ASHBURTON COOKERY SCHOOL – THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS DINNER APP

Having trained at Ashburton Cookery School I was excited to hear they were developing their own iPhone apps. Their first app is the ‘Perfect Christmas Dinner’ which was released in the apple store 09 December 2011. I have been exploring the app today and thought it would be nice to write a review.

The first aspect I noticed was the app feels professional and has a clean and easy interface. Much like their cookery school, everything has been well thought out and planned. At the bottom of the app you can find four options – planning, recipes, shop list and my menu.

PLANNING

The planning section gives some really useful tips and tricks of the trade to help you get through the preparation of your Christmas dinner without too much stress. As in most sections these tips are written down but also displayed in a video from Darrin the Chef Director.

RECIPES

The recipe section is divided into – canapés, main course, trimmings, sauces, puddings and drinks. In total there are 21 recipes and most of these have video lessons to accompany them. Once you click on a recipe it is broken down further into – video, ingredients, method and tips. I found it easy to navigate and you have the option on the ingredients tab to add them to your shopping list. An excellent feature which saves getting out the old pen and paper and then forgetting to take it to the supermarket like I do so often.

VIDEO LESSONS

The videos on the recipes are great, it was bizarre watching as it took me right back to being in the class with Ashburton’s tutors. The only small problem I encountered was sometimes the download would start again if my phone automatically locked but once I took the automatic lock off, this was not a problem. Hopefully the guys at Ashburton might release an update which could execute downloads in the background but only a small niggle. Once the videos are downloaded they will instantly play in future.

The video clarity was good and for those of you like me who are an ‘Apple’ geek I just had to try using the ‘Airplay’ function to transfer the video to my Apple TV. It worked seamlessly and the picture quality on a 40″ TV was not far off DVD quality. It was like having a full size Joe Bartlett in my living room!

SHOP LIST

The shop list contains all the ingredients you have chosen from the recipes and you can even tick them off as you buy them.

MY MENU

The ‘My Menu’ section shows all the recipes you have highlighted as a favourite so at a quick glance you know exactly what you have planned to cook and which recipes to refer to.

CONCLUSION

Although you could say my view is biased because I have been to Ashburton, I can honestly say for £1.99 this app is definitely worth buying. For the video lessons alone I cannot believe the amount of time it must have taken them to film and develop some of these great recipes. Being a chef I have explored quite a few cookery apps in the store and there are many more expensive than this that are just wasted space on my phone. Although I will not use this app for Christmas as I am cooking for a client I can see myself trying these recipes afterwards as they could be used all year round.

I am now looking forward to seeing more apps from Ashburton!

SUPERMARKETS HELPING US OR THEMSELVES?

I watched an interesting episode of BBC’s Panorama this week which investigates the offers we are saturated with when entering a supermarket store. Sophie Raworth takes an in depth look at Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons to see if they are really helping us though the financial crisis or just funding their ever growing expansion at our cost.

SUPERMARKET ‘BARGAIN’ TACTICS EXPLAINED

The ‘Wow’ factor – Asda

Asda use the ‘Wow’ slogan for their online shopping service, displayed in bright yellow bold print and surrounded by a red box these are hard to miss and you would be drawn straight to them. However Sophie’s investigation uncovered eleven items that had been at the same price for at least six months, is this really a ‘Wow’ factor item? Some items were even priced higher than in previous months but unless you are meticulous with your shopping receipts and make comparisons month on month how would you know this? Our trust is placed in the supermarket to honestly display bargains and we buy more on impulse than calculated decisions when in store.

Multi-buy deals – Tescos

Tescos were found to display multi-buy price labels where there were no savings to be made. The way the label is displayed subconsciously draws your eyes to the multi-buy offer, I had a quick search on the internet and found that quite a few people had already reported on this.

Price establishing

Price establishing is a marketing term used when a company sells a product at one price for a long period of time, briefly raises it and then drops it again claiming the price has been reduced. Technically this is legal if a company keeps the higher price for 28 days or more however from a consumer point of view is this really a bargain? I guess there is also a question around the initial reason for the price increase, was it led by seasonal fluctuation, inflation or purely for marketing purposes?

Panorama found that Tesco had used this method on their chicken range going from £4.00 to £5.00 and then dropping again to £4.00 which enabled them to market it as a price drop but in reality it was only £5.00 for a little over two months.

Buy now while offers last

Some labels only display the current price marked ‘Buy Now’ and indicate an exclusive offer. However some products on these offers were found to have been more expensive than the price weeks earlier.

Unit Price vs. price per kg

More misleading results were found when comparing fruit and vegetables. At Sainsbury’s it was found that a pack of five bananas cost £1.00 compared to £0.42 if bought loose. Without taking the packaged bananas to a set of scales and working out the price per kg you would not know this. Similar results were found at Asda but when it came to Morrisons you would pay more for some items loose that you would packaged, again making it difficult to compare the prices displayed in different measurements.

Let us know how you feel about the supermarket advertising.

You can watch this episode of Panorama from the BBC’s iPlayer website.

A DAY WITH HYDEN ORGANICS FARM

Understanding the produce we use for our clients and where it is sourced from is really important. We recently changed our supplier of meat and poultry to Hyden Organics so we were extremely pleased when Richard Jones said I could come and spend a day at the farm helping out.

Hyden Organics is a small family run farm based on the edge of the South Downs Way in Hampshire. Richard and his family run a farming business built upon these strong values:

• A sympathetic approach to the countryside and it’s wildlife
• A sustainable working environment for the rearing of Hampshire’s local and traditional breeds
• To produce the finest quality traditional, organic meats and poultry.

When I arrived at the farm I was a little apprehensive, I was excited but also nervous being outside my comfort zone of the kitchen. Nerves soon subsided when I met Richard and his team who made me feel very welcome. My first task was to draw some ducks (not with a pencil) which I had done once or twice while training but I still struggled to keep up with the speed and accuracy of Richard’s team. One thing I noticed about the ducks were the size and the yield of meat on them. Richard explained to me that their ducks are taken to 16-18 weeks before slaughter because they use a traditional French Sasso breed rather than a fast growing breed often used in the UK.

Next came the delivery of beef, pork and lamb from a local slaughter house.

A business that uses a local slaughter house is important to us as it minimises the stress on animals resulting in a more ethical and better quality product. What can I say, I was in meat heaven! I think I nearly slipped a disc helping to carry the beef carcass to the chiller, they really did weigh a ton and took 3 men to carry and hang. The beef looked beautiful, such a rich dark colour, lovely marbling and a good layering of fat. I am sure this is down to the fact that Hyden farm breed and rear their cows on the farm. After leaving their mothers by 10 months, they are then matured on natural clover and herb pastures for 2 years. The beef that we carried will now be hung for up to 6 weeks to ensure the best maturity of flavour.

My final hours of the day were spent with Peter the Hyden Organics butcher. Peter taught me how to bone out a pork leg with a chisel and then remove the loins and ribs. Unfortunately using the butchers saw was not my calling in life and after nearly ruining the carcass Peter took it back and saved me from having to buy the meat I was destroying.

For me it is fascinating to just watch people who are experts in their field, I certainly took some extra tips away that day but I think I will still leave the butchery to Richard and his team. I am now certain that after seeing them at work that the produce we order is in safe hands.

www.hydenorganics.co.uk

3 Techniques using a cream siphon (whipper)

We are always looking for new ways to incorporate flavours or change textures to create exciting dishes. Recently we have been trying out techniques using a cream siphon which is commonly known for producing whipped cream to go on the top of our coffee. It is amazing how versatile this cream siphon is from infusing flavours to making mousse and even carbonating ingredients with a CO2 cartridge.

Below are 3 of our favourite techniques:

Smoke Infusion

By using the Polyscience Smoking Gun, we have been infusing a range of liquids such as brandy, jack daniels, orange juice and vodka with different flavour smoke. The resulting liquid can then be used to make a sauce, dessert or even a drink.

Quick Herb Infusion

This technique is a very quick way to infuse herbs with liquid rather than heating the two and leaving in the pan to infuse. The infused liquid can then be used in sauces, desserts or drinks, for example we infused cider with sage which made a very interesting drink. The sage was only a background flavour but added a wonderful aroma to the drink.

Mousseline using unstable liquids

The final technique on this blog is mousseline with unstable liquids. Here we are adding a stabiliser, Xanthan gum to liquids which would normally have other ingredients such as egg whites to hold their mousse like texture. This is a very exciting technique as you can be so creative with the flavours, we tried it with coconut milk, raspberry juice, pear juice and coffee. In this example we have displayed the dish as a dessert but we think this technique is best used as a foam accompanying a dessert such as chocolate tart with a coffee foam and crystalised walnuts.

Knife Sharpening

There is nothing worse than cooking with a blunt knife.

Not only does it make every task more difficult and less precise but it’s also very dangerous. The good news is you don’t have to be an expert to keep your knives sharp and you can also pick up sharpening steels for as little as £10.

There are 2 methods of sharpening a knife, with a wetstone/oil stone or a steel. The latter will only work if your knife isn’t already really blunt as a steel is more of a maintenance tool.

Please see below our video on how to maintain your knives:

To learn more about these kind of techniques, please visit our Cookery Courses page.