We hosted our first event in 6 months at the start of October, in honour of our 7th birthday. Susie was fresh from maternity leave and we thought, what better way to ease ourselves into supper clubbing than theming it round Michelin starred Tommy Banks’ book ‘Roots’! Needless to say we fiddled around with some of the ingredients and techniques to make it a bit more accessible!
Tommy is big into seasonality, fermenting, infusing and pickling. We kick started this theme with a welcome cocktail we called ‘Bramble Mac’. At its core this was whisky infused with blackberries and topped up with ginger beer. The blackberry whisky takes the smoky edge off the spirit and makes it very palatable and autumnal.
Snacks included little portions of thrice cooked parsnip chips served with a tangy, smoky beetroot ketchup. We also made little cheese and potato dumplings atop a herby tartare sauce.
For starters Susie served up a colourful marinated heritage tomato salad, accompanied with pickled cucumber, herb oil, toasted pumpkin seeds and shavings of frozen goats cheese. Also offered was a flavourful onion braised spelt with truffle. Nutty spelt was cooked down in a sweet and umami packed onion broth and then served atop a cheesy custard and sliced truffle.
For mains we started with a wedge of hispi cabbage that was charred and then roasted slowly in the oven, regularly basted with a smoky miso butter. This came with a fermented turnip puree that was about two months in the making and various pickled veggies – the perfect sweet, salty, sour combo.
The meat course was seared venison loin, accompanied by butter roasted celeriac, pickled blackberries and rosemary salt. The lightly pickled blackberries cut through the rich gamey venison and the rosemary salt added a pungent herbal note.
Dessert came in the form of little raspberry tarts – an almond pastry topped with berries and then smothered in a hay infused cream. I kid you not, hay was toasted in the oven and then infused with warm cream overnight. The result was quite nutty and tea-like, I recommend! This came with a cream cheese ice cream and lashings of berry coulis.
Petit fours were mini almond and apple cakes. Think a Bakewell cake minus berries and with apple!
As it was our birthday every guest also got three cans of Wilde Child beer. This beer is brewed less than a mile from the Manor and whilst strong, comes in lots of exciting and tasty flavours. We showcased some of their signature brews including:
- Opaque Reality – Mango and Passionfruit Milkshake IPA
- Beyond Redemption – Pineapple Milkshake IPA
- Hedonistic Existence – Chocolate Ganache Stout
We probably bit off more than we could chew, but it was good to be cooking again! If you like the sound of that then you can give all of this a go at Tommy’s new restaurant in York, which has the same name as the book. We’ll be back in November with afternoon tea inspired by the recipes of the lovely Nadiya Hussain.