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Floral Recipes by Tom Aikens

Recipes
|
18 May 2014
|
2 min read
An ode to this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Tom Aikens and Alain Ducasse are launching some exclusive flower-inspired dishes for you to celebrate with at home. We give you two from Tom to get you started…
Courgette Risotto

Serves 4

Ingredients

Risotto

400g risotto rice

1 litre vegetable stock

100ml olive oil

6g salt

8 turns of black pepper

1 bay leaf

3 medium shallots, peeled and finely diced

6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

350ml white wine

100ml pistachio oil

1 tbsp chopped pistachio

Courgette puree

4 courgettes

2 inside of cougettes chopped finely

1 clove garlic chopped finely

25g butter

50ml olive oil

6g thyme

2g salt

75ml vegetable stock

7 turns of milled pepper

Courgette Dice

2 courgettes

To serve

2 courgette flowers, trimmed and opened

10g creme fraiche

5g grated parmesan

8 basil leaves, ripped

8 basil leaves for garnish

Fresh parmesan

25g courgette dice

Pistachio oil

16 chopped pistachio

A dash lemon juice

Method

Risotto

Heat a large sauté pan on a low to medium heat, add the olive oil and sweat off the shallots, garlic, salt, pepper and bay in the olive oil, cook for 3-4 minutes till just tender.
Add the rice and chopped pistachio, cook for 3-4 minutes stirring all the time so they soak up the excess oil. Add the white wine and cook till absorbed which will take a minute or so.
Slowly add the vegetable stock to the rice, it will take around 16-18 minutes to cook. In the meantime make the puree.

Courgette puree

Cut just the outside of the courgette so you are taking off a thickness of approximately 0.5cm, so the courgette will look square, then chop the outside finely, and then the white part too.
Heat up a pan on a low medium heat add the olive oil then the butter, once it has just melted with no colour, add the courgette, seasonings, thyme and garlic, cover with a lid and cook for 6-8 minutes till semi-soft.
Then add the vegetable stock and place into a kitchen blender and puree till very fine, then pass this through a fine sieve and cool.

Courgette dice

Cut just the outside of the courgette taking off a thickness of approximately 0.4mm, so the courgette will look square. Then cut the courgette into a neat dice so that it’s nice and square.
Blanch this in boiling salted water for 1-2 minutes so they remain a little crisp, then refresh in iced water to cool.

To serve

Finish the risotto once cooked with the parmesan, crème fraiche and oil, adding the lemon juice to sharpen the flavour and then finally add the basil.
Sauté the courgette dice in a little olive oil and seasoning and sear the courgette stalk in a pan with a little olive oil and seasoning.
Sprinkle over the courgette dice, and then the other ½ courgette flower and the basil leaves, chopped pistachio and finally the oil.

Tom’s Kitchen Garden Cocktail

Ingredients

50ml Gin

25ml Hibiscus Syrup

25ml Lemon Juice

Dash of Monin Violet Syrup

Method

Shake first 3 ingredients. Strain over crushed ice in a highball glass.Add a dash of violet syrup to finish. Decorate with chosen garnish.

Check out for more information about the master chef.

Images ©David Griffen

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