@Shelovescake

Necessity, arising from the tube strike, combined with a burst of beautiful spring sunshine has led me to change my commute to and from Leith’s. So long slow chug on the District line, hello bright and breezy walk along the Northcote Road, quick stint on the Mildmay line, and a final characterful trot through Shepherd’s Bush. I find the walk has a similar effect on me as swimming: it provides a space to think and dream making me feel full of hope and inspired. As I approach my last official day on Bank of England books, I continue to consider the sequence of events that has brought me to embarking on a ‘second life’ a somewhat hard-won blessing. Exactly what that new life will look like isn’t completely clear as yet but there’s an excitement in the opportunity of the unknown. Meanwhile, I still have 8 full and challenging weeks at Leith’s in which to stay grounded, fully harness my culinary skills and push myself in this safe little bubble.

Week 2 was certainly stretching with plenty of kitchen-based arm workouts and our first all day cook of the term. The week was book-ended by learning to make the perfect, un-split, non-greasy, well-seasoned beurre blanc. On the emulsion arm work-out scale, this one is probably the least offensive next to Hollandaise and mayonnaise. We made it twice on Monday, once for practice and second to serve with asparagus spears blanched to al dente. At the end of the week, we made a version flavoured delicately with cucumber seeds and served with a pan-fried halibut fillet – juicy, yet crisp – cucumber Parisienne (little globes) and petit brunoise, micro-herbs and caviar. Dinner that evening was the left-overs stuffed into two slices of the brioche we made on Tuesday – a rather upmarket fish (finger) sarnie.

Tuesday was a mise en place day i.e. prepping parts of recipes for later in the week. It was relatively chilled all be it contained the main arm work-out of the week: the making of the dough for the aforementioned brioche. This ‘fun’ little dough is made by using your fingers to continuously pound and pull the dough until you can stretch it up to your armpit before adding cubes of cold, yet pliable, butter one by one with a similar technique. The whole thing takes at least 25 minutes. But, of course, definitely worth it for the buttery, light, sweet and shiny loaf. We also prepared a chicken liver parfait and a gooseberry and raisin chutney: a classic trio which we would serve together the following day. Whizzing chicken livers in a Thermonix and dribbling in lashings of melted butter is not for the faint-hearted. Indeed, it certainly might affect your enjoyment of the finished article having been up close and personal with the process.

Thursday marked our first all day cook of the term. As usual for an all day event, we had a lot on our literal plates. The show-stopper was a recipe we will keep in the vegan section of our culinary arsenal. Salt-baked celeriac, hen of the woods, smoked emulsion, mushroom foam and smoked almond migas. Lots of tasks and plenty of washing up. First up was caramelising 1kg of mushrooms across four pans ahead of assembling the stock for the foam. Then, on to forming a quick salt dough within which to encase our celeriac for baking. Migas is essentially a fancy word for a crumb. This one containing whole smoked almonds and cubes of sourdough fried in butter and roughly chopped for the textured element of the dish. A vegan emulsion is a dream to make compared to its egg-based cousin, mayonnaise. Oil and soy milk in a jug, insert a stick blender and boom you’ve made an emulsion. This one was made delicious by the inclusion of smoked oil. Once the mushrooms had cooked for a couple of hours, we reduced the strained liquid to create a deeply umami ‘jus’. When cool, we added soy milk, applied the stick blender, this time to create a foam. The final two elements were a pickled celeriac and pan-fried hen of the woods mushrooms. Just prior to service, a rectangle of the baked celeriac was placed on a hot griddle and carefully turned to achieve continuous char marks. Along with the various micro-herbs, I think this is the highest number of things we’ve had to present on a plate. Not surprising then that I called service having forgotten the pickle – I had to roll it up like a mini cigar to squeeze it on.

Alongside pates and confit, and our last fish dem of the course, the two stand-out dems of the week were: puff pastry technique and the making of Gateaux Pithivier (a melt in the mouth combination of puff pastry and almond frangipane) served with little jugs of creme anglais to drizzle or douse depending on taste (and greed!). And second, Leith’s alumni Craig Morrison who has become an instagram sensation for his flexitarian eating approach and creative highly flavourful vegan food. He imparted tons of useful advice about recipe writing, success on instagram and filming content. Plus cooked up some delicious vegan dishes including a katsu curry with tofu, crispy mushroom dumplings with a crispy skirt (look it up!) and my personal favourite, smoky red pepper butter beans with leeks and grapenuts.

Another brilliant week done! The new walking regime is lovely, but alongside standing in the kitchen for at least 3 hours every day, is rather tiring. Early nights for me for the foreseeable, and no doubt I’ll be dreaming of food 🙂