Emma Crowhurst: A Breakthrough supper

Emma Crowhurst Chef, writer, cookery teacher and food lover

As part of the Aldeburgh Festival Fringe various events have been happening around the county.

One such event took place at the Froize Inn in the village of Chillisford, recently - a charity supper in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, hosted by chef/patron David Grimwood.

The Froize Inn was decorated with pink throughout and organisers from Breakthrough had prepared a raffle and auction with fabulous prizes and kind donations.

David’s own daughter in law Emily lost her six year battle with breast cancer in January 2012. They have made a garden in her memory, Emily’s Orchard, where folk can come to sit and think or remember a loved one.

The theme of the evening was ‘The Froize Goes Pink’ and supper was cooked by four women chefs - myself, Joanna Brennan of Pump Street Bakery, Madalene Bonvini-Hamel of the British Larder and Kate Kilburn from Orford Primary School.

Much of the preparation had been done by David and Louise of the Froize, including a delicious puree of Invincible pumpkin grown by David’s own fair hand, as well as the terrine we were to serve as the starter, and numerous other mouth-watering concoctions.

An amuse bouche of beetroot soup with a beignet of goat’s cheese was served in a tiny coffee cup. The soup was such a beautiful colour and a luxurious smooth consistency and the beignets crisp, golden and delicate.

Whilst Madalene and Joanna served the soup, we readied the kitchen for the service of the starter. We sliced the terrine and decorated the plate with raspberries, Valentine Warner’s recipe for zingy pickled pink onion, and gorgeous baby leaves. It was pretty as a picture and utterly delicious. Plates came back empty of course and we geared up for the mains.

Kate and I were ‘in charge’ of this and I had prepared the fish earlier. Now it was ready to cook and we reheated the puree, some roasted squash and some stunning, brightly coloured chard. It was all assembled with roasted pumpkin seeds and drizzled with Artisan Smokehouse’s maple smoked extra virgin rapeseed oil. It was described by one of the guests as a perfectly balanced plate. I tasted it and had to agree.

The pudding was a British Larder special which Madalene had made with a blackcurrant puree from David’s own blackcurrants. The blackcurrant bavavois, served in glasses, was decorated with tiny parma violet flavoured meringues and poached currants. A bavarois is a set kind of custard/mousse which can be flavoured with almost anything, fruit puree, coffee, chocolate or even avocado if you fancy it!

It looked beautiful, such a great colour and texture with a flavour of rich zingy berries. Joanna had brought fresh truffle chocolates (each decorated with a dried rose petal) from the Pump Street Bakery’s own new chocolate room.

After the dinner, all the guests were invited to bid on some fabulous prizes and then the raffle was drawn. A huge amount of money was raised for Breakthrough, over £4,000.

It was a privilege to be involved in such an evening and David promises that next year will be bigger and better, so look out for it as part of the Aldeburgh Food Festival fringe events.

If you’d like to donate or fundraise for Breakthrough contact www.suffolkbreakthroughevents.co.uk/

• Emma runs regular cookery courses at Helmingham Hall and The Cookhouse at Suffolk Food Hall. To find out more visit www.helmingham.com and www.emmacrowhurst.co.uk