HP (Hari & Peter) Sauce… the cheek of it…

Well for the July dinner event we are doing something just a little bit different. Hari will be joining forces with Chef Peter Pickering.

Peter is a London based chef who has a veritable who’s who of a culinary training. He has trained under Michelin starred chefs the Galvin Brothers and was part of the opening teams at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Café Royal and also with chef Nuno Mendes at Chiltern Fire House.

Hari and Peter will for one night only be planning and cooking a 4/5 course menu (dependent on purchases) that will & can only be revealed on the night for a very good reason…

wastED – Selfridges London

The inspiration behind this dinner was a very thought provoking lunch that Hari & Peter were lucky to sample together at the “WastED” concept earlier in 2017 that was a pop up on the roof of Selfridges department store in London.

We also plan to highlight produce from local producers and utilise often neglected and forgotten items such as fish scraps, cheese whey along with misshaped fruit and vegetables as well as excess supermarket stock that would just be wasted and disposed of.

This concept is the brain child of the American chef Dan Barber that wowed packed houses of diners for a five week pop up residency of innovative food following over a year of planning by the Selfridges team putting it together.

Hari & Peter (HP) will also look to source (pun intended) as much local produce that is deemed to be waste by the food & retail industry (you will be surprised what this entails) and create an innovative and tasty menu.

There will be an inordinate amount of planning and cajoling of suppliers that will go into this event and the menu we will be able to cook will be subject to what we can eventually find.

Peter Pickering

There will only be thirty dining places up for grabs. Plus we can only proceed with this event if all these places have been reserved/sold by 5pm on Wednesday 21^st June.

If not all sold by this date then the event we are sorry to say will have to be cancelled…there is too much risk and uncertainty to rely on late or last minute bookings.

Please note if we unfortunately have to cancel then full refunds will be made for the booking deposits made so there is no risk on your part to make those reservations!

We do hope you will support us with this very unique and exciting event… our culinary brains are already working overtime to come up with dishes that will excite you and provide much discussion.

Go on be brave and join us for a “journey of culinary discovery”

Date: 1^th July 2017

Time: 7:30pm Arrival with Welcome Drink Dinner from 8pm

Venue: Crowborough Community Centre , Gallery Community Café

Cost: £10 Reservation Deposit via our Ticketing Site Here  £30 Balance payable on the night (service not included) cash preferred.

Drinks: Bring your own drinks to consume with the dinner – water and glasses will be provided on the tables.

N.B. Reserve by 5pm 21^st June (all 30 places will need to be sold) otherwise the event will not take place.

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Flaming June…cooking with fire

So we must be a bit mad in the height of summer moving our Pop Up concept to Rochester and the showroom of The Stove Hub where we will be converting their showroom space into a Pop Up space for two nights!

On June 16th & 17th we will be using their Charnwood wood fired stoves to demonstrate their cooking potential as well as cooking alfresco in the front of the showroom over our gas fired pans as they have no kitchen for us to cook with! We do so love a challenge.

We will have to rent in tables, chairs and crockery to set this dining space up so it will be a major undertaking but we think something a little different…

To kick the evening off we will welcome all with a complimentary drink and some simple seasonal nibbles – some of which will be cooked on the wood fired stove top!

The first course will be a simple salad that will be topped with a piece of marinated fish (that we will cook on top of the wood stove)
Next we will then serve up a dish cooked alfresco in our large paella pan… Moroccan Spiced Chicken will be married to some green olives and home preserved lemons and served with some minted cous cous and bowls of dressed salad leaves… All will be prepared before your very eyes to ensure it is all fresh tasting and in true pop up style with an element of theatre!

Next we will then serve our little individual cheeseboards with a selection of cheeses and our now infamous porridge oat biscuits.

To complete the meal we will then serve up a classic summer dessert of Eton Mess… homemade meringues with Kent strawberries and cream… a perfect summer pudding.

With the coffee we will then griddle some shortbread biscuits on top of the stoves and garnish with a dollop of homemade lemon curd and a fresh raspberry… a great way to finish what we think will be a truly unique event in a very “quirky venue”

Guests are invited to bring their own drinks to consume with their meal and we will provide glasses, ice buckets and water on the tables.

You can reserve your dining places via our ticketing site here

Dates: 16th & 17th June 2017

Where: The Stove Hub, 86 King Street, Rochester, Kent ME1 1YD

Time: 7:30pm Welcome Drink & Nibbles

Dinner: 8:00pm Prompt

Suggested Donation:  Early Bird Tickets before May 30th £30 person after this date -£40 per person (service not included)

Menu

Griddled Marinated Fish with Dressed Salad Leaves

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Moroccan Chicken, Green Olives, Preserved Lemons

Minted Cous Cous

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Hari’s Cheese Selection with Porridge Biscuits

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Eton Mess with local Kent Strawberries

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Coffee or Tea, Griddled Shortbread with Lemon Curd

Menu subject to market purchases and ingredient availabilty

May Madness… Pot Luck again

Following on from the success of our dinner events back in January with what we called “Pot Luck” we are going to repeat the format at our May 13th dinner that will take place at the Crowborough Community Centre in their Gallery Café.

It will be a seasonal menu that will kick off with a welcome glass and some simple nibbles and then we will serve up a three course menu that will also involve an element of theatre!!! You will only find out the menu on the night! We will however aim to cater for any dietary needs like Vegetarian/Gluten Free wherever we can and as long as requested when making the booking.

We are requesting a £10 per person reservation fee when you book and then on the night a minimum donation of £10 per person – however if you feel it was worth more then please feel free to leave more in the table envelopes (cash preferred)

As with all our events you are invited to bring your own wines/drinks to have with the meal and we will provide glasses, ice buckets and water on the tables.

We hope you will come and join us for this “Covert” dining experience… just look at some of the comments left in our guestbook from our last visit to this venue…

Guest comment from March event

Guest comment from March event

Guest comment from March event

To book your places just head over to our ticketing site here

We look forward to welcoming you all to our Pot Luck again event that will be a little bit of May Madness…

Anno Dinner – a right Royal report…

Anno Distillers Artisan Drinks

Anno – for the love of Gin

Table Setting

Very basic kitchen

Nibbles…

Guests tucking in…

Full house on both nights

Duck Rillettes

Cured Salmon

Cured Salmon

Pork Belly

Fresh Fenugreek

Cheeses

Dessert

Well it had been a few months of planning this pop up once again at the rather special venue of Anno Distillers in Marden. The event we held in 2015 was a smaller affair and this time we decided to make it bigger and a little more special with the addition of another chef along with yours truly.

So on a couple of chilly October evenings we found ourselves humping equipment into the well-guarded lock up of Anno’s just off Pattenden Lane in the industrial heart of Marden!

We were joined by former royal chef Visen Anenden who hails from Mauritus but has a veritable who’s who of a culinary background. He trained with Michel Roux at Le Gavroche, spent some time working on events for Anthony Worral Thomson and then spent just on ten years working as the personal chef to HRH Prince of Wales.

He has recently had his own pub in south London (The Duchy Arms) and then also recently been cooking for the likes of Simon Cowell and the business magnate George Soros.

Visen arrived mid-morning on the Thursday and we then spent the rest of that day prepping the dishes ready for the first night on the Friday. I like to do two nights back to back as it means we can maximise not only the menu offered and the numbers we can serve it makes the whole process a lot easier with the “Mise en place” required.

It was a mountain to climb – three whole huge Pork Belly’s, had to be boned, rolled  and then poached in a flavoursome stock, fillets of fresh salmon required curing with sea salt, sugar, spices and a generous dousing of Anno’s Elderflower vodka whilst yours truly had already made a homemade Membrillo laced with the Anno’s Sloe Gin as well as a Jelly to go with the homemade “Duck Rillettes” made from confit duck legs.

It was a challenging dinner as there were firstly five courses to prepare and serve and we had no cooking facilities whatsoever- so we had to make sure the menu reflected this and was able to be done under such conditions. Every piece of crockery, cutlery and glassware was transported to the venue…

One guest was in awe of our achievements with one plug in oven, an electric hob, one induction ring and then a small deep fat fryer! We were not allowed gas or naked flames (e.g. candles) as this is rightly a risk with so much alcoholic spirit kicking around!

So Friday was a full house with 24 guests firstly partaking of a welcome G&T in the balcony office area as they munched their way through some nibbles, a Pan Catalan, cauliflower soup shot and deep fried chick pea fritters. (Saturday we served the same but a freshly made carrot and orange soup instead of cauliflower)

As guests  sat at one long trestle table conversations flowed – new friendships were formed and both of the Anno founders gave a short precis history talk of the origins of their little enterprise each night and how they came about producing a truly artisan product.

The main course was as stated the slow cooked Pork Belly that we had poached for three hours in a stock and then placed on a tray and pressed flat overnight to compact the meat. The sauce served was a mix of the stock with roasted pork bones with white wine and fresh spices including finally a big bunch of fresh fenugreek infused in the reduced sauce! All this was served with a king oyster mushroom plus some freshly sautéed Enoki mushrooms. A braised halved little gem lettuce was for one guest a revelation. Some pork crackling that had been dehydrated for twenty four hours and then deep fried to make it all go puffy was the garnish along with a pressed potato and black pudding cake that was layered thinly sliced potatoes and black pudding infused with butter and duck fat completed the dish.

We served the cheeses in the French fashion after the main and these constituted of the local Winterdale Shaw and then tangy and much enjoyed Stichleton (Like a Stilton but made with raw milk)

Dessert was also a big hit, a savarin (yeast raised brioche dough sponge) was cooked off and then left to absorb a sugar syrup jus laced with Anno’s latest 60 percent proof Gin. A half-pound packet of butter (each night) was left to brown in a pan before being strained and added to some Crème Chantilly (sweetened cream) laced with vanilla. This all served with fresh local raspberries from the suppliers to M&S and Waitrose located on Seven Mile Lane by West Peckham completed the meal.

The dining space next to their still known as Patience was cavernous and whilst guests were asked to make sure they had plenty of layers on to keep warm, the final flourish of a hot coffee was served with homemade chocolate truffles that showcased their final artisan product. The dried cranberries had been marinated in Anno’s Cranberry Gin for a couple of days before being added to the chocolate ganache.

It had been a great couple of nights and the comments we had in our guest book were nothing but complimentary … thanks once again to both Norman and Andy for their support and allowing us to use such a special venue. Plus my thanks to Visen for agreeing to join me on this event. We are always on the hunt for something new and different and we will hopefully have some new venues to use in 2017 – please watch this space!

Do check out Anno Distillers and try their products they are very special indeed and I know we have converted many to them… just watching the guests go home laden with their purchases on the night was something to behold… I do hope none were stopped by the local constabulary on their way!