Masterchef UK Professionals
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Pigeon Pithivier with Chicken Butter Sauce
Pigeon Pithivier with Succotash and Chicken Butter Sauce
Mark dedicates his dish to his late uncle Dermot: "Today I'm cooking for my uncle Dermot, who passed away quite some years ago, and he was the person that really got me into cooking. He was a chef, and he was this larger than life character. Without him, I don't know if I would be a chef. I don't know if I'd be the person I am today. One of his favourite things to cook when he was at home is he used to make, like, big pies. I thought there's no better expression of that than the pithivier." {Judge}: "Mark's making a pigeon pithivier. He's going to sandwich that pigeon with a chicken mousse, which is made with the eggs and a touch of cream, and then he's going to surround that in the puff pastry. Mark can't afford for the pigeon breast to be overcooked." Mark continues: "I used to visit my uncle Dermot when he was in New York when I was younger, and that would be where the first time I ever tried barbecue, the first time I ever tried an American street hot dog. And that's definitely where my love of that culture and cuisine has come from." {Judge}: "Mark's doing his take on succotash, a very sort of American dish of corn. He's putting broad beans. He's got bacon in there. He's running out to the barbecue, so he's going to toast some of that and get nice kind of smoky barbecue flavours. That could be delicious. Very excited about that." {Judge}: "The one thing I really want from Mark is his precision with his plating." Mark: "Today, it will be about making sure that the final plate is sharp, clean, executed perfectly." The completed dish: pigeon and chicken mousse in puff pastry pithivier with Swiss chard, barbecue girolles, sweet corn, broad bean and bacon succotash, served with a girolle and sherry vinegar purée and a chicken butter sauce.
{Judge}: "Finally, this is refined food at its very best from you. The pigeon, beautifully cooked. The mousse is delicious. The pastry, beautifully done. Then you've got this little magic of corn and broad beans and girolles. It's smoky and it's crunchy and it's flavoursome." {Judge}: "There's no doubt about it. The pithivier is beautifully put together, and the succotash tastes delicious. For me personally, I think it's too much vinegar going on in the sherry purée, but overall, very good." {Judge}: "The chicken butter sauce is fabulous. It's just bringing everything together. No better time than now to start refining where you're at. You are taking on the feedback, and it's starting to really shine through in your cooking." {Judge}: "This is a nod to Uncle Dermot, I have to say. If he was here now, I think he'd be very proud of you." Mark reflects: "I definitely felt like this dish was a big step up in a lot of ways for my technique and for my skill and the refinement that the judges have been asking for." In deliberation: {Judge}: "The pithivier was wonderful. Beautifully executed. The smoky flavour of the succotash was delicious. A little bit too much vinegar for me in the girolle purée, but we saw refinement, and that's what we've been waiting for."
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