Just like all those things that go bump in the night, the kitchen can be a dark place for individuals who dare enter at their own risk.
For many, the mere mention of ‘dinner’, brings haunting memories of plated up lifeless trays of grey school gruel flooding back.
However, fear not as Aberdeen’s only dirty cooking style BBQ and seafood restaurant, The Adelphi Kitchen, one of two restaurants owned by food and drink group, Beetroot Ltd, is encouraging individuals to grab their spoons and cauldrons, to conjure up dishes even the phantom of the opera would deem desirable for a Halloween dinner party.
Pumpkin Punch cocktail (for one)
Picture: TAK
Ingredients:
• 25ml Dark Matter Rum (or Spiced Rum)
• 25ml Havana Especial
• 12.5ml Lemon Juice
• 37.5ml Pumpkin Spice Syrup
• 10ml Ginger Syrup
• 150ml Pumpkin Beer
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Few sage leaves
To make this a sharing cocktail just double the ingredients
Method:
Carve a small pumpkin to create the glass. Add all of the ingredients apart from the beer into the pumpkin. Stir all of the ingredients together and then top up with beer. Garnish with the cinnamon stick and some sage leaves.
Main – The Graveyard
60 Day Dry Aged Hanger Steak in Potato Coffins, Mash, Meatloaf Tombstone, Black Pudding Crumble, Onion Puree & Mushroom Jus.
Picture: TAK
Feeds four
• 24oz Hanger Steak (about 6oz per person)
• 4 Large baking potatoes
• 500ml Cream
• 100g Butter
• Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper
• 5 mixed beetroot
• 15g butter
• 5g Honey
• ½ lemon juice
• Mushroom sauce
• 400g Wild mushroom
• 1 clove garlic
• 10g butter
• 200ml Red Wine
• 600ml Beef Stock
• 400g Steak Mince
• 2 slices white loaf
• 1 fine-diced onion
• 1 egg yolk
• Few drops lea and Perrins
• ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 2 sage leaves
Mashed potato and crisp coffins
Bake potatoes dry in a tray covered with foil at 180 degrees.
Once potatoes are ready, half them and scoop out the potato
Put through potato ricer, reduce the cream and butter by half, and whisk through mashed potato with seasoning.
Keep the skin and when ready deep fry the potato skin (to make the coffin) at 160 degrees until crisp and season with salt and pepper.
Tombstone
Sweat down onions until softened, dice the bread and add to the pan with sage and seasoning.
Blend to paste and add to mince with all other ingredients.
Place into a mould and bake in oven at 180 degrees until core temperature reaches 72 degrees and cook for portioning later.
Beetroot
Steam until skins peel off easily then cut into wedges and laze with butter, honey, lemon and seasoning.
Mushroom sauce
Sweat mushroom with butter until softened. Add crushed garlic clove and cook out. Add red wine and reduce by half, add lea and Perrins and beef stock and reduce until a sauce consistency.
Steak
Rest in warm place and pre-season with salt and pepper.
Once at room temperature sear in a smoking hot pan on both sides & baste with a little butter.
Rest until ready to carve and be sure to carve against the grain.
How to plate
Scoop mash or put in a mould and lean crisp coffin on the side.
Add meatloaf tombstone to the mash and carefully place hanger slices in the potato coffin.
Finish with glazed beetroot & mushroom jus.
Head chef of Adelphi Kitchen, Murray Dawson, also added a black pudding crumble, micro herbs and a few carrots to create a graveyard visual effect.
Dessert – Toffee Ticks and Apple Treats
Toffee Apple Press, Blood Crumble, Apple Sorbet & Ginger Custard
Picture: TAK
Sorbet
• 5 apples (frozen overnight)
• 570ml Stock Syrup
• 100ml lime juice
Blitz all ingredients in blender until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and place in the freezer whisking every 30 minutes or so whilst freezing.
Blood Crumble
• 200g diced black pudding
Dehydrate or cook in bottom of the oven on lowest temperature with door slightly ajar, working occasionally to dry out, cool and blend when dry for crumble consistency.
Dry Toffee (for press)
• 300g caster sugar
• 30g glucose syrup
• 125g unsalted butter
Caramelise sugar with glucose until browned in cooker. Slowly add butter until incorporated. Carefully remove from pot to tray to set solid. Once set blitz into powder.
Apple glaze (for press)
• 100g caster sugar
• 200ml apple juice
• 1 x vanilla pod
Reduce all ingredients until a syrup is formed.
Apple Press
• 15 fresh apples (peeled and cored)
Place peeled apples in lemon water to stop discolouration and thinly slice or put through mandolin for lots of thin slices.
Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and start lining with toffee powder and apple slices until all apple slices are used.
Bake in the oven at 160 degrees for 5 minutes.
Press apples down to remove excess liquid and reserve for glaze.
Place back in oven at 180 degrees for further 5 minutes to finish cooking, then press a similar sized tray on top with a heavy weight to chill and set in fridge or freezer to speed it along.
Ginger Duck Egg Custard
Ingredients:
• 312ml full milk
• 312ml double cream
• 175ml duck egg yolks
• 95g sugar
• 1 x vanilla pod
• 1 x stemmed ginger
Warm milk and cream in pot, whisk egg yolks with sugar then gradually add milk and cream mix over the yolks whilst whisking.
Add to clean pot and slowly cook out whilst whisking until you get a custard consistency.
How to Serve
Portion apple press, brush with a little apple glaze & warm in oven. Start to build plate with blood crumble and apple sorbet. Finish by adding the apple. Serve custard on the side.
The Adelphi Kitchen, which brings new and exciting food and drink concepts to the city, was established in 2013, and boasts a one AA rosette due to its outstanding commitment to customer service. The restaurant is open seven days a week and is home to a specially imported cabinet wood smoker, the first of its kind in the UK.
