Foraging- one of the many joys of spring!

Yesterday, we decided to make the most of a sunny day and spend an afternoon doing one of the most exciting things you can do in spring: foraging!

Something that is growing everywhere at the moment and in full bloom is gorse. Its bright yellow flowers have a delicate coconut smell (as one of our friends once said: “it smells like coconut sun tan cream!”).

We hopped on our bikes, cycled down to the woods and started collecting the little yellow flowers. On the way we encountered some wild fennel growing on the side of the bike path- there’s dinner’s inspiration sorted!

          

When we decided we had enough, we returned home to start making our gorse cordial. It’s so simple! Just put the flowers in water with sugar and lemon juice, bring if to the boil then remove from the head and then leave it to infuse for 5-10min. Strain and bottle.

Later on that evening we couldn’t help but combine it with cocktail hour: gorse cordial, lemon juice and xoriquer gin. One wasn’t quite enough!

Dinner with the fennel we picked was fantastic. The wild fennel gives such a strong, fresh flavour to the dish.

 

Tomatoes, samphire, prawns and wild fennel in prawn bisque with roasted new potatoes and hot smoked mackerel

That was a bonnie meal!

We recently catered for a hen party where the hen is going to marry a Scottish man. The organiser of the party requested a Scottish theme to the meal: something we jumped at the chance to do!

Here’s the menu

Cock-a-leekie soup- chicken rillette, chicken broth, crispy leeks, prune and whisky tapenade

Slow cooked lamb shoulder, lamb with haggis crust, baby turnip, Scotch ale sauce

Putting together the main course

And finally the chocolate torte, vanilla creme fraiche, whisky caboc

It was a huge success, all of the guests were thrilled, and in turn we were thrilled!

We’ve got more meals coming up in the next few weeks, so check back for photos of those

Happy times at Easter

This Easter weekend, we travelled to Kent for three days of catering for a 40th Wedding Anniversary celebration. Using Norfolk produce, we brought a taste of Norfolk to Kent.

It was a wonderful weekend with a hot-rock (a hot plate in the centre of the table on which you can cook meat, fish and vegetables- a very sociable way of eating!) on the Friday, a big Norfolk buffet on Saturday and an Easter themed buffet meal on Sunday, complete with miniature edible gardens as canapés.

Below are a selection of photos from the weekend to get your tastebuds going.

Enjoy!

Heritage tomato and roasted fennel and red onion salad

Panzanella Salad

Roasted beetroot, beetroot carpaccio and feta cheese salad with toasted seeds and nuts

The Saturday buffet

Home-made bread (walnut and focaccia) with Norfolk smoked prawns and smoked salmon

Norfolk cheeseboard

The chef at work

Our favourite product: spiced potted Kings Lynn shrimp

Pickled vegetables with chicken rillette

Miniature edible gardens

New potatoes with home-made pesto

Eclipse and local seafood dinner, a winning combo!

Norfolk seemed to be one of the few places  in the east of England that saw the clouds thin in perfect timing for Friday’s eclipse. Having missed the 1999 eclipse, I was very excited to see it and it didn’t disappoint! In some ways we were very grateful for the cloud as it meant we could look at it without any fancy eclipse glasses and not go blind.

Recently, to celebrate (or mourn) the end of mussel season, we made an amazing meal of local seafood using the last of the year’s local mussels.

Beautiful local mussels from The fish shed in Brancaster, which has an excellent selection of fresh, local seafood

Seared Sea bream with mussels, scallops, prawns, saffron potatoes (using smoked Norfolk saffron, which, by the way, is a fantastic ingredient, we praise the day we discovered it!), pepperade and lemon dressed fennel with a sea-food bisque. Next up: crab season!

Getting to know you

We thought now would be a good time to introduce ourselves.

We are a husband and wife team. Jackson is the chef and Fiona is the general organiser of things. We met 9 years ago at Windsor Castle when working at the Queen’s 80th birthday party. Since then we lived and worked in various places before we fell in love with, and settled in Norfolk.

Let’s start off with the man in charge of the wonderful food: Jackson has a wealth of experience in the catering industry, having worked in some of the top companies in the UK, including Alison Price. During his time working in London, he worked on events for anything from 10 people to 1,500 people, so there’s no job too big or too small for him! His style is creating simple, elegant food which is always packed with flavour (as his wife, who eats his food every day, I can vouch for this!).

I (Fiona) am in charge of the day to day organisation and running of things. My other job is working as a vet in the local Norfolk area. Whenever possible (when the animals are all well and happy), I will be at the dinners we are catering for, helping out where needed.

We are very excited about our company and very proud of what we produce. A lot of effort is made to put care and love into each dish we make, so everyone has a great meal. We hope you enjoy it!

Oystercatcher in Mexico

We recently went on a trip to Mexico and were very inspired by the food there. Travelling around you notice how they cook using only local ingredients. On the coast the menus contain only seafood and only 1 hour inland suddenly no seafood is to be found and it is a very meaty diet. As our ethos is all about using locally produced food, this really resonated with us.

Whilst watching a sunset during our trip, we discovered a patch of samphire. It looked just like Norfolk samphire looks at the beginning of summer when it’s at its most succulent. Unsurprisingly, we excitedly set about picking some straight away to go in our dinner that night!

We made quacamole, ceviche with blanched samphire, refried beans, tortillas and mango, coconut (which we got from the garden) and papaya juice. A nice norfolk/mexico fusion meal!

   

The Mexicans are fantastic at doing simple things beautifully and deliciously. They celebrate good, local, honest food which is exactly what we at Oystercatcher Catering are about!

http://www.oystercatchercatering.uk

Wedding Tasting

This weekend we had a tasting for a lovely couple who are getting married this summer. We met up with them over a coffee and chatted with them about what they had in mind for their wedding day. They really enjoy visiting Italy and eating the local foods and requested that we try and capture that in the wedding menu. We sat down and wrote a bespoke menu for the two of them and here is what we came up with:

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Starter:

Glazed figs, with basil mascarpone, parma ham, parma ham crisps, rosemary pizza bread crisps, wild rocket and basil oil.

Main:

Family service style:

6 hour cooked rosemary and garlic lamb shoulder

with sides of:

panzanella salad

radicchio, pine nut, pear and gorgonzola salad

beetroot carpaccio with toasted walnuts and caper vinaigrette

Dessert:

Honey and vanilla roast peaches with zabaglione, candied fruit biscotti and pistachio crumb

Kid’s choice for main:

Focaccia pizza

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Here’s a photo we snapped of the starter:

After the tasting was finished, we were thrilled that they had nothing whatsoever to change about the menu and they said we’d nailed the brief perfectly. Their only suggestion was that the kids would spend their time picking the vegetables,  and fresh herbs off of their pizzas, so best keep the pizzas simple. I think we can deal with that!

Later, we went down to Snettisham beach for a sunset walk. As we made our way down the (very chilly!) beach we spotted a huge colony of oystercatchers, there must have been at least 300 of them all sitting looking towards the sunset on the water’s edge.  Jackson spooked them by walking towards them and we got this picture.

We couldn’t help but see it as a good omen for what lies ahead in 2015!

Our Mantra

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‘Seasonal, local, laid back catering with a conscience.’

In this busy world we live in,  it’s easy to take for granted the fact that we can have any food we fancy literally delivered to our doorstep with the click of the button. Mange tout from Kenya, tomatoes (during British tomato season) from Spain,  or Pak Choi (a vegetable happy to grow in winter in the UK) from Italy. If we stop and look around, we can discover and huge variety of beautiful, locally grown vegetables at our disposal. Norfolk is a metropolis (I bet you never thought you’d hear those 4 words together!) when it comes to fantastic produce. From vegetables straight out of the ground,  to seafood fresh off the fishing boats. This is what we want to celebrate. We will strive to use only local and seasonal produce wherever possible, thereby keeping our carbon footprint to a minimum. Because of this, we will have an ever evolving menu suited to whichever season we are cooking in. If you have a party cooked by us in two different seasons,  you’ll have two very different, exciting menus! We are excited!

In our many years in the catering industry we have seen and been upset by the vast quantities of wasted food. This is something that has never sat right with us considering the millions of people all over the world and even in this country, that have to make do with insufficient food and nutrition every day of their lives. For this reason we aim to keep our waste to an absolute minimum and donate some of our profits from the year to local food shelters.

http://www.oystercatchercatering.uk

The birth of Oystercatcher Catering

The dream of Oystercatcher Catering started when good friends of ours moved to Blakeney, Norfolk. We started visiting them more and more often as we quickly fell in love with the area. The beaches, the pace of life and, of course, the food! Our days revolved around food. On a typical day We’d wake up, make a huge breakfast to fuel our first outing, then come home for a decadent lunch to fuel adventure number 2, which worked up our appetites for what can only be described as a spectacular dinner. After a weekend in Norfolk, we’d return to our life in the city and feel like there was something missing. The moment I realised I’d fallen in love with the Norfolk coast was on a bitterly cold, grey, winters day when we walked the mile long walk to burnham overy staithe beach from the harbour. Wrapped up in 2 tshirts, 3 sweaters, two jackets, a scarf and two hats for good measure, the cold was only just kept at bay. Just before you reach the beach, there are some huge sand dunes which we climbed to the top of and we stood surveying the views which seemed to go on forever. I was captivated. The skies in Norfolk are huge and moody in a way I’d never seen before. As someone who hates the cold, I was amazed to realise as I stood up there that I felt truly happy and at peace. Any place that could make me feel like that on a day like that is special. The move was very simple, between deciding to move up here and actually doing it was only just under two months. Since then we’ve continued to fall in love with the area. There are some fantastic local producers, our favourites include, candi’s chutneys, JoC’s beers, and mrs temples cheeses. The pride that the local community takes in their Local produce is something you don’t see very often. This is where the concept of Oystercatcher catering was born. We want to bring the best of Norfolk produce into one place, so visitors can get an understanding of what the area has to offer. We are setting up this blog to share with you the food we cook and eat as the seasons change, to fuel our adventures.

http://www.oystercatchercatering.uk