Coronation Week
To mark the Coronation week, I thought I would look at foods with Royal connections. The British family have long associations with deserts – but other Royals have more meaty connections, as I discovered.
To celebrate the Coronation we have developed this limited edition Lidgate luxurious meat feast. We’re hugely excited about this event and have thrown their hearts and souls into designing this centrepiece. The Lamb crown has 3 Racks of Lamb, which won 2 gold stars in the 2022 Great Taste Awards, carefully joined together and filled with a homemade Sage, Onion & Lemon Thyme stuffing that we have created especially for this product. The Crown is topped with royal blue, purple and yellow edible flowers and has an edible crown hallmark made from fresh lamb fat which dissolves for extra flour and succulence during cooking. Serves 8. Lamb Racks approx. 2kg. Stuffing approx. 500g.
In fact there are lots of food with Royal connections. Traditional lore claims the Battenberg cake was created to mark the wedding of Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse, to Louis of Battenberg in 1884.
Among the many dishes named in honour of Queen Victoria, the monarch's notorious sweet tooth has led to a cake named after her - The Victoria Sponge
The origins of Crêpes Suzette can be traced back to 1895, when famed French chef Henri Charpentier (then only 16 years of age) was a preparing a meal for the Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria.
But it’s not just the British Royals who have food named after them – for instance: there is Steak Oscar, named after King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway. Oscar-style steak showcases the notorious decadence of the royal gourmand. Given the king's reputation for late-night dining, a chef combined an array of his favourite indulgences, including veal, crayfish, bearnaise sauce, and blanched white asparagus spears to create the luxurious dish. Modern versions of the dish are often served over steak rather than veal with lump crab or lobster meat instead of crayfish.
And the Brazilian dish, Coxinha are served in the shape of a chicken drumstick. The dish was created to appease a young Prince Antonio, son of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil. He loved to eat chicken drumsticks, but one day, the cook ran out. To please the little prince, the cook transformed a whole chicken into the shape of a drumstick made of dough and chicken pieces, creating the beloved snack. The prince approved of the snack and it became so famous that upon visiting, Empress Teresa Cristina sampled the dish and brought the recipe to the Imperial Court, where it then spread across the country.
CORONATION QUICHE
A delicous quiche with a crisp pastry case, and delicate flavours of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon. The pastry includes lard, but you can swap this for butter to make it vegetarian. Eat hot or cold with a green salad and boiled new potatoes - perfect for a Coronation Big Lunch