At Davidstow we are very proud to work with Cornish based two-starred Michelin chef Nathan Outlaw.  So last week we were excited to host a competition for winners to spend the day on an exclusive Davidstow cookery masterclass with Nathan in London.

On Monday, eight lucky winners and their friends arrived at the L’atelier des Chef cookery school in central London to learn two recipes using Cornish Classic and Crackler Cheddar.

The day started with an introduction from Nathan on the recipes he has created with Davidstow and how the cheese adds an abundance of flavour to dishes.

With all the guests donned with aprons, and eagerly waiting at their cooking station, Nathan first demonstrated how to create Cornish Crackler & Chive Mayonnaise by hand. Whisks at the ready, everyone began carefully beating the eggs and oil – Nathan was impressed to see that nobody’s mayonnaise split.

The first course was complete, vegetable crudités and hand-made mayonnaise.  Delicious!

The next part of the masterclass was a real treat with Nathan sharing his tips on how to pick crab meat from a freshly cooked whole crab. It was really interesting to see how much of the crab he could use, including the shell for making stock.

This led the group on nicely to the main course, which was a Crab, Classic Cheddar & Chive Spanish Omelette. This was a simple but very tasty recipe, which needed slowly cooking to produce a rounded omelette cooked throughout without turning it over.

Once the cooking had finished, the group enjoyed lunch with Nathan, and picked his brains on all things cooking, before leaving with a goodie bag of Davidstow cheese and lots of inspiration and recipes!

Look out for similar competitions throughout the year if you fancy trying your hand cooking with a Michelin starred chef …

Well, spring has certainly arrived in Cornwall and we have been treated to some lovely, mild weather and sunny days recently.  Suddenly, everything seems to have come to life again. We moved into our house in the summer last year so didn’t know what was in our garden and it’s been exciting seeing things appear as the seasons have changed. We were delighted by the hundreds of snowdrops earlier on and now we have a ‘host of golden daffodils’ which are really cheering everywhere up.

Nathan Outlaw by David Griffen

The view from the restaurants has been changing too and the fields opposite are now lush green as the spring grass appears.  It’s already been balmy enough on some days for guests to sit out on the terrace and enjoy immersing themselves in the view whilst enjoying a leisurely lunch or cream tea; a wonderful way to de-stress for an hour or two.  Of course, this superb pasture is of vital importance to Cornwall’s cows, as it enables them to produce the rich, creamy milk that is the central to our famous clotted cream and wonderful cheese such as Davidstow.

I look forward to spring in the kitchen because it brings the first wave of good quality crabs.  We are very lucky in Rock because we have Callum just down the road in Port Isaac, he the only crab and lobster fisherman in the UK who is a member of the Responsible Fishing Scheme.  Crabmeat is underused in Britain and that is a great shame because it is so flavoursome and nutritious.  At present we are serving a dish in Restaurant Nathan Outlaw which combines the flavours of brown crab, roasted and pickled fennel and apple.  The crab is very simply cooked in order to balance the complexity of the flavours and it has taken us four years to perfect the sauce which is made using velvet crab.

Other produce coming into season includes Cornish new potatoes which need to be served with nothing but a generous lacing of Cornish butter!  And soon we will have the first Cornish asparagus which I like to serve with a rich, silky cheese sauce, given an extra depth of flavour by using Davidstow’s Mature Crackler.  It makes me hungry just writing about it!

Another thing that I am looking forward to this spring is the publication of my first book, ‘Nathan Outlaw’s British Seafood’.  I spent most of last summer writing it and without the support of my family, staff and the publisher I doubt it would be finished yet!  I hope that people enjoy the recipes and snippets of information I’ve included as I’ve tried to do something for everyone.  It’s been very exciting seeing it go from rough scribbled notes to the final, beautifully produced book and those who have seen it so far seem suitably impressed, or at least I think so!   Look out for the recipes that mention Davidstow!

Now it’s back to the kitchen to work on some new recipes in readiness for the summer menu…and maybe the next book!