Archive: 2011

Well, it’s now mid-November, and the menus are at their autumn-season peak. To my mind it’s the best time of year in Britain, especially with my love of game and the multitude of British vegetables; it makes menu-planning a real pleasure. But as with all Novembers, there’s a peak and trough in business as people plan for Christmas. Those of us in the kitchen get a chance to finalise plans for the Christmas and the New Year festivities, and this week we’ve been steeping all the fruit for the Christmas puddings and mince pies. Next week I’ll start making the puddings; I’m thinking of making around 750, with any excess to go into the brandy and dark chocolate truffles which I will serve as the Christmas petit four.

Christmas pudding truffles

Juice and grated zest of two oranges
325ml double cream
65g unsalted butter
150g Christmas pudding, mashed up by hand
500g dark chocolate
100ml brandy

Method

Zest and juice oranges, add to cream and  bring to the boil
Then set aside for 2-3hrs to infuse
Strain off, then bring back to the boil, whisking in a little butter at a time
Take off the heat and pour the hot cream liquid over the chocolate and Christmas pudding mix when all melted
Add the dark rum, chill for ten minutes
Beat in a mixer for a minute until mix is pliable
Then mould into balls and either dip into tempered chocolate or cocoa powder
For best results, take these truffles out of the fridge half an hour before serving.

As always, in search of the “Artisan” produced spirit to add to the collection in the Old Q bar, we recently had a tasting of rum from our great friend Bruce, at Eaux de Vie. Bruce, who is probably the most passionate advocate of the world of fine spirits that I have had the pleasure to know, has recently come back from his latest project to bottle his own label rum. Of course most people think of Rum as something to mix with ginger or coke. These Rums however could not be further from those mass produced and highly branded products and in many ways embody the idea of the Old Q Bar spirit collection more than any other spirit grouping.

So last Thursday with palate completely unprepared I met up with Bruce and James (Restaurant Manager) and had an enjoyable couple of hours talking and tasting these fine spirits. I had almost forgotten how incredibly well made and enjoyable these spirits can be. Good enough to rival our cognac and whisky collections, these rums are a match for any connoisseur to discover their value as either an aperitif or as a wonderful and rich digestif.

In total Bruce has a slightly wider collection of new Mezan labelled rums, seven in total, we settled on three rums to add to the bar. All three are distilled from molasses. Two are straight column still distillations whereas the Jamaican rum is distilled in heavy pot still. And of course the greatest element of differentiation comes in the addition of each distillery’s own deeply guarded secret “dunder” (the yeasty leftovers from one batch used to start the next batch’s yeast culture, and source of a rum’s authentic flavour).

With these three additions we now have a fantastic collection of five high quality rums. We still have our Plantation Barbados Rum, light and elegant with a wonderful sweetness. I kept this, as apart from being fantastic, it is always in our armoury to fight the person who declares that they hate all spirits. The gentle nature of this rum and its sweet overtones of coconut  mean we often win more converts than we lose! We then have our new Mezan Grenada Rum, Mezan Panama Rum and the Mezan Jamaican Rum. Finally we kept an old favourite a Martinique Rum from Bally. This Martinique Rum remains a fantastic spirit and is the only rum distilled from sugar cane juice in our collection.

So we hope the next time you stop by you will try some of these amazing spirits, hopefully you will be as excited by them as we are!

Lauren knows EVERYTHING (it’s the first thing on the General Manager’s job spec)

The Olive Tree is a ship; James is your captain

Those flavours on your plate are his passion, experience and expertise

Laurence’s partner in excellence in all things Queensberry and Olive Tree

Co-owner of The Queensberry, spirit of The Olive Tree

Everyone knows the price of raw ingredients just gets higher and higher, and this month I’ve mainly been trying to keep kitchen costs down. This involves a constant uphill struggle to control menu prices; we’re continually going through invoices, costings and dish development to make sure we’re passing on a good deal to guests to gain return business.

Every day seems to bring talks about prices with suppliers, and the need to take on new ones to be more competitive. This is a shame; we shouldn’t have to drop good local suppliers just to get decent prices, but then, similarly, why don’t local suppliers give the best prices? Their products are good, yes, but should we end up paying an overblown premium just so we can say  “Yes, we buy locally”?

And now, down off my soap box and onto something creative: we’ve been developing a new dessert, iron bark squash panna cotta with basil ice cream. It’s coming out even better than I imagined; it’s been tweaked a few times to get it to the standard I require, but it’s there now, and hopefully it’ll sell well.

The recipe

Iron Bark Squash Panna Cotta

- 100ml cream, 700ml milk, 200g crown prince purée, 50g sugar, 4 leaves of gelatine

To make the purée, dice squash, sprinkle with brown sugar, and cook in a foil bag until very soft and golden. Then put in a blender and blitz until creamy consistency. Soften gelatine in cold water. Bring ingredients  to the boil then add the softened gelatine. Put in ramekins or small dariol moulds and chill until served

I’m looking into changing a few more dishes in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll give you the low-down on that, and the life and times of the Queensberry, in the next blog.

Changing house wines is never easy. They have to work harder than others on the list: complementing more dishes, pleasing more palates, embodying something about the hotel or restaurant.

We’ve just changed our champagne. The Moutardier’s lovely but, after 15 years, we wanted to move on. After a hard morning’s tasting (in which, for fairness, the Moutardier was included) we settled on a new one, from Gobillard. Lighter, with more Pinot Noir in the blend, its nose is delicate and subtle, its mousse soft and light, and it has an elegant, clean finish.

We think it’ll be popular. In fact, we also took on the Premier Cru Brut Grand Reserve as well as their Rose and, at the same tasting, we added two great boutique wines to our list. More about those another time…