- I'm Darren McGrady, the Royal Chef, former chef to the Queen, Princess Diana, Prince William and Prince Harry, and today I'm going to be
making a salmon coulibiac, and this is one of Prince
Philip's favorites. (royal music) Salmon coulibiac is a Russian dish, and Augustus Escoffier, the Master Chef in the whole universe, he created it with some Russian Naval officers, and then the rest is history. It's been made for hundreds of years. In the dish, we have salmon,
obviously, some puff pastry, mushrooms, onions, some
hard boiled eggs, some rice, and normally dill, but I like
to use tarragon in there, so I'm gonna chop all these,
put all these together, and create the most
amazing salmon coulibiac. Salmon was on the menu
all the time at Balmoral. The queen mother and Prince
Charles were often fly fishing, and I remember one time
when Prince Charles came in with this salmon, so I went
over and took this one from it, and the fish started flapping about. Oh my gosh, I'd never seen that before, I'd never lifted a fish that was moving, and it was like a Mexican
wave all through my body, and I just sort of, ugh, froze, and I had to take it and weight it and make a record of where it was caught, and then get it ready for the royal table. Prince Philip was the first member of the royal family that I met. It was at Balmoral Castle,
I'd only been there a day. I was in the kitchen, and
I seemed to be on my own, and this man walked into the kitchen, this elderly gentleman, and
he was in real tatty clothes, and he had a green
pullover on with the arms all hanging out, and I
looked at him and I thought, "Oh, it's the gardener," and he said, "Is the chef here, please?" And I said, "Uh, just a
minute, I'll get him for you," and I went into the
Lottie kitchen, I said, "Chef, the gardener's here to see you," and he said, "The gardener,
this time of night?" So, we both scurried back
through to the main kitchen, and I was mortified when the chef said, "Oh, good evening, Your Royal Highness," and it suddenly dawned on
me, it was Prince Philip. (gasping) So, all the
mushrooms and the onions go into the pan with some melted butter, and we're going to
saute' those on the stove with a little salt and
pepper until they become translucent, and nice and soft. It was interesting cooking
for the Queen and the Duke because of the different pallets. Prince Philip has a much broader pallet than Her Majesty when it comes to food. The Queen eats to live, whereas
Prince Philip lives to eat. He loves, not only to cook
food, but he loves to forage, he loves to talk about
food, he loves to grow food, and when he was traveling all those years, certainly through his time in the Navy, he loved all the different dishes, whether it was sort of curries with lots of garlic and
lots of Indian spices and things like that, he's a real foodie. When we were cooking for
them, we could never do, okay well, your plate is
going to have lots of garlic, your plate's having no garlic. It always was down to the
Queen is hosting the meal, so you have everything how she likes it, so I think sometimes Prince
Philip actually enjoyed eating on his own. (laughing) Prince Philip not only loved to eat, but he loved to cook as well. The royal family go to Balmoral
for two weeks in the summer, and Prince Philip cooked on the grill maybe three, four, five times a week. He'll cook salmon, he'll cook
beef, he'll cook venison, game, anything on there, he
loves being at the grill. I remember being with him
one time at Sandringham, and he came into the kitchen, and he said, "What are we having for
dinner this evening?" And I said, "Well, you have
these little nuazets of lamb, "Your Highness," and I showed 'em to him, and he said, "Well, what
are those ones in there?" And I said, "Well, those lamb chops there "for the staff, for their dinner tonight." He said, "Well, we'll have
those, in fact, we'll have both, "and I'll cook," and so he actually cooked on the grill that night, he cooked for me. There was I, his chef, I mean
what was I supposed to do? Go out and do royal
engagements while he was doing my job in the kitchen? (laughing) The mushrooms and the
onions have all started to come together now, starting
to soften in the butter. They'll carry on cooking when
they go on top of the salmon. They're gonna be in the
oven for about 35 minutes. Now, to add the rest of the ingredients. Into this, I'm going to add some rice that I've already cooked. Normally it's white rice,
but you can add brown rice or black rice into this one, too. You could even put quinoa
and any of the other sort of pulses as well. So, once all that's mixed in, it's just correcting that seasoning. Prince Philip is not the
only chef in the family. Prince Charles likes to cook as well. At Christmas, they would
gather at Sandringham. The hampers would start
arriving, and Prince Philip would get a gift hamper from Harrods with all these goodies in
it, with foie gras and caviar and Christmas cakes, and
Prince Philip would arrive with a hamper from Highgrove. I remember one time, Prince
Philip came into the kitchen, and he said, "Is this the hamper? "Is this the Harrods hamper?" and I said, "No, Your Royal Highness. "This is the hamper
that the Prince of Wales "has brought up with him from Highgrove. "It's all of his organic
produce," and he just turned and looked and said, "Bloody
organic," and walked off. I think back then, he
wasn't really into organic or knew what it was, but
the Prince of Wales was, he was organic before
it was even invented. I've trimmed the salmon, so that's ready to perfectly fit into the
pastry that I'm rolling out. Now, it's time to build
the salmon coulibiac. We've got the pastry rolled out, the salmon's already cut-ready,
the filling is all set, so we do a little of the
filling in the center, and my eggs go on top of that. And, invert the salmon over the top 'cause this is gonna be the base. A little more salt and pepper. And then, some more of our filling. Once we've got that,
I've got some tarragon that I'm just going to lay
and sprinkle over the top. I mean, this is a whole meal in one, just wrapped together in pastry. The next stage is to put a little egg wash around the outside of the pastry, which will seal in all of
the salmon and the garnish. And, I don't want too much pastry, so I'll trim a little
bit of the pastry off from each end here, and then
fold over the second one. When the Queen was away on engagements, Prince Philip could taste all of his own favorite ingredients, he
could have woodcock and grouse and all the pheasant and game
and thing that he wanted. He loved all that sort of real spicy food. He loved the black puddings,
and he could explore more and sort of enjoy those when the Queen was away on engagements. When they were home together,
the Queen would have her breakfast in the sitting room, and Prince Philip would
have his separate, too. He would have a cooked breakfast, and then they may join
each other for lunch, unless they've got engagements. Then, afternoon tea
together if they could, and then, obviously in the evening, if there was nothing going
on, no big engagements, then they would eat together then as well. Next, it's going into the
oven for about 35 minutes to cook the pastry and
cook the salmon inside. While the salmon's in the oven cooking, I want to share with you a story about Prince Philip teaching me to cook. We were in the kitchen
peeling the mangoes, and Prince Philip walked into the kitchen and he stopped and he looked and he said, "What are you doing peeling the mangoes?" And I said, "Peeling them, sir." He said, "Yes, you're doing it wrong," and he picked up a mango, he said, "Give me a knife and a spoon." I thought, oh my gosh,
Prince Philip's teaching me how to cook, so he took a
mango, and then cut around the middle, just like this,
and once he'd done that, he said, "Watch this," and
then he put the spoon in upside down over the top of the pit. He said, "That's how you
take the centerpiece out, "the stone," and then
dug the spoon in there, followed it all around, and
took out the beautiful mango. From then on, we had to do them that way, just in case he walked into the kitchen. There was no more peeling
mangoes. (laughing) I've roasted some peppers with
a little rosemary, garlic, just a little garlic 'cause
the Queen doesn't like garlic, but just enough to give it some flavor, and now I've pureed them
with a little chicken broth, and I'm making a little sauce
just to go around the side and make the coulibiac
look really, really pretty. I don't think Prince Philip has a go-to when he's sort of splurging out, when he wants something different. I think that his diet is so varied that he wants to try
different dishes all the time, he gets so excited when
he's out at a restaurant or he's in another
country on an engagement, he'll often ask for the recipe. I remember him coming back from Iceland and he said, "I've got this recipe. "I had this most amazing Crème Anglaise," and it was pancakes with cream
and jam, it was served cold, and he loved them, absolutely loved them, and from then on, they were on the menu. It's been in the oven for 35 minutes now, it's a nice golden brown,
I think it's cooked. We're gonna bring it out now and rest it. You can see why Prince
Philip loved this one. It's a fish dish. Look at that gorgeous salmon
in there in those layers. And then, just finish
with my bell pepper sauce. That not only smells amazing, but the rice and the mushrooms and the
onion and the tarragon, everything in there is just incredible, and you can see why this was a favorite. No wonder this dish has been
in the family for so long. The flavors are incredible. Salmon coulibiac, the best! Mm, it's so good.
(mouse clicking)
Sounds like a beef Wellington but for salmon.
I do not understand the Queen’s dislike of garlic. At least it’s only her preference and not a royal rule as previous articles have made it out to be. I always found that odd.
Interesting... Coulibiac de Salmon reminds me of Beef Wellington! I will try to recreate the dish, but w/out rice. Escoffier was one of the most famous chefs - which remains up to date, who created lots of cooking methods/techniques back in the day. He is for sure mentioned in every cooking school, as a “master”.
Love this series with Darren McGrady I didn’t realize that they’d done an episode about Phillip’s favorite food— thank you for sharing it!
I just returned from Costco and there, in the Frozen section, was Salmon Wellington. What a strange coincidence. And no, I didn't buy it. That's it. That's what I came here to say.
Thanks for sharing! I thoroughly enjoyed.
I’m not really a seafood person, but that looked damn good.