Tom Kerridge's Proper Pub Food (28 page)

Just before you are ready to serve, preheat the grill to high. Remove the bacon from the pheasant and crisp it up under the hot grill. Use a blowtorch to make the pheasant skin
crispy and coloured. Remove the pheasant breasts from the bone and serve with the carrots and garlic, bread sauce, the reduced sauce, the bacon and the game chips.

I love a T-Bone steak and I love venison.... I think you can work out the inspiration for this recipe. Red cabbage is a classic accompaniment to venison, but far too often it is
stewed and loses its freshness. Instead, I like to serve it with a crunch. There is plenty of acidity and sweetness all over this plate in this recipe, so the balance of flavours is very important.
Taste everything as you go along.

Serves 4

For the red cabbage

For the clove sauce

Thirty minutes before you plan to cook, mix the red cabbage, demerara sugar, sea salt flakes and juniper berries together in a non-metallic bowl and leave for the cabbage to
soften.

Meanwhile, make the potato pancakes following the instructions
here
. Keep them hot in a low oven until ready to serve.

To make the clove sauce, bring the red wine, red wine vinegar, redcurrant jelly and cloves to the boil in a saucepan over a high heat, stirring to dissolve the jelly. Continue
boiling until the liquid reduces to a glaze. Add the beef stock, return to the boil and reduce again by half to make the sauce. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve into a bowl to remove the cloves,
then leave to one side and keep warm.

Rinse the cabbage thoroughly in running cold water. Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat. Add the cabbage to it to heat up, but do not overcook. We still want the cabbage
to have a crunch to it. Leave to one side and keep hot.

Melt the remaining 50g butter with the rapeseed oil in a large frying pan over a high heat until the butter just starts to turn a hazelnut brown. Season the steaks with a pinch
of salt, and add them to the pan and fry for 3–4 minutes on each side until they are a lovely dark colour. Squeeze in the lemon juice and baste them with the pan juices. Do not overcook them,
as venison has a very low fat content, so the more well done it is, the drier it will be. Remove the steaks from the pan and leave them to rest, covered with foil, for 10 minutes.

Whilst the steaks are resting, mix together the crème fraîche, Szechuan pepper and lime juice.

To serve, put a couple of pancakes on each plate, add some red cabbage and a venison steak, then pour over the clove sauce. Serve with the spiced crème fraîche on
the side.

This is a full-on winter dish. Venison is one of my favourite meats, full of flavour and so good when served medium-rare. The use of dark chocolate and red wine gives a bitter,
rich finish to the plate of food and a real taste of class.

Serves 4

For the squash purée

First, make the squash purée. Peel the butternut squash, then cut it in half lengthways. Dice the top half and keep the trimmings. Scoop the seeds out from the bottom half
and cut into equal chunks of about 2cm.

Melt 50g of the butter in a large frying pan over a low heat. Add the shallots and fry, stirring occasionally, until they are softened, but not coloured. Add the 2cm chunks of
squash and the trimmings from the top half and continue to slowly cook for 5 minutes. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to the boil, then continue to boil for about 10 minutes until the squash is
tender. Place the contents of the pan in a blender, add the remaining 50g butter, the double cream and truffle oil and blend until smooth. Season and pass the sauce through a fine sieve into a pan.
Leave to one side until needed.

To cook the venison, melt 50g butter with 4 tablespoons rapeseed oil in a large frying pan over a high heat until the butter just starts to turn a hazelnut brown. Season the
steaks with a pinch of salt, add them to the pan and fry for 3–4 minutes on each side until they are a lovely dark colour. Squeeze in the lemon juice and baste them with the pan juices. Do
not overcook them or they will become dry. Remove the steaks from the pan and leave them to rest, covered with foil, for 10 minutes.

In another frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons rapeseed oi1 in the pan. Add the frankfurters and fry, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes until they are crispy around the
edges. Remove them from the pan and drain on kitchen paper. Add the diced squash to the pan and fry, stirring, for about 4 minutes, or until just tender. Return the frankfurters to the pan, add the
pumpkin seeds and season.

In another pan, melt the remaining 50g butter over a medium heat. Add the Brussels sprouts and fry, stirring, for 3–5 minutes until they are just tender. Season with the
black pepper and Szechuan pepper, grate over the nutmeg and add salt to taste.

Meanwhile, bring the red wine sauce to the boil in a separate pan over a high heat. Whisk in the dark chocolate, then immediately remove the pan from the heat.

Divide the squash purée between 4 plates and place the diced squash on top. Slice the venison and place that on top and pour over a little sauce. Serve the sprouts on the
side.

Venison, peppered sprouts, squash purée and chocolate sauce

This is a really nostalgic dish that reminds me of when I was a naughty boy who had just passed my driving test. We used to go out to a great country pub called The Mill, at
Withington, about 10 miles outside Gloucester city centre and in the middle of the countryside. It has the local reputation of being the first pub to serve ‘chicken in a basket’. This
was a proper posh dish when I was growing up, a great dish in a fantastic setting. This version is inspired by my memories, but with more of a spicy, smoky kick.

Serves 4

For the brine

A day ahead, mix all the ingredients for the brine together in a saucepan over a high heat and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sea salt and sugar. Pour into a large
non-metallic bowl and leave to cool completely. When the brine has cooled, add the chicken pieces. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for 8 hours.

After 8 hours, remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry. Place the chicken into a large plastic container, pour over the buttermilk and use your hands to make sure each
piece is well coated. Cover the container and place it in the fridge for 12 hours.

Just before you are ready to cook, mix the flour, cornflour and all the herbs and spices together in a small roasting tray.

Remove the chicken from the buttermilk and scrape off as much of the buttermilk as possible. One by one, roll each chicken piece in the herb and spice mix, shaking off the
excess. Leave to one side and preheat an oven to low.

Heat about 1 cm vegetable oil in a frying pan over a medium-low heat. Add only 2 or 3 pieces of chicken at a time and fry for 6–7 minutes on each side until the juices run
clear when you pierce the pieces and they are lightly coloured. As each batch is cooked, remove it from the pan, drain well on kitchen paper and keep warm in the oven until all the chicken is
fried. Add more oil to the pan as needed.

After all the chicken has been fried, put it in the oven on a high heat for 15 minutes, until the coating is crispy and browned. Serve immediately in a basket with coleslaw on
the side.

Tom’s fried chicken in a basket

This dish is so clean and simple. It tastes and smells like a gorgeously sweet hay field, which gives it an authentic, real flavour. There is something very comforting about
wrapping up a whole chicken in muslin, swaddling it with hay and baking it in quality cider – giving it all the love it needs to become the best chicken ever.

Don’t worry that it looks pale when you uncover it after cooking – a blowtorch will quickly colour and crisp up the skin, and add a delicious charred flavour on top
of all that juicy meat.

If you happen to know a friendly farmer, get the hay first-hand as it will be a lot nicer than a pet-shop pack! This is one of my favourite weekend treats – it’s
perfect for Sunday lunch. I urge every last one of you to give it a go and I promise you’ll be eating it again and again!

Serves 4

Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7.

Place the chicken on top of a piece of muslin, large enough to wrap around it, and season with salt and pepper. Put the bay leaves on top of the chicken. Break apart the cloves
of garlic from one bulb, but don’t peel them. Give them a bash with the back of a knife and sprinkle them over the chicken. Wrap the chicken tightly in the muslin, then put it in a large
flameproof casserole.

Pack hay all around the chicken and pour over half the cider. Cover the casserole and place it in the oven for 1 hour, checking occasionally that the liquid hasn’t
evaporated. If it needs topping up, use the remaining cider, and then some hot water, if necessary. Pierce the muslin with a knife and stab the chicken in the thigh joint to check if the juices run
clear. If not, return the pot to the oven for a further 5 minutes. Leave the chicken to rest in the pot, covered, for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel the celeriac and rub it down with a green scouring pad to make it very smooth and rounded. Heat the rapeseed oil an ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat. Add
the celeriac to the pan and fry for 10–15 minutes until it is coloured all over. Once the celeriac is nicely browned, add the butter to the pan with the thyme and the remaining garlic bulb,
cut in half through the equator. Baste the celeriac in the butter, then place the pan in the oven for 45 minutes until the celeriac is tender all the way through. Baste with butter 3 or 4
times during the cooking time.