Young National Chef of the Year 2018, Danny Young on his recent visit to the Norwegian Embassy

Young National Chef of the Year 2018 winner, Danny Young on his experience cooking Skrei cod at the Norwegian Embassy.

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In his latest blog, Danny talks about his experience preparing and cooking for 30 guests including the likes of Michel Roux Jnr and Brian Turner at the Norwegian embassy.

Following on from my last blog, I mentioned the lunch that I prepared and delivered at the Norwegian Embassy for 30 distinguished guests from the hospitality industry in February.

The menu was created and designed around skrei, the Norwegian cod, but at the same time, it expressed my personal cooking style and flavours. For the starter, I chose to use skrei belly, as the main course obviously uses the premium cut of the fish and as the cod is a large fish, there is plenty of meat on the belly. As this lunch came about due to me winning the NYCOTY competition, I thought it would be good to tie in some flavours and techniques from my winning dishes, so the starter incorporated some of those.

For the main course (Scorched skrei cod loin, brassicas, shellfish butter), I used the loin of the skrei, which was slow cooked and scorched to finish. As this is a very flaky type of fish, I find that slow-cooking it shows off how great a product it is.

To complement the fish, I made a shellfish butter using an array of products, including mussels, cockles and clams. I garnished the dish with cauliflower done three ways: puree, sous vide and roasted.

The flavours on my dessert (a Yorkshire rhubarb and vanilla cream) were very classic, and I really wanted to showcase British rhubarb as it was bang in season at the time. It was a take on a rhubarb trifle, with a vanilla pannacotta, poached rhubarb, a rhubarb jelly and a rhubarb crisp to garnish, served with a ginger granita and shortbread crumb to add texture

On the day of the lunch, I was assisted by one of my colleagues from Northcote and Simon Hulstone from The Elephant Restaurant in Torquay. It was a very exciting day but with a bit of pressure too, as cooking out of the comfort zone can be challenging, especially when not operating from an industrial style kitchen like I’m used to at work.

Also, knowing who the guests where that I was cooking for, such as Michel Roux Jnr, Brian Turner, Russell Bateman and directors from some of the top seafood suppliers in the UK, added a bit of extra pressure as I wanted to impress.

The day went very smoothly: all guests enjoyed it and were very complimentary of my menu which is always a good sign! I’d like to express my thanks to the Norwegian Seafood Council for their support throughout the trip to Norway and the organisation of the lunch at the Embassy.

Catch me in my next blog to hear about my involvement in the development of Lisa’s new menu and some other exciting projects we have going on at Northcote.

About Danny Young:

Danny is Young National Chef of the Year 2018 having won the competition at the Restaurant Show at Olympia London in October. Danny is currently sous chef at Northcote in Lancashire. His first experience in fine dining came after he left school when he secured a job working in a Michelin starred kitchen. Danny has come in second place in the Young National Chef of the Year competition for the last two years and was North West Young Chef of the Year in 2014.

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