This episode on Royal Weddings had a Prince Harry and Meghan Markle focus as Michael Buerke looked at food and recipes for past Royal Weddings and meetings.  Presented by Michael Buerke, the lead chef with this episode was Anna Haugh.

Yet again, they never give you the quantities in their recipes, they just show them being made… maybe they figure “the peasants watching this will never make it” – and, for me, that’s true! 🙂

The programme visited the Polo fields at Windsor Castle and how the Windsor Polo Club came about – as well as covering Queen Victoria’s courtship with Prince Albert. Also discussed were the early dating months of Harry & Meghan and how they kept their relationship a secret.  The first time the Queen met her future husband, Prince Phillip, was also mentioned, linked to the Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe as it’s what was served to them on that visit.

Michael Buerke and Anna Haugh both looked at some jellied eels – and both tried them – they both agreed they’re quite nasty and Harry shouldn’t ever serve them to Meghan.

Venison Pie.

Chef Anna Haugh made a King Henry VIII Tudor Style Pie

1. She caramelised cubed venison and explained that it’s best if you don’t overfill the pan, you’re better off doing it in 2-3 batches. Then remove the venison from the pan.
2. Next, chef Anna caramelised some lardons, added sliced onions and a couple of tablespoons of flour to help hold it together. This was cooked for a little while and she added the venison meat back into the pan, with a big splash of red wine to deglaze it.
3. Add prunes for sweetness and depth of flavour – you get a better flavour from from dried fruit than you get from fresh fruit.
4. Add chicken stock
5. Crush juniper berries and garlic in a pestle and mortar. Add those to the pan.
6. Cook the whole lot for about 2 hours on the stove top. Let it chill, it has to be cold before you use it as a pie filling.

Venison Pie Pastry

1. Next, Anna made the pie pastry by melting cubes of lard in water, she melt the lard in the water then tip it into the flour while hot and stirred it into the flour – you have to work with this pastry while it’s hot she explained.
2. Roll the pastry out. Take 2/3rds of the pastry from the bowl to use as the pie base and sides.
3. Roll it to about 0.5cm thick, then use a rolling pin to hang the pastry over and get into the pie mould and shape it to the base/sides.
4. Put the cold filling into the pastry case.
5. Roll out the pastry lid using the remaining 1/3rd of the pastry and cut a hole in the middle to vent it as there’s a lot of liquid in the pie.  She got Michael Buerke to cut out a decoration for the top, he cut out a crown.
6. Add the lid to the top of the pie and pinch the edges together. Egg wash the top of the pie and then bake in the oven at 180°C for 2 hours. Let the pie rest when it comes out of the oven, she didn’t say how long for.
7. When Anna sliced the pie, the filling all poured out, so it’s not a tight packed pie.

Strawberry Ice / Fruit Sundae

Fruit sundae was served at the Royal Naval base, Dartmouth, just before WW2, on 22 July 1939, when the two Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, were visiting with their mother, the Queen Mother.

This was on the menu that the Queen was served, a meal at which Prince Phillip was also present, as he’d given a tour of the facilities to the two young princesses – Princess Elizabeth was just 13 at the time.

Strawberry Ice Recipe

1. Chef Anna Haugh mixed milk with whipping cream and glucose – the glucose stabilises the ice cream so sit stays smooth and doesn’t go icy when frozen.  She then added some milk powder, explaining that this adds richness and depth but without the extra liquid. This was then whisked up and brought to the boil, before being allowed to cool down.
   She blitzed raw strawberries in a food processor, then added the chilled milk mix to the strawberries
   and blitzed them together. It takes 1-1½ hours for ice cream to chill, so this was placed in the freezer.
2. Anna made a meringue by whisking caster sugar and egg whites in a food mixer until it was shiny and the bubbles are so tiny you can’t see them. She then sieved in the icing sugar, being careful to protect the air in the mix.
3. Anna spread out the meringue onto a baking sheet and sieved freeze dried raspberries onto the meringue, she said you can find this in the baking aisle of good supermarkets.
4. Bake the meringue in the oven at 90-100°  for 1 hour. Let it cool.
5. Anna combined whole raspberries and a little icing sugar with a small squeeze of lemon, just carefully stirring them together slowly, keeping the raspberries whole.

The meringue needs to be cold before you serve this. It’s broken up to add into the bowl.

To serve: Simply place a scoop of the strawberry ice cream in the bottom of a bowl,  surround that with raspberries, place some broken meringue on top, then mix together a little bit of cream/sugar and place that on top. She further adorned the dish with some garnishes.

Seswaa

This was a dish from Botswana, Anna wasn’t sticking with the traditional recipe, but making her own adaptations to it.  She make it with lamb, although in Botswana it’d traditionally be made with goat.

1. 1. Lamb: Anna caramelised the lamb in a pan, then lifted it out.  This was done in small batches.  She then added a large pinch of what looked like salt.
   2. Polenta: To serve alongside the meat, it’s difficult to make out what the food was called, but Anna said you can substitute it with polenta – just make up polenta with water in a fresh saucepan – it needs at least 15-20 minutes to cook out.
   3. Three onions were then quartered. and added to the meat saucepan, with the first batch of lamb being put back in the saucepan, with a star anise and a large pouring of Ruby Port. Top up with water., lid on and that goes into the oven at 160°C for 2 hours to start off. The lid is then removed and put back in the oven for a further 2 hours to evaporate the juices.
   4. Going back to the polenta saucepan, Anna added pepper, a lot of cubed butter and a little grated parmesan into her polenta. Anna said this  needs a good whisking in. Add a little more water if it thickens too much.
   5. Rainbow Chard & Vinaigrette: Anna made rainbow chard into a vinaigrette. trying to follow this was a bit of a blur (and I think I was glazing over to be honest!).  She had finely chopped a shallot and sweated it in olive oil, no colour required.  A couple of spoons of the meat liquid was then added in.

1. She chopped the chard into quite small pieces and added it to boiling water in a third saucepan.
2. Back at the meat saucepan, Anna removed the bones from the meat, they just slid out.  Also remove the star anise. Give the meat a good stir through, it’ll break up.
3. Add the shallot vinagrette to the chard pan and mix in.

To Serve:

Serve a large spoonful from each of the three saucepans onto a plate as a pile of meat, a pile of the polenta and a pile of the chard. This is a bowl or plate of hearty food, without any presentation finesse.

Overall, this series of Royal Recipes is always like this – it can be hard to follow what they’re doing and no quantities are given – but, as I said, I doubt they expect anybody to ever cook the recipes!

^E&OE