He's the menu man

STUCK for an idea for dinner tonight? Perhaps you've got people coming round for a meal and want to impress. Or maybe you need pointers on how to get your children to ask for greens rather than beans at teatime. Then my best advice is to put down those cookbooks and get across to Sainsbury's revamped store at Monks Cross. Pronto. There, on hand to answer your every culinary query, is the store's own chef, Danny Cartwright.

While TV chef Jamie Oliver might be the public face of Sainsbury's, starring in the store's ad campaign, Danny is the cook who actually faces the public. He has his own working kitchen in a corner of the modernised store, which looks like something straight out of Ready, Steady, Cook.

From there he does regular cookery demonstrations and answers shoppers questions on everything from how to cook a tuna steak to where in the store will they find the fresh chicken stock?

Danny keeps his recipes to ten to 15 minutes, to prove to punters that McDonalds isn't the only fast food.

"The message I want to get across is, if I can do it, you can do it," says Danny.

"Cooking is not an art form, it's about being organised. I don't consider myself to be naturally gifted. I've worked hard at it. For me, cooking is about knowledge, married with patience and love."

You can tell Danny loves what he does just by watching him at work: he oozes enthusiasm and is keen to share his love of food and passion for cooking with others.

When I call in to catch him in action, there is already a small crowd gathered around his kitchen. Dressed in his chef whites, with a microphone clamped to his head, Danny is busy showing the audience how to cook a tasty-sounding salmon dish with asparagus risotto. The salmon has goat's cheese inside and Danny is revealing his best-kept culinary secret: cooking with clingfilm.

"I use clingfilm a lot," he tells the crowd as he drops the clingfilm-wrapped salmon into a pan of hot water. "It's getting people really perplexed. They can't understand it. But it's great for poaching as it keeps in all the proteins and minerals."

Danny has an easy way with an audience - no doubt perfected during his years as a catering tutor in Harrogate. His culinary credentials go back further, as he has worked at some of London's leading hotels including the Savoy and the Dorchester.

Divorced with two children, the 36-year-old sees his new post at Sainsbury's as combining the aspects of his career he enjoyed the most: cooking and passing on his knowledge and skills to others.

The in-store chef is an innovation from Sainsbury's, which already has three such chefs at branches elsewhere in the country.

Danny appears genuinely enthusiastic about his career move. He is brimming with ideas, and although just a few weeks in the post he is already talking about setting up a gourmet dining club at the supermarket.

"We have a lot of regular customers who are real foodies," he explains. "We'd like to set up a monthly meal where I demonstrate it for about 40 people and answer questions, then I go into the store restaurant's kitchen and cook the meal for all of them.

"It's a very novel idea for a supermarket as people don't think of supermarkets as having a gourmet foothold on the industry.

" But I think it's the other way round - the supermarket is where to target people because more people come into supermarkets than go into hotels and restaurants. Supermarkets should be about inspiration and education."

He goes on to tell the story of a female customer who watched him cook some fresh tuna. She hung back at the rear of the audience and pulled a face as he described how he liked his tuna to be pink.

"I offered everyone a chance to try the dish - but only if this lady went first," says Danny. "After much encouragement, she tried it. And she loved it. Afterwards, she spent 20 minutes with me getting all my tuna recipes."

Danny says it is conversions like these which make his job worthwhile: "If I can get through to somebody like that tuna lady every day, that's enough for me."

For more details about Danny's demonstrations or to quiz him on culinary matters, call 01904 631380 or email: chef.monkscross@sainsburys.co.uk

Lemon girdled salmon with asparagus and dill risotto

Serves four, preparation time ten minutes, Cook time ten minutes

Ingredients

4 x fillets of steaks of salmon

300gm fresh asparagus

1 box easy-cook risotto

1 lemon (juiced and zested)

1 pack of dill

25gm butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

500ml fish stock (made from liquid concentrate)

an onion, finely diced

Method

Firstly, in a bowl mix the zest and juice together then add the salmon and leave for one hour.

Next get the rice on by cooking the onion without colour; add the rice and stir well, little by little add the stock until the rice is cooked.

While the rice cooks take a griddle or frying pan add a little oil and allow to get hot, season the salmon and mark well in the pan both sides. Finish in the oven if necessary.

Cut the asparagus into small pieces and add to the risotto half way through cooking, followed by the chopped dill at the last minute.

Arrange risotto on plate with salmon on top.

TIP: Serve with some lemon and dill butter and a bottle of chilled white wine.

Updated: 10:05 Tuesday, April 09, 2002