The day Franck came to town

On Wednesday, author, chef, Traiteur, and just plain nice guy, Franck Pontais, came to Cambridge to demonstrate his unique style of cooking. Franck wrote Terrines and Verrines, a cookbook that we've used extensively here at Pembroke. Many times I've written about Franck's book and recipes on this food blog, and it was through our blog that Franck first contacted me earlier in the year.

Franck has been at the forefront of introducing verrines to the UK where they are virtually unknown. The LA Times recently described verrines as 'the hottest trend you've never heard of'. They were created in France around 2001 in Michelin starred restaurants and then made their way across to LA and Las Vegas, where they were warmly embraced as a gourmet meal in a glass.

It was late last year that we first started serving verrines at Pembroke, and to-date we have prepared seventeen of Franck's recipes. On Wednesday we invited a group of catering students from Cambridge Regional College, our hosts for the day, to join Franck and a group of chefs from various Cambridge Colleges.

 Over 90 minutes Franck prepared a saffron potato and smoked fish terrine, mango and foie gras verrine, a sweet polenta terrine, steamed vegetables in there own mini jars, and a mushroom and tomato verrine.

Below is yellow zuchinni with pak choi, red chilli

Franck slicing his sweet terrine

Franck with Alex, a Spanish culinary student at Cambridge Regional College who assisted Franck on Wednesday.

The boys from Pembroke, notice how Franck and Adam appear to be sleeping!

A selection of verrine glasses

CRC students helping to prepare the ingredients prior to the demonstration.

After the demo

CRC students with Franck

To thank Franck for his great demo, we'll be including one of his recipes into each of next week's Formal Menus!