Writing a Menu.

One of the fun things about working as a Chef is getting to contribute to a Menu. Well you would like to think so anyway. In reality it can be tough coming up with a balance of tasty treats, that the staff in the kitchen are capable of making, that the people who pay the  kitchens bills don't have a heart attack when the suppliers bills arrive and something that can be produced quickly during service so as to prevent the customers after 7 minutes from not screaming at waiting on staff " We have been here ages where is our food ! "
The process of coming up with menu ideas in theory is quite simple.
The first step is to Rip off any good recipes that you have learned from various Chefs and Cooks on your travels. Most Chefs have a little black book which they carry with them and write down anything that tastes good that they have learned. I have about 6. although one of them is Red ! It contains the cake mixes that I learned from Sue the Head Cook at the Moorhouse farm. Red is quite a fiery colour so it probably was the right colour for me and Sue ! ha ha ! xx (sorry Ally !)

The second step is to trawl through my list of favourite recipes from my favourite cookery books. It might not be a complete dish that I borrow but it might be a nice sauce which I think will go well with another ingredient or a way a dish is presented. Also as discussed before their are hundreds of food and restaurant web sites to view and gain inspiration.

I don't stop their though. Last week you would find me hiding in bins outside various top North-east kitchens garbage areas where most Chefs smoke and discuss waitress and top cooking ideas !!! ( Probably learned more about waitresses there though ! Ha ha ! )

I had even planned a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible style break in coming in through the ceiling at Terry Leybourne's and Dave Kennedy's secret test kitchens in the hope of stealing their secret files. (Two great North-East Chefs for those of you south of the Wall ! )

Unfortunately I could not find a rope strong enough though for that mission but I did think about me mate Alan holding the back of me pants while I leaned downwards but the danger element put me off. He just needed to grab the back of me underpants by mistake and I could have ended up with the wedgie to end all wedgies !

When you come up with the menu sourcing the ingredients in this modern day and age means you can probably get anything you want from anywhere in the world but at The Dunstanburgh Castle hotel where I am working they have a very beautiful philosophy towards their suppliers. The Carbon foot print of the food is incredibly important. No long journeys from abroad are really aloud. As is the well fair of the animals the meat is sourced from. We were interviewing suppliers the other day and one in particular kept saying " Well we go to the Paris Market 3 times a week and the variety is so much better and you can get anything you want including Foie Gras...blah blah blah..!" and I was thinking shut it down mate your not going to get your business here talking about your booze cruise to France with a Goose under your arm !
Do not get me wrong most French markets and big Frenchie Supermarkets for that matter are a food lovers paradise and perhaps reflects the difference between the Johnny Englander's and the average French persons attitude to feeding themselves and their family.
So you have your menu, you have a list of ingredients and you have decided to source ethically. You now have to work out if the dish is going to show you a worth while profit.
You could source cheaper food products for your menu which will enable your GP to be a lot better and a lot of your customers will not be bothered about where the produce come from. They are more interested in the cost and size of their meal or how much booze they can consume while eating it.
I worked somewhere where the Fillet steak was from Brazil and was about £12 for the whole strip from the local Cash and Carry. The owner probably got about 6 portions out of the strip. It was on the menu for about £19.95 per steak. Throw in a few cooked frozen Chips, bit of tomato, a few mushrooms and a onion ring or two and you can imagine the GP was quite good. To be fair to the owner it was never promoted as Local Beef and I never seem to recollect any one asking where it came from or even complain about the taste of the meat and If they did the waiting staff would just fill their wine glass up a bit more to take their mind of the taste !

Ding ding round 1 ! 

Caring on where the produce you use comes from is a great thing, making sure your promoting your local area and helping sustain local business means you can say I am doing my bit but it can hit your profit margins.
We came up with a suitable good menu for the hotel (in my opinion) using what was seasonally available in February and keeping an eye on the Hotel's sourcing policies.
Now to start a service prep list and then a recipe list .........time for a un-ethically sourced beer first though ha ha !