Recipes: Chilled sweetcorn soup | Spicy Summer Beef Salad

Chilled sweetcorn soup with toasted almonds and crème fraiche

Soup ingredients:

400g frozen sweetcorn

Pinch of saffron

Diced onion

1 small diced potato

1 clove of garlic

Garnish ingredients:

Handful of flaked almonds

250ml crème fraiche

Method:

Toast almonds under the grill until golden. Then place all the soup ingredients in a pan and just cover with water. Bring the pan to the boil then turn down to a very gentle simmer. Cook until potato is tender. Blitz in a blender and pass through a fine sieve. Season and adjust consistency to taste (remember the soup will thicken when chilled).

Serve in a shot glass and garnish with toasted almonds and a teaspoon of the crème fraiche.

Fourme d’ambert, sultana and pistachio beigniet

Serves 8 to 10

Ingredients:

100g pistachio nuts

100g gold and black sultanas

200g Fourme D’Ambert (or alternative blue cheese)

200g fresh yeast (split into 2 pans)

300ml warm water (split into 2 pans)

300g plain flour (spilt into 3 bowls)

Cochineal food colour

Yellow food colour

Method:

Cheese balls

Crush the pistachios into a course powder. In a mixing bowl fold together the sultana’s, pistachios and cheese, mix until it all comes together.

Roll the mix into individual balls about 2 to 3 centimetres in size. Put on a tray and refrigerate until they come firm up.

For the batter, take the two pans of yeast and mix in the water. Take two of the 3 bowls of flour and add the water to them to make a batter. Add a little of the food colour to each batter resulting in a red batter and a yellow batter. Place both batters in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

To finish, pre-heat a deep fat fryer to 180C. Remove the blue cheese balls from the fridge along with both batters and roll them in the remaining flour. Using a cocktail stick stab one of the balls, shake off the excess flour and dip into one of the batters, fully coat the cheese ball and shake off any excess batter.

Using your thumb and forefinger push the coated ball off the stick and into the fryer. Fry the ball for 2-3 minutes until firm (repeat these steps alternating the colour of batter for each ball until mix has gone).

When cooked remove from the fryer and dry off on kitchen towel. Season with salt and pepper.

Plate and serve.

Spicy Summer Beef Salad

Ingredients:

500g Beef fillet

100g rice

Broccoli

1 Chilli

1 Small bunch of chopped chives

1 Lemon

Teaspoon caraway seeds

100g beansprouts

1 little gem lettuce

5 Tablespoons of mayonnaise

1 Tablespoon dark soy sauce

Method:

Slow cook beef at 70C for 50 minutes. Put rice on to cook with pinch of saffron, drain off and cool when cooked. Prepare all salad ingredients - grate half a broccoli; dice chilli; chop chives; zest lemon; chop beansprouts; wash gem lettuce and cut into bite size cups for the rice and beef to sit on.

Put all salad ingredients together in a bowl with the rice and caraway seeds season with salt and pepper and sit aside. Make the soy mayo by mixing together soy sauce, mayonnaise, squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper. Once ready heat through the beef on the stove in olive oil, then finely slice and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Place a blob of mayonnaise in each lettuce cup, top with a spoon of the rice mix and the sliced beef.