A North Yorkshire company is inviting you to cook along with celebrity chefs from the comfort of your own kitchen, reports MAXINE GORDON.

COOKERY shows on TV are entertaining, enjoyable even, but there’s always something missing. Your eyes can devour the delicious dishes on display, but that’s where the pleasure comes to an abrupt end.

Short of some clever-clogs developing smell-o-vision (or, better still, eat-o-vision), chefs on TV will struggle to deliver a true taste sensation to viewers.

But North Yorkshire foodies John Pallagi and Lee Simmonds may have just pulled off the next best thing.

The pair run Farmison, an online business selling Michelin-star quality produce to the home cook.

Now they have hooked up with Saturday Kitchen – the popular BBC cookery programme hosted by Malton’s James Martin and featuring an array of guest celebrity chefs – to deliver food boxes with recipes from the show, along with all the produce needed to recreate the dishes at home.

If you are looking for culinary inspiration to help you through the festive season, this could be it.

The Saturday Kitchen boxes are sent out once a month. The ingredients are super-fresh and the meat from some of the best producers in Britain, including rare-breed farmers, and to exacting ethical standards.

Top Yorkshire chef Jeff Baker – who ran an acclaimed bistro moderne in York and held a Michelin star for ten consecutive years while at Pool Court in Leeds – is Farmison’s executive development chef. His job is to visit farms, source the best produce and ensure it reaches the customer. The company is based in Ripon and Skipton, but sources goods from the best producers throughout the country.

Each Saturday Kitchen box contains three recipes with enough food for two (£44.95) or for four (£59.95).

John’s wife price checks the food against items at Waitrose and Booths to make sure the bill is competitive.

John thinks it’s good value. “If the box gets delivered on a Thursday or Friday, then you have enough for a posh Saturday dinner, a Sunday brunch and another evening meal.”

All for the price of taking your family out for a pizza at the local trattoria.

Besides the convenience of having the recipes and food delivered to your door, John believes the Saturday Kitchen box injects some light relief into the home cooking.

“We shouldn’t take cooking too seriously,” says John. “Food should be fun.”

• Find out more at farmison.com

 

Farmison recipes from Saturday Kitchen...

• Brian Turner

Sausages in a red wine sauce with duchess potatoes
Serves four
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1-2 hours

Ingredients
For the sausages in red wine sauce
8 premium pork sausages
2/3 leek, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
300ml / ½ pt. chicken stock
120g / 4oz button mushrooms, quartered
120g / 4oz boiled ham, cut into batons 12cm ¼in thick
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp of dripping or goose fat
300ml / ½ pt. red wine
50g / 1 ¾ oz butter, unsalted
1 tbsp olive oil
1 slice bread, crust removed and diced 1/2cm / ¼in thick

Direction:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

2. Heat the dripping in a casserole with a lid. Add sausages and fry them to colour all over.

3. Add the leek and onion to the pan and fry gently. Add the tomatoes, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, wine and stock.

4. Bring to the boil and add the sausages back in, place a lid on and put in the oven for 30 minutes.

5. Remove sausages, keep warm. Discard thyme and bay leaf. Reduce sauce to a thicker consistency.

6. Blend the sauce using a hand blender and pass. Set aside and keep warm.

7. Heat a frying pan and add half of the butter and the oil and add the mushrooms. Fry until lightly coloured, then add the ham and colour. Remove the ham and mushrooms from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.

8. Add the rest of the butter to the pan and heat. Once hot, add the bread and cook until golden-brown then add it to the mushrooms and ham.

9. To serve, share the sausages between the plates, placing them in the middle with sauce and chopped parsley.

 

• Sophie Grigson

Pot roast pheasant with sweetcorn mash
Serves four
Preparation time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 1 to 2 hours

Ingredients:

For the pot roast:
Two pheasants, plucked, gutted and ready to cook
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
500g (1lb2oz) carrots cut into batons
4 sprigs fresh tarragon
30g (2oz) butter
1 tbsp sunflower oil
150ml (5floz) dry Riesling wine
100ml (3½floz) double cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the mash:
1.2kg (2lb) large baking potatoes, baked until cooked through
1-2 generous pinches of saffron
200-250ml (7-9floz) milk
45g (1½oz) butter
180g (6½oz) sweetcorn, cooked
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. For the pot roast, place a flameproof casserole large enough to take the pheasants and all the carrots over a high heat. Add the butter and oil and melt together.

2. Add the pheasant and fry, turning regularly, until golden-brown all over, then remove from the casserole and set aside.

3. Reduce the heat, then stir the onion and garlic into the fat and fry gently for 3-4 minutes, or until tender.

4. Add carrots and tarragon, stir around for four to five minutes, return pheasant to the pot, nestling it breast-side down in among the carrots.

5. Pour over the Riesling and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

6. Bring up to the boil, then cover with a tight-fitting lid. Turn the heat down low and leave to cook gently for one hour, turning the pheasants over after 30 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, for the mash, place milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, add saffron and set aside to infuse.

8. Cut baked potatoes in half and scoop the flesh out into a clean saucepan. Add butter and salt, to taste, and place over a low heat.

9. Gradually add the saffron milk, mashing continuously. Stop and assess the texture – if you prefer your mash softer and runnier then add more milk.

10. Add the sweetcorn and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

11. To finish the pot roast, check that the pheasant is tender and cooked through, then lift out onto a serving plate and keep warm.

12. Add the cream to the casserole and simmer for two minutes. Season, to taste, spoon sauce around the pheasant and serve.