You bought everything wrong! The top chef reveals why FROZEN PEAS are whipped fresh, why it’s worth spending more on meat… and the secret to great sauces and perfectly poached eggs

When it comes to good food, sometimes fresh isn’t the best.

It may sound contradictory, but this is the wisdom of a top chef with more than 40 years of experience: Mark Peregrine, Director of the Raymond Blanc Cooking School at the two-Michelin-starred Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons restaurant in Oxfordshire.

MailOnline Travel set up a chair in the cookery school’s kitchen for a chat with Mr Peregrine – and he got particularly animated when he revealed the benefits of frozen peas after being asked what ingredients everyone should have in their kitchen at home .

Mr Peregrine talks to MailOnline Travel about the joys of frozen peas – and more

Mr Peregrine, a former sous chef at Le Manoir’s two-star kitchen, said: ‘Peas aren’t good until they’re fresh. And it is a very short time.

“With frozen peas, they take the peas out of the shells and place them in bowls of boiling water within an hour – we call it blanching – for no more than 15 or 20 seconds.

“They are drained, thrown on a conveyor belt and flash frozen. So you capture the chlorophyll, you capture all that natural sweetness, and you capture all that vitamin C.

“If I put those same peas in a pod and set them aside for a day or two, the scientific fact is that the sugar converts back to starch, leaving it mealy and tasteless on the palette.”

“Frozen peas are a brilliant ingredient. I always have them in the freezer at home.”

What else would he recommend to MailOnline readers?

Mr Peregrine, who began his career in 1979 as Raymond Blanc’s first apprentice at Le Manoir’s predecessor Les Quat’Saisons in Summertown, Oxford, said: “Peeles, absolutely. Canned legumes. They are a good source of fiber. Good quality canned tomatoes. Mutti canned tomatoes are very, very good. I always have them at home. Cheap brands have too much water.

‘Lenses. Red lentils because they cook so quickly. I make a lot of dahl with it – I love Indian cooking. Heinz tomato ketchup – love it. And good quality dark chocolate – you can’t cook with milk chocolate.

And I always cook with butter. I have oil But butter is flavor in cooking.’

Mr. Peregrine also shows that buying cheaper groceries doesn’t always mean better value for money.

He explained: “I once bought two cheap supermarket chickens – two for a teenager – and a free-range chicken from one of our butchers for £11.50.

“After roasting them all, I got more meat from the single free-range chicken than from the two cheap chickens combined because they were so full of garbage, water and whatever.”

The Raymond Blanc cooking school is located in the two-star kitchen of Le Manoir

Le Manoir has had two Michelin stars for 38 years

According to Peregrine, even expensive bread has many benefits.

He said: “Loaf has more ingredients than cooked dinner. People think it lasts, but it doesn’t. It forms very quickly, especially at the right temperature.”

Artisan breads, he explained, only have four ingredients: flour, salt, yeast and water.

He continued: “Years ago my mother only baked bread when she cooked. What was left she left in a burlap bag by the kitchen door. It went hard, but it never formed. It just dried up. And she pressed it into a cloth to make breadcrumbs, to make syrup cakes or something. Nothing was wasted.’

ESSENTIAL KITCHEN EQUIPMENT

What else needs to be on our shopping list? Mr. Peregrine lists some kitchen essentials that we should all have.

He said, “A microplane grater. Like it. Everyone should have one. They make different grades but we use the fine ones. We use it for everything from cheese to chili and from ginger to chocolate, you name it. that’s brilliant I have one at home.

“The temperature probe is also very useful, whether I’m making sweets or examining meat or fish. This takes it to another level. But instead of guessing if it’s done, it shows you the temperature.

“For example, if you are preparing fried turkey or chicken breast, the thickest part of the meat should be between 63 and 65 degrees Celsius. And then we’ll let it rest because it will continue to cook, especially if it’s on the bone.

“And when I make something like sugar syrup, I cook at a certain temperature – 121°C, for Italian meringue. So sin is really useful.”

We should all have a good paring knife, as well as a quality bread knife that is “great for chopping tomatoes” in the summer.

Le Manoir’s cooking school (pictured) offers useful top tips for putting popular dishes on the menu

EGG ELLENT TIPS

Sign up for a Raymond Blanc Cooking School course and you’ll quickly become familiar with some or all of these gadgets—and you’ll learn some handy top tips for nailing popular menu items.

Poached eggs for example.

Mr Peregrine said: ‘The secret to poaching an egg is a fresh egg. Don’t worry about vinegar and all that stuff. Science says that the egg white is firmest when the egg is fresh—freshly laid.

“Crack a freshly laid egg into a pot of boiling water – no salt, no vinegar, nothing… it will be like a golf ball.” As the egg ages, the protein breaks down and releases all those strands. It’s not you, it’s the egg.

A lady came in the other day and said, ‘All these years I thought I’d have to throw all this vinegar in there.’ It helps bind the egg whites, but using a fresh egg is the secret to a poached egg.”

Mr. Peregrine reveals that making sauces is something that is taught in school and many underestimate its difficulty

Mr Peregrine, pictured, said: “Mass-produced bread has more ingredients than cooked dinners. People think it lasts, but it doesn’t.

You can also learn how to master soufflés.

Mr Peregrine said: ‘Funny you should be taught with a soufflé. Before you even start, you get a list of 20 things that could possibly go wrong. This is not a very good way to teach someone.

“While you have to give them confidence. It’s so much easier when you see it. I can teach anyone how to make a soufflé. You just have to understand the process.

“The first tip for a soufflé is to make sure the egg white is at room temperature. At room temperature they are usually easier to whip up and you also get a slight increase in volume.

“And don’t beat the egg whites too long. I’m always looking for a gentle tip. If they are whipped too long, they will look gritty. So the water separates – 90 percent of the protein is water, 10 percent is protein.”

Mr. Peregrine reveals that making gravy is something that is taught in school and many underestimate the difficulty, explaining that the mistake people often make is to thicken the gravy when they should be reducing it.

He said: “We will thicken by reduction, by removing water to concentrate the fat solids. If you reduce it, you get less yield but more flavour. This way you will need less sauce as the flavor will be stronger .

Also make soup. People put in more milk or water to get more yield. Yes, but you get a weaker taste.”

The cookery school, located in the two-star kitchen, also offers pastry courses. Here you will learn that precision matters.

Mr Peregrine said: “Baking is a lot more of an exact science than salt and I think that’s why I like it [he used to run a pastry shop in Marylebone, London]. You have set weights. You can’t guess cake shop. But heartily, you can certainly play with it. For example, you can turn the wine into a sauce, add the spices, add less cream, add more butter, and so on.”

If you want to learn from Mr Peregrine and his team of five, visit www.belmond.com/hotels/europe/uk/oxfordshire/belmond-le-manoir-aux-quat-saisons/cookery-school.

Not a confident chef? Do not worry.

Mr Peregrine added: “People think ‘Raymond Blanc Cookery School’… am I good enough? No skill level is required. We’re not here to train chefs. You learn so quickly here, and so much faster than if you try to follow recipes. Everything we learn can be implemented in your kitchen at home.”