New menu at Queens Hotel, Southsea

The News, Portsmouth

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.

Transcript

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]

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