Recipe of the week: Kid goat, crown prince squash and blackberry

By Harriet Mansell at Robin Wylde.

Serves 3

• Kid goat fillet
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1tbs table salt
• 200ml cold-pressed rapeseed oil, approximately
• 2 leeks
• A quarter of a crown prince squash
• 200ml glace viande (beef and/or goat bones) stock
• 100ml dark chicken stock glace
• 200ml blackberry shrub
• 500ml oil, for frying
• Green leaves to finish, eg, watercress, spinach or perhaps kale, or what you can find. We like to use miner’s lettuce, a succulent seasonal variety from our local farm
• Sea salt flakes
• NB: A blackberry shrub is made from equal parts fruit to vinegar to sugar and left to sit in the fridge to develop, ideally for a minimum of a week. In the restaurant we leave for 2-3 weeks.

Trim the goat fillet if necessary. Make the marinade for the goat by pulling the rosemary leaves off the stem, peeling the garlic and blitzing together with a tablespoon of salt and the rapeseed oil.

Coat the goat fillet and cover and leave in the refrigerator. If you can’t get the fillet and can only get the loin, then we recommend vac-packing and later on cooking sous vide, first for one hour at 40ºC prior to finishing in the pan, as this tenderises the meat further.

Finely julienne the leek into thin strips. Place in the dehydrator for a few hours so that most or all of the moisture has been removed. If you don’t have a dehydrator, place in a warm dry place, eg, over a radiator, or if your oven goes below 50ºC, place it in the oven to dry out a little.

Make the purée by dicing the squash and cooking in water under parchment or a cartouche until soft. Drain, steam until much of the water has evaporated. Blitz in a high-powered blender – we use a Thermomix to get a very smooth consistency – and season with salt.

Place the stocks and blackberry shrub in a saucepan and reduce until syrupy in consistency. The balance of acidity is important here, and will be affected by the age of the shrub, and therefore seasoning the sauce will depend on the balance of salt and acidity. If the sauce seems too vinegary, add a touch more stock and salt.

Adjust the balance, and reduce down further if necessary until you are happy with it. Ultimately the sauce needs to have a hit of acidity while having depth and the right amount of seasoning at the same time and a good viscosity. Taste the purée alongside the sauce to make sure there is a nice contrast between the two – this contrast is important.

Heat the frying oil to 180ºC. Fry the leeks until they have a golden colour – this won’t take long, so be ready to fish them almost immediately with a slotted or spider spoon. Set aside on kitchen paper, season with sea salt flakes and let dry.

With everything warm and set aside, make sure to warm your plates. Place a thick-bottomed non-stick frying pan on to heat to a high temperature. When it is starting to get piping hot, add a small splash of rapeseed oil, and press the goat fillet down into the centre of the pan. Keeping it fixed in place, add a spot of butter to the pan to help the caramelisation. Hold down for 20 seconds and turn on all sides. Then keep adding bits of butter and keep turning until a nice crust has formed. The total cook time is around one-and-a-half to two minutes maximum, depending on the size of the fillet. It won’t take long. Remove from the pan and let rest on a board.

Assemble the dish. Using a spoon, place the squash purée on one side of the plate, and spoon the sauce onto the other side.

Slice the goat, add to the dish. Top with the leeks and add the leaves.

Taken from Recipes for Heroes, available for a £10 donation at www.hospitalityforheroes.com. Read the review here