What's on the menu for dining club?

You may well have noticed we've had to postpone the pop up at Home Sweet Home.  These things happen sometimes.

The good news is that I have been able to add some new dates for my dining club. To book a place you need to get in touch via email thehungrygecko@gmail.com



There are just a couple of places left for Friday 16th November, and I have posted an additional date for Thursday 15th.  Spaces are very limited, so be sure to book early to avoid disappointment.  

Here's the menu for next week.

Amuse bouche

Onigiri – griddled & marinated sushi with nori wrap

Served with pickles including wild samphire, black radish & ginger

First course

Steamed buns stuffed with wild mushroom & hoi sin

Second course

Thali tasting plate – paneer shashlik, matterwali tikki with tomato & green chilli masala, aubergine mash, kali dal & channa pilaf

Served with daniya chutney, cachumba salad & chapati

Pre-dessert

Wild raspberry & curd cheese sorbet

Dessert

Coconut pannacotta with macaroons,

served with kaffir lime jelly & pomegranate sauce

Masala spiced tea (chai), jasmine green tea or coffee

Rest, Regroup, Relaunch...

So it turns out that street food is mighty harder work than it appears to the outside world!  The last  nine months have been some of the most intense working periods of my entire life.  It's a good job I had all that time off swanning around Asia for a year or two.  It's the only way that having so little time off now would be at all bearable.

But aside from the exceptional hard work required, it has been a year of intense ups and downs.  I've learned an incredible amount (and still much more to go).  I've had some of the best times of my life. And some of the most terrifying.  Which is interesting, because that's a lot like travelling as a family across Asia.  I have made great friends along the way, tasted amazing food and experienced such support from people, it has made some very difficult times endurable.

During the next few months, I have a couple of Christmas markets to attend to, cooking up some warming street food on the streets of Ramsbottom and Leeds.  But my focus will be returning to some fine dining and writing.  I have an exciting pop up with a fellow chef in the pipeline, vegetarian fine dining at my supperclub and cookery classes in the stunning setting of Catton Hall.

For detailed information about events, check out my new website www.thehungrygecko.com

Hope you like it!

RECIPE TIME.... Sunday dinner for veggies!

My household may consist of a bunch a vegetarians, but I don't mind saying, we do love a family Sunday dinner as much as anyone.  With all the usual trimmings. Crispy roast potatoes with rosemary, creamy mash (I like to mix it up with spinach, but recently I've taken to making carrot and potato mash since my teen daughter decided she doesn't like cooked carrots anymore), peas (with a little garden mint) and a home made onion gravy.  

This recipe evolved yesterday as I was making a nut roast.  I wanted to make the main feature protein rich and nutritious, as I've been feeling a bit neglectful of my family's diet (and probably my own).  Nut roasts can often be a little dry, so I've tried to counter that with plenty of succulent vegetables, and replacing half the amount of nuts with chestnut mushrooms, and half of the breadcrumbs with quinoa.  When I tasted the filling, it felt like it needed something sharp to cut through the sweetness of the veg and the earthiness of the nuts and mushrooms.  Hence the Cheshire cheese, but you could use any tangy cheese such as feta or perhaps stilton. Don't be put off by the savoy wrapping.  I simply removed the thick part of the lower stem, and blanched it in the potato water.  Be generous with the overlapping layers to ensure it holds together. 

CASHEW & QUINOA VEGGIE ROAST

Ingredients - serves 6

150g cashews, lightly toasted

100g quinoa (or couscous)

1 red onion, diced, pref 1/2 cm pieces

1/2 courgette, diced 

1 carrot, diced

1 leek, finely sliced

5 chestnut mushrooms, diced

1 thick slice of brown/seeded bread

1 free range egg (or use silken tofu if vegan)

120g Cheshire cheese (or feta, Lancs, blue etc)

Savoy cabbage, 6 outer leaves, trim thick stalk end

Oil or butter for frying & greasing

Salt & white pepper for seasoning

1 tbsp fresh or 1/2 tsp dried herbs, I used fresh thyme & marjoram

To prepare:

1. Grease a loaf tin with butter or oil.  Heat oven to 190 degrees.
2. Add onion, courgette, carrot, leek & mushrooms to pan with a little oil or butter, and cook for 8-10 mins until vegetables are soft.
3. Simmer quinoa for 4-5 mins in veg stock (or hot water with a smidge of marmite).
4. Toast cashews in a pan, then blitz in food processor into small pieces.  Avoid blitzing into a powder or you will lose the texture.

5. Blitz bread into crumbs.
6. Blanche cabbage leaves in hot water for 2 mins and set aside.
7. Mix the vegetables, nuts, breadcrumbs and egg (or tofu if using).  Add fresh or dried herbs and season to taste with salt and white pepper.
8. Line the loaf tin with the cabbage leaves, using five large leaves to cover bottom and saving one leaf to seal the top.
9. Half fill the loaf tin with mixture, firmly pushing down with back of spoon to ensure shape.

10. Crumble the cheese over the filling. Then add remaining filling on top, again pushing down to make a firm shape. If you're vegan, omit this layer and add squeeze of lemon to veg mixture.
11. Fold over edges of cabbage leaves to cover top of roast, and then layer final leaf over top and tuck into sides.
12. Cover loaf tin with foil and place on baking tray.
13. Bake in over for 15 mins, then turn over, foil side down on tray, and continue baking for another 10-15 mins.
14. Remove from oven, turn right way again and remove foil lid.  Turn onto chopping board and remove tin.

Hope you enjoy it!  Here's to family time :0)

Time for a catch up... in photos

It's been a very busy few weeks.  I've worked so hard, the details are a little hazy!  But here's some rather lovely photos...





The Big Feastival in the beautiful Cotswolds was quite a challenge, but a great learning experience with the new outside wok!

Never too young to learn the art of pad Thai

Almost sunny!

The definition of exhausted!

Sunset at The Big Feastival

Bolton Food & Drink Festival.  More challenges but lots of fun & northern love!

Not forgetting the Manchester Picnic.  Top notch fun in Piccadilly Gardens!

Tramlines Festival, Sheffield

View from the back door :)

What's coming up....

As the old saying goes, we must make hay while the sun shines.  This is certainly true for us street food traders, except the sun has been a little unreliable this summer. There's been the odd blip of sunny loveliness and that was certainly true for the Manchester Picnic and my little jaunt to Harrogate for the International Classic Citroen Car Rally.

I'm about to hit my busiest run to date.  Starting this weekend with the Bolton Food & Drink Festival.  I will be there all bank holiday weekend, from this Friday 22nd August.  

This weekend's menu...

Cheshire Beef Rendang, slow cooked beef w/ lemongrass & coconut 

Indonesian ‘jungle’ curry, smoky tempeh & veg w/ spicy peanut & cashew curry (Vg)

Served with choice of lime rice or soft roti bread or both

Butter dal & aubergine masala, w/ stuffed paratha & pickles (V)

Thai Sweetcorn Fritters, w/ hot & sour noodle salad (V)

Spicy seasonal veg samosa, w/ homemade aubergine pickle (V)

“Little bit of everything” plate w/ curries, dal, fritter or samosa, roti, rice & pickles

Fresh watermelon ice pops pure & simple, with frozen lime yoghurt (V)

Mango & lime sherbet lassi w/ yoghurt, Alfonso mango & homemade sherbet 

Indian Chai, traditional masala tea w/ homemade spice mix

Then I'm off to The Big Feastival at Alex James Farm in Oxfordshire with my biggest team to date.  I need to seriously up my turnover if I'm going to meet the costs of going to bigger festivals.  This will be the test bed....

Then it's CarFest North on the 8th and 9th Sept at Cholmondley Castle in Cheshire.  Really hoping Chris Evans bobs over to see Barbarella and maybe try some of my food. I hear he likes a good curry!

After all that, I'm off to London for the British Street Food Awards 2012.  I've been shortlisted to the final 15 and am really excited about creating something new and delicious for the event.  Feeling quite a lot of pressure because it feels like there's an expectation there being a MasterChef alumni.  Everyone expects me to perform well but there's a massive amount of competition this year, with some amazing traders and producers.  It's going to be tough! 

Recipe for Roast Cauliflower, Broccoli & Pasta Fondue

RECIPE TIME!  Roasted cauliflower, broccoli and pasta fondue with a pumpkin seed crust.  This is a fairly quick and easy dish to prepare.  I find it's very popular amongst children and teens, but then the fondue sauce gives a slightly more ‘grown up’ feel to the dish too. 

It came about as a result of my indecision between making macaroni cheese or cauliflower cheese.  You can use different combinations of cheeses, but I do love the classic combination of gruyere and emmental.  I try to include seeds in recipes sometimes as they are a great source of nutrients for anyone's diet, especially veggie's.

Ingredients – to serve 4-6

•  1 medium cauliflower
• 1 medium broccoli head
• 300g penne or rigatoni pasta
• ½ bottle dry white white
• Clove of garlic (optional)
• 200g Gruyere
• 200g Emmental
• 1 tsp English mustard
• 50g Sainsbury vegetarian Italian hard cheese
• Small handful of pumpkin or mixed seeds
• 2 slices of brown bread (preferably a little stale)

Method

1. Heat oven to 220 C.
2. Break and trim cauliflower and broccoli into large florets, drizzle with olive oil and a little salt and roast in the hot oven for 10 mins.
3. Meanwhile, bring add pasta to pan of boiling water and cook until al dente, about 8 mins.  Drain water and then return to large pan and set aside.
4. Rub the sides of a small pan with the garlic clove (if using), then add white wine and bring to boil.  Simmer until reduced by one third.
5. Grate gruyere and emmental and add to simmering wine, along with mustard.  Heat gently and stir until wine and cheese are well combined.
6. Blitz brown bread slices in mixer to create breadcrumbs.  Bread can be grated if you don’t have a food processor.  Mix breadcrumbs with finely grated parmesan or vegetarian Italian hard cheese.
7. Add roasted vegetables to pasta pan, mix together and then add fondue sauce and stir to combine well. Check seasoning and add salt and white pepper to taste. Turn out mixture into large baking dish, ensuring even arrangement of cauliflower, broccoli and pasta.
8. Layer breadcrumb mixture over top and then sprinkle with pumpkin or mixed seeds.
9. Bake in hot oven, 200 C, until top is golden and crispy.

Enjoy :0)

Next up... Split Feastival at Sunderland festival

Looking forward to heading North East in June for Split Feastival Food & Drink Village at Sunderland Festival, in Herrington Country Park. It's a mixed crowd so planning a menu that will offer something for everyone. 

The hot weather at VegFest in Bristol got me thinking about offering more cold dishes.  It was so hot in the trailer.  This was the view from the hatch...

  

I'm also very excited about serving up my audition dish from MasterChef which I'll serve with a kicking coriander sauce.  There'll be a battle of the curries between a slow cooked rendang (with well sourced beef from local Frosts butchers) and my very popular Indonesian jungle curry with marinated tempeh (vegan and super tasty).  The mango and lime sherbets went down well at VegFest so I think I'll make them again.  reminder to self to get the lime sherbets fermenting this week so they're ready in time.  I ran out in Bristol, so had to switch to making pina colada slushies with pineapple and coconut.  I could start a lassi & slushie bar at this rate :o)   

 

Split Feastival Menu

• Paneer shashlik roti wrap, with cachumba salad & coriander sauce
• Malaysian beef rendang,  slow cooked Cheshire beef with jasmine rice
• Indonesian ‘jungle’ curry, with tempeh & jasmine rice
• Sushi platter, fish (inc line caught mackerel) or veggie
• Rhubarb samosas with star anise & vanilla ice-cream

For more info about Split festival check out their website here.

I'm then a bit more local in Stockport for an Olympic torch 'brunch'.  I'm planning a breakfast and brunch menu with a twist, including masala omelette, chilli fried eggs and roti canai, a Malaysian flaky roti with a veg dal.  I'll be serving this up in Stockport Mersey Way from 8am on Sun 24th June.