Celebrate King Charles’ Coronation with a Royal Feast – Part 2
With the Coronation right around the corner, it’s time to turn attention to planning a feast fit for a king! Street parties and garden parties associated with royal celebrations are typically food-centred gatherings. And The Coronation Big Lunch – a large charity initiative encouraging neighbours and communities to share food and fun together – will take place across the country on the same date as the Coronation. Much has been said about the official dish of the Coronation – the Coronation Quiche. You can get our take on this patriotic pie here, as well as a recipe for a Coronation inspired Galette that we think steals the crown as the ultimate crowd-pleaser. However, quiche is hardly a complete feast. So here in Part 2, we go deep into the ins and outs of laying on a royal spread. From buffets to banquets and dishes inspired by the King’s own eating habits. Tuck in.
The Royal Feast
Buffet or Banquet? This is likely the main consideration when it comes to catering Coronation celebrations. Both have royal connotations. So here’s what you should consider:
Buffet
Buffets provide a feast for the senses. The abundance and extravagance of tables filled with food and permission to help yourself to whatever you want, as much as you want, and return for second helpings, is a singular joy. Buffets are a staple of garden parties and street parties to mark royal occasions and pulse through all major celebrations in life.
From a party host’s perspective, buffets get the hard work out of the way before handing it over to guests to enjoy. Dishes are prepared in advance so there’s no pressure on timings. There is no need to provide exact quantities of each item as there is the expectation that people will pick and choose. So long as you provide a range of options to cater to different dietary requirements, guests take care of themselves. You don’t need to take responsibility for every individual appetite or whim!
In short, you can’t go wrong with a buffet.
Banquet
However, if you have a fixed number of guests and a table that fits everyone around, you might want to consider a banquet. Banquets are the elevated, elegant way to feast like royalty. A sit-down meal with a specially composed menu signals this is an occasion to savour. With a tighter grasp on numbers than when catering a buffet, the emphasis is much more on quality than quantity. With fewer plates to fill and less anticipation of waste, you’ll be able to afford to spend more on luxury ingredients and top-notch produce. If you’re an ambitious cook, a banquet can showcase your culinary skills. Equally, compared to the quantities and variety required for a buffet, a banquet centred around simple crowd-pleasing dishes can be more manageable and streamlined with less work involved.
A menu fit (and themed) for the King
There isn’t much information out there about King Charles’ personal dining habits. However there are a few clues online leading to some quintessentially King Charles inspired dishes! We have pulled together everything we know about the King’s favourite foods and linked to recipes of what we’d make to inspire your royal feast!
Lamb & Wild Mushrooms
What we know…
Former royal chef Darren McGrady is quoted saying: “I cooked lamb a lot at Buckingham Palace. Prince Charles…he was a foodie, into organic farming before it was even invented.”. He has also recalled encouraging staff at Balmoral to go and collect mushrooms from the estate.
“He loves wild mushrooms and would take his chefs to Balmoral to show them where the best mushrooms are,” Darren said.
“We brought them back to Buckingham Palace and they were the most amazing porcini mushrooms.” This concurs with Royal Editor Russel Myers’ statement: “His ideal meal is wild mushroom risotto with organic lamb […] But the mushrooms obviously must be foraged from his own estate.”
What we’d make…
Social Pantry recently discussed the sustainability of ‘Easter’ lamb and suggested: “From both an environmental and economic perspective, we need to be eating British lamb when it is in season, and hogget (teenage lamb over a year) and mutton (sheep over two years old) year-round.”
In keeping with Social Pantry’s own “globally inspired, locally and sustainably sourced” ethos, we would offer an inventive twist on traditional roast lamb and British/European preparations of mushrooms.
We love this recipe for Balsamic-glazed hogget shoulder with freekeh and grilled radicchio from Ramael Scully – the chef behind Scully St James, just a stone’s throw away from Buckingham Palace. This dish lends itself equally well to a buffet or banquet and looks the part too! For a vegetarian alternative, we love these Charred mushroom skewers with a tamari, coriander seed and agave reduction from Helen Graham (who cooked alongside Social Pantry in Wilderness Kitchen 2022). For an additional mushroom element and delicious side dish, pair with Hummus with oyster mushrooms and za’atar.
Pheasant Pie
What we know…
What we’d make…
Instead of the King’s rib-sticking winter comfort of Pheasant Pie with a rich gravy and parmesan-bacon crumble topping, consider this Raised Game Pie. This rich meat pie can be prepared well in advance and served cold, either as a plated starter – thinly sliced to reveal a spectacular cross-section of meat and pastry, with a spoonful of chutney – or as part of a buffet as an impressive alternative to pork pie!
Eggs & Salad
What we know…
A 2020 Instagram post from Clarence House shared one of the King’s “favourite recipes”, Cheesy Baked Eggs, to mark the final day of the British Cheese Weekender.
Graham Tinsley MBE, former manager of the Welsh Culinary Team, who catered for royal state banquets on several occasions, has also said: “The [King] requires a side salad for every meal – and this salad was very precise.” Crucially, it would be served with a coddled egg.
“Normally, a soft-boiled egg takes around five minutes. So imagine this coddled egg… it’s going to be very, very soft. The royal required a coddled egg that was peeled and hidden beneath salad leaves. He would then mash his salad leaves into the eggs to make a dressing – a bit like mayonnaise,” Graham added.
What we’d make…
Preparing soufflés at home can strike fear into even the most accomplished home cooks, but a twice-baked soufflé is a little easier to master. This recipe for Twice-baked Le Gruyère AOP soufflés from Galton Blackiston is foolproof, and results in an incredible little dome of rich, eggy, cheesy, pillowy goodness, nestled in a colourful collection of salad leaves. As a British alternative to Gruyere, substitute with extra mature cheddar.
For a party-food take on the King’s favourite baked eggs perfect for this time of year, we love these Cheshire cheese and English garden herb mini quiches. And as for the perfect salad with super-soft yolk-rich eggs, look no further than Jeremy Lee’s Beetroot and Soft Boiled Egg salad, which can easily be scaled to feed any number of guests.
If you’re interested in planning your Coronation celebrations – or any other event for that matter! – with the help of Social Pantry, please get in touch!
