- I'm Darren McGrady, the Royal Chef.
Former chef to the Queen, Princess Diana,
Prince William, and Prince Harry.
And I'm gonna be making one of her favorite dishes.
Gaelic steaks.
I remember sleeping on the mall outside
Buckingham Palace to watch the royal wedding
of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
I was working at the Savoy Hotel in London at the time.
And I thought, how cool would it be to be a royal chef.
And to work in those royal kitchens.
When I got home, I applied for a job.
Just a few weeks later, there I
was in the kitchens having an interview.
It was incredible.
Buckingham Palace was everything I expected.
The interview, I sat with the food and beverage director.
He asked me all about cooking.
I got the job, just like that.
Within two weeks, I was working
in the kitchens at Buckingham Palace.
I started at Buckingham Palace and
was then moved to Balmoral Castle.
It was at Balmoral Castle where I first met the Queen.
It was my afternoon off.
And I remember going for a walk along the side of the river.
And I looked down the road, and I
saw this lady walking towards me.
And she got a load of dogs with her.
And I looked and I looked a bit closer,
and thought, "No, that can't be the Queen."
The lady was coming closer and closer.
And she got a head scarf on and a barber coat.
And I looked again, and I thought,
"Oh my gosh, it's the Queen.
"I'm gonna see the Queen."
Remember what you've gotta say, it's
"Good morning, your majesty.
"Good afternoon, your majesty."
Bow.
You don't speak to her unless she speaks to you.
All of this was going through my mind.
And I was thinking, "I'm finally gonna meet the Queen."
As she got closer, the dogs saw me.
12 corgis.
And they all started barking, and then running towards me.
And I just stopped, and I thought,
"Oh my gosh, I'm gonna get attacked by the corgis."
I'm not gonna get to see the Queen after all.
I turned and I went running the other way.
And the Queen started laughing.
Can you believe?
The Queen was laughing at me running away from the corgis.
So I never really did get to meet the Queen.
These are beef tenderloin steaks,
and I'm just seasoning with a little salt and pepper.
I'm using beef tenderloin steaks, but at Balmoral Castle,
the Queen would actually have venison.
Now we're gonna cook the steaks, the mushrooms,
and the onions and make the sauce.
To serve with the Gaelic steaks, I'm doing
potatoes and parsnips mashed together.
And then the garnish is some little baby carrots.
Queen Elizabeth loved to eat food from the estate.
From the gardens.
And at Balmoral Castle, we'd grow the parsnips
and the potatoes and the carrots.
So when all this came together,
especially if you were doing this with venison
from the estate, this was a fantastic meal.
And you can see why it was one of the Queen's favorites.
One of the things I soon learned working
for the Queen was that all of the dishes
were rich in cream and butter and fat.
Calories really didn't matter.
We could use as much cream and butter
in the dishes as we wanted to.
They just made them taste amazing.
It really was traditional French cuisine.
The Queen chose the menus of Buckingham Palace.
Using a menu book, we would suggest
three days menus for her to choose from.
And then she would pick the ones that she wanted.
She put a line through the dishes that she didn't want.
And if she got guests coming, she'd write two or four.
The Queen wasn't a real foodie.
And I soon learned that she eats to live.
She doesn't live to eat.
And so the menus that we did were pretty much the same
again and again all the time.
And if we tried to come up with a new recipe,
then we had to actually send up the recipe itself.
The whole recipe.
So the Queen could look at the menu.
Look and see what was the ingredients were.
And it was difficult trying to put
new dishes on all the time.
She liked her favorites.
When she's on her own, then the Queen avoids most starches.
When she's entertaining, then she will eat the starches.
I did an interview where I was asked,
"What was the Queen's favorite drinks?"
She likes a glass of champagne.
She likes (speaking in foreign language),
that's one of her favorite German wines with a banquet.
She likes a (speaking in foreign language).
She likes port.
Someone said, "Oh right, so she has four drinks a day."
The Queen is such a disciplinarian,
it amazed me that we would send a great
big chocolate cake up for her to have a meal.
At afternoon tea.
And she would just take the tiniest slice
and it would go back to the kitchen.
If she wanted more, she would wait til next day.
And when that cake came up again.
Me, I would have eaten it all.
One of the things that really amazed me
was that the Queen actually likes her meat well-done.
And chefs we cook medium-rare all the time.
So it was really, really important that we
got a really good sear on the steaks.
And cooked her steaks well-done.
If ever she was doing a standing rib roast,
a prime rib, she always had the first slice.
Because that meant that meat was well-done on the outside.
This is the best part of the sauce,
the (speaking in foreign language),
all those little crispy pieces in the bottom.
And putting the butter and oil in there
before we add the onions,
really gives the flavor.
And some mushrooms.
(scraping)
Turn up the flame and let those soak in.
One fun thing about this dish, the Gaelic steaks,
is we'd also make if for Prince Phillip.
But the Queen doesn't like garlic, but he does.
So we'd actually put a little bit of garlic in there.
For Prince Phillip.
It was about a week later when I saw the Queen again.
This time she looked like a real Queen.
No head scarf, no corgis running after me.
The Queen hosts a Ghillies Ball,
a gamekeeper's ball every year at Balmoral.
And all the staff are invited.
I was there in my suit, and all the royal family came down.
And this time, the Queen was dressed
in a beautiful long gown.
She got a tiara on.
That's the Queen that I knew.
The best part of the Gaelic steaks, the whiskey.
(sizzling)
You never got to sit down with the Queen at all.
We were royal servants of the Queen.
We never sat, even sat at the same table as Her Majesty.
Here we go again.
Lashings of cream in the sauce.
Well, that's just gonna simmer and reduce now.
Once it's reduced and we've got a nice consistency,
then the steaks go back in.
The Queen was never one for surprises in the kitchen.
She liked the same foods, the same dishes
over and over again.
Just every now again, she would come back from somewhere.
Somewhere she'd visited and.
And say, "I had this dish, and I've got
the recipe, can you make this, please?"
And we'd have to try something different.
But for the most part, it was those
tried and tested recipes.
Some of the dishes dated back to Queen Victoria's era.
The chocolate cake, for example, that same
chocolate cake was served to every member
of the royal family for over a hundred years.
When it came to the Gaelic steaks,
beef or venison for the Queen depending on where she was.
Seasonal vegetables, too, and if we
were at Balmoral, we could do the parsnip mash.
From the gardens.
And some baby carrots to go with it.
Ready to serve.
If the Queen was on her own, we could plate.
But for a banquet, it would go on a big silver tray with ten
portions and the potatoes and the
vegetables would all be served separate.
The Queen's not a big eater.
Just small portions.
So we couldn't fill the plate.
And one of the steaks is more than enough.
Gaelic steaks.
And that is one of the Queen's favorite dishes.
(instrumental music)