50th Birthday, Web Site, Bramble and Apple Crumble

Well an eventful week at your chef, we have catered family celebrations, 50th birthdays and we’re looking forward to barbecues this week so finger crossed for the weather to be good at the weekend! A dinner for 100 on Wednesday and then we go onto a busy weekend. The 50th birthday yesterday was blessed with vast amounts of sunshine, so hurrah for the weather men getting it right.

Our new web site is now up and running, check it out at http://www.yourchef.uk.com/ thanks to Mike Thorold for getting up and running and looking great. Please have a browse through it and let us have your comments on it. If anyone needs web services Mike comes highly recommended, please contact us for his details if you require any assistance in this field.

This week’s recipe in keeping with the past few weeks is using seasonal produce. The wonderful bramble, in season, full of flavour, lots of uses, one of your 5 a day etc etc..I was always advised to only pick and eat fruit that ripened above 18” but I suppose it depends on how large the dogs are in your neighbourhood!!

Bramble and apple crumble with oaty topping.

Ingredients:
450g or 1 lb brambles
3 large cooking apples
75g or 3 oz caster sugar
275g or 10oz plain wholemeal flour
75g or 3 oz Scottish rolled oats
100g or 4 oz soft light brown sugar
150g or 5oz butter
Directions:

1. Wash the aggregate fruits
2. Peel, core and chop the cooking apples into cubes.
3. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
4. Stew the blackberries and apples together in the caster sugar and a 2tbsp of water for 10 minutes.
5. Pour the stewed fruits into a shallow pie-dish or individual ramekins.
6. To make the crumble topping, rub together the light brown sugar and the wholemeal flour until a crumbs texture.
7. Then add the rolled oats and soft light brown sugar to the topping mixture and mix the ingredients until balanced. Scottish oats in this recipe can be substituted with oatmeal for a softer texture.
8. Spoon the crumble topping over the stewed blackberries and apples.
9. Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on cook’s preferences for crunchy texture. The topping should be golden brown before serving warm.
10. Serve with custard, ice cream or fresh cream.

We’ll do a meaty recipe next week. As usual if there is anything you would particularly like to see a recipe for on here, just drop us a line. There are some anglo asian recipes on the new web site so it’s definitely worth a look.

Have a great week, don’t forget to send any culinary questions you mat have, if we get enough we will put them on the web site so everyone can benefit.

Have a good week……. "YourChef" - Chris Sharpe