Avocado Pear with Smoked Salmon Mousse

Rib-eye Steak and homemade Chips with Garlic Mayonnaise, Tomato and Watercress 

Ice Fruit with White Chocolate Sauce.

Shopping List:

Ring Feast  on 01751 470121 and ask them for everything or:

Starter - Small packet of smoked salmon, an avocado, small crème fraiche, lemon, black pepper, fresh chives, rape seed oil.

Main Course - Two Rib-eye steaks 2cm thick,  Four medium sized Maris Piper, King Edward or Victoria Potatoes, one tomato, four cloves of garlic. White wine vinegar,  Dijon mustard, Bunch of Pickering Watercress, two good fresh eggs, rape seed oil, vegetable oil,  sea salt & black pepper

Pudding - 330g mixed frozen berries, 100g white chocolate, 100g double cream

Special kit.   Greaseproof paper.  Pyrex bowl and pan that it will sit in.  Good Whisk.  Metal Slotted spoon.  Grill skillet (optional)
Preparation:

Preparation:
Put a bag of mixed soft fruits in the freezer the night before.

Oil and season the steaks and tie up in freezer bag and leave in a warm place for two hours.

Give yourself plenty of time.  Set the table.  Open (and chill or warm) the wine.

Put the oven on its lowest setting (about 60 degrees)

Crush the garlic with a pestle and a little Maldon sea salt in a mortar till it becomes a soft paste.

Wash & peel the potatoes, cut into chips and hold in cold water.

Wash & turn the tomato with a paring knife.  Season and place in the warming oven.

Wash the watercress and trim into two small bunches.  Keep in iced water glass.

Take 4 leaves of smoked salmon and put into the bowl of a food processor with 1 heaped tablespoon of crème fraiche, the juice of half a lemon, 5 turns of black pepper and a pinch of Maldon salt.  Whizz for 30 seconds.  Finely chop 5 stems of chive with a knife saving 4 neat stems.  Take the blade out of the blender and mix in the chives with a fork.     Cut the avocado in half.  Remove the stone with a knife flick.  Trim the bottom so that it sits flat.  In a bowl whisk one teaspoon of lemon juice with three teaspoons of rape seed oil.   Season the dressing with black pepper and sea salt.  Divide in half and put into each half avocado.  Spoon in the salmon mixture,  make a cross with the remaining chives.

Boil a pan of water.  Cook the chips for three minutes.  Refresh with cold water. Dry the chips.

In a heavy bottomed pan heat enough oil to cover the chips (about half way up a shallow pan) until the oil is hot enough to spit.  Do the spitting test.  Fry the chips for three minutes and remove onto kitchen paper with a metal slotted spoon.  Allow to cool.

Simmer a pan of water beneath the pyrex bowl containing broken pieces of white chocolate until the chocolate is melted.  Whisk in the cream, cover with greaseproof paper and hold in the warm oven till needed.

((if the mixture splits, add the split mixture drop by drop to a new ‘rescue’ egg yolk till you have the mayo again) – you can do this as many times as you need to –it just takes more oil to complete))

Light the candles.  Turn off the oven.

Bring the chip oil pan back to the point where the oil will boil when the chips are placed back in it.  Cook for 5 to 7 minutes until light golden brown.  Drain back to paper and lightly dust with Maldon.  Hold in the warm oven.

Whilst the chips are cooking,  start the steaks.  Heat a skillet or heavy frying pan until smoking hot but do NOT put oil in the pan.  For medium rare - Sear the steaks for a total of two minutes each side.  Flip over turning 90 degrees every minute( to get the grill stripes if using a grill pan or once only if not).  Remove the steaks and allow to rest standing clear of their juices.

During this cooking time arrange a handful of frozen berries on small flat plates and set aside.  Return the bag of berries to the freezer for next time.

Last thing – put the steaks and separately two plates in the warm oven.

Eat the starter.

Take the tomato, chips, steaks and plates out of the oven and arrange the main course not forgetting the watercress and the mayonnaise.

Eat the main course.

Make sure the chocolate sauce is still hot (and warm if not) and pour over the berries.  Sprig of mint to finish.

Eat the pudding.

Shop bought mayonnaise is pretty horrible compared to the real thing but there is a common misconception that making it either takes lots of time and effort or is fantastically difficult.  We never use anything but freshly made mayo at the White Swan so I thought I would pass on just how you can do it too.

Mayonnaise – from Mahon in Menorca originally

Equipment: You will need a decent whisk (or a blender if you are feeling lazy) a good large bowl, a cereal bowl,  a pouring jug, a teaspoon and a clean jam jar and lid.

Ingredients:  One Free Range Egg, A dollop of good Dijon Mustard, a tablespoon or two of white white vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and of course a supply of 200mls or so of oil.  I like to use a blend of 50:50 Vegetable Oil & Rape Seed Oil (partly because it has a great flavour and an even better colour to impart to the mayo, but also because there are now several producers of Rape Seed Oil from the Yorkshire Wolds, just a few miles to the south of Pickering and the White Swan and it suits our goal to use local produce whenever we can.  We now sell a choice of three Rape Seed Oils in Feast our deli next door, and it is getting really popular as it is reckoned to be even healthier than olive oil – and certainly lower in food miles).  I never use olive oil for mayonnaise because I find it gives it a bitter and slightly minerally taste.  My oil ‘blend’ is much more subtle.

Method:   Separate the yolk from the albumen and put the yolk into the large bowl.   The easiest way to do this is to crack the shell of the egg on a thin metal object like the edge of a pan hard enough to allow you to then split the egg in half.  Over a cereal bowl, as you split the egg, allow the white to fall into the cereal bowl , then transfer the yolk between the two halves of the shell a few times until all of the white is in the bowl.  Don’t worry if you leave a tiny bit of white or even if you break the sack of the yolk.

To the yolk in the large bowl, add a dollop of Dijon mustard that is the same rough volume as the yolk.  Then whisk 5 or 10 times to create a sort of custard.  Mix 100ml of ordinary vegetable oil with 100ml of Rape Seed Oil in the pouring jug.  Then using a very steady hand begin to drip the oil into the custard as you continue to whisk gently.  (Be bold – If you pour in too much, the worst case is that the mixture will split.  Don’t worry if this happens as it is easily fixed – see below)  The general rule to follow here is whisk more than pour. Eventually (after about 2 to 3 minutes of pouring and whisking) the mayonnaise will have formed into a thickish mixture that wants to cling to the whisk in a ball.  You can have a rest now – nearly there.  It just remains to add a few teaspoons of white wine vinegar bit by bit and stirring as you go to let this mixture relax into a stiff cream.   Add salt and pepper to taste (use white pepper if you don’t want to colour the mayonnaise or freshly ground black pepper if you don’t care).

There you have it.  Perfect mayonnaise made in not much more time than it takes to open a jar of ready made stuff.  Either serve straight away or spoon into a jam jar and store in the fridge.

Tips: Fresh Mayonnaise will keep in a refrigerator for about a week.  Take care when using uncooked egg. Probably not a good idea for pregnant ladies or the very old.

If the emulsion splits then the first thing to try is to stir in a teaspoon of water.  If this doesn’t work then find a clean bowl, break in another egg yolk and whilst whisking, slowly add the contents of the first ‘split’ bowl.  It will re-emulsify immediately and then you just follow the directions as above.   Nothing can go wrong.   If the bowl moves around whilst you are whisking, place a (damp) cloth under it to stop it.  If you feel the mixture becomes too thick then just add a tiny amount of water or lemon juice.

Variations:  You can really play around with this once you get the hang of it.  Change the mustard for a flavoured one and the mayonnaise will follow suit.  Use lemon juice instead of vinegar.  Use a different vinegar.  Use lemon juice instead of salt. Change the blend of oil.  There are 100s of permutations

For Garlic Mayonniase I put a pinch of Maldon sea salt into a mortar with a clove or two of chopped garlic and bash away with the pestle until the garlic becomes a smooth paste. (This is impossible to achieve in a blender)  With a fork then stir in a dribble of oil (this is in fact exactly how to start to make Aioli) until the paste is roughly the same texture as the Mayonniase.  Then just combine the two.  (This is awesome even with oven chips but out of this world with proper, twice fried chips)