Chefs workshops

At Leiths School of Food and Wine

Game-to-Eat is offering limited places for chefs on a special game workshop at Leiths. This in-depth half day session is open to any chefs who would like to find out how to prepare and cook game for their menus. The course is available on 7th September or 28th September. All chefs attending will receive a free Game-to-Eat apron and Craft Guild of Chefs certificate.

Itinerary:

Starts: 10am Finish: 2.30pm
Includes:
Introduction to game season
Species in fur and feature
Seasonality, shooting, hanging and storing
Butchery Cuts
Health benefits to eating game
Flavours, cooking and serving
Plus – opportunity to get hands on to cook 2 dishes with game – best dish to win £200 Russum’s vouchers.

Chefs are asked to bring their chef whites and own knifes. To attend please send a cheque for £20 to FML PR at Game-to-Eat, Field House, 8 High Street, Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex, BN6 9TY or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Craft Guild of Chefs Consultant, Lee Maycock, took a class of 20 third year catering students and second year French exchange students at Canterbury College on a game workshop, sponsored by Game-to-Eat.

Lee gave a detailed presentation on the various types of British wild game, teaching about seasonality, traceability, hanging and storage. The students also had an opportunity to see and handle a selection of primary cuts in both ready prepared form and in fur and feather - cuts included venison, pheasant, partridge, snipe, wood pigeon and rabbit. Following the theory session, Lee then took the class through butchery techniques of the birds and venison, while the students had a go at plucking the pigeon and snipe.

The afternoon saw a cookery demonstration of three dishes using the butchered game – wood pigeon breast on beetroot and black pudding; venison fillet with rhubarb, berries and butternut squash; and bacon wrapped pheasant breast on creamed cabbage.

After tasting the dishes, students  were then asked to prepare a menu of their own design using the knowledge and skills from the morning lecture.  The menus were then served to 18 covers in the college restaurant to paying members of the public. The dishes created, were as follows:

• Venison with Turned Carrots and Chocolate Paint
• Pheasant with Smoked Bacon, Savoy Cabbage and Spiced Apple Chutney
• Roasted Partridge with Celeriac Puree

Catering & Hospitality Lecturer, Anthony, told Game-to-Eat the 3rd year students had experienced game briefly as part of their portfolio - rabbit, pheasant and venison, but never had an in depth briefing on the subject. He said: “Many students will take away a lot from this experience and remember it, whichever direction they take in the industry.”

The students enjoyed getting hands on during the lecture, and were able to apply the skills they had learnt for the menu writing, cooking and presentation. Overall, many would continue to think of cooking game in the future.

Dominic Bowlt, Section Manager, Catering & Hospitality said: “This intense game workshop was invaluable. It gave the students a good balance of theory and practical, and inspired them to be creative and confident with game.”

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If you are a working chef and would like to find out more about putting game on the menu in time for the new season, you can apply to attend one of our workshops. You will learn about seasonality, preparation and butchery, watch a cookery demonstration by Lee Maycock from the Craft Guild of Chefs, and have the chance to get hands on cooking some dishes.

Read more: Chefs workshops

Game-to-Eat sponsored a workshop with contract caterers Baxter Storey on 24th February at Leith’s School of Cookery. The demonstration was carried out by Lee Maycock from the Craft Guild of Chefs, where 12 chefs watched a detailed presentation on the various types of game, the British game season and butchery techniques. The group then watched Lee demonstrate roasted Pheasant with dry cured bacon and creamed savoy cabbage close-up, which they tasted, and afterwards divided into pairs to prepare some fantastic Partridge, Pheasant and Venison dishes of their own.

The workshop proved very useful to the chefs and educated them on why game is ideal for all kinds of menus from staff feeding to fine dining.

On behalf of Game-to-Eat development Chef Consultant Rob Marles conducted a workshop with Graysons Restaurants at McCann Erickson’s demo kitchen in November. The eight Graysons chefs on the course received a presentation on the various types of game available and accompanied by close up preparation and cookery demonstrations.

The group was then joined by four more chefs who divided into teams to prepare a dinner menu which included the following canapés: rabbit & black pudding roulade, partridge with kumquat chutney, game pie filo and wood pigeon with pickled walnuts. The main course was braised venison loin & roasted pheasant breast stuffed with macerated prunes, served with maple roasted roots, curly kale, sweet potato fondants and a game jus. The meal was then enjoyed by the chefs and Graysons board of directors.

The event was a successful day for all and as a result you can now look out for game on Grayson’s fine dining menus in the future.

A full day Game Awareness workshop with foodservice company Sodexo saw chefs learn how to cook with British wild game. In an effort to demonstrate the benefits of putting game on the menu, Lee Maycock from the Craft Guild of Chefs  informed the chefs how to identify game, what to look for in quality, discussed local sourcing & provenance, and flagged up the nutritional benefits of eating game. The chefs then got into teams to prepare their own dishes using ingredients which complemented the delicious underutilised meat.

Click here to watch a short film by David Mulcahy, Craft and Food Development Director of Sodexo, on their Game Awareness workshop, sponsored by Game-to-Eat