Edible flowers and wild mushrooms

I am a massive fan of edible flowers and wild mushrooms. They are right up there in my top five.

Right now I am getting loads of flowers in from my suppliers and I have been thinking of things to do with the ones that look great but lack a little in the taste department. Mainly things like marigold, pansies and daylilies. 

One of my chef friends told me about a restaurant where they pickle rose petals, which I thought was a great idea or there is dehydrating the petals and using them like a floral confetti, but then you loose the summer fresh look.

 

Borage is one of the flowers that I really love. Some people say it tastes like a mild cucumber but I think it tastes more like an oyster and it looks stunning on the plate. 

Lavender is another great one probably a more common one that most people would know. I have a lavender panacotta and honey jelly on the menu at the moment that is popular.

A new one for me is the wild poppy. 

The bulb part has small holes in the top that can act like a natural pepper shaker effect that we finish a summer squash risotto with.

Back when I worked in Scotland I did some foraging with my sous chef for chanterelle mushrooms. If I had more time in my life I would love to get more involved in the foraging side of things. I love it. 

There are a few of these fellas around at the moment the yellow ones are chanterelle or girolle as some people call them and the dark caped one is a boletus. Very tasty served with a cote de boeuf, you could die right there and you would die happy my friend.

Photography by Carla Grassy

Wild Night Number 3

 The plan was an interesting dinner where the menu had a cocktail theme all done without  sex on the beach. Sadly.

The Menu

Mojito- frozen apple mojito, elderflower mojito powder, edible paper

Bloody Mary- beef tomato tartar (blushed beef tomato petals marinated in horseradish vodka with tartar style dressing) yellow tomato and celery "yolk"

Dirty Martini- blow torched vermouth cured mackerel, char-grilled gin compressed cucumber, olive oil powder, martini sorbet

Blood and Sand- sous vide duck breast, duck neck cannelloni, cherry's done 3 ways, fluid gel, compote and confit, fondant potato and baby carrots

Margarita- bell pepper spaghetti (using agar) bell pepper confetti, margarita foam, salt and borage

Port cobbler- tunworth cheese reverse spherification, port and cracker powder

Amalfi- wild fennel limoncello, cupcake with curd filling and a meringue icing, sparkling cello pipette, shot

This was such a good night to work on and plan. The interpretation that someone can have of something that can be turned into food is amazing, some of the conversations we had in the kitchen about this night were mad and lots of fun.

Can't wait for the next one - earth, wind and fire. More info coming soon. 

Photography by Carla Grassy

Compressed cucumber

Cucumbers can be a bit like that friend that everyone knows who doesn't offend, little bit boring, always hanging around the salad bar.

I have been working on compressing things for a while now. To compress something you vacuum seal it to draw out the oxygen. That intensifies the flavour of whatever it is you are using in this case cucumber but we also use tomato petals.

                      I started working on this dish and it is going to be on the specials next week-

         Home cured duck ham, Hendricks compressed cucumber, summer fruit and nitro sorbet.

Whilst doing this dish I started thinking about how to incorporate cucumber in a hot dish. I have heard about butter poacher cucumber some say it tastes like banana (not sure about that one),but tried chargrilling it and it tasted fantastic. So I might bring that to the table on the next wild night.

I also had a moment of madness during all this and made sparkling tomatoes using CO2 but that needs a bit more work, it had mixed reviews from the staff, it's a hard one to get your head around.

Photography by Carla Grassy