3AM Kitchen - Behind The Scenes in Our New Series

We are excited to launch a new series ‘3AM Kitchen’ on IGTV. Watch the film here. The idea is simple; we invite chefs down to New Covent Garden Market to select the best seasonal produce, then whizz them back to our demo kitchen to show off their skills. In this first episode, chef Lewi Spencer works his magic with Potimarron squash. Here is a quick look behind the scenes …

Want to get involved? Get in touch … On our next trip we will be cooking with pupils at Rhyl Primary School in Camden, where they have a built a new community kitchen called Rhyl Kitchen Classroom which helps train chefs of the future. We are proud partners of this project.

NoMad Hotel, London - Strawberry x 3 Ways

Nick Henn is Head Pastry Chef at the new NoMad Hotel in London. Together with his two Sous Chefs, Margherita and Martha, the pastry team have created this faultless dessert for their new menu.

Nick Henn, Margherita and Martha

Strawberry with Vanilla Cake, Cream Cheese and Lemon Verbena Sorbet

“Our inspiration for the strawberry dish came from a mixture of the English tradition of Strawberries & Cream married with our NYC roots of a Strawberry Cheesecake. We wanted to lighten the dish as much as possible, so introduced the citrus from the Lemon Verbena sorbet which cuts through the fat from the cheese and the madeleine sponge. The Strawberry sorbet is also high in acidity to ensure the sugar levels remain balanced.

We prepare the strawberries in three ways. Firstly, poached in a strawberry consommé which we season with citric acid and sugar syrup. We also make a roasted strawberry puree by cooking Mara de Bois Strawberries in the oven for around 4 hours, before blending with lemon juice and salt. The final element is just a raw slice of Gariguette which we brush with a strawberry and balsamic vinegar, just to macerate and soften the fruit slightly.

We have a mixture of desserts on our menus here at NoMad, with the multiple dining spaces and services (Side Hustle - Mexican, Atrium, Breakfast Service, Events). We have a really great spectrum to work from. Our inspiration mainly comes from nostalgic dishes reinvented. But - most importantly - also delicious food we all want to eat.

Recently we have developed a Rum Baba with tropical fruit and we are working now on a banana and puff pastry dessert, as well as a selection of Mexican inspired chocolate bon bons for Side Hustle.

Being able to create recipes and dishes together as a team makes everything so much easier: to be able to bounce ideas off each other and take inspiration from all three of our experiences definitely enables us to create desserts that we can all be proud of.

July is such a versatile month. We are working on a deep-dish Peach Cobbler for brunch with Le Marche's amazing stone fruit selection, as well as a Raspberry and Yoghurt dessert with their amazing Tulameen. It really does help to have Ben and Marcus on the end of the phone with their years of experience and knowledge!

I would say that definitely my two biggest influences in food are Mark Welker (Former Executive Pastry Chef of Make It Nice) and OfCourse Benoit Blin (Le Manoir). Benoit was my first boss straight out of college at 17 and he definitely taught me the basics and ground rules, Le Manoir is an amazing place and I owe so much to him.

I worked for Mark for almost two years at Davies and Brook. Having spent a lot of time with him in New York he is the most talented and creative person I have ever met. The way he designed and ran our pastry programmes with such seemingly ease was inspiring and his visionary approach to the pastry section as a whole was amazing to have the opportunity to be a part of.”

The Waterside Inn, Bray-on-Thames - A Restaurant for all Seasons

We’re delighted to share a post from Head Chef at The Waterside Inn, Fabrice Uhryn. Opened in 1972 by the late Michel Roux OBE and his brother Albert, The Waterside Inn is famous for its classic French cuisine. It has a unique, unbroken record of being awarded one, two and three Michelin stars in every edition of the British Michelin Guide since first published in 1974. It has now held 3 stars, first awarded in 1985, longer than any restaurant in the world outside France.  Fabrice runs the kitchen alongside Chef Patron, Alain Roux and here describes a popular dish that is a perfect example of their longstanding, successful relationship with Le Marché.

“For more than 25 years, “Fleur de Courgette” has been a highlight of our Spring menu, eagerly anticipated by our chefs and clients alike, signalling the end of Winter’s gloom as we step into Spring. Great dishes call for the finest ingredients, which is why we work so well with Ben Cartwright and his team at Le Marché. They hunt out the best produce to meet our exacting standards. Such a key relationship is an essential tool in our kitchen and extension of our team. The freshest seasonal ingredients, combined with the skills and passion of the chef, is a failsafe recipe for success.

The dish was originally created by Michel Roux and his head chef at the time, Mark Dodson, inspired by the primeur vegetables of the Loire Valley. A delicate arrangement of fresh, young vegetables forms the heart of the dish. The rich, alluvial soil and mild climate of the Loire region make perfect growing conditions; no wonder it’s known as “The Garden of France”.

“The rainbow of tender vegetables is complemented by a beautiful courgette blossom, gently filled with seasonal fungi such as morels and St George mushrooms.  A generous topping of black truffle completes the dish, a delicious, luxurious treat.”

Spring Flavours - Chef Lewis Spencer

Chef Lewis Spencer is a bright young talent and moved to London three years ago after a year in New York and a second stint for Mark Birchall. He’s worked under chefs including Russell Bateman and Dmitri Magi at Davies and Brook at Claridge’s Hotel.

He talks us through his creative process creating a dish inspired by the first spring ingredients …

“For chefs, spring is like a new year because it’s the start of fresher, more colourful vegetables. The dish itself is wild garlic pesto, with asparagus, Morels, peas, a black garlic emulsion, salt cured egg yolk, lemon zest, flowers and a yoghurt whey sauce.”

“Asparagus is one of my favourite things and I’m just doing something different with the yoghurt whey as sustainability is very important. The egg is cured with kombu and salt and then microplaned, along with the lemon zest. The wild garlic pesto is made with macadamia nuts, wild garlic, parsley, oil - a bit of olive oil and lemon oil - and parmesan. The morels are sauteed and finished with chicken stock. It’s a classical dish done with some really good produce.“

www.lewisspencer.co.uk

Cypriot Memories - Chef George Farrugia

This dazzling dish from Chef George Farrugia was inspired by his Cypriot heritage. “This is my take on surf and turf - ‘Pork belly with squid 'krassado' and squid ink mash’”, he says.

“Food was a big part of my childhood - the family dinner,” he says. “Everyone can cook in my family- they are all my best critics. My grandmother used to do a rustic braised red wine squid with cinnamon and cloves. I've added some influences from my French training …”

“Krassado is a red wine braise with squid, tomato, garlic, spices and a few aromats. My grandmother covered the squid with the same amount of olive oil, white wine vinegar and red wine, a couple of cloves, cinnamon sticks, coriander seeds then braised.

In my version, I’ve put some shallots through it and slow cooked with lemon thyme, Bay leaf, Datterini tomatoes and chicken stock.

I cover with a cartouche and gently braise until the squid is tender and the sauce is reduced. You know it’s ready when you break up the squid with your finger.

I’ve served it with caper leaves - it's an unusual ingredient. It’s the stalk and leaves and young buds - they are brined. I’ve used Desiree potatoes for the mash, with squid ink for colour, aerated with an espuma gun. Served with pork belly, slow cooked and pressed.“

The Beauty of Simplicity - Chef Park

Chef Woongchul Park and his wife Bomee Ki run Sollip, a trailblazing Korean restaurant in Bermondsey. Take a look at these two plant-forward dishes - sensational.

Between them, the pair have worked in restaurants including The Ledbury (now sadly closed), Koffmann’s and The Arts Club. They named their restaurant after the Korean word for ‘pine needle’, which is considered to be the best ingredient to control flames and smoke in traditional Korean cuisine.

Here is Dish 1 - ‘Winter White Salad’. This dish is assembled using root vegetables such as chervil root, celeriac, kohl rabi and turnip.

“It’s very simple,” explains chef Park. “The top layer is chervil root, cut with a truffle slicer. The jug is pine nut milk. The bottom layer is a julienne of turnip , kohl rabi and celeriac. The first two are raw - salted first then we squeeze out the water to make the texture more crunchy. We mix with very finely chopped pine nuts to give some nuttiness and different flavours. And sprinkle with cold pressed perilla seed oil. What I wanted to show with that plate was quite simplistic. “

Dish 2 is called ‘Carrot & Carrot’.

“The carrot dish is more complicated,” says Park. “You can see the different colours. Half of them are cooked in a vacuum pack with cooking liquor. The other half are a white kimchi. There are so many different types of kimchi in Korea. This one is watery and white, called ‘Dongchimi’. It was fermented a very long time - nearly one year. We serve with goat’s cream, a dill mustard vinaigrette, hazelnut oil and hazelnuts.” (Picture credit @shinmiura)

Annabel's Rhubarb vs Claude Lamarche

Want to see a master at work? We have supplied pastry chef Claude Lamarche for years and he’s top of his game. So we challenged the chef to work his magic with the first crop of forced rhubarb from our friend Annabel in Yorkshire.

“Yorkshire rhubarb is unique in the world,” the chef says. “And pink because they never see the light. I like it because it is not a fruit but a vegetable - but you can use it as a fruit. I love the acidity and texture.”

Claude learnt his trade at Gordon Ramsay's L'Aubergine in London (2 Michelin stars) and then left for Hong Kong to work with Tim Powell before a stint with Francois Payard in his pastry shop in New York. After that, Head Pastry Chef with Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire (3 Michelin stars), Executive Pastry Chef for The Great Eastern Hotel and Executive Pastry Chef The Dorchester.

He recalls a favourite rhubarb dish from his days at L’Aubergine with Ramsay: a rhubarb soufflé with fromage frais and black peppercorn sorbet. “Gosh, it was beautiful” he recalls.

Here’s a glimpse into his creative process in his home kitchen … He first cooked the rhubarb sous vide with sugar, some raspberries and no water. "You could also use strawberry and a bit of fresh ginger,” he says.

He drained the rhubarb and then laid in a mould (“Never peel it,” he says.)

The chef remembers eating outdoor rhubarb as a child in France. “My mum used to do rhubarb jam - I hated it. She cooked it so much - it was sweet and brown in colour.”