THE BATTLE AGAINST TIME - IS ESSENTIAL CUISINE ON YOUR TEAM?

Peckforton Castle, Visit Chester and Cheshire’s Small Hotel of the Year 2009 and holder of two coveted Rosettes, has a colourful history, to say the least.

Built in the 1840s, it started out as a family home for John Tollemache, a wealthy Cheshire landowner, estate manager and MP, designed by Anthony Salvin in the opulent Gothic style.

When the Second World War hit in 1939, the family upped sticks and the Grade I listed country house, set in woodland at the north end of Cheshire’s Peckforton Hills, became a hostel for physically handicapped children.

A further metamorphosis and Peckforton Castle became what it is today; one of the grandest places to stay in England and an opportunity to take leave of the outside world, enjoying everything from falconry encounters to Land Rover driving in the grounds.

Wedding receptions are Peckforton Castle’s primary business and couples can pick and choose where they wish to wine and dine their guests to achieve just the right atmosphere.

There is the Drawing Room, set off the long gallery, which takes your breath away, or the Great Hall, best for large receptions where you can regally enter to the applause of guests before tucking into a banquet with traditional recipes and served on local pottery.

For more intimate gatherings, there is the Library, while the Hexagonal Room has striking features such as the Tollemache family grace engraved into the vaulted stone ceiling; “At dinner and supper, morning and night, give thanks unto God for his gifts.”

On top of this, the venue, which also caters for conferences and private parties, has its fine dining 1851 Restaurant and the candlelit Wine Cellar Bar for sipping chilled Champagne while perusing the menu, and the 2010 Brasserie, which offers a more informal experience.

Executive head chef Mark Ellis said it was a mammoth operation. “We have at least five weddings a week alone, that’s 620 guests a week minimum,” he said. “This rises to every day of the week at the height of the season. With just 20 staff on our team, this presents an enormous amount of pressure on a daily basis.”

As former head chef at the Grosvenor Hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Chester, Mark is hell-bent on delivering quality of the highest level, using locally sourced produce from the likes of the Cheshire Smoke House, Williams of Flint and nearby farms.

In the 1851 Restaurant, every dish is made from scratch, from dry aged beef trio of slow cooked fillet, treacle glazed rib and oxtail pudding with creamed smoked potato with a winter vegetable cubes and dark treacle jus. When it comes to the rest of the catering operation, however, Mark has made some changes to balance consistently first class food with time and cost constraints.

Sauces make or break a meal
Stocks, often mistakenly called bouillons, are a cornerstone of a good kitchen, delivering depth and balance of flavour to a dish. In principle, chefs like Mark would naturally want to make their own stock and, ultimately, sauces from scratch to get the taste and texture right.

In reality, however, there is simply not the time, especially in huge operations such as Peckforton Castle, which presented a quandary for Mark when he joined nearly three years ago.

“At the Grosvenor, all our stocks and sauces were scratch-made, which suited what we did,” said Mark. “At Peckforton, it is on a different scale altogether. We don’t have the personnel or the time to create so much fresh stock, which can take up to two days to make eight litres. We’d have to do this every day and in advance, skimming and finishing it off. There is also a cost implication; sourcing the bones and vegetables, and having to pay extra staff.”

Despite being diametrically opposed to buying in pre-prepared stocks, Mark took a closer look at what the market had to offer and discovered Essential Cuisine, which specialised in kitchen-made tasting stock, jus, glace and gravy made by chefs for chefs.

“I was looking for good quality stocks that would be undistinguishable from our own across conferencing and banqueting,” he said. “Problem was, I wholeheartedly did not believe they existed. Everything I had tried before was packed with artificial flavourings and colourings.

“I tried Essential Cuisine’s stocks with anticipation and was genuinely surprised by the fact they tasted and smelt like fresh stock but with an absence of additives and preservatives, an all natural product as far as it could be. We now use a number of stocks in the range and particularly like the Veal Stock, which we use in chicken dishes for a more generic taste.”

Mark was so impressed, he also tried Essential Cuisine’s Premier Veal Jus, which is now also used at Peckforton on a daily basis in dishes such as fillet of beef with sweet shallot jus and beef wellington. “The quality of product is exactly as we want it, with a really smooth finish and just the right depth of shine,” said Mark.

“While we continue to make small batches of fresh stock and jus from scratch for the 1851 Restaurant, the Essential Cuisine products are fantastic in areas such as banqueting and conferencing and to be honest, I don’t think most chefs would be able to tell the difference.

“We also use them in the new 2010 Brasserie, which sees around 60 guests for lunch and up to 50 at dinner. I would 100 percent recommend them to other chefs.”

Nigel Crane, Dorchester-trained chef and the man behind Essential Cuisine, said: “When you can’t make your own for whatever good reason, finding and using a good, bought-in stock really is the most cost effective way to deliver great taste in cooking, with the stock component cost of an average dish under five pence. But that bought-in stock must deliver on taste. You can buy in cheap stock, but is it worth risking the meal for a couple of pence? It is a false economy.”

11/08/2010|