Le Gruyère was The World-Award-Winning Star of this Year’s Game Fair

This year, we teamed-up with the famous Swiss cheese to reveal hidden twists to old classics that take game to a new level. Le Gruyère stand this year hosted Michelin-starred chef Hywel Griffith and a team of students from West London College with Chef Lecturer, Bob Carruthers, Cindy Challoner, Chef Lecturer at Coleg Gwent, Ashleigh Ferrand, Head Chef at The Kingham Plough and Martyn Watkins of Laksa Shack in Cardiff. There were four demonstrations each day of The Game Fair and we were delighted with the magnificent Le Gruyère stage, built and managed by The Demo Kitchen Company.

To add a touch of ‘shooty class’ to the line-up, we also offered ‘Elevenses’ each day at 11am, consisting of delicious fennel salami from Somerset Charcuterie, accompanied by a delicious Dutch Barn Vodka cocktail – A very traditional snack on shoot days.

All demos had the benefit of delicious Koppert Cress varieties being grown live in the marquee in a Bloomkube or hydroponic cube, so the recipes could be enhanced with tasty and nutritious microgreens and microherbs paired to each dish by the chefs.

Ashleigh Ferrand, selected Koppert’s Tahoon cress to go with her French onion soup, pulled venison and Le Gruyère crouton – This is a timeless French classic with a twist. Ashleigh said

“The richness of the Gruyère cheese complimented the soup without overpowering and the cress added a subtle flavour and a bight vibrancy to the dish to cut through and lighten-up the dish. I love Le Gruyére because it’s a versatile cheese that can be baked into a crisp, melted into a dish, such as risotto and used as a garnish on top as an alternative to parmesan, especially the Reserve Le Gruyère, which is an absolute show-stopper in my opinion.”

It was great to be able to educate the audience on brilliant and delicious ways to cook with the game that they shoot – Our top quality game featured in the demos was kindly sponsored by Lincolnshire Game.

One lady said that the partridge her husband shoots gives her the ‘ick factor’ and so she usually ends up throwing them away – The audience gasped in amazement, as the whole purpose of our line-up of game cookery demos was to promote the eating of wild game meat.

By the end of the demo by Cindy Challoner, she had not only tried the Stuffed Partridge Ballotine with Caramelised Pears and loved it, she then asked if there was some sort of game cookery retreat she could embark upon with The Chefs’ Forum to learn how to make the most of the game shot by her family – Now that’s food for thought and a great idea to take further.

Catherine Farinha, Director of The Chefs’ Forum and Publisher of The Great Game Guide and The Welsh Game Guide, said:

“We decided to make the demos simple this year and easy to recreate at home. We didn’t want everything to be too cheffy or complicated. We were also really excited to be given the opportunity to work alongside the brand activation team at Le Gruyère. It really is amazing how well it goes with game and all samples were snapped-up in seconds. It was lovely to see the same faces come back throughout the weekend to see more demos from their favourite chefs.”

Dishes cooked on the demo stage are available on our recipe page CLICK HERE, by popular demand of the audience at the show (we’ve already received eager email enquiries to this effect), as well as the chefs who follow our event schedule.

In other areas of The Game Fair, top chefs and students, all representing The Chefs’ Forum joined the massive catering operation across VIPs, crew and volunteers.

MasterChef: The Professionals finalist, Exose Grant and West London College graduates, Jahmi and Laurie were also called upon to join the brigade and work in James Martin’s restaurant at the show, alongside the food hero himself to cater for hundreds of VIPs in the private enclosure – A brilliant opportunity to experience high-volume, high-end event catering.

Hywel Griffith and his team from The Beach House, Oxwich swooped in to cater a Michelin-starred and fizz reception in the fishing village with Celebrity Comedian/Fly Fishing expert, Paul Whitehouse.