Ashburton Cookery school: Day 4

Ham and Cheddar tart

This was made with the ham hock that we cooked on day 2. The raw ingredients for this tart were so good it was difficult to make sure there was enough left for the tart.

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Goat's cheese and red pepper tortelli with fresh pesto

A delightful combination of beautiful fresh pasta and pesto finished with balsamic vinegar and Parmesan.

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Fillet steak with Café de Paris butter, chips, roasted tomato and mushroom

Pretty easy but tasty nonetheless and raised up a notch by some simple additions: slivers of garlic on the mushroom; thyme on the tomato and the pretty tomato base. Apparently the butter started out as a way of using up items from the larder. I'm pretty sure I'd have to go and do a special shop to get all the ingredients.

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Crème brûlée

An incredibly silky smooth brûlée.

Day 4's golden nuggets:

• Council stock aka water!
• You can always add, but never take away.
• If there's green on the board after chopping board you've gone too far (the chlorophyll hs come out and the integrity of the herb, including their flavour, has been damaged) .
• Self-raising flour is milled finer than plain flour. Consequently self-raising is better used when rolling out pastry.
• Pastry rings/cases are better with a curved lip as is is more gentle on the pastry as it fold over the top.
• Shake baking powder before using it to ensure all the ingredients are mixed.
• To stop fruit freezing solid in ice-creams soak it in alcohol or stock syrup before adding to the ice-cream and freezing (this will prevent the fruit from freezing rock hard).
• Using semolina when rolling out pastry adds a rough surface to the pasta allowing sauce to cling more easily.
• When making crème brûlée use a thin layer of icing sugar (add and shack off excess) to create caramel topping. This can be thickened by repeating with another layer of sugar.