Last Saturday's Formal Hall 23/01

Heirloom Tomatoes featured on Saturday's menu in the form of a savoury tart. An heirloom tomato is generally considered to be a variety that has been passed down, through several generations of a family because of it's valued characteristics. These are probably the best tasting, most organic tomatoes available and are widely used in top end restaurants, especially in California. Our Heirloom tart was served with an olive tapanade as seen below.

Following the tart we served grilled sea bass with sweet parsnips, spinach, wild rice and a saffron cream sauce. The parsnips are vacuum packed with cream and cooked sous vide, thus retaining all the great flavour of the sweet vegetable. The vanilla/saffron cream sauce is flavoured with the juice of fresh mussels-delicious!

To finish the meal we served espresso-orange panna cotta parfaits with coffee gelee from The Last Course cookbook.

I'm eating one as I type and it tastes great; must go as I'm a bit busy:)))

Last Friday's Formal Hall 22/01

Last Friday's Formal Hall started with a prawn salad set in a light cucumber jelly, we've done this dish in the past with crab (which is a lot more expensive). The prawns are bound with a light mustard mayonnaise and topped with micro-herbs. The jelly is garnished with diamonds of cucumber and dill.

To follow the prawn salad we served a roulade of free-range chicken wrapped in Swiss chard. We make the roulade by dusting two chicken breasts with transglutaminase, AKA food glue, and rolling them into a barrel shape. The chicken sets in the fridge for a few hours before being wrapped with the cooked Swiss chard. Once again we wrap the chicken in plastic and cook sous vide for 90 minutes.

To finish the meal we served caramelised brioche puding with blackberry cream, fresh blackberries and ginger ice cream; this must have tasted great even if the presentation needs improving..

We hope you enjoyed your meal!

Some of what you might expect next week

A very helpful customer commented earlier this week that it might be useful to have an idea of what the food looked like; before coming to formal. Always one to please, I've taken photos of a few dishes we hope to replicate next week.
Please bare in mind that these are professionally staged food photos that don't really resemble the 'actual' food they represent. However, we will try our hardest to emulate these great recipes!

Feast Night Formal Hall Monday

Amuse Bouche

White Truffle Oil Infused Custards

 Feast Night Formal Hall Monday

Grilled Trout

With cannellini bean, scallion and radish salad

Soy orange glaze

Feast Night Formal Hall Tuesday

Steamed Red Mullet

Tomato and Lemongrass Broth

Feast Night Formal Hall Wednesday

Ratatouille in Sauternes gelee

Feast Night Formal Hall Wednesday

Crisp Belly of Pork

Surf clams, pumpkin puree, pak choi and rosti potato

Feast Night Formal Hall Wednesday

Chocolate Crème Brulee

Yoghurt sorbet, cherry and hazelnut financier

Formal Hall Thursday

Crunchy Chocolate Pearls

Formal Hall Friday

Prawn and Cucumber Mousse

Formal Hall Friday

(V) Cauliflower puree, Pea and Truffle

Formal Hall Friday

Chump of Lamb

Fondant potato, spinach, and Provencal vegetables

Formal Hall Friday

Cumquat Pain Perdu

With orange blossom Panna Cotta and mandarin sorbet

 Formal Hall Sunday

Fresh Tuna Verrine

With pico de gio

Formal Hall Sunday

(V) Tagliatelle of Vegetable Verrine

Formal Hall Menus Lent Term Week 3

Feast Night Formal Hall

Monday 25th January

Amuse Bouche

White Truffle Oil Infused Custards

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Grilled Trout

With cannellini bean, scallion and radish salad

Soy orange glaze

(V) Roasted Heart of Palm

With cannellini bean, scallion and radish salad

Soy orange glaze

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Slow Roasted Confit of Duck

Anna potatoes, curly kale, and baby beet

Pomegranate and redcurrant jus

(V) Organic Stilton Tart with herb crust

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White Chocolate-Espresso Tart

Chocolate Sorbet

Feast Night Formal Hall

Tuesday 26th January

Steamed Red Mullet

Tomato and Lemongrass Broth

(V) Red Pepper, Tomato, and Basil Tian

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Roast Rib of Beef

Dauphinoise potatoes, roasted carrots, and parsnips

Yorkshire pudding and horseradish jus

(V) Nut Cutlet

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Honey-Lemon Thyme Sorbet

Lemon drizzle cake and honeycomb crumbs

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Dessert Fruit and Petit Fours

Feast Night Formal Hall

Wednesday 27th January

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Roquefort Ice Cream

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Ratatouille in Sauternes gelee

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Crisp Belly of Pork

Surf clams, pumpkin puree, pak choi and rosti potato

(V) Pak Choi and Smoked Tofu Pancakes

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Chocolate Crème Brulee

Yoghurt sorbet, cherry and hazelnut financier

Formal Hall

Thursday 28th January

French Onion Soup

Gruyere Croute

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Free-Range Chicken Supreme with Goat’s Cheese Mousse

Roasted garlic mash, sautéed spinach and pistachio jus

(V) Stilton and Truffle Bubble and Squeak

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Crunchy Chocolate Pearls

Formal Hall

Friday 29th January

Prawn and Cucumber Mousse

Toasted Granary Bread

(V) Cauliflower puree, Pea and Truffle

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Chump of Lamb

Fondant potato, spinach, and Provencal vegetables

Basil jus

(V) Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli

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Cumquat Pain Perdu

With orange blossom Panna Cotta and mandarin sorbet

Formal Hall

Saturday 30th January

Poached Pear and Stilton Salad

Walnut and lemon

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Breast of Guinea Fowl with a Sausage Farce

Rosemary potatoes and fine beans, Calvados jus

(V) Herb Crusted Ratatouille and Mozzarella Medallion

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Warm Chocolate Brownie

Vanilla pod ice cream and chocolate sauce

Formal Hall

Sunday 31st January

Fresh Tuna Verrine

With pico de gio

(V) Tagliatelle of Vegetable Verrine

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Honey and Soy Roasted Breast of Duck

Roasted sweet potato, sugar snap peas

Orange zest and honey jus

(V) Asian Vegetable Stir-fry

With Teriyaki noodles and soybeans

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Cinnamon Tart

Fresh berries and roasted figs

Wednesday Night's Formal Hall

Wednesday hailed the return of 'business as usual' for Formal Hall with 50 (hopefully) happy customers.
We started wednesdays dinner with an amuse bouche of 'Green Pea and Mint Sorbet served in a Parmesan cornet. The idea for this came from a useful website full of nice recipes for these small and colourful appetizers. The savoury pea sorbet was made in our new Pacojet ice cream/sorbet machine.

The Pacojet machine works by Pacotizing soup, sauces, ice cream and sorbet bases. “Pacotizing” … denotes the revolutionary process, which mixes and purees deep frozen food stuff directly in it’s frozen state, without thawing it, to produce a frozen and intensely natural tasting mousse of extremely fine consistency to ideal serving temperature. Basically it's the best ice cream/sorbet machine that money can buy and produces great results!
The Parmesan cornets are a labour of love and require the chefs to mold very hot, melted cheese around small stainless steel cornet rings. Once the cheese cools it hardens into the little cornets as shown above; lots of burned fingers!
We followed the amuse bouche with Butternut Squash Soup garnished with brown butter, sage, and nutmeg creme fraiche.

After the soup came the main event!

 Parma Ham wrapped Pork Tenderloin with a cassoulet of white beans, brunois, pancetta and sage roasted potatoes. Finished with pesto cream sauce.

I have to admit being very impressed when I first saw this photo, I thought Nick our Head Chef did a great job of presenting this lovely dish.

Savino, our Italian Butler confessed that it reminded him of his Mothers cooking and made him homesick;))

To finish the dinner we served a lavender flavoured creme brulee with lime sorbet (Pacotized!) and lemon shortbread, very refreshing!