Victorian Kitchen now Open for Tastings!

So what's cooking?

Our head chef Matt can't wait to get his hands on the walled garden produce, and is dreaming up new and exciting field to fork dishes.
Here's what he's cooking right now...

Recipe from the garden

Roast cod fillet, tomato, basil and borlotti bean stew

Ingredients

350gr borlotti beans
50 gr shallots, halved
50 gr carrots, halved
50 gr celery sticks, cleaned
2 cloves garlic, peeled

Method

• Add all to a large heavy based pan.
• Cover with cold water and bring to the boil.
• Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour until the beans are cooked

At the same time

300 grammes mixed heritage tomatoes, chopped
3 large banana shallots, peeled and diced
1 clove garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

• Sweat the shallots and garlic in olive oil until soft but not coloured
• Add the tomatoes and reduce the heat
• Cover and cook slowly for 1 hour
• Add a splash of water here and there if it looks dry
• Season and add a glug of good extra virgin olive oil

Now the tomatoes and beans are cooked;

• Drain the water from the beans discarding the vegetables
• Combine the beans and tomatoes
• Adjust seasoning as necessary
• Keep warm

Too cook the fish;

4 x 180 gramme cod fillets, skinned and pin boned
100gr butter
Juice of 1 lemon

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
• Heat a large non stick pan on the stove top
• Add a dash of oil. The pan needs to be hot but not so much as to smoke or flame the oil
• Season the cod fillets with sea salt and lay presentation side (not the side the skin was on) down in the pan
• Allow the cod to colour then transfer the pan to the oven
• Cook for around 4 minutes until the cod is warm in the centre
• Remove from the oven and add a large knob of butter
• Carefully turn the fillets over so they are presentation side up
• Baste the cod fillets in the foaming butter to finish cooking the fish; Be careful! The pan handle is of course now very hot.
• Add a squeeze of lemon juice
• Transfer to paper towel and rest for 3 minutes

Now everything is ready!

• Add a handful of torn basil leaves to the stew
• Spoon into 4 bowls
• Place the cod on top
• Add a final drizzle of good oil

Serve with freshly baked bread (perhaps some of that lockdown sourdough?)
And a large glass of white wine ideally!

Meet our head chef

Matt you've never been introduced on the journal before. Tell us a bit more about you... What's your background?

I started cooking almost 20 years ago in a gastro pub in the East Sussex countryside called The Jolly Sportsman. I stayed there for two years learning from its then owner Bruce Wass. He was willing to give me a job despite having absolutely no experience in the kitchen whatsoever. It was a fantastic foundation and I was able to graduate from peeling vegetables (a lot of vegetables) to working on the different sections.

From there I travelled around working in various restaurants and ended up in Australia.

I was only supposed to be there for a year, and 10 years on I think my family were wondering if I was ever going to reappear! I got to work for some brilliant chefs and after heading up a couple of venues became the Executive Chef at St Ali.
I met my now wife Laura there and we decided to move back here a couple of years ago.

What's your favourite dish to cook?

Cooking anything using fresh produce from people who are passionate is a real privilege. A good example is some of the beef available these days. It can be unbelievably good and I love getting to use it.

What's your favourite food to eat?

It's hard to beat the pappardelle ragu at Padella.

What have you most missed during lockdown?

The pub!!!

What's been keeping you busy?

An increasingly competitive series of chess games with my wife. And making (and eating) sourdough.