Trinity BA Feast, Michaelmas 2011

Good old Harry has his Christmas pants trousers on this evening...

BA Feast - the highlight of the Trinity culinary term. Five courses, sparkling cocktails in the Master's Lodge, ample wine, £22. Really £22??? 

I've always been sceptical about the cost of BA Feast, given that a normal Trinity BA formal costs £8.25. Does the food quality and overall experience really justify a more than doubling in the price? At my first ever BA feast, I decided to find out for myself.

Trinity College engraved knives... I'd seen the TCK silver cutlery, but this was new to me.

Starting with a collection of prosecco-based cocktails in the Master's Lodge was not a bad start at all - bucks fizz, bellinis and kir royale all went down well (bar a rather major scheduling error, ahem).

Fennel veloute (amuse bouche)

Upon arriving in hall, first off the bat was the amuse bouche of fennel veloute, served in (my favourite) charming little blue and gold Trinity coffee cups. Whilst there were claims of "this just tastes like chicken" from some, the soup was a very warm welcome opener after braving the cold Cambridge winter weather outside. Quite mild, very light on the fennel to be honest, but definitely pleasant and almost reassuring.

Tuna carpaccio

The starter was a tuna carpaccio - startingly large, beautifully thin pink slices layered on the plate topped with a Trinity's standard leafy garnish thing. I don't think this is standard for carpaccio, but the tuna was lightly seared at the edges with a herb/salt/pepper crust which worked really well. I was expecting more lemon and oil marinade, but actually the fish on it's own was great quality and best enjoyed as is! A rarity for Cambridge...

Beef wellington ; Honeyed baby carrots, roast kumara, green beans

For main course was beef wellington, which I've actually never had before. The meat was tender enough, perhaps slightly too well done, although with differing degrees of cooked-ness, depending on which cut you got. Still pretty delicious, although from all reports, it was more tender last year and with a more significant layer of pâté.

Molten chocolate souffle with strawberries and whipped cream

Inspired by the Shok's doppleganger, I decided to put molten chocolate souffle on the menu for dessert! Nitpicking slightly, the centre could have been even more molten, but I think the kitchens did a great job here, especially having to make 110 of these in one sitting.

After a special request to the Catering department, we managed to get a pretty nice selection for the cheese course. Of special note was the Saint-Marcellin cheese which was very mild but had a beautifully creamy texture almost like goats cheese. General consensus was that the black cheese platters were most impressive!

And to finish, coffee and chocolate truffles - definitely beats the regular chocolate mints they provide at regular formals.

Wow. Whilst the regular BA formals strike me as better value for money, the feast was definitely worth the money we paid for it. One major contributing factor was the atmosphere of the dinner - with a significantly lower number of people (110 vs 190), it really felt far more comfortable and relaxed, with no rush or competition for food and wine.

Definitely a great night, and still a little tipsy whilst writing this!

Formal Feedback

As some of you might know, I've somehow got myself involved with catering for events run by the Trinity BA society (ie. graduate society). No, this doesn't mean I do any sort of large scale cooking for 200, nor does it mean I wash the 800 dishes every Friday night (phew!), but it does mean I get to write all the menus for our BA formal dinners.

Apologies in advance to our many non-Trinity and non-Cambridge student readers, although I hope it does give somewhat of an insight into the rather, um, special world that is Trinity college!

Sometimes, one type of sherry is just not enough...

I was always under the presumption that college kitchens had a set list of dishes they knew how to do, and as catering representative, you simply pick which ones you want for which day in what order. Oh was I wrong! To my surprise, I've been allowed to make up whatever names I like for dishes within reasonable limits of sanity (starting from previous years' menus as a guideline) and run it by the catering department who give feedback and such until a menu is agreed. Very cool, right?

So tonight was the first BA dinner of the long vacation term, and the very first based on menus that I had written. It's hard not to feel a significant amount of responsibility for the quality of the dishes, especially when the enjoyment of so many tastebuds and stomachs is at stake!

At first, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to document this on the blog, but I think this would be a really interesting forum to get feedback (both positive and negative!) about the dishes, any potential suggestions/improvements, and new dish ideas. I hope nobody in catering minds that I've done this.

I was overall happy with how this first dinner went.. here are my retrospective and inherently biased thoughts:

Beetroot and goats cheese salad with balsamic glaze

I had initially wanted the starter to be a 'stack' with alternate layers of cheese and beetroot, but the word 'stack' got cut from the final menu wording. Anyhow, I thought that extra effort went into the presentation and this was really great to see. I'm also a sucker for any type of balsamic reduction. On the down side, the slice of cheese was disproportionately large - thicker pieces of beetroot and less cheese would have improved the balance.

This was compounded by an error of judgement in my menu planning... I had forgotten that this week was 'cheese week' (post-dessert cheese + port which occurs every second dinner), and the dinner ended up with a slight cheese overload.

Seared tuna steak with wasabi aioli ; Soy, sesame and citrus salad ; Saute potatoes

I was a little apprehensive about this main - firstly I wasn't sure if the kitchen setup was able to do 'seared', given the logistics of serving hot food to large groups. Secondly, I wasn't sure what kind of take the kitchens would do on an asian twist.

I'm happy to say that the tuna was done right, not overcooked at all, and if I were to be finicky, perhaps slightly undercooked on the sides. The salad was a surprise too - definitely not what I had imagined when I wrote those words, but the sauce actually tasted pretty good.

If I were to be superfinicky, then I would say the tuna was a little sinewy, but I've probably just been spoilt by too much sushi grade tuna with beautiful texture. Ootoro. *sigh*

Lavender-infused creme brulee

Desserts (aka 'pudding' as they say in the UK, don't know why!) at Trinity are generally really good. I have to say this time I was slightly disappointed, even if 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Basically the flavour was fine, burnt sugar is always yum, but the texture was incredibly dense and far more solid than I'd expect for a creme brulee. Clearly they did something different from the famed Trinity Burnt Cream, where the texture is much better!

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Now the important bit. For anyone that went to the dinner, what did you guys think? What was good, and what needed improving?

And even if you weren't there or have nothing to do with Cambridge, any suggestions for good formal catering menu ideas? Especially vegetarian main meals - I'm really bad at this!!! I might steal ideas off Yotam Ottolenghi's stuff in the Guardian...

Trinity BA Society Garden Party

Fellows' Bowling Green, Trinity College, Cambridge

Twenty-nine degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Perfect summer weather for a garden party!

Trinity College, and well Cambridge in general, is a completely unrealistic place. Our beds are made for us daily, we wear academic gowns to dinner every week by choice, 15 minutes walk is a terribly long distance, and a nice day out involves champagne and strawberries whilst punting along the river. It's a ridiculously decadent lifestyle, totally unsustainable, and yet you so easily get sucked into it's charms... I guess being a beneficiary of it all, it's hard to complain!

An assortment of cakes, cupcakes and macaroons from Tom's Cakes

The recent BA garden party is a prime example of this completely surreal lifestyle. A year ago, I would have never pictured myself sitting in a place like this, drinking Pimms and bubbly whilst enjoying a few cakes and nibbles!

A very small portion of the cheese on offer - two types of goats cheese, aged cheddar and Cambridge blue

For those who aren't familiar with the BA society, it's the graduate society at Trinity College. Run by students, they organise a bunch of social events and formals, orientation events and generally look after the welfare of graduate students.

The humongous brie. AMAZING. From the Cambridge cheese company.

Anyway, onto the food! This is a food blog after all... we had a wonderful assortment of cakes from Tom's Cakes (they have a stall in the market square on Sundays), a range of cheeses from the Cambridge cheese company including a massive massive brie, a few savoury nibbles from catering: smoked salmon and parma ham squares, asparagus rolls and cheese straws.

Everybody likes pink.

And of course, lots of drink! Sparkling white and rose, Pimms, G&T, as well as orange and apple juice, and elderflower cordial.

A stupendous amount of ice cream and strawberries.

And it wouldn't be a garden party without a trolley full of strawberries and ice cream: brown bread, pistachio and mango!

Top it off with a classy four-piece band and there you have it: a classic Cambridge experience. Totally unrealistic, yet you wouldn't want it any other way.