Rob Clark Teaches: Coast & Country
Rob Clark’s Coast and Country Cooking Course shows you how to take prime, local, seasonal ingredients and turn them into utterly delicious dishes. The course covers various skills, including how to plate food beautifully, shellfish preparation, the art of successful soufflé making and how to create fine dining desserts. Rob has worked in Michelin Star restaurants, so you don’t have to. So sharpen your knives, turn on your oven and get cooking.
My Chef Story
Meet Rob Clark, chef-patron of Clark’s Restaurant in North Yorkshire. Before opening his restaurant, Rob worked as a chef in many Michelin-starred restaurants and taught catering at Scarborough Catering College, becoming Head of Catering there. A big believer in seasonality, Rob works closely with local producers and foragers and enjoys showcasing prime ingredients in his luxurious, French-inspired cooking.
Lesson One: Lobster Mac & Cheese
As indulgent as it sounds, Rob Clark shows you how to prepare lobster and use it to create a very special lobster mac and cheese. This really is a show-stopping dish that is at once luxurious and comforting. The recipe is a clever mixture of fine dining and everyday ingredients, brought together to create a sumptuous dish that will be perfect for impressing your dinner party guests.
Lesson Two: Chinese Five Spice Oysters
Oysters are luxurious shellfish that we often enjoy eating out rather than at home. Learn from Rob how to select and open oysters yourself, a valuable skill for any seafood lover. Rob looks to the East for culinary inspiration, serving oysters with Chinese five spice and pickled ginger for a stylish and intriguingly different amuse-bouche.
Lesson Three: Butternut Squash & Pearl Barley Risotto
A good risotto is a joy. In this episode, Rob shows you how to make a butternut squash and pearl barley risotto, served with a pumpkin crumb, wild garlic and a delicious Austrian pumpkin seed oil. This cleverly conceived, carefully constructed exquisite vegetarian dish combines various techniques and concepts to form a multi-layered spectrum of textures and tastes.
Lesson Four: Chocolate Delice
A Chocolate Delice is truly a treat. Rob takes you through the techniques and skills required to execute this fine dining dessert for this episode. With its mousse-like texture and intense flavours, this is a technically accomplished creation that Rob will guide you through step by step. After this lesson, you will feel like you have taken your dessert-making skills to a whole new level.
Lesson Five: Venison Sausage Roll
Who doesn’t love a good sausage roll?! Rob shows you how to make his distinctly posh version in this episode, filled with a tasty mixture of minced venison and pork, flavoured with apricots and raisins and baked in puff pastry. As a finishing touch, it is served with a luxurious truffle mayonnaise.
Lesson Six: Fish & Chips
This lesson takes you behind the scenes into Clark’s Restaurant to discover the secrets of Rob’s inventive and delicious fish and chips. This refinement of a British classic features butter roasted cod, parsley emulsion, curried tempura, fried samphire, tartare sauce and triple cooked chips in seaweed seasoning. Learn the skills and techniques to allow you to make this elevated version of a much-loved dish.
Lesson Seven: Double Baked Cheese Soufflé
Are you scared of attempting to make a soufflé? In this episode, Rob will guide you every step of the way and show you the techniques and processes required to conquer a classic of French cuisine. This savoury soufflé is an excellent recipe for dinner party entertaining, as you can prepare and bake it once in advance, then bake it for a second time before serving.
Lesson Eight: Local Honey Upside-Down Cheesecake with a Banana Ice Cream
Learn how to make a refreshing dessert that captures the taste of summer. In this episode, Rob shows you how to make a stylish, deconstructed cheesecake and a homemade banana ice cream. Once you’ve mastered the techniques involved, you can get creative and experiment with different flavour combinations to make your own version.
Lesson Nine: Slow Ale Braised Ox Cheek, Brown Butter Mash, Braising Roots & Blue Cheese Fritter
Ox cheek is an excellent alternative to braising steak that lends itself to long, gentle cooking. Rob shows you how to use this underused, classic cut in a comforting, restaurant-quality dish that works perfectly as a winter warmer. Once you’ve tried his recipe, you will surely be a convert and start regularly cooking this thrifty cut of meat.
