I swore I wouldn't cook this on the channel

That is tartar tartan. You know how much trade secret you're giving away there? It's f****** unbelievable. I mean, we've got like 50 chefs out there who don't know how we get the result we do and now they f****** know. It's mad. Here we go. This is the Trinity tartar tartan. I never thought I'd do this on camera but I'm going to do it now for you. This is our Trinity tartar tartan. So the very first thing we need is these pink lady apples. A lot of people not sure about that. Why would you use an apple from New Zealand? The reason is we leave this dish on the menu the whole year round. It delivers consistency. It doesn't pulp. Of course, we could change to a Braban, a Cox apple in season, a Pippin apple. We could do all sorts. This apple delivers for me 12 months of the year and I love it and I don't change it. And you know what? It holds up in a tartan better than most people. I reckon those people that don't think we should use a pink lady apple can't actually make a tartan themselves. Okay, so when we peel these apples, what we do, we start with, very importantly, start with one of my peanuts and then you peel all the way from top to bottom. There is going to be detail in this tartar tartan where you think, this guy's crackers. Is this really necessary? Is this really necessary? I'm telling you, if you want to see this tartan and how we do it properly, there is a lot of detail that has to be done in a specific way. But that's how you achieve the results we do. It hasn't been on the menu for as long as it has in such demand, for as long as it had for that long, for no reason. It takes a lot of detail to produce something at that level consistently the way we do. So peel the apples like that. So again, start at the top, all the way to the bottom. So we're trying to create that very even peeling from top to bottom. If you start attacking it sideways and all sorts like that, you're going to end up with a very different thing. We only make eight of these a day. You have to order them when we confirm the table, we ask you and if you'd like one, we pre-order it for you. There's no extra charge for it, it's just part of the menu or part of the desserts that we offer. Right, get all that done first. Next job, sharp knife, cut straight in half through the core like that. Don't cut one, cut all of them. Beautiful. Next job, small knife, little turning knife like this. What we do, we cut an angle, a little v-shape at both ends like that. Again, there, there. A bit excited. Then we turn the apple round like so, like so. So again, we just go in a v-cut like that. I don't want to waste too much of the apple, just get a nice v-cut. Then we turn the edge of the apple round like so and we're just creating nice smooth edges. So I'm going to do the whole lot, Sam. I can't not do it, so you can follow me or not follow me. I don't mind. Like and subscribe. Okay, so one of the key things once you turn those apples is to dehydrate them. Many people miss this out. Very important that you take that apple and you dehydrate it. Very simple, pop it into a 50 degree oven on a wire rack, let the moisture come out, and then we can use that apple. The reason we do that is less moisture equals darker caramel equals less mush on the apple when you're cooking it at that intensity in the caramel. For me, this is the detail that makes a difference between our tartan and everyone else's. Okay, so after a good amount of time, they're going to look like that. So it's pretty gnarly. They look pretty shocking like that. They don't look particularly appealing, but this will make the difference and give you that structure in the tartar tan. So what we need to do first is build up our pan. I use these wonderful little Hestan pans, the copper bonds. I think they're fantastic. They're a great size. They've got the weight. Very, very important that you use a pan that's got weight, can hold that heat retention, can stand up on a stove, get enough heat evenly through that pan. So don't use a light, flimsy pan. Don't go for a nonstick pan, a Teflon pan, or any of that kind of stuff. You want a heavy base pan, the heaviest you can get possible. So what we're going to do first of all is butter in there. This is soft, salted French butter. That goes in. What I like to do is just spread it across the bottom of the pan, like so. So we get a nice and even... And the reason we do this, you don't have to, you could just chuck the butter and sugar in. But actually, if you think about it, when you put it on the stove, it's going to melt in an even fashion. Now just think, all those little details, if you compound all those details, it definitely makes a difference. In goes the sugar. It's in this order, right? It says butter, then sugar, that's very important. There's a lot of sugar in a tartar tan. So we just even that out like that. We've always done this, done this for 15 years at Trinity. We put a little bit of spices in there, a bit of vanilla, a bit of cinnamon, and a star anise in there as well. Okay, now we go back to those apples. The key is to build those apples into the pan like so. So they go absolutely upright like that. You don't want to be leaning them over. You need to get as many in there as possible. Leave a tiny gap around the edge because you need the caramel to come up and you need the puff pastry to sit over the top. That's very important. So in goes the apples nicely. So remember, I'm putting these apples in on their side. Obviously not going in that way round. They're going in that way round. Very important. If you want to end up with a really nice finish, and I'm packing those apples in. Get one more in there, I think, like so. So they're really packed in and that's super important. Dehydrated apple, and then we're going to go in the middle like that as well. Three, one there, and one there. All right, there we go. So nice, tightly packed. Next, we're looking for puff pastry. So put that to the side a second. There we go. That looks nice. All packed in nicely. And the trick is now to keep that looking like that the other way round with the puff pastry on the top. All right. The other thing you can do, we don't because tartar tans are a really important part of what we do. But one of the other things you can do is to use a rough puff. So you can make rough puff pastry or you can just use puff pastry that is a trimming from another. Perhaps you made a chicken pie and you've got some trimming left over. You just use a rough puff pastry. All the trimming's folded back in on itself. You don't need that rise. You're not looking for the rise. You're looking for that slight crumbly effect from a puff pastry, which is why we use puff pastry. The other thing, and there's a lot of things, isn't there? But the other thing is that when you're cutting that puff pastry, lots of people I see make tartans and they tuck that pastry all the way down into the caramel. We don't do that. We pop it on top more like a lid. And that's what allows us to have this shape of the apples kept in a beautiful basin of puff pastry. It's a different way of doing it. So it really is all those details. There you go. Just use a template, cut that round. There we go. And you could use all this, right? This is fresh puff pastry, but you could collect that up and use all those if you wanted to. Right. So you've got about pound coin thickness there, about sort of three or four mil thick. That goes on the top like that. And it just gets pressed in. So we're not going to stretch that down and push it into the caramel. I see a lot of people doing that, but that's not the way that we do it. So that just goes in like so. Let's fold it in. Or you can use the back of a spoon. Just push it down like so. It doesn't have to be too rigid. Don't push it down too far. You just want it to almost sit on the top like that. All right. Then what we're going to do is we're going to make a big hole in the top and then we need to let that steam out. Very, very important. These holes are going to let all that steam. Moisture and steam is the enemy of a tartar tan. So the more you can get that out, the better and the more robust and the more richness, the more texture and the more structure you'll have in the tartan, the more you can get that moisture out. So that's letting moisture out. The dehydration of the apples is letting the moisture out. And that's ultimately how you're going to get that wonderful finish. Right. That goes on a heat now. It goes on a kind of medium to high heat. You want that caramel to happen quite quickly. Then we're going to kind of move it around, get that caramel right. And then it's time for the oven. Go. Okay, Sam. So I think our tartan, if you come and see, look at this really important here. Look, can you see that emulsion going on between the butter and sugar? That's exactly what you're looking for. That. That means the butter and sugar is a perfect emulsion. What you can do very gently, maybe you'll do it with your hand, but you can put your hand, you can twist the apples in there as well. You move it around a little bit and you'll basically, you see that? See the caramel coming up? See how dark that is? That's how dark we take that. And that puff pastry is kind of almost cooked through, but not in any way crispy or delicious. It's just really soggy and soft. It's basically absorbed some of the moisture that's left over from those apples. And the apples, when you press that in there, they're getting softer. They've still got structure. Look, that apple's still got structure. That's what you're looking for on the tartan at this stage. That's going to see an oven. Now here's another point of difference between our tartan and other people. It's going to be 45 minutes at 180. Then we're going to drop that down to 160 for 15 minutes. So that actually sees an oven for an hour. If you can imagine that would be in the oven for a whole hour. But that intensity of cooking, the shape of the puff pastry, the way we do the apples, the dehydration, it's all about the details. See you in an hour. And then all we need to do is take it out. Now what happens next is that comes out and we press it. So you could use whatever, just put a pan on top of whatever and press it down. And we basically put some weight on top of the tartan and let that reduce down and let it put some pressure on it. What you're doing there is you're compressing the apples into the pan. You're pushing the pastry into the apples and you're pushing the apples into the caramel. So that's what's giving that complete finish on the bottom. Then you get that beautiful glaze and that compression. The reason that our tartans look compressed like that and the apples stack up like that is really to do with the pressing. I've done that in the oven already to speed up the video, but basically press that for about 20 minutes. Then if you want to get it out of the pan, you need to reheat it back in the oven just to make sure the caramel is nice and soft. Now what you need to do is a bit of a kind of acrobat thing, but basically take a plate, flat plate, put it on top of the pan and then turn the pan over. Nice and sharp drop as well like that. Stop it like that and that will, you hope, turn out the tartan. So then we just hopefully lift out like so and then out comes tartan. So that now gets served at Trinity and that's a tartan for four people. What we will now do is lift that onto our dish like this. This is the dish we serve it in, so we turn it over to a clean dish to serve it in the restaurant. I've gone down so hard. Right, then we transfer this onto a serving plate like so and then that, just to get rid of all those dirty crumbs and all that kind of stuff, so it's nice and neat, nice and shiny. So, you know, our tartans are different. They're more structured, they hold more, there's definitely a darker, richer colour to them, but that's kind of how I like them and that's my preference. So there you go, that's the way we do it. Then we just take a nice tray, pop that on the tray. The tartan gets served with pruning Armagnac ice cream, always has, always will, and pouring cream and that's the kind of, that's it. At the table we then cut this up for someone, I might get one of my lovely waitstaff to come and do that for you and then we just serve it into four portions there, pour the cream, pour the ice cream. What more do you want? Tartan, there you go.