We’ve now been held up unexpectedly by some rather annoying legislative issues which came just after we thought we’d bought fridges that were too big for our kiosk!

It’s all a bit frantic, writing some articles for magazines, doing something for the Times, photo shoots, deals with new retailers… New products… All very exciting but madly crazily busy! Anyway… Keep following , it’s sure to get more interesting. Sounds like we’ve found some team members for Reading which is great!!

And randomly today I partook (is that a word?) in a twitter potato masterclass. If I thought I would be doing that five years ago, I might have laughed!!

More very soon!!… Thanks for following!

I now have Andrea’s recipes so here they are for you all to replicate!

Beetroot and walnut dip

Grate 1 medium beetroot, crush a small handful of walnuts, mix together with some crushed garlic, thick Greek yogurt, salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil and lemon juice.  You want to get a thick spoonable dip.

 Beetroot pancakes

Make up a simple batter using flour, eggs and milk.  Into this stir in a couple of grated beetroots and season with plenty of salt and pepper.  The batter needs to be a pouring consistency.  Place spoonfuls of the batter into a hot oiled pan and cook for about 2-3 mins until golden brown on both sides.  Make up a quick sauce with some crème fraîche, chopped dill and a pinch of sugar.  Top the hot pancakes with thin slices of the beetroot gravadlax and a spoonful of the crème fraîche sauce.

Beetroot gravadlax

Mix together about 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1 ½ tablespoons of salt.  Stir in 1 beetroot, grated with about 1 tablespoon of vodka (optional) and a good handful of chopped dill.  Spread this over a side of salmon, pin boned and skin left on.  Wrap the whole side tightly in clingfilm, place in a tray and weight it down with a couple of cans.  Chill overnight or for a minimum of 12 hours.  Scrape the beetroot mix off the salmon and wipe before slicing.

Carrot and orange dip

Peel and dice a bunch of carrots and place in a saucepan, add a sliced onion, and some crushed garlic.  Drizzle with olive oil and enough water to just cover, cover with a lid and cook on a low heat until meltingly soft.  Mash and then stir in the juice of ½ an orange, a couple of tablespoons of tahini and some ground cumin.  Season with salt and pepper.

Parsnip and thyme bread

Finely chop and fry a medium onion in olive oil until soft and lightly coloured, cool.  Mix into equal amounts of self raising flour and grated parsnip (roughly 175g of each) add a pinch of salt, some chopped thyme leaves and a small handful of grated parmesan cheese.  Add in beaten egg and milk to form a soft dough.  Shape into a round and place on an floured baking sheet.  Bake for about 40-45mins until golden and sounds hollow.

Steamed salsify with brown butter and garlic

Peel salsify and place immediately into acidulated water.  Cut into even sized pieces and steam until tender. Melt some butter in a pan, add some crushed garlic and the salsify and cook until the butter turns a nice golden brown colour.  Garnish with chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Thank you Andrea!

It’s been quite a few weeks of interviews starting with the Waitrose chronicle which you can see here!

This morning I was in Reading being interviewed on Radio Berkshire by Nicki Whiteman. I really like doing radio, it’s like having a chat to someone, not scary at all.

Then I went off to the Reading chronicle for a picture. We’d sent them 20 or so pots to try so they wanted a big pic of the team and yours truly… The picture is very very posed! If you live in Reading, check it out in the next couple of weeks in the business section. it’s all keeping me busy!

I’m now off to meet a man and a coffee machine!!

Meanwhile we’ve been looking at pots and pans and all sorts of equipment and I’m going to be trialling grilling tomatoes over the next day or so!!

At 5pm I’ve got a meeting with a coffee machine guy. Too late to drink coffee so I will be using the spittoon, otherwise I will be up all night!!

And don’t forget today to tune in to radio Berkshire at midday when I will be on the Anne Diamond show!

Another update soon!

We’ve just hired our new Reading manager, Chris.  We’re sure he’s going to be amazing in the kiosk!  It was hard to make a decision as we had a lot of seriosuly good people interested in the role….

And we launch on 1st March!! (give or take a few days..) Yay.  Picture to follow… very soon!  Promise

Here is a selection of the recipes we made… more to follow!  They’re quite approximate but we were cooking adhoc.  Nothing was planned, we cooked with what we bought from the market on the day!  It also means no pics!  I have to rely on others to send pics

Parsnip pakoras and beetroot pakoras

These were incredibly popular!  Pilllowy little fritters, perfect little nibbles with some minted yoghurt.

Slowly heat some vegetable oil in a deep pan – about 4 inches oil deep.   Heat until a piece of bread thrown in sizzles as soon as it is added.

Mix about a mugful of gram flour with a tsp of baking powder and about 1/2 tsp salt.  Add 2 tbsp of a garam masala mix and about 1 tsp of cumin seeds and some black pepper.  Now make a well and add 2 eggs, slowly incorporate the flour and spice mix into the eggs before adding enough cold water to make a thick batter that would coat the back of a wooden spoon.  If you want bright purple beetroot pakoras, replace the water with beetroot juice.  Now grate about 3 peeled parsnips (you could use carrots, beetroot, celeriac…).  Finely slice 2 spring onions, 1/2 fresh chilli and some onion if you like and some coriander – essentially the veg mix is up to you.  You need enough grated veg so that when it is added to the batter, it forms thick spoonfuls of mixture that will hold their shape upoon impact with the hot oil.  If you taste the batter before you add the vegetables, you will be able to tell if you have added enough spice and salt.  Add more if you think it needs it.

When the oil is hot, gently drop heaped teaspoons of batter and veg mix into the oil and cook, turning regularly for about 5 minutes until golden brown.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the pakoras to a sheet lined with kitchen paper.  Serve immediately!

Beetroot, fennel, orange and smoked mackarel salad

Finely slice about 3 spray and golden beetroots (you can use the purple ones but they will dye your salad purple).  Segment 2 oranges and add to the beetroot with the juice.  Next finely slice 1/3 fennel bulb.  Add a handful of flatleaf parsley leaves.  Now glug in a fair amount of extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of salt and pepper  and some lemon juice.  Then add your smoked mackarel (you can buy ready smoked or make it yourself of course).

Celeriac remoulade – a delicious classic French salad.

Chop off the peel of the celeriac route.  Finely slice celeriac into matchsticks and then plunge into boiling water.  After about 2 minutes, remove and put in iced water – drain.  Make a mayonnaise or buy a good quality one.  Add some dijon mustard to your mayo, finely chopped cornichions and capers, salt pepper and lemon juice.  Mix in to your celeriac.

Thick Celeriac and parmesan soup – This is great for a soup shot as it’s very rich!

Sweat 1 roughly chopped onion in about 40g butter with a bruised garlic clove and 2 bay leaves.  Cook it very slowly so the onion is v soft.  Next add 1 peeled and diced celeriac.  Sweat with the lid on for around 15 minutes until quite soft.  Next cover with full cream milk and a little double cream,  Season with salt and black pepper.  Cook until the celeriac is soft.   Remove the bay leaves and then blitz using a hand blender (or go to the market stall next door and use their electricity to do it, as we did!).  Add about 100g grated parmesan – taste and season.

Oca roots with lemon sauce vierge, cherry tomatoes and dill

Oca roots are native of the Incas.  They can now be bought from a farmer in the UK and I was lucky enough to have the use of some over the past few days.  Oca roots are best eaten raw or lightly warmed in my opinion.  The following recipe works with oca roots as well as cooked potatoes or finely sliced carrots.

In a heavy based pan, add about 75ml extra virgin olive oil.  Add 1/2 finely sliced onion and a bashed garlic clove, some lemon zest, a few peppercorns, and 2 bayleaves.  Cook very slowly for about 20 minutes until the onion is very soft.  Remove from the heat, squeeze in some lemon juice, a few quartered cherry tomatoes and a sprinlking of dill as well as some salt.  Taste.  Then toss over sliced oca roots or finely sliced carrots.

Warm beetroot with cumin, lemon and feta

Melt butter with olive oil in a pan with 1 tsp cumin seeds.  Allow to froth.  Stir in about 3 peeled and grated beetroot.  Warm through before adding the juice of a lemon, salt and black pepper.  Stir in crumbled feta.

Heritage Carrots with butter, caraway and lemon.

Heritage carrots are beautiful – you get some really unusual colours and this makes for a beautiful salad!  Melt butter and olive oil in a pan and add caraway seed, black pepper and salt.  Allow to froth before poring over finely shredded carrots (use one of thise clever peelers that also cuts each ribbon into strips.

Salsify sauteed in butter and garlic – Salsify tastes oystery… it’s like sea food!  Very unusual but delicious!

Salsify is a root that many people would not have tried.  Firstly peel the roots and straight away put them into acidulated water (water with lemon juice – which will stop it going brown).  Slice the salsify into 1cm slices.  Steam over a pan of boiling water for 10 mins till tender.  Then fry in butter until tehy turn golden.  Add crushed garlic, salt and pepper.

Turnip and carrot Vietnamese salad – If you can’t find green papaya, turnip works fantastically well.

Simply grate a load of turnip along with some celeriac if you like, some carrots and some beeteoot.  In another bowl, mix fish sauce, lime juice, crushed garlic and grated ginger.  Add some chopped mint and coriander, a little sugar and some finely chopped chili.  Taste the dressing – it should be salty, sour, and sweet… mix through the grated veg and serve!

Beetroot risotto – make a risotto as you would normally – sweat onions in olive oil and butter with a bit of thyme… when soft add some crushed garlic before adding risotto rice.  Cook for a minute or 2.  Now add about 1 glassful of white wine.  Boil to reduce and then add beetroot juice in place of stock along with 1/2 chicken stock cube.  You will need to add some water as beetroot juice is absorbed less readily by the rice.  However, it gives the risotto an  amazing colour!  After about 20 minutes, the rice should be tender.  Take off the heat, season and add anout 40g butter cut into small squares and about 50g grated parmesan.  Beat to incoporate.  Serve!

There you go!  First installment… I am sure I will think of some more!

Also just trying to sort out uniforms… It’s a mine field. How are we to know how many of which size to buy before we’ve even got any staff?… Any hints, let me know! We’re going down the polo shirt and hoody route…

Also, Planning lots of vouchers so watch this space as I’ll be posting
a link for you to get one as soon as the kiosk opens…

The menu boards have also been a trial! Now they look so simple and as if they took no time to design. BUT I can tell you it has taken weeks of tweaks to get it looking the way it does. It’s fantastic and I’m very excited. If anyone wants a good designer, let me know…

Can’t wait to post some pics but it’s all still a little under wraps. I promise to share soon…..

Meanwhile, tomorrow I’m off to portobello market to dem exciting things to do with root veg. Beetroot, salsify, oca tubers (ok not strictly speaking a root but nothing I’ve ever tried before…)… You name it!! Come along from 11-4 to see me and my friend Andrea do our stuff!

I also jut found out that I’ve been picked for this years Courvoisier future 500 which is very very exciting indeed

That’s it for now, tune in soon…

So, as you can imagine, I’ve been crazily busy sorting all this out! (as well as doing more workshops at Leiths, Books For cooks, organising to go and teach at Havelock school in the summer term and preparign for a guest appearance as chef at the British Roots Fest at Portobello Market later this month!!).

We’re in the final stages of sorting everything. Anna, is a new arrival to the team and she will be looking after the kiosk business, helping it grow and becoming the machine that makes all the cogs turn. We knew Anna was the one for the job as soon as we met her and we’re very happy to have her on the team as it’s quite refreshing to have fresh perpectives on things! Say hello to Anna!

We hope to open in mid Feb so I’m going to be updating this blog regularly so you can all see how we are getting on!

So what will we be serving I hear you ask? Well, we’re going to be THE place to come for one pot meals throughout the day. We’ll have delicious breakfasts, including sweet and savoury options. from yoghurt and granola and porridge with fruit compotes to Boston baked beans with sausage and bacon. We’ll be offering many of our stews with rice, couscous and mash and some lovely veg. We’ll also be selling our retail packs as well as hot drinks!

I can’t wait to show you all the imagery!!

It has all been a bit of a mine field, trying to agree to everything, getting portion size right, ordering equipment. Perhaps the toughest thing has been getting our menu boards right. We know it’ll probably all change soon after opening becasue we’ve got bits and pieces wrong, but just to get to this point has been a BIG challenge!!

Anyway, watch this space and as soon as I can, i will upload some pictures to show you!

Thanks for keeping in touch and keep reading

One of the perks to my job (I’m not sure I can call it a job, more like a lifestyle these days!) is that, on occasions, I get asked to go along to restaurants for delicious food and drink for free… I don’t complain when that happens!

Now, to be fair it’s been some time since I last found myself lucky enough to be invited somewhere exciting but last Friday I was asked by my freind Jaime, who I’ve only recently met, to go on a restaurant safari organised by Ricker Restaurants.  Ricker restaurants number 5: E&O, Eight Over Eight, Cicada, Great Eastern Dining Room and XO,  all specialising in pan Asian food and each designed with a slightly different look and feel but noticably part of the same overarching group.

Jaime’s been involved in rebranding one of the group’s bars, underneath the Great Eastern Dining Room, changing the name from GloGlos to Gigi’s (hope I’ve got the spelling right, Jaime) and incorporating a Korean BBQ into the mix.  The safari was a celebration of the recent change and also an opportunity to showcase the food and drink at 3 of their restaurants.

We kicked off the day down the Kings Road in SW London at Eight Over Eight.  After a welcome drink, we were then led down to the private dining room, an exquisite space, very smart and elegant with black textured wallpaper,  a solid black table covered with some lovely glasses filled with even lovlier white wine.

The service at Eight over Eight was fantastic: really welcoming, unpretentious, just the right amount of interaction and really knowledgable.

I really loved the food here.  The sushi platter that we begun with was beautiful.

Eight Over Eight sushi platter

I loved the seared tuna wrapped in some kind of thin pancake – delicious.  The platter was then followed by some thinly sliced seabass with a sesame and truffle oil based dressing with salmon roe.  I’m not doing it true justice but it was seriously delicious.  Oh, in classic Alan style, I forgot to take a picture of that dish too…

Next we enjoyed a couple of salads.  One was a delicious Vietnamese beef salad,

Vietnamese Beef Salad

a perfect balance of sweet, sour, spice and salt with crunchy vegetables punctuated with strips of rare beef.

Next was a cobb salad, which apparently, according to Virginia, (another guest on the safari, who bizarelly enough came from Virginia…. but somehow I think I may have simply got her name wrong…) is all about the dressing… a red wine vinaigrette enriched with Roquefort cheese.  I could see the merits of this salad but after that delicious tangy, salty Vietnamese triumph, it simply wasn’t a match.

Next we moved on to some

Prawn and chicken gyozas

deliciously moist prawn and chicken gyozas, bursting with hot stock as I bit through the tender dumpling shells.  (Incidentally, from the mess on the table, you can clearly see that we were enjoying the meal!)

After Eight over Eight we went on to the Great Eastern Dining Room where we enjoyed some delicious Korean grilled chicken

Korean BBQ chicken

and blackened salmon with a sweet

Blackened salmon

miso sauce.

Things then went downhill. Not in terms of the food, but in terms of my ability to take photos, or at least, remenber to take pictures.  (If you’ve been following my blog since I started, you’ll know I find remembering to take photos is something I find immensely challenging!)

There was a green Thai chicken at Great Eastern that I didn’t feel quite worked.  It lacked any real spice and flavours characteristic of Thai food and was simply a little lacklustre.  Otherwise, the food was equally delicious as Eight over Eight.

Next we were treated to a cocktail masterclass where we enjoyed Martinis and a pear based vodka drink with raspberry which was especially delicious.  By now though I’d begun to get quite inebriated (my inability to refuse food, is mirrored with cocktails…) and certainly find myself in the naughty corner…

Next on to Cicada but by now I’d eaten far too much.  My eyes are much bigger than my stomach you see and I do find refusing food a rather unnatural thing… So when salt and peper squid turned up, I didn’t hold back in hoovering them up.. and more cocktails!

Believe it or not, I was then due to go out for a Thai meal for dinner!  Madness!

All in all, I had a really great afternoon and thanks to Jaime for inviting me!

It really didn’t take me long to accept the role as I’ve private cheffed in France before and loved it.  Private cheffing is quite an amazing experience.  Invariably, you have free run of the kitchen and can cook/buy whatever you like.  Complete creative freedom!  And I love it; to have a fridge full of amazing ingredients that you can pick and choose from is pretty special and not something that comes along often.

The opportunity was also time out from my day job at stewed!  Cooking every day in the mountains of Andalucia of Spain is a long long way away from what I do on a daily basis.

After a 2 hour drive from Malaga airport, I arrived at my destination – and what a destination it was!  Tucked up in the mountains surrounded by blue skies and white villages.  Amazing!  Birds of prey circled above and began to think I was going to be happy here for 10 days!

I was thrown pretty much into the deep end the next day when we trundled off to the supermarket down on the coast.  Because it took so long to get to the nearest decent supermarket, it was necessary to buy large quantities of food in one go!  As such, I managed to spend 1.5 hours in the supermarket picking up a random selection of items that I’d transform into delicious things over the next few days.

I would also shop at the local fishmonger in the old market.  You couldn’t imagine a more stereotypical fisherwoman than Anna, who took down my orders and helped me choose the best rodaballo (turbot).  Long grey wirey hair, a big smile, and quite large hands!  She’s been working with fish for a long time, clearly.

Over the course of my stay in Spain, I cooked a multitude of dishes.  Lunch was usually a selection of salads and grills whereas dinner would start with a homemade dip and crudites and perhaps another little amuse bouche, followed by a main course and a salad and occasionally a dessert.  I also made bread every day!

Here’s a selection of the food I made…

And here was a freind I made and something to give you an idea of the beauty of where I was.  I hope I get the chance to go back!

The surroundings...

My friend, donkey