Our reporter took a trip down to one of the most beloved hotels in the city to get a 'behind the scnenes' taste into the brand new menu at Queens Hotel, Southsea.
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00:00 So today we're here at the Queen's Hotel in Southsea and we're going to be going
00:06 behind the scenes doing some cooking and having a little look at how they've done
00:10 their new menu and I think we're going to do some scallops as starter and some
00:15 chicken for their main and we're even going to get to have a little look at
00:18 how they do all of their tasty pastries. Wish me luck!
00:27 I'm Simon, I'm the executive chef at the Queen's Hotel in Portsmouth and I've
00:33 been here for about three years now. So today we're making our scallop starter
00:39 which is scallops with masala sauce and onion bhaji and then the main course we're
00:45 going to be making is roast chicken with champ, wiltwood spinach, cheese and leek pie and
00:54 chicken butter sauce. So the chicken dish we're using supreme of chicken which is
00:59 basically a breast with the top end of the wings still attached to it
01:04 which we've trimmed down. We're going to pan fry that skin side down till it
01:10 goes nice and really starts to go golden on the bottom. Then we'll
01:15 put some garlic, thyme into the pan, more butter, baste that over the top so it
01:21 seals the outside of the chicken so we cook it the whole way on the skin.
01:24 Baste that until the outside of the chicken is completely sealed, place that
01:28 into the oven for 12 minutes and just let all the time cooking on the skin in
01:33 the pan so it's just got that constant heat on the skin it will just draw all
01:36 the moisture out of it, give you lovely crispy skin. Then for the champ we've
01:41 just got dry mashed potatoes at which we basically make jacket potatoes, scoop
01:45 them out, mash that, butter, salt in the pan with that, a little bit of pepper, then
01:52 just to finish it some spring onions in there for about a minute before it comes
01:56 off the heat and then the cheese and leek pie. So the base of the cheese and
01:59 leek pie is we make our own shortcrust pastry for it, then it's a basic Mornay
02:05 sauce as a base so bechamel with cheese and we just really slowly cook the leeks
02:09 down with loads of garlic, thyme, shallots, let that cook down for a good couple of
02:13 hours just without any colour so the leeks all just cook down beautifully
02:17 without caramelising, then make really strong cheese sauce using Wookie hole
02:21 cheddar, bind that all together and then we use it to fill our pies which we all
02:26 hand make here and then our sauce for it is our chicken butter sauce which is
02:31 basically a really intense chicken stock that we basically make 60 litres of it
02:37 we reduce that down to 2 litres and just gives this really intense chicken
02:42 flavour which we just finish that with also believe it or not a bit of butter
02:49 okay so the scallops get into a nice hot pan with some oil just a bit of salt on
03:07 there let them cook for two minutes or so on the first side on the angled side
03:13 so you got a nice golden colour on there then while that's cooking we'll get the
03:18 onion bhaji in the fryer, get our masala sauce warmed up and then we'll plate
03:24 that up some masala sauce, the scallops, the bhaji and then a little bit of coriander
03:28 crust just to finish it off
03:31 [music]
03:50 I've never actually tried these before
03:54 [music]
04:06 so yeah so we've just come out of the kitchen we've spent kind of half an hour
04:12 making some of the dishes so we made the scallops with masala sauce and like a
04:18 mini onion bhaji and we also made the roast chicken with pie, mash and spinach
04:25 it is yeah we've just I've just had a little bit and it's absolutely delicious
04:30 it feels a little bit weird you know eating the food that I've just stood and
04:35 watched in the kitchen but it's really really cool and yeah so it was really
04:40 really interesting and to see kind of what goes on behind the scenes see all
04:46 the staff you know running around and getting ready for the kind of lunch
04:50 crazy hour and but yeah so we spent some time doing that Simon the executive
04:57 head chef spoke me through each dish and kind of how they came together all the
05:01 staff they came together to put the new menu together and they kind of all it's
05:06 a combination of everybody's ideas which is really nice you know and so the new
05:11 menu launched last week so we kind of went through the two of the most popular
05:17 dishes so far and yeah no it was really really interesting we kind of spoke
05:22 about some of the main techniques on how to you know do a really really good
05:26 chicken breast and I'm gonna be taking some of these tips home with me so I can
05:31 perfect my terribly dry chicken so yeah that will be much better dinner for us
05:37 and yeah it's just been really really cool to kind of see the ingredients how
05:42 long things are cooked for how things are supposed to be done and and it's
05:46 really nice to hear obviously Simon's been telling me about his kind of
05:48 background and how he's got into how he's got into the industry and yeah it's
05:56 really nice to kind of go through everything step by step but I think the
06:01 only downside would have to be the heat I was absolutely sweating and the entire
06:10 time I could just feel myself slowly melting away so I massively take my hat
06:16 off to all of the staff behind those doors because I could not stay in there
06:21 for much longer they could see that I was absolutely dying with just you know
06:25 the heat is constant and you know every time you get closer and closer to the
06:29 ovens it's just more and more it's so full on but yeah it's been a really
06:35 really nice morning and we're just gonna I'm gonna carry on munching and then I
06:39 think we're gonna go back in and you know have a little look around and do a
06:43 little bit more
06:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]