A seasonal menu to celebrate spring, designed for the Porthleven Food Festival by Chef Rupert Cooper of Philleigh Way Cookery School and Cove Café.
Whipped Feta & Goat’s Cheese with Roasted Grapes and Beetroot, Pomegranate Molasses, served with Dukkah and Crostini
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
Bunch of beetroot
Small bunch purple or black grapes
100g pack of feta cheese,
Small round of goat’s cheese
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1tbsp of dukkah
Bread for toasting (a few slices of a small baguette)
1tbsp balsamic vinegar
Thyme
Rosemary
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Start by peeling and chopping the beets into halves or quarters. Then drizzle with oil, season, and add the herbs to a tray or parcel of tin foil. Roast for 15-20 minutes or until they will take a knife.
Put the feta, goat’s cheese and garlic into a food processor with a generous amount of black pepper. Then blitz with a drizzle of olive oil. Taste and season to liking.
Toast your bread.
Once the beets have cooked, heat a frying pan and add the beets to colour up generously, add the molasses and remove from the heat.
Serve the beets hot or cold on a bed of the whipped feta. Drizzle with balsamic and a sprinkling of dukkah.
A great sharing starter!
Braised Smoked Shoulder of Beef on a bed of Polenta with a Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Sauce, Green Dressing and Walnut Pangrattato
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
For the beef:1kg of whole chuck
Salt
Pepper
Glass of red wine
200ml beef stock
For the sauce:
Tin of good quality chopped tomatoes
2 red onions
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Cooking liquor from beef
For the Green dressing:
Handful each of coriander and parsley
1 tbsp lilliput capers
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
For the Green Pangrattato:
Small handful of walnuts
Breadcrumbs
2 cloves garlic
Mixed herbs
3-4 tbsp olive oil
Method
You don’t have to smoke the beef, but if you want to give it an extra level, do so! Use a couple of handfuls of charcoal and two large pieces of wood and then indirectly smoke the chuck beef (so the beef isn’t sat directly over the heat), for 1-2 hours in a barbecue with the lid down. Don’t worry if it isn’t cooked… this is all about flavour.
Then, roughly chop the onions and garlic. Heat a large casserole dish with some vegetable oil and brown the beef all over, then add the onions/garlic. Begin to sweat down. After 5 minutes, add the tomato paste, red wine and cook for 2 minutes.
Finally add the chopped tomatoes and beef stock. Season. Then place some baking paper over the top, then the lid of the casserole dish. Place in the oven at 150°C for 2-3 hours. Check after 1.5 hours to see if tender or needs some liquid adding.
Whilst that is cooking make the green dressing and pangrattato.
To make the pangrattato, blitz the ingredients together in a food processor to make a crumb mixture, then toast lightly in a dry frying pan or spread on a baking tray in the oven until golden brown.
To make the green dressing, chop the herbs together and combine in a bowl with the capers and olive oil.
20 minutes before you want to serve the beef, add 1 cup of polenta to a large saucepan, with 4 cups of water along with a chicken stock cube, and then whisk over a medium heat until thickened. Season and then add parmesan and butter, whisking it in. Add more water if you require a looser consistency.
Serve the beef and sauce on top of the rich polenta, and dress with the green sauce. Enjoy.
Rhubarb Upside Down Cake with Roast Apple and Whipped Ricotta
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
For The Cake:Bunch of rhubarb (8 stems)
250g butter
250g sugar
250g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp mixed spice
6 balls stem ginger (blitzed into a paste)
1 small tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp any dark spirit (rum, cognac, whisky etc)
For the apples:
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into wedges
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp butter
For the whipped ricotta:
150g Ricotta
3 tbsp sugar
Small tsp vanilla
Orange zest (optional)
Method
For the apples, melt the butter in a pan then add the sugar and stir to dissolve.
Add the apple wedges and fry until golden.
To make the cream, whip the ingredients together in a bowl until light and creamy. Taste and adjust if necessary.
For the cake, in a loaf tin or loose bottom cake tin, grease and line with baking paper. Then cut the rhubarb into different shapes and sizes, lay onto a baking tray and sprinkle with sugar. Roast at 180°c for 10 minutes.
Beat the butter and sugars together until light and creamy, then add in the eggs and vanilla and beat further. Then sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold in until it’s all combined. Add the spices, orange zest, rum and ginger paste.
Take out the roasted rhubarb.
In the lined cake tin, place the rhubarb in a pattern of your choice in the bottom of the tin. Then put the rest of the ginger pieces all over the arranged rhubarb pieces, keeping the lovely rhubarb juices.
Pour the cake batter over the rhubarb, and spread to the edges with a spatula. Bake the cake for 30-40 minutes. Check with a skewer to see if it is cooked, it should come out clean. If it doesn’t, bake for another couple of minutes until it is cooked through.
Flip out the cake onto a cooling rack, drizzle over some of the lovely rhubarb juices and once fully cooled put on a cake stand. Serve with the ricotta and apples.
To book tickets for Rupert’s Friday and Saturday Feast Nights at the Porthleven Food Festival 26th and 27th April 2024, visit www.tickets.porthlevenfoodfestival.com