Great British Menu

Wales: Starter and Fish Courses (14x19)

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This week it is the Welsh heats. Competing for a place at the regional final on Friday are two chefs new to the competition and one returning for a second helping. Tom ‘Westy’ Westerland is a former National Chef of Wales and head chef of the Brasserie at Lucknam Park in Wiltshire. Cindy Challoner is the former head chef at prestigious teaching restaurant The Classroom in Cardiff. They are facing Andy Sheriden, formerly of Sosban restaurant in Llanelli, returning to the competition for his second attempt at making it to the banquet. Today they cook their musically-inspired starters and fish courses for a surprise Great British Menu veteran with a reputation for being tough. Westy’s starter Top of the Crops features a rabbit kiev, turnip puree and pickled vegetables. It is jointly inspired by memories of watching Top of the Pops on television as a child and also his father’s vegetable garden. Andy’s lamb belly dish, called Green, Green, Grass of Home, is a very personal interpretation of the brief celebrating the journey he makes through the Welsh valleys to visit his children every fortnight with an additional nod to Welsh music legend Sir Tom Jones. Like Andy, Cindy’s starter also features lamb and is also called Green, Green, Grass of Home! She has opted to make a deconstructed version of the classic Welsh dish lamb cawl, which includes a savoury Caerphilly cheese welsh cake as well as a notoriously tricky consomme. Moving onto the fish course, Andy’s dish Top of the Cods reinvents his childhood favourite dish of fish and chips that he used to eat whilst watching Top of the Pops. The Stereophonics cover of The Kink’s hit Sunny Afternoon is the inspiration behind Westy’s dish, which also conjures up memories of childhood holidays on the Welsh coast. The dish includes cornets of feuille de brick pastry filled with diced mackerel belly, smoked tomato ketchup and horseradish creme fraiche. Meanwhile, Cindy’s dish I Don’t Know Where I’m