Saturday Kitchen appearance for Bocuse d'Or Team

Team President Brian Turner and candidate Adam Bennett showed off their culinary skills on Britain's favourite cooking show, Saturday Kitchen last weekend.

Brian cooked a delicious rack of venison and Adam used ingredients from his winning Bocuse d'Or meat platter to create a more simplified ox cheek with mashed potato and carrots dish.

Adam to represent the UK in 2014

We're delighted to announce that Adam will once more represent the UK in this year's Bocuse d'Or European final which takes place in Stockholm.  Adam took part in a national selection on January 6th, competing against Craft Guild of Chefs National Chef of the Year 2012, Frederick Forster from The Boundary and Raj Holuss from The Ritz.  Each chef had to prepare and cook three different garnishes to accompany a chicken ballotine.  The chicken and garnishes had to be presented on the silver flats provided.

Adam first expressed his interest in taking part in the Bocuse d’Or for a second time last Summer but his position was only confirmed following a cook-off with two other potential candidates.  He competed against Craft Guild of Chefs National Chef of the Year, Frederick Forster from The Boundary and Raj Holuss from The Ritz.  Each chef had to prepare and cook three different garnishes to accompany a chicken ballotine.  The chicken and garnishes had to be presented on the silver flats provided.

Adam’s winning platter was ballotine of French farmed chicken with wild mushroom and truffle mousseline with fricassee of leek and chicken leg, carrot with chicken, tarragon and mustard, potato and cȇpe croquette with pickled mushroom, savoy cabbage with bacon, chicken jus and sherry vinegar.

Brian Turner CBE, President of Team UK commented on the result, “The standard of the entries today was very high and all the chefs demonstrated excellent cooking skills.  Adam once again demonstrated his talent for producing wonderful looking and tasting food and that, along with his experience at the Bocuse d’Or, make him the strongest candidate for 2014.  However, the Bocuse d’Or is the pinnacle of chef competitions so it’s essential that we continue to seek out candidates who have an interest in taking on the challenge, as well as the skills required.  We hope that both Raj and Frederick will be taking part in the national selection for 2017.”

The Bocuse d’Or UK Academy National Selection for 2017 will take place at Hotelympia on April 28th, 2013.  For more details and to receive an entry form, please email Michelle Diederichs - michelle@koyahpr.co.uk.

The ambassador’s reception

Last Monday was another great day for the UK team.  We were invited by this year’s Bocuse d’Or meat sponsor, Bord Bia, to attend a celebratory reception at the Irish Embassy in Grosvenor Place, London. 

It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to dine in such a venue and it was great to be among chefs such as Henri Brosi, Paul Gayler and Kevin Love from the Hinds Head. We listened to an inspirational talk from this year’s Bocuse d’Or butcher, Jean Denaux who’s love of Irish Hereford Beef has helped Bord Bia break into the French market.  Thanks to Jean, Irish beef is now served in many of France’s top restaurants.  

The true highlight came when we were presented with our ‘golden bull’ trophies by Bobby McDonagh, the Irish Ambassador and Michelle Butler, general manager at Bord Bia.  It brought back memories of Lyon and gave us all something to smile about. 

The Big Day

As we return to normality our achievement in Lyon is beginning to sink in.

We arrived in Lyon on Sunday January 27th, in good time for the Bocuse d’Or briefing on Monday.  This year for the first time, we had to choose our ingredients and plan our fish garnishes from scratch whilst we were out in Lyon.  This was coordinated in a supermarket-sweep style challenge which involved the chefs splitting into two groups - 12 for day one and 12 for day two.  Each team was given 30 minutes to select ingredients from a market created by sponsor, Metro.  Obviously at this time of year seasonal ingredients are limited but even though we’d done our research there were a few surprises in terms of what was and wasn’t available.

In the end we settled for potatoes, leeks, celery, apple, beetroot, a selection of herbs
and pea shoots, to create garnishes of creamed leaks cannelloni rolled in Espelette butter and salad of pickled vegetables with mustard seeds, apple and celery puree.

The following day was spent in the Labo kitchen, kindly loaned to us by Benjamin Grellier.  We ended up there for a good few hours, only getting to bed at 2.30am the morning of the competition.

So with three hours sleep we were on our way into the Bocuse d’Or kitchen.  We entered the kitchen at 8.10am and started cooking at 9.10am. We started in near silence but this was soon broken by the notes of ‘Rule Britannia’ played out by the legendary England Band. Hearing this put a smile on our faces faces and with the help of the band our supporters dominated the audience - another first for team UK.

Obviously our focus was on the food but we could hear the stadium filling and by 11am the stadium was already electric, we could tell that our supporters were out in force. Knowing that there are so many people out there who’ve taken time out to cheer us on is a fantastic feeling, like the athletes in the Olympics it really does give you the extra boost.

The hours flew by and as the meat platter was served we felt happy with our performance and relieved that it had mostly gone to plan.  Kristian was on fire - efficient, timely and tidy - the perfect commis.  Having worked as a partnership for four months in the Bocuse d’Or kitchen at University College Birmingham, we were well rehearsed and this really paid off on the day.  I’ve always said that the Bocuse d’Or is a team effort so it was particularly satisfying when Kristian was announced winner of the Best Commis prize.  We were absolutely delighted!

Winning the Special Meat prize was just amazing as it meant that we’d secured a good position.  That this position was fourth and only six points off the podium (to put this in context Team France secured gold with 1687 points we received 1598).  Coming so close to the podium is bittersweet but it’s the best result ever for the UK and gives us the belief that we’ll do it one day!  

The team also extends beyond those collecting the awards, by allowing us time off work and helping us with our planning, Andreas has been integral to our success.  Luke and the team at Simpsons carried on without us over the busy Christmas period.  Previous candidates, John Williams and Simon Hulstone, coach Nick Vadis and President Brian Turner have all been on hand to provide advice and feedback. 

Then there’s the staff and students at University College Birmingham, who made us feel very welcome over the past year! The purpose built kitchen really helped us to get into the right mindset and having them out in the crowd made it even more special.

We’ve had fantastic support from our many sponsors and I will be thanking every one of them.  I’d especially like to thank Heritage for creating the beautiful silverware which helped showcase our award winning meat platter, Aubrey Allen for the generous supply of beef, M and J Seafood for the generous supply of fish, Wellocks for all the vegetables, Ritter Courivaud for the dried goods and truffles, Nestle Professional for kitting out our supporters and the UCB for providing us with the training facility and organising the fundraising dinner last November. I’d also like to thank Compass Group for its generous donation and for loaning us Nick and Jodi Hinds our official team photographer who has given up so much of her time to capture our work - all these photos are hers. I don’t want this to turn into an acceptance speech but my last blog post does list all of you!

We are made up with the result but it would be wrong to believe that the journey ends here.  

We are proud and delighted to have achieved what we did but also mindful that we had the best foundation ever provided to a UK candidate.  No one previously has been given the privilege of time off and a replica kitchen to practise in.

To me, proving that with the right resource we can get this far means that we can’t go back.  It’s now time to make sure that the legacy of our success is passed on to secure Team UK’s place on the podium in 2015.

With thanks to our sponsors

On behalf of Team UK, I'd like to pass on our thanks to Calthorpe Estates, which has recently given its financial support to Team UK.  Calthorpe Estates join an impressive list of supporters who have donated product, time, space and money to help us on our way to Lyon.

The entire list includes A W Smith & Sons Ltd, All Clad, Aubrey Allen, Bablake Wines, Bamix, Big Green Egg, CCS, ChefTools, Classic Fine Foods, Clifton Food, Compass Group, Cream Supplies, Fundamentally Fungus, Heritage Silverware, Infusions for chefs, Loch Fyne, Lockhart Catering Equipment, M&J Seafood, MSK Ingredients, Moet Hennessy UK, Multivac, Nestle Professional, Oakleaf European Ltd, Park Sheet Metal, Ritter Courivaud, Robotcoupe, Rougie, Thermomix, University College Birmingham, Vanilla Chef, Villeroy & Boch, Wellocks, Westlands WOW.

The countdown begins

Well, the countdown has well and truly begun - in less than two weeks we’ll be in Lyon, hours away from the biggest professional challenge of our lives!

Despite spending the last few months in the Bocuse d’Or kitchen, there is nothing that can really prepare us for the finals on the 30th of this month.  The closest we’ve ever been were the European finals in Brussels, where we really enjoyed the buzz, we’re hoping that Lyon will offer more of the same.

Jodi Hinds, the official Bocuse d’Or UK photographer spent the day with us on Monday, taking photos for the menu.  She has a fantastic eye for food and really helps to show off each of the garnishes to their full potential.  However, these are the only teasers I’m happy to show for the time being....

This week we kick off the invited run throughs at University College Birmingham, where we’re inviting supporters to come along to see and taste my menu.  We have a few places left so if you’d like to join us please contact Julie Kendall.

A thank you to our supporters

I was delighted to hear that the fundraising dinner which took place at University College Birmingham last Friday raised £20,000. 

This is fantastic news and not only gives Kristian and myself a boost to our preparations but should also ensure that the next candidate has an easier start to his or her campaign.  It means that Team UK can continue to raise the bar in the competition. 

Kristian and I had a great time preparing the dinner with a team of fantastic chefs, it’s usually a challenge to cook with chefs from other kitchens but everyone pulled together and it was a good team effort.  Big thanks to Andy Waters, Marc Billings, Claire Hutchings, Aktar Islam and the award winning UCB Culinary Team for giving up your time to help.

The dinner itself was sponsored by Aubrey Allen, Classic Fine Foods, Loch Fyne, M&J Seafood, Oakleaf European, Ritter Courivaud Ltd., Rougie, Ruinart Champagne, Simpsons restaurant, Wellocks and Jodi Hinds Photography. 

However, there are many more companies who have helped us this far, to whom we are extremely grateful: http://www.bocusedoruk.co.uk/support/supported-by

This week also saw the announcement of the fish theme - turbot and lobster.  Like most chefs I love to cook with turbot, however in terms of ingredients they don’t come cheap! Fortunately, both M&J Seafood and Ritter Courivaud will be helping out with product - for which we are extremely grateful.