Savoury bread and butter pudding using tomato and chilli

This dish surprised me it worked so well ... was perusing veggie books for inspiration (no great secret that veg cookery is not my strongest suit) and saw a dish which used bread and eggs .... which got me thinking ...

Will try and take a pic next time I make it ... I actually think meat would detract from this yum dish ... its easy to make and delicious. I served some at lunch this week and got rave reviews.

Savoury Bread and butter pudding:

• 1 loaf of slightly stale bread, sliced and trimmed into triangles

Egg mix (proportions from Leith's cooking techniques book ... the best cookbook bar none ! )

• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
  
• 75ml double cream
• 75ml milk

I used 4x this mix to make about 8 portions

• I used a couple of roughly chopped oven roasted tomatoes from our soup prep so they had a bit of balsamic and olive oil too plus one finely chopped chilli, some Tabasco, softened onions and seasoning ... but try your own combinations

• Gruyere and Parmesan cheese
  

Method

• Butter bread slices roughly
• Whisk egg mix with tomatoes and other savoury flavourings
• Add a small handful of parmesan style cheese and mix in (use vege one if making vege dish, I use Old Winchester)
• Dip each slice of bread in the mix and arrange in baking dish so they are all standing up, I use each side of the triangle in turn to make a nice pattern
• When dish is full but not too packed pour over the rest of the mix till nearly covering the bread
• Sprinkle with cheeses
• Bake dish in an oven tray 1/2 full of water (bain marie) at 160C for about 40min, check if set and keep checking every 5 min till it has.
  
• Remove from oven carefully (hot water in tray !) and leave to set for 20 min
• Place under grill to brown off top for a couple of minutes

Slice and serve ... enjoy !

Whortleberries

We have a new member of the team ... Jo (who is a Phd in woodland ecology) looked us up and showed up today with a big tray of whortleberries ... what yummy fruit. They are like blueberries but with flavour and more colour !

Looking forward to what else she shows up with ... lots of wild mushrooms for the autumn and should have some interesting plants over the next couple of months for the restaurant !

Made Berry mess using them and used as a coulis with Beth's brownies today in the restaurant ... will try with a burnt cream or mousse tomorrow ...

The first week

Thanks all of you who followed and commented on my guardian blogs

Just finished watching the semi of the celeb version of Masterchef ... I have the cameras coming down next Saturday for next years show ... not sure I feel ready yet for their scrutiny !

This week was such a challenge, five lunch and dinner services, staff unavailable, high expectations ....

We came through well I think, I wasn't happy with all the food lthe first couple of nights and had a few comments re temperature and a couple of undercooked fish coming back ... not ideal ... I think we have it fixed now and the food going through the door this week was of good quality. I want that to be great quality and am starting to think about how we take it to the next level now we have a really good team working in the restaurant.

Foraged sea kale made for a great Skate dish, I will get some pics next week as it looks great ! Fresh squid flashed through the pan with chilli, sweet and lime undertones is proving a favourite, scallops with seaweed and sea kale seed pods and fresh makeral crispy fried with a bit of samphire are both going well too. The Water Buffalo went too well as we sold out very quickly ... hardly a big problem I know ! We dressed up the local rib eye steak stand-in with a courgette flower on the plate which went really well as a combination.

All in all a great week, fantastic staff, good food, great customers who it is a privilege to meet and discuss food with ... next steps will be fun taking the food to the next level and still managing to get it out in time ... and to make some money along the way !

I will get back to posting some of the new dishes as we develop them ... and please do post comments, I do read all of them and take what you say on board.