Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) to Craigmillar! As part of their 50th birthday celebrations the SCO Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev created an unforgettable afternoon of music-making as he lead the Orchestra in a very special concert in Castlebrae High School. The performance featured Beethoven’s majestic ‘Eroica’ Symphony, Jay Capperauld’s new piece, The Origin of Colour, and Max Bruch’s beautiful Double Concerto.
Edinburgh Food Social has worked closely with young people from Castlebrae High School on our Food Truck and Helping Hands into Hospitality, and this performance offered an incredible opportunity for a group of young people to get involved in some community catering. Helpfully organised by Miss Duncan, 10 enthusiastic young people offered to create canapés for the special event.
The week before the event, the young people came down to the Edinburgh Food Social Kitchen to do some planning and preparation. This began with brainstorming nibbles ideas including macaroni cheese, sausage rolls, salmon with cream cheese, spicy chicken, and jollof rice. We then did some taste testing with some of the canapés we had made in the kitchen, and they tried mini samosas, mango chutney, pineapple hot sauce, and tomato and chilli jam.
After talking through their ideas, they decided on a menu including:
- steak skewers with zhug
- mini beef and horseradish tarts with parsley
- mac and cheese bites with tomato and chilli jam
- hot smoked trout with lemon and dill creme fraîche
- jerk-cured trout on rye with lime, sour cream and pickled chilli
- spicy chicken and chorizo sausage rolls
We then began practising cooking steak and testing presentation styles. All of the young people cooked the steaks perfectly first time, even though they had never cooked it before! They decided to cube the steak and serve it in a savoury croustade. After this we taught the young people how to fillet the sea trout and how to cure so it would be ready for the following week.
When they got back to school their teacher reported that “the first thing the Young People said when they walked in was ‘WE TRIED STEAK!’ and continued rambling on about all the other foods they had tried (or not for some of them – I could tell by the faces they had pulled they had not tried it which made me chuckle)… so they must have enjoyed it!”
The day of the performance the young people once again came down to the kitchen to get cooking. They did an incredible job of breading and frying the macaroni cheese bites and assembling the rest of the menu. By the time it was time to set up for the performance, they had prepared almost 750 canapés for the 100-strong audience!
The young people did an absolutely incredible job of plating the canapés so that they looked delicious and inviting. Community members commented how lovely it was to have the canapés as they came in and the parents loved it. The young people were so enthusiastic that they continued to serve the canapes even when our chef had to go back to the Edinburgh Food Social Kitchen!
We were so impressed by these Young People’s attitude and the way they picked up so many new skills. They got so much out of the event, and all said that they felt more confident cooking after this experience.
Thank you to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for organising this performance and creating an opportunity for young people to do some incredible community catering.
