Great British Menu 2012 – Scotland, the chefs, dishes & results

Week one sees three Scottish chefs looking for a chance to represent their country at the Olympic Feast, a banquet to be held at the end of the series. The chefs will need to impress guest judge Jeremy Lee, who will send one participant home on Thursday – with the remaining two chefs cooking their entire menu again on Friday’s show for series judges Oliver Peyton, Prue Leith and Matthew Fort.

Alan Murchison

Executive Chef – L’Ortolan, Reading

Alan Murchison started his career in professional kitchens at the age of 14 working in as a kitchen porter. He has appeared on Great British Menu twice before, but is yet to get a dish on the banquet menu.

In 2001 he bought L’Ortolan, where he had been working as a sous chef since 1996, from John Burton Race (in 2010 he also bought The Angel at Dartmouth from the chef). The restaurant earned a Michelin star in 2003 and has retained it since.

Follow Alan Murchsion on Twitter – @alanmurchison

Mark Greenaway

Chef Patron – Mark Greenaway at No 12 Picardy Place, Edinburgh

Modernist chef, Mark Greenaway is the only chef in this year’s Scottish heat to own a restaurant in Scotland.

His career as a chef begun in Scotland in 1992, since then he has worked across the UK and in Australia.

His restaurant at No. 12 Picardy Place has been open for little over a year, but in that time he has earned three AA rosettes and won “Rising Star Chef of the Year” at the Scottish Hotel Awards.

Read our interview with Mark Greenaway for more about his appearance on the show, his restaurant and the other great places to eat in Edinburgh.

Follow Mark Greenaway on Twitter – @markgreenaway

Colin Buchan

Head Chef – York & Albany, London

Newcomer to the competition Colin Buchan is a classically trained chef who has worked in restaurants across the UK and as a private chef in France.

He has been head chef at Gordon Ramsay Holdings restaurant and hotel York & Albany since it opened in 2008.

Colin has previously worked at other Gordon Ramsay Holdings restaurants including (the now closed) Amaryllis in Glasgow and The Connaught in London.

Follow Colin Buchan on twitter – @colinbuchanchef.

Mentor & Guest Judge – Jeremy Lee

Head Chef – Quo Vadis, Soho

Scottish born chef and food writer Jeremy Lee took over as head chef at Quo Vadis at the start of the year after seventeen years at Blueprint Cafe in Southwark.

Follow Jeremy Lee on Twitter – @JLQuoVadis

Starter

Alan Murchison cooked a dish of Barbary duck terrine with pineapple. The duck was layered with foie gras and served with pineapple prepared in five separate ways including a flat pineapple jelly pineapple chutney and pineapple crisps. Although he had reservations about the dishes complexity (a concern shared by his fellow competitors) he thought the dish was well cooked and unfilled the br ief well. [ Score: 7 ]

Mark Greenaway’s first dish in the competition was braised pigs cheek, served cold and wrapped in beetroot carpaccio with a cold apple fluid gel, hot apple jelly and sea-buckhorn berries. Although wowed by the presentation, both Jeremy Lee and the other chefs felt the pigs cheek should be served warm – opinion was divided over the use of the sea-buckhorn berries. [ Score: 5 ]

Colin Buchan’s starter was smoked squab pigeon breast with pigeon heart, brown buckheat, asparagus and a nettle foam. Despite the his concern the heart could be bitter, the dish went down well with judge Jeremy Lee. His only major criticism being the portion size was too big. The other chefs were less convinced about the dish. [ Score :7 ]

Fish course

Alan Murchison presented a dish he described as a “risky” and  a “surprise the senses” – barbecued mackerel with beetroot meringues, horseradish ice-cream and fruit ‘caviar’. Both other chefs were impressed by the dishe’s “stunning” visual impact, as was Jeremy describing it as “willy wonker like” and praising Alan’s flawless execution of the dish. [ Score: 8 ]

Mark Greenaway served a variation on a dish served in his Edinburgh restaurant, a “cannelloni” of crab made with a herb butter rather than pasta. The cannelloni was served with a whiskey smoked cauliflower custard and lemon ‘caviar’. Again presentation was liked by all, as was the smoky custard – however neither Alan or Colin were impressed by the butter around the crab. Jeremy Lee questioned the use of shop-bought mayonnaise over home made (although not made clear in the TV show, shop bought mayonnaise was used as it contains extra emulsifiers allowing it to be frozen without splitting). [ Score: 6 ]

Colin Buchan’s dish was “The Fish Bowl” – poached halibut coated in squid ink with seaweed, scallops and a celariac broth. This was another dish where the presentation was universally admired, however it was thought to be awkward to eat. Jeremy was impressed by the standard of cooking – but not by the broth. [ Score: 6 ]

Main course

Alan Murchison’s main course was barbecued veal, served with macaroni cheese a parsley and watercress jelly, breaded sweetbread popcorn and a cheese foam in place of a sauce. Mindful of the Olympian athletes that would be eating his dish should it end up at the banquet, the chef served a precise serving of 30 pieces of macaroni which had been specially made to fit into his moulds. Jeremy and the other chefs agreed that there was a lack of sauce as the cheese foam had “disappeared”, and also thought the veal was perhaps too lightly cooked. [ Score: 7 ]

Mark Greenaway served a rump of 48 day Aberdeen Angus beef with a potato and beef-shin terrine, chervil root, scurvy grass (which has a horseradish like flavour) and a bone marrow gravy. The beef was seared both before and after being cooked sous-vide, however Jeremy felt there could have been slightly more crust on the beef.  The other chefs felt the beef was a little tough, and felt the meat and potato terrine should have been crisped up before serving. [ Score: 7 ]

Colin Buchan’s main was a mustard and pine nut crusted saddle of lamb with braised lambs tongues, crispy potato-wrapped spring rolls of lamb sweetbreads, wilted spring greens and a lamb gravy. Both chefs and Jeremy Lee agreed this was the best dish of the day, enjoying the variety of textures – but they did also question if the dish was ground breaking enough. [ Score: 8 ]

Dessert

The chef’s last chance to impress judge Jeremy Lee – offerings this week are a modern take on Eton Mess, beetroot cake with chocolate mousse and fennel ice cream and “Going for Gold”.

Alan Murchison’s dessert “going for gold” again demonstrated the chef’s determination to win this year. Presented to look like an Olympic gold medal (he had even checked the diameter was right at 70mm!) the dessert consisted of a chocolate gold-coloured medal filled with salted caramel, black olives and a green coffee mousse. A white chocolate ribbon coloured with red and blue natural colourings completed the pudding. Whilst there was no doubt over the effort and attention to detail put in, Jeremy Lee was unconvinced by taste declaring a “big problem” with the olives.  [ Score: 5 ]

Mark Greenaway presented his modern take Eaton Mess. The dish consisted of 9 different elements including a frozen  strawberry espuma, strawberry “glass” and a strawberry custard jelly. Both the chefs and the judges liked the presentation, but the chefs found the dessert too sweet and Jeremy didn’t think it was ground breaking enough, describing it as “too polite”. [ Score: 7 ]

Colin Buchan’s dessert was beetroot cake with a chocolate mousse, fennel ice cream and a beetroot tuile. Comment was passed by both Jeremy and the other chefs that the cake had come out yellow rather than the deep reddish purple they had expected. Jeremy Lee praised the “coral like” tuile, but was less impressed by the rest of the dish, citing the fennel ice-cream as overpowering and unset mousse as errors. [ Score: 5 ]

On Thursday’s show (shown on Friday in Scotland) Alan Murchison and Colin Buchan were put through to cook for judges Prue Leith, Oliver Peyton and Matthew Fort with Mark Greenaway leaving the competition.

On Friday’s show, the judges sampled the menus from Alan and Colin; both chefs getting off to an excellent start with their starters and fish courses receiving high praise from the judges. Unfortunately main courses didn’t fare so well, with the judges taking a particular dislike to Alan’s barbecued veal with macaroni cheese. Ultimately the judges voted two to one in favour of Alan’s menu so he will return at the end of the series to cook his menu and compete against the other heat winners.

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