Collaborative chef's suppers are becoming hot tickets across the UK says Richard Bainbridge.
I want to talk this week about my first ever guest chef night at Benedicts. It was something really close to my heart and really special.
Guest nights all over the country are becoming a thing. I've been to the Pony and Trap, and next year I've been asked to go to some other restaurants which is incredible and it's a great way for chefs to learn from each other and collaborate and learn something different.
When you're a head chef it's difficult to learn from others, because you're always working, so these kind of nights are something I was keen to do when Benedicts was settled.
There was one person who was always top of my list and has meant to much in my career- Galton Blackiston. From being 16 working there, going off then coming back and being head chef at Morston hall for seven years, he's been like a father figure in my personal life as well as my career.
I thought the time was right to invite him here and to my surprise he said he'd love to which was great. To show my mentor what I can do and that I had an amazing team that worked for me.
We decided to sit down and write a menu together and I wanted it to touch on some of the past and future of Morston Hall and to show who we were as a restaurant now. It was a lovely experience coming up with a menu with him.
We wanted the menu to have an emphasis on local ingredients.
A lovely snack Galton made was his partridge Scotch egg, which is one of his classics. It was served with a sauce bois boudran, which is a sauce I taught to him, which Mr Roux Snr invented for the Rothschilds when Mrs Rothschild wanted a barbecue dressing for salmon.
It's got shallots, tomatoes, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and you make it up almost as a dressing dip. It's beautiful and lots of people now have their own version of it.
We then did a little brioche bun stuffed with Binham Blue cheese, caramelised pear and truffled honey drizzled over the top which was just lovely as a little bite.
And we served a Benedicts classic of homemade rice cracker with salmon roe.
Galton did a mussel soup with perry and lovage oil as an interpretation of a recipe out of his new cookbook. It just sung of the beautiful Norfolk mussels around at the moment and the earthiness of the lovage oil was a nice twist.
I then did a dish of Norfolk mallard stuffed with hay and roasted on the bone and we took it off the bone and served it with baby gems, compressed cucumber and damson hoi sin sauce. It was served in the style of a taco which was a really nice twist.
Galton made something we used to do at Morston, which is wild seabass brushed with a salt meringue and baked in the oven. It's very simple, served with a Champagne sauce and a little spinach. It was incredible.
After that I made a dish that's very prominent in my career. A real turning point. It's what I cooked after I'd been at Noma for a couple of weeks. I saw a dish of sage roasted celeriac, cooked for four hours and served with a truffle puree of English truffles (really expensive), cream and a little mustard, with a lemon butter sauce and watercress.
It made me realise veg has a place to be centre stage and changed the way I've cooked ever since.
Then we did a main course of dry aged red poll beef which I'd had hanging at Crawford Whites in Aylsham for five months, waiting for a special occasion. We slowly roasted this most amazing beef and served it simply with mushroom ketchup, hispi cabbage and roasted onions. We didn't need to do anything much with it. Galt's addition was a marrow bone sauce.
The first little dessert we did was a new one at Benedicts of salted butter ice cream with lightly caramelised muesli bread. We encourage customers to spread the ice cream on the bread as a nice take on bread and butter, which I remember eating a lot of growing up.
I spoke to Galton about what else we could do for dessert. I thought he'd come up with something spectacular from Morston but he said you always judge a great restaurant on their lemon tart.
I said it's something we do every single day of the week on our lunch menu, but I got it. By serving a lemon tart we could show we can do those really simple, classic things, in a special way.
We served it with some figs and crème fraiche and white pepper sorbet which made a lovely finish.
The most amazing thing was Galt taught me how to make this lemon tart in 1998. The youngest apprentice in my kitchen wasn't even born in 1998. It made me feel very old for the first time!
It was such a great night – for me a real career highlight to have someone I've respected and worked alongside for so long there. The banter was great – we slipped into our old ways and it was a pleasure and something I'd like to do more of.
Next year we already have Josh Eggleton of the Pony and Trap coming up and we've confirmed Daniel Clifford. Sign up to our newsletter so we can keep you posted.
Richard's classic lemon tart
Ingredients
1 ready cooked 12ins tart base
7 eggs
275g caster sugar
225ml double cream
Juice of 4 lemons
Zest of 2 lemons
Method
Place the eggs, sugar, cream, zest and lemon juice in a large bowl and mix well. Cover with clingfilm and place into the fridge overnight to rest.
The next day pre-heat the oven to 110C. Place your tart case on a flat oven tray. Remove the tart mix from the fridge and place into a pan on a very low heat.
Slowly bring the lemon tart mix to 40C to 42C then transfer to a jug. Very slowly and gently pour the mixture into the tart case. Gently close the door. Cook for 12 minutes and check. You are looking for the tat to be just cooked with a wobble like jelly.
The tart may need an extra couple of minutes if not cooked.
Once cooked remove from the oven and let cool for an hour before slicing.
To serve slice the tart into portions and sprinkle with an even layer of caster sugar. Using a blowtorch, caramelise the sugar until golden. Place on a plate and serve.
Richard and Katja Bainbridge own and run Benedicts Restaurant in Norwich.
