Swiss meringue based biscuit. They’re very simple – you just make swiss meringue, fold in ground almonds, pipe them into fingers with a plain nozzle, cover them in nibbed almonds and bake them! They give the dessert the most wonderful crunch to contrast to the panna cotta. The panna cottas can either be made in small pots or in glasses and they’re wonderful at dinner parties because they seem a lot more difficult than they actually are! I’ll be posting a recipe for them on the blog soon…!

I had the most wonderful week at Leiths – it’s a fantastic environment to learn practical skills and gain cooking knowledge. The teachers are endlessly patient and full of enthusiasm – though I’m told they’re much stricter when you’re doing the professional diploma! Though I reckon a third of the course was familiar territory for me, I still gained an awful lot of experience and I learned a lot of new things. Most of all I really enjoyed having a week devoted to one of my real passions in life – it’s a wonderful thing to do for yourself, especially if you’re stressed or busy in your normal life. I would definitely recommend doing a cooking course if you enjoy food – and Leiths is an amazing school.

Huge thanks to all the teachers, including Sue, Heli, Hélène, Ansobe, Belinda, Louisa, and Rupert for their patience, passion, and expertise. I sincerely hope to see you all again at some point in the future…!

Five things I learned on day five:

• If your pastry case cracks a little after blind baking, brush with some egg white and place back in the oven for five minutes to prevent leakages.
• To deseed a pomegranate, cut it in half horizontally and place the it in your palm, jewel side down. Then whack the back with a wooden spoon till the seeds all come out. Magic!
• When a recipe talks about a sauce coating the back of a spoon, you should be able to drag a finger vertically down the spoon and the gap should remain there.
• If using disposable piping bags, place your nozzle in the bottom of the bag and add whatever you’re piping to the bag before cutting it – this means you can swing the piping bag a a couple of times to get all the stuff right into the bottom of the piping bag.
• Always add whatever liquid you’re setting to the gelatine as opposed to pouring the gelatine onto anything. This means you won’t lose any all all in the transfer, as even losing a small amount can affect the set.

Disclosure: I contacted Leiths about their courses and arranged for a discount on their intermediate course in exchange for an honest review of my experience, which I have chronicled over a series of posts.