Would you try The Northgate chef Greig Young's beef tartare recipe?

Last week, I was delighted to be one of the judges for ‘Passion to inspire’ a young chef competition which has national reach. Run by a local culinary legend Murray Chapman, each team goes through a series of heats leading to eight colleges competing against each other in the final cook off at West Suffolk College, in Bury St Edmunds on May 10.

I had some stunning food in this round, from Paris-Brest filled with a lovely whipped curd from one of the chefs at All Saints Hotel at Fornham St Genevieve (definitely worth a visit, Adam the head chef is great), to a fantastic plaice dish with a wonderfully tangy celeriac vinaigrette from one of the young chefs at The One Bull (another must try in Bury, its lunches are top class) and a fantastic rhubarb tart adorned with some thyme and dry hibiscus was the perfect finish served up by one of my own from The Northgate. It’s fair to say I’m very proud of all that entered.

This month, I’m going to share the recipe for one of my favourite Northgate creations. I have served beef tartare in many different guises, but this one has stuck as my favourite. I get that raw beef can be quite intimidating for some diners, but the addition of broad beans, crunchy bitter chicory and some freshly-plucked broad bean leaves makes it much more accessible to everyone. I like to open a meal with this to share, inviting people to scoop up the meat with the leaves and really dig in.

The trick to this dish is the same secret to most of my cooking – buy the best you can afford and get your hands on, buy fresh and season it up well with good salt. The black garlic may be a little hard to source, but you may get some from maybe Waitrose, or even Amazon. The chicory should be easy enough to find, but the broad bean leaves are the treat for those of you with a garden or allotment.

I’ll bring this back to The Northgate when it starts to warm up a bit.

Give it a go and do let me know your thoughts!

Happy cooking,

Greig

BEEF TARTARE, WHOLE GRAIN MUSTARD, BROAD BEANS, ENDIVE, BLACK GARLIC MAYONNAISE

(Serves 4)

Ingredients:

200g lean beef fillet (fully trimmed and blow-torched to kill bacteria)

100g blanched and popped broad beans (the frozen ones are surprisingly good)

1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard

1 tablespoon of finely-diced chives

1 tablespoon of finely-diced shallots

2 heads red chicory

Broad bean leaves

1 teaspoon of good balsamic

2 tablespoons of good olive oil

Black garlic aioli:

1 egg yolk

1 head black garlic, peeled

30g lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

6g salt

200ml vegetable oil

Method:

For the black garlic aioli, blend all ingredients apart from the oil using a stick blender and slowly emulsify in the oil. Keep this chilled, if you make too much do not worry, it is delicious and will be used up before you know it.

The main thing with this recipe is to make it as close to serving as possible with only the mayonnaise done in advance. Make sure you keep your mix over ice.

Chop the beef to a lovely coarse consistency, not too small. Season with a good amount of salt and pepper. Add a tablespoon of your oil and give it a good beat over ice with a spatula. Fold in your shallots, chives, broad beans and mustard, check the seasoning.

Pick down your chicory leaves and dress in the remaining olive oil and balsamic – this should be a very light dressing.

Spread your beef mix across two plates and generously dot or spoon on your black garlic aioli.

Cover entirely with your chicory leaves, then fill in the gaps with your broad bean leaves.

Delicious!

Greig Young is head chef at The Northgate, Northgate Street, Bury St Edmunds

Call 01284 339604

Visit thenorthgate.com