Crail and Ballantrae Food festivals June 2016

What a week end! from Crail To Ballantrae, some really lovely people and of course really great produce. Honoured to be asked again to work with Ardross Farm Shop at The Crail Food Festival First off was a chat about mutton and lamb with Claire from Ardross hosted by Rachel Gillon a full house and always good to share farming and cooking perspectives.

Then I hot footed it to the cookery theatre where the wonderful Chef Willie Balfour from Elmwood College was on hand to make sure everything went well. 3 lamb dishes one of which appears below. Lamb needless to say was from Ardross.Then jumped in the car for the 3 hour journey to Ballantrae, arriving just in time to be greeted by Robin of Cosses Country house with a glass of wine! so well looked after by him and his wife Susan who runs the Ballantrae Food festival I also met the lovely forager Lisa Cutcliffe and manic but wonderful Mark Devonshire who prepared supper!

Up early in the morning and off to the festival itself loads of great food businesses from the region such as Pieroni Fish where Clare and brother Jonathan had brought fabulous fresh sea trout, turbot prawns and lobster, I met Tricia Bey who makes Barwheys cheese delicious aged cheddar style cheese, fabulous new Ayrshire potatoes and Hendricks Gin! and many more.

I did one demo on my own and then Mark and I did a double act with Jonathan filleting fish, seemed to go down very well, and was great fun, always godo to work with another enthusiastic chef!

Very busy festival, lots to see and do great live music, in fact a perfect way to spend a day! what a week end!

Here is one of the lamb recipes – Lamb Gigot chop with tomato salsa

TOMATO SALSA
450g 1lb ripe tomatoes
blanched, quartered seeded,and diced
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 chilli seeded and finely diced.
1 tbsp chopped coriander
1tbsp chopped flat parsley
1 tbsp wine vinegar
3 tbsp cold pressed rape seed oil
salt and pepper
combine the diced tomato, herbs garlic and chilli. Whisk together the oil and vinegar, combine all ingredients.

Ideal for a barbeque dip
simply grill the chops on both sides and allow to rest for a few minutes before serving with the salsa