CHRISTMAS A BEAUTY AT THE BLACK HORSE

There’s something particularly magical about eating at a proper English pub at Christmas. Chefs’ ability to produce sparkling festive fayre and make a profit from it, however, is being threatened by inflationary and cost pressures. Trace Buggins at the Black Horse in Bedfordshire, for example, who refuses to compromise on the quality of his food because of something as futile as rising energy costs. Essential Cuisine is on hand to help him hold true to his promise…

Festive finery
Pull up to the Black Horse at Christmas and you are greeted by apple and bay trees twinkling with white lights. Inside, roaring, open fires crackle in the grate alongside a brace of sweet-smelling Christmas trees and sprigs of holly and fern above the Lake District slate bar.

“It’s Christmas personified,” said executive chef Trace Buggins, who has worked at the family-owned 19th century inn in Ireland, Shefford, for 13 years. “No nodding Santas, just subtle touches, all put together by five ladies over a day. Gorgeous.”

Trace, a food expert for BBC Three Counties Radio, is equally, if not more, enthusiastic about this year’s Christmas menus, festive affairs priced at £18.95 for lunch and £28.95 for dinner, with more emphasis on local produce than ever before, especially game.

Mains, for example, include pan fried breast of local pheasant from Whitbread Estate opposite and bought through Woburn Country Foods, served with parsnip dauphinoise, baby carrots, mulled damsons and roasting juices. Saddle of local rabbit, served with sliced bacon and black pudding in a game broth with potato puree and seasonal baby vegetables, comes from a lady just south of Bedford, who has recently started breeding New Zealand Whites.

“This is great because we get a beautiful rabbit with its livers and kidneys intact and all white meat for £3.99, not much more than you’d pay for a wild rabbit which has been shot,” said Trace. “In this country, you’d normally expect to pay £9.50 a throw for this quality.”

The Christmas menu also includes braised flank of Scottish beef from Aubrey Allen, served with oxtail potato cake, winter cabbage, garnish of pickled green walnuts and ale gravy. There is also the obligatory roast turkey with sage and onion stuffing and all the trimmings, the turkey sourced from nearby Royston. “Turkey is still a classic dish,” said Trace.

“A few years ago, we thought we would take it off, then quickly decided against it. One of our most popular dishes throughout the year is, in fact, turkey wellington; turkey breast wrapped in parma ham, chicken liver pate and cranberry sauce, all encased with pastry.”

Fish lovers can choose from fillet of roast North Sea whiting with cockles in lemon butter or plaice Florentine, while vegetarians can tuck into a chestnut and cranberry nut roast. Just for Christmas, Trace has also sourced a selection of organic vegetables from Flitton Hall.

Serving an average of 1,500 covers a week over the year, the Black Horse, sister pub to The Birch in Woburn, is fully booked this Christmas and, if past years are anything to go by, bookings for next year will start as early as January.

According to Trace, it’s about making pub food work. “My parents ran pubs in the Midlands, and since I was eight, I’ve watched pub food go from my mother putting beef and onion rolls and pies out on the bar, heating stuff using a new fangled thing called a microwave, then gammon and chips, scampi etc,” he said.

“Things have moved on but, essentially, to keep customers happy, you just have to do classic English pub grub well. On our Christmas menu, for example, we have a wedge of breaded brie as a starter, but ours is a good slab of brie with homemade breadcrumbs, a cranberry and port sauce and micro leaf salad.”

Taking stock
It’s a mouth-watering prospect, but, behind the scenes, forces have threatened to damage profitability. Because of its remote location, the Black Horse’s Achilles heel is its dependency on Calor Gas. “Our gas bill has gone up 60 percent this year and, while we are getting busier and busier, it’s becoming harder to make things cost-effective,” said Trace.

One area where the rise in energy costs is anything but economical is stock-making. As any trained chef knows, the process requires up to eight hours simmering bones, repeatedly straining and skimming, before you have a stock fine enough to create soups and sauces.

Trace makes no bones about it, he looked into pre-prepared stocks – as virtually the only pre-prepared product allowed in the kitchen - to save time and money. What he was more than reluctant to do was compromise on quality. “Litre on litre and everything taken into account, I realised it was more cost-effective to buy in,” he said.

“It also made sense in terms of consistency. Take three chefs of the same ability and they will make a dish differently, and an extra five minutes cooking here and there does affect the end result when making stock. I was just skeptical as to the quality of buying pre-prepared.”

Testing Essential Cuisine stocks against the competition, however, he found he did not have to let his standards slip. Each flavour - from chicken to light vegetable - tasted just like kitchen-made stock with a clear appearance and appropriate levels of seasoning.

Because the stocks are powders, Trace could add them straight into a dish at any stage of the cooking process for convenience, control and consistent taste and performance.

“Before, we were doing lamb, chicken and veal stock, with pots going left, right and centre and burning gas at the rate of knots,” he said. “We also have a substantial extraction fan, which was eating electricity when the stockpots were on, plus all the staffing implications.

“We are still working out how much time and money we are saving, but know that it’s a lot. The beauty is that the Essential stocks are stunning and there really is no need to go back to the stockpot. For one, they are not salty, unlike their two main competitors. Essential stocks also have a lighter, cleaner taste, and you start tasting the food rather than just the sauce.

“The thing to remember is to do what it says on the packet. Some chefs might naturally want to add more, but if it’s too strong, it can ruin the dish.”

A significant number of dishes on this year’s Black Horse Christmas menu will incorporate Essential Cuisine stock, including Vegetable Stock in the cassoulet of white beans and sweet potatoes, Chicken in the slow cooked smoked ham hock, a pinch of Fish Stock in the cockles with lemon butter and Beef Stock in the Scottish braised beef and oxtail potato cake.

Nigel Crane, Dorchester-trained chef and the man behind Essential Cuisine, said: “When you can’t make your own, for whatever 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 risking the meal for a couple of pence is a false economy.”

Essential Cuisine not only makes superior stock. This Christmas, Trace will also be using its Game Glace, with tastes of juniper and spices, in his pheasant dish, finished with the roasting juices, a splash of wine and garlic butter.

Trace’s top tips
• “My top tip is to make your own stuffing. Younger chefs do not seem to do this, but it is worth it. Looking at pre-prepared stocks to save you time and money over Christmas is also up there – you might be surprised at how good some of them actually are.”

• “Pubs should not underestimate the grey pound this Christmas, particularly at lunch. People are living longer, have their pensions sorted and are perhaps better off than those who retire in 20 years. At the Black Horse, the board of a national company based nearby comes in three or four times a week, as well as ladies who lunch.”

• “We don’t cater for children with a kids’ menu, but treat them as ‘young adults’. As with elderly customers, we will happily cut down a large steak into smaller, 4oz pieces. Same with our fish, which can be as big as 14oz, which we’ll cut up if requested – it’s then up to the front of house staff to sell the other half.”

18/11/2010|