Next Event: School Dinners 26th Oct

We've recently collaborated with the guys behind Bookslam, an awesome literary night out, and have been planning an event in a central London school. The date is fast approaching, ie this Saturday 26th October. 

Many people have asked, well what is it? is it actually going to be school dinners, ie shit?! 

No, of course its not going to be, it's going to be a chance to spend an evening in an amazing building in central London, steeped in history and also nostalgia, whilst being wined (by Hugo), dined (by me and team) and entertained by the likes of Ben Goldacre, Sophie Heawood & Mark Grist

There's also a entertainment only ticket available for those not wanting to dine, who are these people?? I dont know....

Check out the website for more details: http://www.schooldinners.info/

And as readers of my blog &/or email ting, the link below has been set up for discounted tickets for the night: http://schooldinnersdiscount.eventbrite.co.uk/

Below is the menu and some little notes I wrote about it, attempting to explain the thought processes, not that I feel I need to, more that I think its worth sharing ideas

Snack on arrival

Cereal milk foam on milk parfait with crunchy nut biscuit

I thought it would be fun to start the meal with something that intensely reminds me of childhood and that is the milk in the bottom of my cereal bowl in the mornings, slurping it out and eating toast! So the idea here was to re create the cereal milk a la childhood, make it into various textures and serve it as a rather interesting canapé/snack.

Lunch box sourdough breads with butters

I was never a lunchbox person, I queued up like the rest of them, waiting for my fried/overcooked/lumpy plat du jour. But whenever a school trip came around my mum would get up at 4am (ish) to make mountains of sandwiches for us to take in, it was crazily brilliant, inches of that wafer thin ham, jam, banana and choc, so much!! Loved school trips!! Anyway, the point being I plan to serve an array of sourdough breads (which we make in our little bakery) and serve them in a lunch box with a selection of butters, no wafer thin ham this time!!

Starters

Salmon & beetroot; salmon tartare, pickled beets, salmon and beetroot parfait

I love fish and I love beetroots. My childhood and school memories of these were appalling, over cooked, over pickled and generally unhappy which meant my love affair with these ingredients really didn’t come to fruition until adult life. Lots of fresh herbs, hints of fragrant sweet and sour pickle, a delightful way to start the meal I think!

Fennel & soft cheese salad, green beans, olives, capers, dill, mustard (v)

Mains

Free range Creedy Carver chicken breast, elderberry glaze, confit leg ‘twizzler’, crown prince squash puree, buttered kale & wood sorrel

Fantastic free range Creedy Carver chickens from Merrifield Farm in Devon, slow cooked and roasted to finish producing a wonderfully succulent and flavor some breast, glazed with some of the local elderberries I’ve been hoarding recently, a “twizzler” made from the confit leg and thigh meat with ample shallots and garlic. Accompanied with kale, squash and sorrel; Autumnal heroes and absolutely delicious.

Roasted squash & salt baked beets with a braise of borlotti beans, leeks, kale & pearl barley (v)

Cleanser

Green apple sorbet ‘icepop’

After school treats on a warm Summer day, so incredibly refreshing and just what you want to cleanse the palate and leave you ready for dessert/afterschool football match

Dessert

Quadruple chocolate brownie with plantain ice-cream, toasted pecan nuts, and a sweet & sour caramel sauce  

Memories of chocolate concrete and lumpy banana custard were the inspirations behind this dish. Chocolate has always been a love of mine, I think its such an amazing ingredient so creating a multilayered and textured brownie is an awesome way to a) make me happy & b) provide our guest with a real ‘showstopper’ of a dessert. Plantain ice cream, sweet & sour ice caramel and toasted pecans, well they are just downright delicious, all together or on their own, in big bowls with a spoon, or just your fingers when no ones around…..

  

EDI BIBI DIDICI

I ate, I drank, I learned

ix

Next Event: School Dinners 26th Oct

We've recently collaborated with the guys behind Bookslam, an awesome literary night out, and have been planning an event in a central London school. The date is fast approaching, ie this Saturday 26th October. 

Many people have asked, well what is it? is it actually going to be school dinners, ie shit?! 

No, of course its not going to be, it's going to be a chance to spend an evening in an amazing building in central London, steeped in history and also nostalgia, whilst being wined (by Hugo), dined (by me and team) and entertained by the likes of Ben Goldacre, Sophie Heawood & Mark Grist

There's also a entertainment only ticket available for those not wanting to dine, who are these people?? I dont know....

Check out the website for more details: http://www.schooldinners.info/

And as readers of my blog &/or email ting, the link below has been set up for discounted tickets for the night: http://schooldinnersdiscount.eventbrite.co.uk/

Below is the menu and some little notes I wrote about it, attempting to explain the thought processes, not that I feel I need to, more that I think its worth sharing ideas

Snack on arrival

Cereal milk foam on milk parfait with crunchy nut biscuit

I thought it would be fun to start the meal with something that intensely reminds me of childhood and that is the milk in the bottom of my cereal bowl in the mornings, slurping it out and eating toast! So the idea here was to re create the cereal milk a la childhood, make it into various textures and serve it as a rather interesting canapé/snack.

Lunch box sourdough breads with butters

I was never a lunchbox person, I queued up like the rest of them, waiting for my fried/overcooked/lumpy plat du jour. But whenever a school trip came around my mum would get up at 4am (ish) to make mountains of sandwiches for us to take in, it was crazily brilliant, inches of that wafer thin ham, jam, banana and choc, so much!! Loved school trips!! Anyway, the point being I plan to serve an array of sourdough breads (which we make in our little bakery) and serve them in a lunch box with a selection of butters, no wafer thin ham this time!!

Starters

Salmon & beetroot; salmon tartare, pickled beets, salmon and beetroot parfait

I love fish and I love beetroots. My childhood and school memories of these were appalling, over cooked, over pickled and generally unhappy which meant my love affair with these ingredients really didn’t come to fruition until adult life. Lots of fresh herbs, hints of fragrant sweet and sour pickle, a delightful way to start the meal I think!

Fennel & soft cheese salad, green beans, olives, capers, dill, mustard (v)

Mains

Free range Creedy Carver chicken breast, elderberry glaze, confit leg ‘twizzler’, crown prince squash puree, buttered kale & wood sorrel

Fantastic free range Creedy Carver chickens from Merrifield Farm in Devon, slow cooked and roasted to finish producing a wonderfully succulent and flavor some breast, glazed with some of the local elderberries I’ve been hoarding recently, a “twizzler” made from the confit leg and thigh meat with ample shallots and garlic. Accompanied with kale, squash and sorrel; Autumnal heroes and absolutely delicious.

Roasted squash & salt baked beets with a braise of borlotti beans, leeks, kale & pearl barley (v)

Cleanser

Green apple sorbet ‘icepop’

After school treats on a warm Summer day, so incredibly refreshing and just what you want to cleanse the palate and leave you ready for dessert/afterschool football match

Dessert

Quadruple chocolate brownie with plantain ice-cream, toasted pecan nuts, and a sweet & sour caramel sauce  

Memories of chocolate concrete and lumpy banana custard were the inspirations behind this dish. Chocolate has always been a love of mine, I think its such an amazing ingredient so creating a multilayered and textured brownie is an awesome way to a) make me happy & b) provide our guest with a real ‘showstopper’ of a dessert. Plantain ice cream, sweet & sour ice caramel and toasted pecans, well they are just downright delicious, all together or on their own, in big bowls with a spoon, or just your fingers when no ones around…..

  

EDI BIBI DIDICI

I ate, I drank, I learned

ix

School Dinners approaching

We've recently collaborated with the guys behind Bookslam, an awesome literary night out, and have been planning an event in a central London school. The date is fast approaching, ie this Saturday 26th October.

Many people have asked, well what is it? is it actually going to be school dinners, ie shit?!

No, of course its not going to be, it's going to be a chance to spend an evening in an amazing building in central London, steeped in history and also nostalgia, whilst being wined (by Hugo), dined (by me and team) and entertained by the likes of Ben Goldacre, Sophie Heawood & Mark Grist

There's also a entertainment only ticket available for those not wanting to dine, who are these people?? I dont know....

Check out the website for more details: http://www.schooldinners.info/

And as readers of my blog &/or email ting, the link below has been set up for discounted tickets for the night: http://schooldinnersdiscount.eventbrite.co.uk/

Below is the menu and some little notes I wrote about it, attempting to explain the thought processes, not that I feel I need to, more that I think its worth sharing ideas

Snack on arrival

Cereal milk foam on milk parfait with crunchy nut biscuit

I thought it would be fun to start the meal with something that intensely reminds me of childhood and that is the milk in the bottom of my cereal bowl in the mornings, slurping it out and eating toast! So the idea here was to re create the cereal milk a la childhood, make it into various textures and serve it as a rather interesting canapé/snack.

Lunch box sourdough breads with butters

I was never a lunchbox person, I queued up like the rest of them, waiting for my fried/overcooked/lumpy plat du jour. But whenever a school trip came around my mum would get up at 4am (ish) to make mountains of sandwiches for us to take in, it was crazily brilliant, inches of that wafer thin ham, jam, banana and choc, so much!! Loved school trips!! Anyway, the point being I plan to serve an array of sourdough breads (which we make in our little bakery) and serve them in a lunch box with a selection of butters, no wafer thin ham this time!!

Starters

Salmon & beetroot; salmon tartare, pickled beets, salmon and beetroot parfait

I love fish and I love beetroots. My childhood and school memories of these were appalling, over cooked, over pickled and generally unhappy which meant my love affair with these ingredients really didn’t come to fruition until adult life. Lots of fresh herbs, hints of fragrant sweet and sour pickle, a delightful way to start the meal I think!

Fennel & soft cheese salad, green beans, olives, capers, dill, mustard (v)

Mains

Free range Creedy Carver chicken breast, elderberry glaze, confit leg ‘twizzler’, crown prince squash puree, buttered kale & wood sorrel

Fantastic free range Creedy Carver chickens from Merrifield Farm in Devon, slow cooked and roasted to finish producing a wonderfully succulent and flavor some breast, glazed with some of the local elderberries I’ve been hoarding recently, a “twizzler” made from the confit leg and thigh meat with ample shallots and garlic. Accompanied with kale, squash and sorrel; Autumnal heroes and absolutely delicious.

Roasted squash & salt baked beets with a braise of borlotti beans, leeks, kale & pearl barley (v)

Cleanser

Green apple sorbet ‘icepop’

After school treats on a warm Summer day, so incredibly refreshing and just what you want to cleanse the palate and leave you ready for dessert/afterschool football match

Dessert

Quadruple chocolate brownie with plantain ice-cream, toasted pecan nuts, and a sweet & sour caramel sauce  

Memories of chocolate concrete and lumpy banana custard were the inspirations behind this dish. Chocolate has always been a love of mine, I think its such an amazing ingredient so creating a multilayered and textured brownie is an awesome way to a) make me happy & b) provide our guest with a real ‘showstopper’ of a dessert. Plantain ice cream, sweet & sour ice caramel and toasted pecans, well they are just downright delicious, all together or on their own, in big bowls with a spoon, or just your fingers when no ones around…..

  
EDI BIBI DIDICI
I ate, I drank, I learned

ix

a late September flourish

Most people are cursing the change in seasons, the hints of rain and the lack of sunshine. Pah I say, I think this is an awesome time of year, check out the trees and fields and everything thats changing and deeepening in colour. There's still berries clinging to branches, mushrooms are popping up, scarves are being dug out and, you may hate me for saying this, but christmas is coming which for me is brilliant. I absolutely love this period, not for religion or the coca cola santa, but what it means In Britain and the way we naturally move from light, leafy salads to earthy veg and onto hearty "Winter warmer' foods. We indulge in warmer drinks, gluhwein and mulled cider, spiced hot chocolate with rum. The movement from Halloween to Bonfire night to Christmas is still filled with outdoor adventures, all be it with more clothes on. But we've had an amazing Summer and Autumn is already feeling pretty sweet (apples and blackberries grow nearby!) and my Winter menu planning is getting me proper excited about whats to come!!

So put on a sweater, dig out your favourite scarf n boots, and get ready for the hibernation period which is often when so much comes to life.

Below are some recent photos from our events, still lovin it everyday!! ix

Dehydrated carrots with spiced milk foam

Local charcuterie from my mate Hugo's BlackHand Foods

Nduja, pickled apples, chicory, sweet peppers and sorrel

Rye breads, browned butter, honeycomb, bee pollen, oh and mead!

Deconstructed Knickerbocker Glory

BBQ action, smokin

She definitely needs a lick of paint. I still love her dearly though 

My version of a tamale using chard

Should of kept it a little further from the flame, but damn it tasted good!

Pisco Fuego event for PWC

Happy peeps I reckon!!

Asian Banquet, food from my travels

Asian Banquet.

Wow this feels like so long ago!! Twas only 3 weeks but so much as happened since then, hence the lack of and delay in bloggin!

I think i ended up doing about 12 courses as many were little bites of fun, such as the momos from Tibet/north India which we served with a vegetable broth. When we were staying in the Himalayas this was what we ate and the family we were living with taught us how to make them. Simple little dumplings but oh so much fun! A community of farmers and preservers, they were an amazing bunch up there, blocked off from the rest of India by snow for the majority of the year, we were on a 60 hour bus journey there as got caught behind a landslide..... anyway I digress.

I made little Char Sui pork buns which I've wanted to make for so long as I absolutely love them! I used some of the belly to BBQ, well, first marinate overnight and then roast n baste which produced an incredibly moreish pork that I ate much of and used the rest the stuff some very simple dough which we then steamed. Delish.

The bread was sourdough of course and was laced with Kim Chi, which resulted in a super tangy and mind twitching bread. There were lots of demands for more, even after we ran out!!

We filleted and cured some trout which we then gently smoked to produce a rather delightful component to go on our betel leaves Thai street food style, mixed with peanuts, chillies, palm sugar, shrimp paste and a whole other array of goodies, frickin love this things!!

Malaysian inspired chicken skewers were awesome. Chicken thighs marinated over night in cumin, paprika, coriander, tumeric, curry powder and sugar, onto the skewers just before service and then grilled. I had to get the blow torch out to finish them off as the grill was weak. Plus I love getting the blow torch out. I'd wanted to set up a BBQ out front and do this course proper street style but figured some drunk passerby may start messing with it, I know I would!!!

We did a course of oyster po-boys which consisted of a deep fried oyster on a siracha laced lettuce leaf on sourdough baguette, a reference to the poor mans sandwich, apparently. Big thumbs up for this!


We made a really tangy sour orange curry using chillies and tamarind which we poached some pollack in and served with morning glory (a type of plant) and some long beans. Cleansing and happiness giving.

One of my favourite dishes of all time. This makes me smile from the inside out and really tickles me. Pork belly with holy basil and chillies. A really balanced sauce with palm sugar, a touch of fish sauce, ginger, garlic, chillies and lastly holy basil. With crisp belly pork I just melt, seriously.

The Vietnamese beef short rib was cooked overnight in coconut water and was melting by the time we served it. The accompanying salad of carrot, cabbage and onion with lemon juice, sugar and fish sauce served to cut through this rich dense deep piece of meat that was so good!!

The dessert always a favourite of mine was a spiced chocolate pudding with a lime marshmallow, peanut brittle and a raspberry foam. I thoroughly enjoyed making and serving this, balancing sweet with sharp and bitter whilst also playing with textures, joy!

I had a few puddings left so I ate one for breakfast the next day, bit of yoghurt and granola, yum!

I did actually eat two after dinner on the same day, sounds unbelievable but its incredibly and unfortunately true. Shame on me, sort of!!

Mr Penfold

Food and art collaborations, oh what fun!!

We teamed up with friend and street artist Mr Penfold for his first London show and designed a colourful vibrant menu to accompany his work. This was such a challenge that I absolutely relished! After being massively inspired and in awe of the artwork that came out of kitchens like El Bulli, I felt here was an opportunity to interpret ideas in art and artistic styles and create dishes based upon this. Brilliant!!

These are some of the early sketches and ideas, at first the idea was to replicate some of the artwork in an edible form. I played with this idea but decided that there were too many blues (a difficult colour to recreate naturally!) and after speaking with Mr Penfold (aka Tim) I stuck with the interpretive ideas. I thought about serving dishes on pieces of brick or wood (i.e. wall or fence, where the street art would normally be) but decided to serve food on plates. We did end up serving the canapes for the launch night on pieces of Mr Penfolds display from the second room, nice. See pic below.

This was the menu for the Friday and Saturday evening:

Stuffed radish with hollandaise

Pigs cheek with tarragon and beets

Pigs skin skin with purees

Wasabi Avocado smear with chicory and ceviche

Radish & beetroot salad, beetroot and orange puree, horseradish foam

Peas, beans and greens, herbs, leaves and strawberry

Roasted tomatoes and onions with garlic and almonds

Deconstructed burger with brioche cream, charred lettuce, pickled apples

Watermelon sorbet, churned to serve

Carrot cake, taken apart and put back together again

Lemon foam raspberry financier

This is part of the main room of the gallery. You can see the one of the tables we had painted which was where the 16/17 guests sat and dined on the Friday & Saturday night. Its funny, when I sat down at the table at the end of the Friday night service, it felt almost magical and I well and truly believe that this was such an unique event, such vibrancy of setting with food & drinks to match. I felt very happy as I sipped on the Mr Penfold beer that our friends at Honest Brew had come up with (check them out, they make brewing accessible to all and are really awesome people!)

This was ajo blanco, basically almonds and garlic, with roasted sweet tomatoes and onions with tarragon oil and toasted hazelnuts. Looks unassuming but the flavours were intense. I tried to use onion rings and have vibrant colours and flavours to represent Mr Penfolds use of shapes and colour

This was walnut brittle that I made using isomalt, a sugar substitute made from sucrose. As you can see if leaves a very clear finish as it doesn't caramelise in the same was normal sugar does, pretty awesome I think! This was used as part of the garnish for the carrot cake.

On the Saturday night I was having a few issues with the pork cheeks that I had cooked and pressed, basically I didnt have enough that had held together as the numbers went up on the last day. So I had the idea of creating a parcel of cheek meat using my friends Hugo's cured & smoked pork belly (aka pancetta) which we then blow torched to serve. This was delicious as the fat melted onto the cheeks and not only did it add a smokey hit but it also added a really fun dimension to the canapé as I blowtorched them in the dining room for all to see (and eat straight away!!)

This dish was lots of fun as we decided to churn salted yoghurt to serve, creating a frozen yoghurt parfait, served with summer greens and herbs. It made me laugh as we were meant to send it out with a strawberry, but we forgot both nights!! We were in such a rush to serve the rapidly melting parfait (there was no freezer, hence churn to serve!) that we'd send the dishes and then exclaim "****! the strawberries!!"

This was a fun dish to plan and execute, the deconstructed burger. There's lots of Mr Penfold stickers in various places now, one is on the side of our oven, and there is one of a burger with eyes & legs. So i thought it would be fun to make a deconstructed burger, especially as the world around us has gone a bit mental over burgers in the last couple of years. I made a paste using brioche, milk and browned butter which was the bun element. I used beef short ribs which I cooked in coca cola for 18 hours and then finished in the pan. The reduction from this was phenomenal and I enhanced it with various elements like, worcestershire sauce, pickled walnut juice and butter! We added a piece of sirloin on the second night to mix it up and allow for the extra numbers. The lettuce was braised in beef stock and the pickle element came in the form of apples pickled in cider vinegar. I'd made a tomato consumme which was to be turned into a jelly, however the agar wasnt setting properly, most likely because of the acidity of the tomatoes. So I whacked it into an isi whipper, with a touch of xanthum gum, charged it and boom, tomato foam, a la minute! really pleased with this last minute substitution as it tasted fantastic and the foam really contrasted with all the other elements

Deconstructed carrot cake, inspired by Thomas Keller, so much fun as love carrot cake and love the idea of taking all its flavour components (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, carrot, walnut, raisins, sugar etc) and turning it into something different but recognisable and familiar.

"There is a light that never goes out" Morrissey  

Hope to see you all soon, keep smiling, eating, laughing and loving

ix

Upcoming & past excitements

Firstly, hi, how are you? Awesome. 

Secondly a quick plug for our event this weekend, Mr Penfold and Cult Events presenting an art and food collaboration, basically Mr Penfold's first London exhibition, and a supperclub inspired by his works:

Mr Penfold Supperclub Menu

Stuffed radish with hollandaise

Pigs cheek with tarragon and beets

Chicken skin with purees

Wasabi Avocado smear with chicory and ceviche

Radish & beetroot salad, beetroot and orange puree, horseradish foam

Peas, beans and greens, herbs, leaves and strawberry

Roasted tomatoes and onions with garlic and almonds

Deconstructed burger with brioche cream, charred lettuce, pickled apples

Watermelon sorbet, churned to serve

Carrot cake, taken apart and put back together again

Lemon foam raspberry financier

The supperclub is £35 per person and includes a cocktail on arrival, please book through this link: http://billetto.co.uk/aneveningwithmrpenfold

I'm also running a sourdough masterclass on the Sunday 18th August with MadeInHackney, a local charity who are all about making food and learning accessible to all. These classes help subsidise those who are less fortunate, get involved!

http://madeinhackney.org/ai1ec_event/sourdough-masterclass/?instance_id=232

In no particular order, infact, in an extremely random order, here are some snippets of whats been going on these last few weeks. 

I was helping with a forging walk in Abney Park, all donations went to support the local nature reserve (awesome) and we all learnt a lot about the spaces around us. Check out our garlic mustard find, aka jack(ed) by the hedge, a delicious leaf that tastes like its rather descriptive name!!

This one however is called blackwhorehound, which is very bitter and part of the mint family, not sure how it got its name but certainly raised some eyebrows!! We found lemon balm as well and loads of information about all sorts of things green and wonderful. I loved just nibbling on anything above dog height, the stems of so many things are sweet and citrussy, am I about to rene it up and cover the plate with foraged bits? I already do when I take a shine to something new!

Pickle champagne, a happy mistake but decided more than one sip was too much, just in case, posh picklebacks perhaps?

These two (clearly iphone) pictures are from the latest supperclub which was a cheeky little number, ie every course had a cheek element. There was ox tongue stuffed with ox cheek (get it?) roasted apple cheeks with "BlackHand" ham, KFC (Kentucky Fried Cheeks), Cod cheek ceviche with avocado, radish and lemon cheeks, peach cheeks with strawberry puree and zabaglione, Ox cheeks with pommes puree (though I wasnt 100%happy with this as tried varying temps with the waterbath....) Onsen egg with pig cheek and pig cheek broth

It was also a certain someone's bday too so lucky me got to take her out for lunch, I chose newcomer Restaurant Story (Tom Sellers) after a recommendation from a friend. I've already shown so many people all 17 courses we had (10 course plus snacks) and I never get bored, however I have resisted here as I want people to go and enjoy for themselves. There is however a picture of a recently cleaned plate and the infamous three bear porridge!

Its also worth noting that during this meal it was pointed out to me that I no longer know how to eat with both a knife and fork; I was opting for the fork and thumb technique, much more masterful and controlled, especially as my face was poised inched above the plate as I examined and enjoyed. Turns out that I need to remedy this before I have children for fear of teaching them bad manners. I intend to get them on the dishes straight away and get them owning their sections before they hit nursery, molecular gastronomy kits for kids?

If you can make it Somerset House for the Ferran Adria expo, check it out, very interesting stuff, especially about creativity and the history of El Bulli, below is an excerpt about technique and creation an idea that inspired the team to produce so many new techniques and inspire a generation of cooks/chefs. Nice work!

And lastly this is a quick snap from the Red Bull Headquarters where we held a tasting yesterday. All went really well (of course!!) and now looking forward to Notting Hill Carnival where we will be looking after the Red Bull Parties cocktail bars and BBQ food outlets, boom ting indeed!!

Until next time, ix