Ready to pull-out-the-stops for your New Year's Eve bash? Big occasions call for wow-factor feasting - we bring you the Grazing Guys' expert tips!
The Grazing Guys are a dynamic Yorkshire duo who will help you to create the foodie wow factor.
Specialising in bespoke grazing tables and fabulous feasts, Huw and Josh make entertaining effortless. At the beginning of lockdown, the duo decided to combine their extensive experience in hospitality and events to launch The Grazing Guys business.
An experienced pastry chef, Huw learnt his craft in some of Australia’s most prestigious hotels and restaurants. He’s even cooked for the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Combine this with Josh’s experience running exclusive private parties, corporate events and weddings, and you know you’re going to be in for the royal treatment.
Using seasonal, local and fresh produce is of paramount importance to the duo - ‘Obviously we make all the desserts, but anything we don’t make we will bring in the best companies to ensure the same high standard throughout’ Huw tells us. ‘We support local businesses, artisans, farmers and growers’ adds Josh. ‘We aim to make our business as sustainable as we possibly can.’
Passionate about sharing their knowledge with others, The Grazing Guys have designed this Festive Grazing Feast with a step-by-step guide for you to recreate at home this party season.
Christmas Grazing Feast (12 people)
To start with: think about what you have and use the opportunity to be creative. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, having a nice selection of boards, platters, bowls, baskets etc is great but you can always just greaseproof your work surface and go from there.
Try and shop local by supporting your local cheese shop, deli, and markets. For anything you can’t source there your local supermarket will still do the job. As a rule of thumb, aim for around 100g of meat and 100g of cheese per person.
When choosing your ingredients think about different colours and textures that will bring your display to life and don’t group too many neutral or beige colours together.
Start with your cheeses - choices of soft, hard and crumbly cheeses should please everyone! Here we chose a selection of British cheeses and festive favourites including -
Baron Bigod - English Brie
Wensleydale & Cranberry - a festive favourite
Cornish Yarg
Yorkshire Blue
Wookey Hole Cave Aged Cheddar
Any smaller cheese leave whole, but cut the rest into wedges or cubes and place them in their own section on the board away from each other to help create focal points.
Include a good selection of dips and chutneys – try and keep it seasonal – using mulled cranberry will help keep it festive. We also used sun-dried tomato and chilli chutney, beetroot hummus and harissa hummus. Dot the chutneys and dips around the board.
Working around the cheeses and chutney ramekins use fruits, breads and crackers to work from the outside in. Start with the corners and edges and work your way towards the centre. If mixing sweet and savoury, like here, try and keep any sweet options towards one side.
Before adding any space fillers continue adding your bulkier items such as festive sausage rolls and runny scotch eggs.
The next stage would be to add your crudities. This is a real opportunity to add lots of colours to really make it pop! Layer these up to give some extra depth.
We recommend leaving the cured meats as late as possible so that these aren’t out of the fridge for too long. Rather than just laying the slices flat, fan them out and try some different folds to give it extra depth.
Your board should be filling up nicely at this stage so move on to the gap fillers. Seasonal berries and nuts, fruits and herbs work perfectly, but make sure to fill in every gap possible.
If you really want to go all out, garnish with edible flowers or dehydrate your own oranges and finish with festive foliage such as holly, pinecones and even some edible gold dust.
Pork, Apricot and Cranberry Sausage Roll
There’s nothing wrong with cheating every now and then, to make life easier this recipe includes buying ready to roll puff pastry sheets
500g sausage meat
3 tablespoons cranberry sauce
100g chopped dried apricots
375g ready rolled puff pastry
1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme
125g breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
Large pinch black pepper
2 egg yolk
Poppy seeds
Maldon sea salt
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c
2. Greaseproof your baking tray
3. Mix the sausage meat, cranberry sauce, apricots, thyme, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Mix well so that all the Ingredients are distributed evenly.
4. Line out the pastry and cut equally length ways with a sharp knife.
5. Evenly distribute your sausage meat mix down the centre of both pastry sheets length ways.
6. Fold over the pastry to create one large sausage roll and seal the edges with your fingers
7. Cut each long sausage roll into individual sausage rolls, make sure they’re not too small otherwise the filling will spill out when cooking. You should be aiming for around 16 individual pieces.
8. Beat the egg yolks and brush the top of the individual rolls, season with maldon sea salt and sprinkle with poppy seeds before cooking
9. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes until golden
Tips:
- only take the pastry out of the fridge a few minutes before you’re ready to use it
- do not open the oven whilst cooking
- leave plenty of space between the sausage rolls on your baking tray whilst cooking
For more information visit thegrazingguys.co.uk, email grazingguys@gmail.com or call 07341 857277
