The Devonshire Arms Duchess’s Choice Dining Gourmet Recipe Box is exactly what you need to make your weekend special!
What is the one thing you have missed the most about not being able to go out? For us it is definitely not being able to eat out and in particular not being able to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries by visiting our favourite restaurants. This is Fine Dining at home!
Having a special meal at home is a poor substitute when there’s shopping, preparation, cooking and washing up involved! So you can probably guess how keen we were to try the Duchess’s Dining Gourmet Box from The Devonshire Arms.
We literally snapped their hands off when the offer came in and our excitement grew over the week, the closer it got to delivery day (Friday), the giddier we became. After all The Devonshire Arms at Bolton Abbey is one of our favourite ‘go to’ places for a fine dining celebration. Could we really recreate their beautiful food at home?
Friday came, the box arrived and like children at Christmas we dived straight in to see what was inside! This was a very organised box of ingredients with a separate box for each course and a selection of recipe cards, each with a photograph of how each course should look on the plate.
Now can we just talk about the fact that much of the packaging is reusable or biodegradable; there has been careful thought and consideration at every point in putting this gourmet box together.
Created by Ross Forder, Head Chef of the Brasserie Restaurant at The Devonshire Arms, this recipe box promises flavours of the season, allowing you to enjoy a taste of AA rosette dining from the comfort of your own home. Well let’s hope so!
This is fine dining at home
We had decided to enjoy the meal on Saturday when we would have time to really appreciate (and photograph) the food and the process, from start to finish. Saturday arrived and we took everything from the fridge in preparation. Yes, that nasty word – preparation! Well, for our starter of House Cured Salmon, Heritage Potato Salad, Pickled Red Onion and Citrus Dressing, our preparation consisted of getting plates out of the cupboard, removing all packaging and dressing the food onto each plate to match the photo and Voilà! It was ready in a matter of minutes.
Now if I do say so myself, this starter looked pretty damn good! It couldn’t have been easier – now for the taste test. Oh my goodness – the salmon literally melted in the mouth and the combination of flavours left us wanting more. We were off to the perfect start, now to tackle that main course.
Roasted Salt Aged Sirloin of Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Duck Fat Roast Potatoes, Seasonal Vegetables, Cauliflower Cheese and Red Wine Jus. Are you drooling yet? The oven had been preheated to 180deg and a large pan of water was on a rolling boil. The Yorkshire Pudding tins were in the oven (with a spoonful of beef dripping in each as instructed). Once the oven was up to temperature, we shook the bag of Yorkshire Pudding mixture and poured the batter into the tins. They were placed into the oven for 20 minutes along with a baking tray containing the Sirloin, the dish of Cauliflower Cheese and the Roast Potatoes.
If you like your beef quite rare then take it out after 15 minutes as we did, otherwise an extra 5 minutes will give you medium or an extra 10 minutes for well done.
On removing the sirloin from the oven to rest, the bags of vegetables and gravy went into the large pan of boiling water for 5 minutes. Everything was then ready to plate. This was so ridiculously easy I decided to simply spectate with my glass of wine and let my husband do the work!
It is no exaggeration when I say that the food was so good that if we closed our eyes, we could easily imagine that we really were dining at The Devonshire Arms. The beef was again ‘melt in the mouth’ tender and the flavour brought out “Ummmms” from us both in unison. The roast potatoes were crisp and fluffy, the cauliflower cheese was brown and crispy on the top with a beautiful rich cheese sauce and the vegetables were cooked to perfection and that jus!
It’s fair to say that we were nervous about the Yorkshire Puddings, but these were possibly the best we have ever had. What was in that recipe and how on earth were they so perfect from just shaking the bag?! I won’t rest until I know!
At this point we needed a rest. The main course was a very generous portion and we think that with some extra vegetables, this would easily feed 4 people. It did make 4 Yorkshire Puddings, two of which we saved for the following day.
About an hour later we were ready for dessert, Dark Chocolate Fondant with Toffee Sauce and Candied Pecans. The fondant in their moulds took a mere eight minutes in the oven, the Toffee Sauce had been heated in a pan and the pecans were ready to scatter on the side.
Picture perfect, totally delicious and the best meal we have ever eaten at home.
This was so easy that once lockdown restrictions are lifted and we have friends over, this will be the way we do dinner parties from now on! No stress, no preparation, hardly any washing up and fine dining quality food with very little effort!
In the meantime, we have decided to order a Duchess Choice Dining box at least once a month as a treat, who said we couldn’t do date night at home! Did we mention they do have a Vegan box too?
Check out the Duchess’s Choice Dining Gourmet Recipe Box at www.devonshirehotels.co.uk/duchess-dining
You can thank us later!
