Two pub chefs in this week's Great British Menu national final
James Durrant of the Plough in Longparish, Hampshire and Emily Watkins of the Kingham Plough in Kingham, Oxfordshire, are battling it out to be one of four chefs who will cook at a special banquet for D-Day veterans at St Paul's Cathedral.
Tonight’s show sees the chefs prepare their starters for Great British Menu judges - Matthew Fort, Prue Leith and Oliver Peyton. They will be joined by D-Day veteran George Batts. Other judges during the week also include Baroness Trumpington who worked as a cypher clerk at Bletchley Park and Winston Churchill's granddaughter, Celia Sandys.
The four winners will be announced on Friday and that night’s show will also follow the successful chefs in the run-up to the banquet.
Watkins competed against fellow pub chefs Dominic Chapman of the Royal Oak, Paley Street, Berkshire and Josh Eggleton of the Pony & Tap, Chew Magna, Somerset, to win the South West heat.
The three chefs are hosting Great British Menu dinners at each other’s pubs this week, where each chef cooks on of their Great British Menu dishes. Durrant is screening the final at the pub this week and offering the dishes he created for the show on his menu.
D-Day inspired menus
Watkin’s winning menu in the south west heat was a starter of ‘Luncheon Meat in Jelly’, a fish dish called ‘Fight Them on the Beaches’, which played homage to the Normandy landings featuring flasks filled with cockle broth along with griddled scallops, sea greens, shells, braised morels in mess tins and tobacco tins with dehydrated seasoning. Her main was a rabbit dish titled ‘Don’t Come Back Empty Handed’ served with rabbit bangers, belly and slow-cooked rabbit leg presented with baby vegetables on a quirky allotment scene.
Her winning ‘Street Party’ dessert was a spin on jelly, cake and ice cream, served with blackberry jelly cubes, blackberry gel and fresh blackberries, lardy cakes on mini cake stands, blackberry mousse, blackberry buttermilk sorbet and poppy seed remembrance tuilles.
Durrant’s winning menu featured ‘S-P-A-M’, a spin on army ration meals, with spiced pork, molluscs, leeks, pickled onions and pork vinaigrette. His fish dish was ‘Ultimate Fish & Chips’ with cod cheeks, celeriac chips, mushy peas, curried monkfish and tartare.
His main course "Blitz Spirit" was a sharing dish, featuring beans in veal stock with veal sweetbreads, green beans, mushrooms, veal loin and bread crumbs fried in veal stock and butter. For dessert he cooked a sticky toffee apple pudding of apple puree, walnut balls, toffee apples, toffee sauce and sticky toffee pudding topped with cinnamon ice cream.
*Great British Menu is on BBC Two every night this week at 7pm
