Indian food, Lifestyle, Recipes
Chef Sven-Hanson Britt’s day at Pure Punjabi HQ
Feb
After a short detour through the Wiltshire countryside (thanks to his Sat Nav), chef Sven-Hanson Britt arrived safely at Pure Punjabi HQ, with a roasting tray and foraged vegetables in hand.
Sven, former sous chef at The Ritz and finalist of the BBC’s ‘Masterchef: The Professionals’, (and later to be overall winner of Masterchef The Professionals, The Rematch), was ready to start cooking. You see, he told me about how he’d made a salt baked goat shoulder in our garam masala and it sounded so delicious – I had to see how he’d done it! Plus, he and his girlfriend Charlotte (who is a pescatarian) love to marinade monkfish in our tandoori masala, so we thought we’d have an extravagant lunch and have both dishes!
We decided to use lamb’s shoulder, as we couldn’t get hold of a goat’s shoulder on this occasion. As soon as he arrived, he handed me the tray of lamb, which was still warm from it’s 10 hour stint in the oven!
We hadn’t seen each other for several months, so had a coffee and a catch up before launching into the bag of foraged goodies that he’d picked a few hours earlier on his morning walk…
On the left is baby chervil, on the right, wild leaks and on the top are baby cauliflowers. The perfect accompaniments to our fish and lamb!
Onto the mains. Sven started prepping the monkfish by removing the remaining skin…
Then removing the layer of sinew underneath that…
Whilst Sven did that, I started on washing the veg and noticed how some of the chervil roots looked like something out of a Hogwarts herbology class…
Sven then cut the wild leaks in half, putting the bottom half in a roasting dish with the baby cauliflowers and grilling them. The tops of the leaks were then used like chives – sliced and added to the roasted veg once they were cooked along with the baby chervil leaves.
Back to the fish, which was covered in the tandoori masala, and put in the oven to bake…
Now that the veggies and fish were done, we could finally crack that salt pastry open, revealing the tender lamb underneath…
All that was left to do, was pull apart the meat…
Now all that was left to do, was eat!
To see Sven’s Salt dough lamb shoulder recipe, click here.
To see Sven’s hints and tips for making Tandoori monkfish, click here.
Photography by Hugh Lohan.
