Great British Menu 2011 – Wales
North East : N. Ireland : North West : Central : South West : Scotland : Wales : South East
Gareth Jones, Aled Williams, Angela Hartnett and Hywel Jones
Hywel Jones
Executive Chef at The Park restaurant, Lucknam Park Hotel near Bath
Hywel has worked at Lucknam Park since 2004 and helped the restaurant receive a Michelin Star in 2006. Hywel began his career at The Royal Garden and moved onto two 3 Michelin Starred restaurants Chez Nico and Marco Pierre White. He was awarded his first Michelin Star at Foliage Restaurant in London where he was head chef for 5 years before moving to Lucknam Park.
Gareth Jones
Head Chef at Bodysgallon Hall, Llandudnoy
Gareth has worked at Bodysgallen Hall for two years now. Prior to this he worked at The Chester Grosvenor with Simon Radley.
Aled Williams
Head Chef at The Grill Restaurant, Conwy
Aled Williams competed in Great British Menu last year and won his Welsh heat but was unsuccessful in getting one of his dishes cooked for the banquet. Aled started working at The Grill restaurant at The Quay Hotel earlier this year. Prior to that he spent a couple of years at Plas Bodegroes. Aled was awarded a Gordon Ramsay scholarship in 2006 which saw him work at some of Ramsays restaurants around the world including Royal Hospital Road.
Judge: Angela Hartnett MBE (guest mentor & judge)
Murano in Mayfair, London
Angela Hartnett’s love of food started at home with her Italian family where her grandmother taught her to cook. She started her career a chef at a hotel in Cambridge, before working in Barbados for a few years. On returning to the UK, she worked for Gordon Ramsay opening several restaurants – the last of which was Murano which she purchased from Ramsay in 2010. As well as being Chef Patron at her own restaurant, she is also consultant chef at The Whitechapel Gallery Dining Room. Her first book. Angela Hartnett’s Cucina: Three Generations of Italian Family Cooking, was published in 2007 – her second is due to be published later this year.
Starters
Hywel prepared a traditional Welsh dish of Cawl (a lamb and veg stew/broth) using his mums recipe. Hywel smoked some lamb tenderloins, stuffed some spring cabbage balls with lamb mince and wrapped some sweetbreads in potato spaghetti before deep frying them. Judge Angela liked that he’d used his mums recipe, but thought the dish was lacking a a bit of ‘wow factor’ with the presentation and worried it was just ’soup in a bowl’. [ Score : 7 ]
Gareth served up a Conwy pork hotchpotch pie, pig dippers and a pot of pickles which consisted of a pork pie made using ham hock, pigs cheeks and black pudding. The dippers were trotters that were braised and deep fried and served with pickled onions, eggs and mushrooms with a bright red mustard mayonnaise. The other chefs thought the dish tasted good but weren’t sure if it had the wow factor. Angela however thought that it was the dish that fitted the brief best as a sharing platter but did worry it may be a little heavy as a starter for a banquet. [ Score : 7 ]
Returning Welsh champion Aled was under pressure today from the other two chefs. He opted for quite an ambitious dish of Guinea fowl four ways with slowly braised leg with lemon thyme and Welsh vegetable oggy, boned leg stuffed with chorizo, buttermilk crispy wings and liver parfait with shallot marmalade served on a Welsh slate. Angela thought it was a great concept and thought the food tasted great but that the parfait was a little runny. [ Score : 6 ]
Fish course
Hwyel served up dressed lobster with asparagus. The Cardigan Bay lobster had the tail meat removed and poached before being put back into the shell with a mixed salad. The claw meat was taken off and made into a fritter. The asparagus from the Wye Valley was served three ways with blanched tips in a vinaigrette, shavings into the lobster and sliced into the salad. Hywel made his own lobster mayonnaise using roasted lobster shells in a kilner jar with lemon zest, saffron, coriander seeds and oil in a pan of hot water. The dish was served on a handmade glass plate with shingle found from Cardigan Bay which Angela thought was phenomenal. She thought everything tasted good but the jelly around the tail meat lacked something. [ Score : 8 ]
Gareth served up the most complicated dish of the day with cured trout crostini, sweet pea mousse & whipped brown crab (espuma). There was a lot of pressure on the chef as both Angela and the others wondered if it was possible to prepare the dish for 100 people. Angela thought the crostini was lovely, but the flavour didn’t come through on the crab mousse. However the presentation was smart and got everyone involved in serving it. [ Score : 8 ]
Chef Aled was feeling disappointed after yesterdays result and put his hopes into his ‘one pot’ steamed whole turbot with mussels, cockles, leeks and samphire. Aled was pleased with the presentation of the dish which was in a copper kettle that he’d loaned from an old boss, but the fish was slightly undercooked when presented to Angela. Angela wasn’t too disappointed though, she thought the presentation was stunning and loved the flavours that came from the pot when the lid was lifted. [ Score : 9 ]
Main course
Michelin Starred Chef Hywel served up a daring Brecon venison wellington with a pea salad. The dish required precision cooking in a strange oven, but the other chefs and Angela were very impressed with the results. Both Aled and Gareth thought the dish fitted the brief perfectly and screamed summer food. Angela thought the wellington was well cooked but did wonder if the accompanying vegetables could be scaled up for 100 people. [ Score : 9 ]
Gareth prepared a Rhug estate lamb Cawl, braised neck tortellini & lamb broth. The chef was under a lot of pressure preparing fresh pasta for Angela and also cooking cawl after Hywel prepared it for his starter. When the other chefs tasted it they questioned if it actually was Cawl, it was the ingredients of Cawl, but not Cawl as it usually is. Angela thought the dish tortellini was well seasoned and tasted good and she liked the idea of carving the crown of lamb at the table, but that the lamb was undercooked and the broth could have been meatier. [ Score : 7 ]
With all the chefs on level scores Aled was keen to get a high score and retain his Welsh crown from last year. He cooked a Welsh black sirloin steak with bone marrow burger and Glamorgan sausage. The dish was described as a ‘deconstructed barbecue’ but the other chefs and Angela both queried how it was a barbecue as there wasn’t any charcoal in sight. Aled used a smoked butter to flavour the steaks, and prepared a hot coleslaw, which was the vegetables of coleslaw cooked, but no mayonnaise. Angela thought the sirloin could have been served whole to be sliced at the table to improve the sharing element. She also thought the burger which was topped with a mushroom was a bit too brown. [ Score : 6 ]
Dessert
Chef Hywel has remained calm throughout the competition and today was no exception while he was preparing his Rhubarb and Strawberry trifle tart. Hwyel deconstructed a trifle and put all the elements into a tart with a tart pastry base, rhubarb, piped Chantilly cream, crystallised pistachios, candied almonds, wild strawberries and basil cress. The other chefs thought the dish was amazing with its sweet and sour contrasting flavours. Angela thought the dish looked stunning and was very summery. [ Score : 9 ]
Gareth was in second place going into todays ‘elimination day’ and chose to prepare an ambitious dessert of Snowdon pudding baked Alaska. The pudding had lemon verbena ice cream and rhubarb inside which the other chefs thought were both well flavoured. Gareth had a bit of a problem with his meringue sticking to his parchment paper so the presentation wasn’t as perfect as he’d hoped it would be. Angela thought it was a fantastic concept but that it was too sweet and the sponge a bit too heavy. [ Score : 4 ]
Aled returned to his childhood today and prepared a Bay leaf rice pudding with hazelnut crumble & poached cherries. It was a relatively straight forward dish for Aled to prepare, but the chef was under pressure to get the dish perfect. The other chefs thought the rice pudding had a great consistency and they liked the textures of rice pudding and crumble together. Angela questioned if it was seasonal enough for a summer banquet – would summer fruits have been better. She thought the rice pudding was nice and that the bayleaf flavour came through well. [ Score : 6 ]
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