Guest Chef Evening - Fire & Feast
Concept
The Guest Chef Evenings are a new series at Three Pools, where we collaborate with chefs that share the same passion for food and sustainable eating as we do. We will be showcasing a different guest chef or chefs every month for the winter season. The evenings aim to bring together like-minded, food conscience people to experience different cooking styles, cuisines and atmospheres as we move through winter. January We were excited to announce our first Three Pools Guest Chef Evening will be with Mark Andrews and Julian Tailleur! Mark and Julian are both known for their hunter-gather, wild, open fire cooking styles. We share a lot of values when it comes to food production and cooking - Mark set up Fire & Wild - a truly pioneering dining experience, which re-connects people back to nature and the source of their food. He hunts and forages the menu's and serves them in truly breathtaking locations - www.fireandwild.co.uk.
Julian is a chef de partie at Restaurant Entrepot in Amsterdam, where all there meat is sourced from the wild and nothing is farmed. Julian prides himself on field to fork cooking, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve here at Three Pools. To find out more about Julian's work check out; maisontailleur.wordpress.com
The Food
Farm
We started the winters evening off with a Three Pools sloe gin bellini. This was accompanied by a farmers breakfast amuse-bouche - duck egg custard, sourdough sauce and Welsh Black bacon crumb. Served in the duck egg itself, nestled in a bed of hay. The taste was true to it's name, all the flavours of the classic farmers breakfast were coming through in a way which was recognisable yet unreachable to the home cook.
Forest
The next dish was the result of two solid days of hunting on the Three Pools farm, stalking and shooting squirrels and pigeons during the day and rabbits at night. From this Mark and Julian created a native taco.. Layering the game on a bed of purposefully burnt white cabbage and homemade stock infused flatbreads. The chef somehow had put together a taste combination that hit all the notes of a classic taco in regards to texture, sweetest, acidity and look but again they had manage to surpass any taco experience I think the guests have ever had.
Mountain
As you know, Mark is best recognised for his open fire cooking. The main course was the opportunity for the 24 guests to experience this in quite a unique way. We had managed to source a whole goat from our next door neighbour Gary, a few weeks back. As soon as Mark caught wind of this, he was off 'asador goat it will be!' We bathed the goat in rosemary, garlic and sea salt for 3 days prior to cooking. As soon as the smoke hit the skin of the goat we could instantly tell we were in for a culinary treat.
A lot of people said, including myself that they hadn't tried goat on it's own before. The only time you really come across goat in the UK is in curries, which is a shame as it was spectacular. The open fire had given it a deep flavour and to add to that we threw on some vine cutting's from White Castle vineyard right at the end, giving it subtle hints of grape tannings. The goat served with crispy kale and a Three Pools cider vinegar beetroot purée, this course was an example of true localism and community ingredients resourcing.
Orchard
In keeping with the history Three Pools has with pears, Mark and Julian embarked on creating a dessert that took a lot people, especially our neighbours by surprise. The pears were smoked over the open fire for couple of hours, creating as you would expect a long lasting taste that is uncommon when you think of a traditional pear dessert.
However, the real star of the show was the goats milk and hay ice cream! The idea came from Julian, he was wondering what we could do with the goats milk we source from Gary next door to make it that little bit more special. Thinking along the lines of 'OK. we have goats milk.. what do goats eat.. hay. brilliant. we'll create a hay infused goats milk ice cream!' The reactions were wonderful, some people at first couldn't put their finger on the taste but the locals hit the nail on the head instantly - It was a uncompromising success and is definitely something we will be adding to our Three Pools product range in the near future.
Thank You
We would like to say a massive thank you to both Julian and Mark for their time and creation put into our first Guest Chef Evening. Also, a big thank you to everyone that came and supported the event. The whole night was magical and we can't wait to put on more food focused events here at Three Pools - helping us to bring people closer to the food and the methods that our used in producing and sourcing the ingredients.
Our next Guest Chef Evening on the 23rd of February with Fickle. pickled, fermented and gut biome focused food.
To book a place place email us at info@threepool.co.uk
