Food 'n' Drink – Food and Drink news |

Bistro du Vin, Hotel du Vin, Smoak and Malmaison have announced that they have created 2 new food and drink dining clubs; Societe du Vin and ClubMal. Over the years, these well known brands have created several food and drink initiative that have been tailored to the loyal following they have from their diners.

In the latest wave of voucher 3^rd parties, they have created a new programme where guests reap heavily discounted benefits that carry no hidden costs, only great perks that are being passed directly onto the customer.

Food favourites to be enjoyed at such hotel restaurants as the Roast du Vin include 2 course Sunday lunches and cheese platters with a bottle of wine. Whereas the popular Mal Steak Nights will also be available for fine diners who enjoy a hearty meal.

The two programmes – ClubMal for Malmaison and Smoak, and Societe du Vin for Hotel du Vin, Pub du Vin and Bistro du Vin, launched on the 4th January 2012 with a 50% off food offer for January. On registration an email is dispatched with the latest offers based on the register’s preferences. Each month the brands will distribute varying promotions as well as individual hotels providing independently tailored offers for the properties. The user simply clicks on the URL to the registration pages, completes the form stating their preference, and will receive the voucher via email or direct to their smart phone. There is no obligation or cost to sign up and receive the offers.

In addition, Hotel du Vin, Pub du Vin, Bistro du Vin, Malmaison and Smoak will be working with their nominated suppliers to create bespoke packages, events and offers integrating their valued products. Everything from Donald Russell steak nights and La Cave à Fromage cheese tastings, to exclusive competitions and inspired menu’s created in partnership with local suppliers; the offers will support the brands ethos of homegrown and local, a celebration of all that’s great about the regions and their amazing people.

Malmaison will convert any pessimist with divinely tasty, beautifully presented cuisine prepared with incredible local ingredients and served with passion. All the Mal bars have lashings of attitude, and have been designed with an eye to the hip, trendy and chic, offering patrons a venue in which to sip delicious signature cocktails before taking up the ClubMal offer. Hotel du Vin’s concept is bistro dining and an excellence in wine with rooms attached. An elegant and atmospheric setting for lunch or dinner and an ideal place to meet, celebrate or simply pass the time. Add to this the passion for everything from whisky to local beers and of course, wine, all served by knowledgeable, helpful and passionate people.

The programmes ClubMal and Societe du Vin are about rewarding and engaging the loyal diner at a time when the passion for great dining reigns supreme, but a cost conscious market place dictates a need to drive value for money.

The most expensive Stilton in the world is being manufactured in the UK and for a very small piece of it consumers will have to pay around £60. This means that if you want enough to cover a single cracker it will cost you six pounds a time.

The cheese is expensive because it has gold leaf running through it which is edible and is also made with gold liquor. The cheese is being made at Long Clawson Dairy and it has already proved very popular with celebrities.

Janice Breedon is a spokesperson for the dairy and she has commented, “We have already received a great deal of interest in this cheese including interest from the rich and famous. We have had interest from a sheikh from the Gulf as well as a notable pop star. To respect their privacy I won’t name them but if I were to your definitely recognise the names.

“We have created the cheese as a special for Christmas and it will only be receiving a limited run, once it is all sold we will not be making any more. The cheese does look like something very special and you will clearly be able to see the gold in it. As well as being able to sell the cheese we are hoping that the expensive price tag will help draw publicity to Stilton in general and help improve sales of our regular cheeses.”

Ms Breedon has also commented that most of the sales enquiries have been from overseas and she expects that the vast majority of the cheese will be being shipped to oversee locations before Christmas arrives.

The gold has been added to a premium form of white Stilton and has meant that the value of the cheese has increased nearly 70 times. Ordinary white Stilton costs around one pound for every hundred grams.

In order to increase people’s knowledge of the cheese the dairy has had a presence in the centre of a local city recently where they have been offering taste tests. One of the people to try the cheese was Emily Gatford, a local student, and she said, “I don’t normally enjoy cheese but this is really something quite special. If I brought this to a friend’s house to enjoy with a Christmas meal they would be very impressed.”

The dairy is marking 100 years of being open and has launched several unusual products to celebrate this. ‘Love Cheese’ was created this Valentine’s Day and was cheese that was covered in chocolate. The dairy also produced the largest slice of Stilton in the world which weighs in at over 100 kg, breaking the Guinness world record for a single slice of Stilton.

Blackberry and apple oat crumble with Loseley Summer Meadow

Loseley Summer Meadow Butter helps you to make sure that autumn fruits are healthy and filling and even enough to constitute calling a meal.  This is due to the fact that the oats offer a bit of filling crunch to the mixture and create an alternative way to serve oats outside of breakfast.

Cooking apples 680g (1½ lbs), peeled and sliced
Blackberries 200g (7oz)
Granulated sugar 100g (4oz)
Wholemeal flour 100g (3½ oz)
Loseley Summer Meadow Butter 90g (3½ oz)
Light Muscovado sugar 50g (2 oz)
Porridge Oats 100g (3½ oz)

1. Preheat the oven to 190˚C/ 375˚F/ Gas 5 and put the fruit into a 1.25 litre (2 pints) ovenproof dish in layers with the granulated sugar.
2. Place the flour in a separate bowl and rub in the Loseley Summer Meadow Butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the brown sugar and porridge oats.
3. Sprinkle the crumble mixture thickly and evenly over the fruit, pressing down lightly.
4. Place the crumble on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 180 ˚C/ 350˚F/ Gas 4 and continue cooking for a further 45 minutes or until the top is lightly browned. Serve the crumble hot with custard.

Cooks Tip

If you pick wild blackberries from the hedgerows, be sure to pick those that are well away from any busy main roads to ensure they are not contaminated by car exhaust fumes, and wash them well before eating.

10 minutes preparation time
1 hour cooking time
371 Kcal per portion
13.4g fat per portion
8g is saturated
6 servings
Suitable for vegetarians

Loseley Summer Meadow Butter is packed in a 250g tub and costs £1.29p.

Loseley Chilled Foods are available from the chilled cabinet of local independent grocers, Morrisons and Waitrose. Visit http://<br< a=”"> /></br<>www.loseley.com for more information.

Curry restaurants sweating on crippling immigration laws

Indian restaurants across the UK are under a crisis alert as Curryland is struggling to find chefs with the important specialized skills required, the reason, a tightening of the laws of immigration for the non European workers.

The new laws are particularly harmful to the industry because they are coming at a time when the dynamics of the British Asian community young people are changing as they are opting not to follow the footsteps of their parents and enter the family restaurant business.

There are estimates that say 25% of the chef’s jobs are presently vacant with many restaurants facing closing their doors and many are getting upset about it and the Indian restaurant industry in the UK is valued at more than £3.5 billion annually.

Few have accomplished more or done more to introduce high standard of Indian cooking to the UK than Enam Ali, the British Curry Awards founder. His restaurant in Epsom, Le Raj is a celebrity’s hangout and is having great success despite the continued economic downturn.

He wants to expand to occupy some of the shops that have been vacated in the area but his plans have been thwarted due to not being able to find sufficiently skilled help. The sub continent can no longer supply the talented chefs with the cooking methods and ingredients that produce such wonderful traditional dishes.

The need to fill the vacancies from the EU all the while the customers are expecting great quality and it takes a great deal of time and money to train chefs from Europe.

The Government’s proposals restrict or remove settlement rights of Tier 2 immigrants. Tier 2 workers are highly skilled (National Qualifications Framework level 4) and under-supplied in the UK labour market. The new proposals mean businesses like Ali’s cannot find staff domestically and are unable to recruit from outside the EU. The British Hospitality Association says these changes effectively disbar skilled chefs from the sub-continent. Training EU chefs to this standard of Indian cuisine (NVQ level 4) requires 5 years of industry experience. Restaurants like Ali’s are now required to pay chefs a minimum of £28,000 which ultimately means increased prices.

Ali understands concerns over levels of immigration and for a need to take action, but the rules are a straight jacket for a hugely successful British industry. He believes a commercially-minded Government must work with businesses to resolve these important issues, which are a serious concern for curry lovers throughout the UK.

You may have heard the expression; “easy as apple pie” used to assure someone that a potential endeavour was a simple, uncomplicated matter and anyone could do it.  In the case of the apple pie, it’s quite true, but a few tips from experience can make the difference between just acceptable and truly irresistible.

Baking a fruit pie does require a little basic knowledge.  If you are using fresh fruit, pick the ones that are in season and ripe.  In the spring and summer, look for strawberries, blackberries, cherries or peaches, for example.  Autumn and winter are apple seasons, but whatever is available that’s fresh and ripe is a good candidate for a pie.  Note:  juicy fruit needs some thickening for best results; three tablespoons of cornstarch per pie is one suggestion.

Always preheat the oven to the temperature required in your recipe; it will usually be in the 350 to 450F (175 to 230C) degree range, as fruit pies need to bake at high temperatures so the crust and filling get done at approximately the same time.    Hint:  if the crust edges are baking faster than the filling, cover the top loosely with aluminium foil for the final minutes.  Use a baking sheet under the pie to avoid run-over in your oven; a pizza stone or other baking stone is ideal as it helps to ensure that the bottom crust bakes at the same rate as the top.  A glass baking dish is also recommended for the same reason.

Baking time will range from 45 minutes to an hour, with variations depending on the recipe.  A knife inserted in the middle of the pie should come out ‘clean’ if the filling is done.  If you want a little shine on your crust, a quarter cup of light corn syrup thinned with very hot water will do the trick.  Just brush the mixture lightly over the top crust at the very end of baking time, and put the pie back in the oven for a couple of minutes until it forms a glaze.

The Yorkshire region has a culture that is rich in some of the world’s finest food and drink, and some of the best of those were celebrated at the awards ceremony held at Rudding Park, Harrogate on Tuesday.  Deliciouslyorkshire, an organization that supports and encourages excellence in local cuisine and outstanding achievements by individuals and businesses in the area, announced the winners for 2010. More information on businesses in this area, including business directory listings for Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, can be found online. Contributions such as Deliciouslyorkshire, give local businesses the opportunity to claim a wider appeal, increasing tourism and growing the community at large.

James Mackenzie, owner and chef at The Pipe & Glass Inn in Beverly, East Yorkshire, won the overall deliciouslyorkshire championship as “someone who has gone above and beyond to promote and develop the region’s food and drink industry” and who inspires both his staff and his customers.

The deliciouslyorkshire Supreme Product award went to Anna’s Happy Trotters for its Pork Belly.  Competition for the award was intense, and there were a record-breaking 450 entries this year.

Something new this year, the Export Award sponsored by UKTI, was bestowed on The Yorkshire Crisp Company in recognition of its outstanding contributions in the global export market.  The Balloon Tree Farm Shop and Café in York took the award for Best Retailer of Regional Products, and Yee Kwan Ltd in Sheffield won the Dairy award for its Black Sesame Seed Ice Cream.

Jonathan Knight, chief executive of deliciouslyorkshire, said that all the entrants are to be congratulated, as the standard of excellence gets higher each year.  He noted that it is a very encouraging sign that these businesses in the food and drink industry are “going from strength to strength” even in an often discouraging economic climate.  He said the nineteen winners in the various categories can be very proud of their achievements.

Look for a new restaurant to open atop the Meridian building in Swansea.  The new restaurant will be opened by Brains, a Cardiff based company that runs nearly 300 hotels, bars, and pubs throughout west England and Wales.

The restaurant formerly housed atop the Meridian closed due to bankruptcy in April; it had only been open for four months.

Contractors are now on site at the 90mm tower, which has become a landmark as the tallest residential structure in Wales.  It has accented the city skyline since 2009.

The restaurant will have views encompassing Brecon Beacons and the Bristol Channel.