Chocolate Latte Egg Nog

This dish is an entry for The Egg Award 2013 by chef Hugh McGivern


You can enter your own recipe for The Egg Award 2013 by clicking on this link


What does Hollywood action movie star Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson , King Abdullah ll of Jordan and The Egg Award 2013 have in common?  Chef Hugh McGivern of course!  He's been personal chef to both and he's entered his Chocolate Latte Egg Nog for this years debut competition!

Ingredients

Semi Skimmed Milk       250ml

Double Cream               100ml

Caster Sugar                 25g

Free Range Egg Yolks   3

Coffee                           1tsp

Orange Zest                  1tsp

Cinnamon                      1/2 tsp

Fresh Nutmeg & Cocoa Powder for the top

Method

Gently warm the cream, milk, cinnamon, coffee and orange zest till just below the boil. In a bowl beat the egg yolks and sugar till white.

Pour the milk mix slowly over the egg and whisk vigorously, pour back into the pan and place over a low heat, whisk with a hand blender for another 20-30 seconds.

Pour into 2 mugs, sprinkle with fresh nutmeg, sit back and enjoy.

This drink is best enjoyed 1 hour prior to bed time and should assist in a better nights sleep.

I hope you like this, Its a bit different from the normal competition entry but the secret lies in the simplicity of it. The egg whites left over make a healthy egg white omelette or fantastic meringues, simply whisk till peaks with a pinch of cream of tartare and fold in 150g caster sugar, spread over a lined baking sheet and bake at 80oC for 1-2 hrs.

My eggs are produced by my friend and colleague Catriona McNaughton Don who has a small holding near Auchterarder in Perthshire, Scotland. Her hens run free as they should and this is reflected in the quality of her eggs, she also breeds and shows Black Highland cattle.

Hugh has been a Chef for almost 28 years and in that time has worked in some weird and wonderful countries and situations. Having done a Classic Apprenticeship in Glasgow after finishing College and day release Hugh went into the Army where he spent the next 9 years learning his trade. He was lucky enough to do some competitions and even luckier to have won a few in Pastillage and the old "Cook and Serve".




The majority of Hugh's time was spent feeding the Officers. On leaving the forces Hugh went to work for Carnival Cruise Lines as an Assistant Food Manager. After 2 years he returned to London where he spent some time with Rowley Leigh at Kensington Place, Sanjay Dwihveli at 1 Lawn Terrace and assisted Richard Corrigan with the opening of Lindsay House whilst still working at Searcys in the Barbican.



For the Last 11 years Hugh has split his time; seven years he was the Chef to the Chairman of I.C.I. Hugh had complete autonomy for visiting VIPs and Directors Boards.  Since 2007 Hugh has been Group Executive Chef at Caterplus Services watching it almost quadruple in size, learning the rules governing Kosher Dining and writing new recipes .

One of the most fascinating aspects of Hugh's cooking career (other than being The Rock's personal chef) was about 3 years ago whilst working as Executive Chef for Caterplus, Hugh was tasked with coming up with better ideas to feed people with Dementia.  

Here's the story.....

With some deep research and a few sleepless nights I had grouped the symptoms into Red, Amber and Green in order of importance, the next job was to find foods that have been used for the last millenium that may ease some of the symptoms, I also looked at other countries and researched what they did, the further East I went the numbers declined. Japan having the lowest, but I can’t start feeding older people Sushi and Teriyaki.



As a chef the next bit for me was the easiest; formulating new and nutritious recipes, concentrating on 4 of what I consider to be the most worrying symptoms.
1. Sleep.
2. Anxiety.
3. Weight Loss.
4. Weight Gain.


This year with the backing of Kings College I am about to conduct new trials with new recipes, these will run for 6 months and the results collated at the end of the year. Next year I will roll out new training for chefs of all levels to train and educate how to get the most from their ingredients. 
The end product being restaurant quality meals served in a Care Home environment, we all eat with our eyes and people suffering from dementia are no different, just by improving food, improves their quality of life.



At Hotelympia last year I was lucky enough to be invited by the Craft Guild of Chefs to demonstrate a couple of dishes that I already serve, at the previous Hotelympia in 2010 I demonstrated at the Cost Sector stand and done 10 dishes in an hour. Having spent 28 years cooking at different levels in differing environments all over the world it has given me the skills to develop these new ideas.



With an annual bill of £20billion this is a growing concern. Colleges and Hospitality Courses should encourage the next generation to learn more about the science of food. There has never been a better time to use the old adage “Food for Thought”.
Food and Cooking is fun, instilling some basic rules to follow regarding the retention of nutrition during training will last a lifetime to be passed on by future generations.

For some of my recipes they can be found atHMTConsulting.wordpress.com  and HMTConsulting on Facebook .

(The Caviar was kindly donated by French Fine Caviar)