Great British Takeaway Menu

Now, even though there’s light at the end of the tunnel for many, clearly, we are still living in strange times and will be for a while. Getting hold of your favourite food goods, whether it be a Double Whopper or a 21 course Tasting Menu, has been out of bounds for a long time. Right now, I’d take your right arm off for a Whopper, let alone that Tasting Menu.

Kitchens throughout Manchester and far beyond have been doing their utmost to stay busy and keep the tills ringing as best possible, until they are one day allowed to open the doors to people adorned in face masks, sitting 2m apart, after signing a disclaimer and being temperature checked. Just like a roasting chicken.

The offerings have ranged from proper cook at home kits from good level chefs, to ropey ready cooked meals from general places. But generally, they’ve been doing well whilst people clamber for substitutions to their long lost food-stuff friendships.

Personally, we’ve just been cooking a lot at home, rather than throwing out quick and simple dinners driven by busyness and eating out too much. Granted; dishing up has been done with a bit more care than usual, and even being incredibly sad and snapping our at-home-dinners, served on our restaurant-esque crockery most nights, just to fill the void created by not being able to do this writing lark properly.

One of the funniest things during lockdown has been seeing other pro-food writers’ cooking efforts on social media. But I won’t name and shame, because as appealing as it is during a time when any source of humour is welcomed, it would be incredibly unprofessional. But we think that if you’re going to write about food professionally and call yourself a critic, then you should be able to do it to a decent level yourself and probably also have some experience in the game. But each to their own, I guess.

Anyway, it was music to our ears when Manchester’s top chef, Adam Reid (of The French), decided to release his own DIY, at-home-cooking kit, containing dishes from his latest TV successes. We were given the heads up ahead of release by his Business Manager (thank you!), so bagged one as soon as they went on sale, and pointed three other mates towards one. Only two of them got lucky as the whole lot sold out in a flash, after a wave of server latency and time-outs.

So, the following Friday, our box arrived via a slightly grumpy courier who was gassing after scaling our hill with a 6kg box of goods, which was theatrically presented via a few golden "A.R." logos. Your stash comes in an insulated box stuffed with ice packs, so all the top quality produce was maintained to perfection. Into our garage fridge it went until that evening.

So, the whole shebang comes with clear instructions written by the man himself, with all the prep done for you, so you don’t need to worry about feeling overwhelmed, regardless of your skill levels behind the stove.

This being his latest "Great British Menu" winning menu, Tater ‘Ash started us off. As our best dish in Manchester for two years now, we knew what to expect of this, as we’ve eaten it 28 times. A really simple dish to finish off too after Chef Adam does all the hard chopping work for you, ahead of packing.

It’s also good to see Pollen bread still being used to keep things true to form, and that ridiculous beef butter needs no introduction.

Almond Poached Cod is a dish that we love in the restaurant, and it’s probably the most technically challenging of the four included in this DIY kit. Almond milk poached cod, battered/fried cod, buttered leeks, and caviar sauce; so four pans on the go during a total of 6 or 7 minutes of cooking. Tip; take your time and get all the pans and serving plates lined up, to make it easy.

Even without the main man cooking it, this is a huge winner of a dish. And the battered topping is 100% better than the old polenta version too.

That "Great British Menu" Banquet Chicken dish of Roasted Chicken and Stew - the winning GBM main course - was next. A whole crown, pre herb-stuffed ready to be roasted, with separate bags of shredded chicken thigh, corn, leeks, barley, turnip and chicken skin. Just mix them all up, heat gently and serve with the now roasted crown.

Sadly, the truffle element from the restaurant was missed out of the box, but I can see why, as it’s super expensive. We felt like gangsters by adding some random truffle in, and microplaned that over the top to finish it properly, along with the new creamy gravy and a few dots of the chive & truffle oil from a squeezy bottle, for that modern cream/green sauce look.

So, we hit the pudding/Treacle Tart course, at which point I anticipated my other half, who also runs things at our little bakery, to eagerly stand up and keenly take the pastry section whilst I removed my retro 2014 French pinny. No such luck. I was told "nobody ever makes me dessert at home." That will be me then.

So, into the oven the pre-mixed batters went for 13 minutes whilst I had another glass of vino. But yeah, another simple prep, with minimal finishing needed. Just a rocher of clotted cream to form, and some frozen butter to microplane over the top. Even with my slack pastry skills, I couldn’t mess this one up.

I took the liberty of dusting the spiced biscuit with sugar, because it’s done like that in the restaurant, but it wasn’t needed really.

So as you’d expect, Adam Reid’s at home experience is a winner. Sure, there’s more work involved than some of the expensive fully precooked nonsense that’s flying around Manchester at the moment. Take your time, give yourself breaks between courses, keep the wine topped up, rope your other half in to help if need be, and you’ll smash it. Oh and make sure to get your Sous Chef to do the washing up!

Adam Reid’s "Great British Menu" is available to purchase online every Friday for the price of £90 for 2 people. It’s a lot for a DIY cooking kit sure, but factor in the top quality ingedients, tons of packaging, courier costs, etc. and, at £45 a head, it’s actually super reasonable. Get your's here, but be quick as they tend to fly out.

After we’d ordered, they also started doing a Gusbourne wine pairing too, so why not double treat yourself, in between now and being able to dine with Manchester’s best Chef again in the coming months.

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