Smoking permitted!

STARTER

Salad with grilled secreto, Iberico ham and French beans

Wine tip: White Monterrei from Spain made from Treixadura grapes

MAIN COURSE

Smoked tub gurnard with pommes Anna and a tomato antiboise

Wine tip: Wood-aged Chardonnay from New-Zealand

DESSERT

​Marinated strawberries sibérienne

Wine tip: Sparkling Shiraz Rosé from Australia

Salad

Bring two pans of generously salted water to the boil and pre-heat the oven to 180 ⁰C. De-string the French beans and blanch them for 2 minutes in the boiling water. Drain, then immediately cool in cold water and allow to drip dry. Halve them lengthways, then store in the fridge. In the meantime, cool the eggs for 7 minutes in the other pan. Drain, then plunge into cold water. Peel the eggs and store these in the fridge.

Cut the crusts from the bread and cut the soft part into good-size rectangles. Peel and mince the garlic. Mix the garlic into a dash of olive oil and sprinkle this onto a baking tray. Put the bread triangles on the tray, sprinkle with pepper and salt and bake for approx. 5 minutes in the pre-heated oven until golden brown. Spread out on kitchen towel to remove excess grease.

Pluck and wash the lettuce, then drip dry. Cut into coarse chunks and place in a bowl. Mince the anchovies, capers and gherkin and mix into the mayonnaise. Coarsely chop the Iberico ham. Cover and store the ingredients in the fridge. Store the bread croutons in an air-tight container.

Tub gurnards

Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2 mm thick slices. Use a cutter to ensure they are all slightly smaller in diameter than the mini cocottes you are going to cook them in. Don’t wash the slices as this will rinse off the starch. Strip the leaves from the thyme and the needles from the rosemary, then peel the garlic. Mince the herbs and then the garlic (keep the cloves separate as you will be adding each of them to different mixtures). Mix the potato slices with the herbs, add a clove of garlic which has been mixed with a dash of olive oil, then season with pepper and salt. Take four mini cocottes and neatly stack the slices inside them.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and score a small cross into the tomatoes. Immerse the tomatoes into the water until the skin lets go, two at a time. Immediately cool in cold water and remove the skin. Quarter the tomatoes, remove the pulp and cut the flesh into small cubes. Peel the shallots, then mince. Heat a dash of olive oil in a pan on a medium heat and fry one of the minced shallots and a minced clove of garlic. Douse with red wine vinegar and the tomato juice, then bring to the boil. In the meantime, add water to the potato starch to create a thin paste and mince the tarragon leaves. Wait until the juice boils then thicken using the potato starch. Add the cubed tomatoes and stir well. Allow to cook for a further 30 seconds, remove the pan from the heat and stir the tarragon through, season with pepper and salt. Wash and thoroughly dry the spinach.

Cover and store the ingredients in the fridge once they have cooled.

Strawberries

To make the marinade, halve the vanilla pod lengthways. Add to a pan with the white wine, 150 g of sugar, the cardamom pods, pepper corns and star aniseed and bring to the boil on the stove. Turn the heat down and allow to gently steep for 20 minutes. Pour the marinade through a sieve and return to the pan. Make a paste using some water and the potato starch. Add enough paste to the marinade until it has thickened slightly, then allow to cool.

Heat the remaining sugar with 50 mm water in a pan on a low heat until it reaches 121 °C. Do not stir continuously as this will make the sugar crystallise; gently shaking the pan now and again suffices. Measure the temperature using the Instant Read Digital Thermometer and when the sugar reaches 117 °C beat the egg white stiff in a grease-free food processor bowl (or a grease-free, metal bowl using a hand-held mixer).

In the meantime the sugar will have reached the desired 121 °C. Keep beating the egg white whilst pouring in the melted sugar drop by drop. Keep beating until the egg white foam has cooled slightly. Spoon into a piping bag then store in the fridge.

Hull the strawberries, then put them in the marinade in the fridge. Finely chop the pistachios.

Salad

Heat the Big Green Egg with the Cast Iron Grid in place to 170 ⁰C. Rub the smoked paprika into the Iberico secreto as well as pepper and salt to taste. Grill either side for 2 minutes on the Big Green Egg and cut into beautiful slices. Spoon the mayonnaise, French beans and Parmesan cheese through the salad and distribute the bread croutons, Iberico ham and slices of grilled secreto on top. Remove the Cast Iron Grid from the EGG® to enable you to make the main course. Place the convEGGtor and the stainless steel grid and return the temperature to 170 ⁰C.

Tub gurnards

Put the cocottes with the potato slices on the grid and close the lid. Soak a handful of Pecan Wood Chips in a bowl of water.

After 45 minutes check whether the pommes Anna are done by gently pricking them. If this is the case, remove them and the grid as well as the convEGGtor from the EGG. Heat to 120 °C. Scatter the soaked wood chips on the charcoal, put the grid back into the EGG and put the tub gurnards on top. Close the lid and smoke for 15 minutes.

5 minutes before the tub gurnards are due to be finished, heat a dash of olive oil in a sauté pan on the stove. Sauté the remaining shallots and garlic, add the spinach and toss. Season with salt and pepper, then toss again. Allow the spinach to drain in a sieve. Heat the antiboise on the stove and, if necessary, the pommes Anna on the EGG and, if so desired, fillet the tub gurnards.

Distribute the spinach across the plates, place the smoked tub gurnard on top and spoon some antiboise alongside. Serve with the pommes Anna.

Strawberries

Remove the Stainless Steel Grid from the EGG, place the convEGGtor then replace the grid. Heat the Big Green Egg to 170 ⁰C. Remove the strawberries from the marinade and distribute them across the plates. Pipe some egg foam onto every strawberry. Put the plates on the EGG’s grid, close the lid and heat for approx. 7 minutes until the foam colours slightly. Remove the plates from the EGG and garnish with finely chopped pistachios and mint.