A parish church in Yorkshire have managed to secure a rather unique recipe book deal, where the contributors are not your normal run of the mill celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver or Delia Smith. No, it is a celebrity of quite a different breed - political leaders to be precise, as Gordon Brown and David Cameron reveal some of their most treasured dishes for the book.
The All Saints Parish Church in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, compiled the book - Saints and Celebrities Cookbook - and featured recipes include the Prime Minister’s much loved take on a vegetable and mozzarella parcel he was once served at Chequers, as well as Mr Cameron’s rather rustic Italian sausage meat pasta.
The book was the brainchild of two gourmet food-loving parishners, Sybil Mussell and Dorothy Tinkler, who wrote to approximately 100 people in the public eye to request their favorite recipes along with a food-related anecdote for the book, the profits of which were to be used to refurbish the church.
But the book is not restricted to political animals, as all in all there are 97 celebrity contributors, including the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, the Archbishop of Canterbury and author Jilly Cooper. Sir Cliff’s calorie busting recipe was for a chocolate dessert called Transkei mud pudding, which comes with a warning to only eat small portions as it is so rich!
William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary allowed his nettle soup recipe to be proudly featured, while former cricket umpire Dickie Bird has treat the public to his version on steak and kidney pie. the book’s success has been very sweet indeed so far, as all 300 copies were sold at £5 each, leaving a tidy profit of £750. However, if the book’s popularity remains, orders for more will be surely start flooding in.
Ms Tinkler commented, “It has been really interesting finding out who likes what, and who has the sweetest tooth – I would say that is definitely Sir Cliff Richard. Everyone we contacted got back to us and was very kind. We are delighted with the result and have some really interesting recipes.”
By far the most simplest recipe to make was for the former Bishop of Woolich, Colin Buchanan’s two slices of toast, while the only rejection letter came from the Prince of Wales “due to the number of similar requests he receives”.
To make Gordon Brown’s Vegetable and mozzarella parcels, follow this recipe
Ingredients:
1 packet filo pastry
Olive oil
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 courgette
1 of each colour of pepper
1 red onion
250g mushrooms
8 cherry tomatoes
2 sprigs of basil
200ml passata
1 buffalo mozzarella
Method:
Cut all the vegetables into small pieces. Cook the onion, peppers and courgettes in olive oil with the garlic until soft. Add the cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. Stir in enough of the passata to bind. Leave to cool, add basil and torn pieces of mozzarella. Lay out filo pastry in two layers (brushed with a little oil or melted butter between) and cut into squares. Place a portion of the mixture in centre of each square and fold into parcels. Brush with a little oil or melted butter and bake in a hot oven at 180C until golden. Serve with a little of the tomato sauce.
