Feta PDO mmmm 
 
It isn’t every day that 80kilos of authentic Feta PDO cheese lands on your doorstep along with a request from the Greek Ministry asking if you would like to do a cookery demo with it. Such is the unusual world of Room Forty. Our motto should be ‘expect the unexpected’, it seems that every day offers a fresh madcap challenge. And every day we like to think that we rise to the occasion.
The brief that we were given was to promote real Feta PDO. There is a world of difference between authentic Feta cheese which had the Protected Designated Origin (PDO) status and the ‘Greek style salad cheese’ that lurks in the supermarket fridges. Feta PDO is beautiful natural cheese. It is of course dearer but worth the cost not just because the sheep and goats that provide the milk lead natural lives, and there are no nasties or antibiotics given, but the flavour is beautifully balanced and the cheese has a natural crumbly texture.

We were asked to run two sessions for professional chefs, to be filmed and live streamed over to Greece. Fortunately, we have a great relationship with our local College, Warrington & Vale Royal. Their lead tutor who runs the catering school, Chef Scott Surtees is an inspiration. The school is run as a proper restaurant, Buckleys, without doubt Warrington’s best fine dining restaurant (and if you haven’t been go – it is no wonder that it has held an AA Rosette for two years).

Scott taught the students to make delicately spiced feta and beef and feta and pine nut samosas, and then it was our turn to demonstrate a green olive tapenade and feta wrapped loaf. All with Feta PDO of course.

It is the first time that we had worked with and taught the students at the college. Being honest, we were a little nervous as they are seriously talented young people. Apart from their skills what came across was their enthusiasm for food, cooking, baking and to eagerness learn evidenced by the fact that they had come in specially to do this in their Easter break.

We had a great day, though we were left with a lot of beautiful fresh cheese, probably 70 kilos which can’t be frozen.

Check out the story in Warrington Guardian. If you run a community group, or meals service for communities you can apply to get a 4 kilo tin of genuine Feta PDO for free. Once tasted, you’ll never buy the inferior imitations again.
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Perfect for guests who may call unexpectedly, you can whip these Room Forty Greek Biscuits up in just a few minutes with things you already have in the store cupboard.

 Also, a great one to make with children as it’s a bit of fun rolling the dough into shapes.

You can also flavour them differently - see my tips.  Let me know if you make them! 

Ingredients 

225g butter
125g caster sugar
1 medium egg
275g plain flour
1tsp vanilla extract, or more traditionally ½ tsp vanilla and 1/2tsp almond extract (not flavouring)
1 egg – to eggwash
 
TIP - You could mix the flavours up, maybe add chocolate chips with orange zest – get creative!  
 
Method
Turn your oven on to 200 c. That’s a hot oven – they only take 10 minutes to bake.  
Line a baking sheet with baking paper, or grease a baking tin
 
1.       Combine the soft butter, sugar and egg and mix together well
2.       Add the vanilla /almond extract – or other flavours!
3.       Add the flour and bring it all together by hand
4.       Take a teaspoon of the mixture and roll it between your hands into a sausage – making s shapes or twist it to make curls
 
TIP – I find it helps to have a little flour on my hands to do this, so it doesn’t stick too much. You could also put your mix in the fridge for 40 mins to firm up a little before this stage.
 
5.       Place your shapes with gaps of about 2cm between them as they will spread a little
6.       Put them in the fridge for around half an hour, get the kettle on/clean up!
7.       Give them a coat of eggwash
8.       Bake for 10 minutes
9.       Dust with icing sugar and serve

Next week 23 Feb – 3 March is real bread week.  This floury fiesta encourages people internationally to share and gain baking skills, and the spotlight is thrown on small, independent, bakeries at the hearts of their local communities around the world.
 
Here in Warrington it’s not that easy to find real bread, unless you’re close to a Sextons or make it to one of the growing number of makers markets that pop up across the town.
 
Why though, is there even a real bread campaign and who is behind the movement to ditch mass produced bread?
Campaigners are naturally people who want to preserve the skills of making bread and pass it down to future generations as an essential skill, but they’ve got a real point behind doing so. Bread has (wrongly) had a bad reputation for several years and it’s time to change people’s opinions by making it properly again, with love for the ingredients.
Your plastic wrapped supermarket loaf is likely to be the most processed food that you eat, and most people eat at least a slice, a bagel or a crumpet every day, without giving it a second thought. But did you know shop bought wholemeal bread contains significantly more salt, sugar and yeast than real bread and it could be a contributing factor to the increase in intolerance and symptoms of IBS. Add to this the list of additives, enzymes and preservatives and you’re eating a concoction far removed from real bread.
 
But the answer isn’t to stop eating bread, far from it, bread is a fantastic staple, and is the backbone of almost every culture in the world. Instead the hope from the real bread campaign is that more people will support their local bakery or to get into the kitchen to bake their own.
 
As you’ll know from previous columns, I’m a big fan of shopping local, supporting local butchers, bakers and producers of anything that cuts out the hidden ingredients, and so I am a natural fan of the campaign and backing it again this year.
 
The problem we have to overcome is that a generation or two have missed out on the opportunity to learn kitchen basics, and many older people don’t have the confidence to try making bread, even if they’re good at baking cakes.
I know from personal experience that the adults and children that come to Room Forty baking classes to learn to bake bread go away happy and confident, even inventing their own recipes afterwards, and I get the satisfaction that they’ll be healthier, happier and have a new skill for life – that hopefully they’ll pass on to their families.
 
As its half term we’ve put a recipe online for you to have a go making with your children, its quick and easy and doesn’t involve kneading and waiting for the bread to prove – a great quick result for a starter bread. You can work up from there to make your bread pretty, plaiting it, glazing it or adding seeds and nuts.   
 
I baked the ones pictured in little silicone plant pots (available from the Range) to make them super cute!  
 
If you’d like to learn to make bread head to www.roomforty.co.ukbakingworkshops the next class is a bit tricky, sticky buns and tiger bread on 3 March St James Church, Hood Manor but our beginners class is great for anyone.  Get involved #realbreadweek
 
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Did you see me at Tatton  Park Foodie Festival?  This is the recipe I demonstrated. Perfect pastry for people who have warm hands - not so easy to make in a cold tent!


The Room Forty Mince Pie (aka the easiest, most delicious mince pies ever)
Imagine a pastry that is incredibly short, sweet and buttery. Imagine a pastry so easy to make that you don’t need to roll it out, butter the tin or blind bake. Here’s our recipe for the easiest, crumbliest and most delicious mince pies you’ll ever make. Quick, easy and absolutely no faff!

This recipe makes about 24 small bite size mince pies (ideal for Afternoon Tea, or as a tasty morsel to sit on your saucer with a nice brew). We make them in a mini-muffin tin (you could obviously make larger if you wished – it’ll make 12 – 18 ‘regular’ sized pies)

A note about Mincemeat:
As you know - or may not - Mincemeat is so called because the recipe used to contain meat along with the fruit. Over the years this has changed but most commercial mincemeats will still contain suet (which are the white bits that you see). So far, so good, but not good if you are vegetarian. Most commercial brands now contain vegetable suet, HOWEVER, most vegetable suet is made from Palm Oil, the harvesting of which is controversially responsible for deforestation and the demise of the Orangutan. At Room Forty, we make our own – it is incredibly easy, delicious and suet free . Our recipe will be published next week in the Warrington Guardian.

You’ll need

• A large mixing bowl.
• Mini –muffin tray – enough to make about 26

Ingredients

• 225g diced butter
• 350g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 280g Mincemeat [See our note below about Mincemeat
• Enough icing sugar to dust

Instructions
First, set your oven to 200 degrees.
To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour until it looks like fine breadcrumbs then mix in the sugar and add a pinch of salt (use a food processor to do this if it is easier and you have one). Combine it into a ball and give a slight knead to make it into a firm, but crumbly dough. DON’T add any liquid *

Simply drop a small walnut sized lump of dough into each of the tin holes, pressing it in with your finger as if you were using modelling clay until the base is covered and it has been pressed all the way up the sides to the top (it doesn’t need to be neat).

With a teaspoon fill the pies with the mincemeat.

Then take slightly smaller balls of dough and press them into a round pastry lid in your palm, big enough to cover the top of the pies and pop them onto the top, gently pressing the edges down to seal them (we told you this was easy – no need for egg or milk – they will seal on their own)**

Pop into the oven for about 15 minutes until they are golden

Remove them from the oven and leave in the tins for 5 minutes. Then very gently prise them out of the tins using the corner of a sharp knife (careful as this is very short and crumbly pastry ) and place on a cooling rack.

Dust with icing sugar, pour a glass of sherry, and enjoy!
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*At this stage you can chill the pastry and use it the next day
** You could now freeze the pies unbaked in the tray for up to a month
Room Forty is a multi-award winning mobile Afternoon Tea Emporium and Baking School www.roomforty.co.uk
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When I started Room Forty Afternoon Teas just two years ago I had a vision, but no idea about how to achieve it.

Every day was a baby step (sometimes backwards) designing menus, learning to bake and create, finding better ways to do things and tweaking and refining. Not to mention the business side of things and finding a way to store all the vintage crockery.

On the days or sometimes weeks with no bookings I didn’t give up, I just stretched the goals and worked harder.

Working with the fabulous Mitch Poole to expand the Room Forty offer we began bread making courses and now run them across the north west, achieving silver in the world bread awards for our white delight loaf.

Our canapés take an age to produce, but they’re individual, tasty and from the heart.
Our recipe is simple. Give something extra. Try something new. Delight in surprising your customers....
...and have people around you that believe in you.

Anything is possible. This award proves it.

Thank YOU for being part of our journey.
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#wba2018 #hospitalityprovideroftheyear

Here's a bit of the media coverage so far! 

http://www.goodtastemagazines.co.uk/room-forty-warrington-business-awards/

http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/16278922.12_winners_announced_at_Warrington_Business_Awards_2018/

http://www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/2018/06/08/warrington-business-awards-winners-announced/

The first major author to influence the cooking of the nation was by a woman, Isabella Beeton. Isabella was the original Domestic Goddess, her book, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, was first published in 1861. An instant bestseller; the 76 chapter volume was a compendium of household tips and duties for the staff with a substantial cookery section. She exalted the merits of cooking seasonal and local food, a message that resonates today and particularly is a mantra for me and my business Room Forty. Most of her recipes, though tested by Mrs B, had in fact been purloined from a host of other writers - albeit that they too were all female. The influence of this book however cannot be understated. Incredibly, I50 odd years later, the book remains in print.

Fast forward 60 years and although ‘King of Chefs’, Auguste Escoffier was undoubtedly a culinary genius, King Edward VII, preferred the ‘Queen of Cooks’, Rosa Lewis. The brilliant Rosa cooked in the French style; lighter and less stodgy fayre than the Victorian cooking of Isabella Beeton. She was appointed as Edward’s personal chef, a role she looked after for 20 years. Rosa was formerly the chef to the Churchill family and a favourite of Kaiser Wilhelm II too. By the age of 35 this talented and clever woman had moved on. She bought the Cavendish Hotel which she transformed into one of the most fashionable hotels of the era frequented by the glitterati of the day.

1939 saw the start of World War II and the necessity for frugality. Marguerite Patten was appointed by the Ministry of Food to guide the nation through rationing. She wrote recipes and hosted a radio broadcast called The Kitchen Front designed to make the most of what was available. By 1947 she had become Britain’s first TV cook (although she was always insistent to her death that she was NOT a cook but a Home Economist). Still revered by contemporary chefs, it was Marguerite to whom Jamie Oliver turned for advice when working on his school dinner campaign as to how to make meals on a budget. In her remarkable 99 year lifetime she wrote an incredible 170 cookery books including one that I possess, The Everyday Cook Book in Colour, which went on to sell over 17 million copies. Tried, tested and trusted it remains a faultless reference.

Eccentric, slightly bonkers and so perfect for TV, Fanny Cradock hit British TV screens in 1955. The advent of colour TV in the late 1960’s brought technicolour to her odd make up and bizzare culinary creations such as garishly colour dyed piped mashed potato and odd things suspended in bowls of yellow aspic. Whilst she may have reigned on TV and been of huge entertainment value her legacy has not stood the test of time. Meanwhile Elizabeth David, was creating a revolution in food.

Elizabeth had toured around the Med and lived in Greece and France. As enthralled and excited as she was by the Mediterranean diet she was as equally appalled with the bland, grey, boring British diet that greeted her on her return to live in austerity London in 1946.. Her book A Book of Mediterranean Food published in 1950, was transformational. It introduced austerity Britain to the vibrancy and colour of the Med diet; garlic, pasta, lemons, fresh herbs, brie, cous cous, peppers, olive oil… along with recipes for such exotic delights as moules marinières and spanakopita, bouillabaisse and brandade, boeuf en daube and dolmades. She became a revered and go-to spark of inspiration for chefs. Her journalistic skills brought the pages to life and she followed her initial book success with a series of similar acclaimed, inspirational titles.

Her friend and contemporary was fellow journalist Jane Grigson who wrote classics about British and French food; Fish Cookery (1973), English Food (1974), The Mushroom Feast (1975), Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book (1978) and Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book (1982). An early critic of battery farming, she cared passionately about such things as provenance too; things that resonate very strongly with my personal ethos.

About this time Nigella Lawson’s mentor Anna Del Conte was making her mark. Having moved to the UK from Italy after the War she too found the British diet dull and wrote the classics Portrait of Pasta (1976), followed by Classic Italian Cookbook (1984) for a British readership and The Gastronomy of Italy (1984).

In 1960, the amazing Pru Leith moved to London from South Africa, attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School and soon set up Leith's Good Food, a party and event catering business. In 1969, she opened Leith's restaurant which won her a Michelin star at a time when Britain held but a handful. By1975, she had founded Leith's School of Food and Wine which became the UK equivalent of the Cordon Bleu, training professional chefs and amateur cooks. In 1993 she sold the school which by then had grown to have a turnover of £15 million. As a business woman and cook Pru is incredible. Little wonder she was named Veuve Cliquot Business Woman of the Year in 1990, has been awarded 13 Honorary University Degrees an OBE and CBE.

The fabulous Mary Berry mustn’t and couldn’t be left from this list. She has published over 70 books following her first, The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook, published in 1970. She is an  inspiration to millions with her foolproof recipe’s with clear instructions and a regular on TV.
The names Delia and Nigella have become Mononymous, ie, Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson have both become so successful that you don’t even need to mention their second name.

Delia’s recipes are to this day, delicious, failsafe classics. Delia was omniprescent in magazines, through her books and on our TV screens from the late seventies up until her last book in 2009. The ‘Delia Effect’, was one of a trust so powerful that when she started using coiled mini whisks they sold out the next day. When her BBC How to Cook programme was first aired in 1998, supermarkets recorded an increase in sales of 1.3 million eggs the next day. Elizabeth David and Anna Del Conte may have introduced us to the concept of the likes of balsamic vinegar, but when Delia used it, it flew off the shelves. Another very clever business woman, Delia co-founded Sainsbury’s magazine and has the majority shareholding in her beloved Norwich City FC.
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Nigella, Domestic Goddess, took over Delia’s culinary mantle, first appearing on TV in 1998. Her vampish profile belies her phenomenal, achievable recipes and she currently still reigns supreme. Think the vogue for spiced baked cauliflower is new? Check out Nigella Bites, she was championing it in her first book back in 1991.  Her journalistic skill empowers her with a descriptive writing style that is as delicious and luminary as her recipe’s.
 
All of these women are inspirational, quite brilliant and clever. In this celebratory, centenary year of women having won the fight to get the right to vote I would argue that rather than being enslaved by the kitchen it has been a forum in which women have for over 160 years, shown themselves to lead, enlighten, inspire and excel.
 
Ask most male chefs who was their cooking inspiration and, certainly in the case of Raymond Blanc, James Martin and Marco Pierre White, it was their mother or grandmother. For me, I am delighted to say it was my mum as she always cooked amazing food and taught me the basics to build from. 
Who feeds your inspiration?  
 
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