Food Shopping in Berlin

The first international job for Blanch & Shock has come in the shape of an invitation to Berlin from Light Collective, with whom we had the pleasure to work last year on a dinner inspired by the spectrum of colours. The dinner was served at Castle Gibson - where the entrepreneurial BBC reality show Dragon's Den is shot, and for this version, we are to take over a disused power substation in western Berlin. We build our kitchen on Thursday, supplemented with a staggering amount of equipment which Amy and Mike bravely drove over from London in our new van. For now though, we have been trawling the city for hard-to-find ingredients and esoteric cooking equipment (a spätzle maker...) and planning the menu as we unearth its content. We are used to knowing what we can get hold of and where when we are in London and we are faced with the possibility that the menu may change significantly at the last moment if the food seasons differ drastically to our own or we fail to break the language barrier..

Armed with technology, GCSE German and a diverse catalogue of abstract food-related hand gestures and noises, we set about translating what we thought we wanted into a new menu.

A dry-aging cabinet in FILETSTÜCK, an elegant brasserie and butchery in Prenzlauer Berg, where delicious looking Irish beef was lined up on perfect slate slabs and the air was perfumed with the smell of caramelizing meat, coming from the tiny kitchen in the back of the shop. It was 11 o'clock in the morning, which went some way towards dismissing our hunch that good food was going to be hard to find.

At LPG Biomarkt,  also in Prenzlauer Berg, we found locally grown organic vegetables, including the famed Teltow Turnip, foraged wild garlic leaves, sea buckthorn in many guises (including Gummi Bear) and chunks of Beef Belly, which we hadn't encountered before in London.

At FrischeParadies, a smart food emporium to the east, we found fresh fish, Samphire, and an array of colourful varieties of fish roes. We lost our trains of thought in the meat department, transfixed by huge, vacuum-packed slabs of beef from around the world. Mike lovingly held an entire fillet of Australian Wagyu, and for the briefest of moments we considered blowing our entire food budget on it and serving it on its own, with a pot of mustard. Or taking it home and eating it ourselves.

In spite of the warnings from people concerned about our finances and state of mind, we headed to KaDeWe in the west of the south west of the city. KaDeWe is the biggest department store in Europe. it has been since 1925. The food hall on the top floor is a massive collection of 'stalls' and departments groaning with food - fish from around the world, a condiment section that could be measured in acres, and once again, a meat department at which the rest of the world seemed suddenly insignificant. Apart from beef from Argentina, Australia and USA, and more amazing-looking Wagyu 'Entrecôtes' (at €280. Per kilo) there is an offal department with such delights as Sheep Lung and Veal Oesophagus (for stock) and a whole game stand, with Boar, Venison, Antelope, Rabbits and poultry hearts and stomachs.

We tasted smoked Freshwater and Sea Eels, admired the colour clash of tropical fish amongst those we recognised, drank expensive coffee and made a mental note to become staggeringly wealthy and spend the rest of our lives shopping in the great food halls of the world.

Next: The Dinner

The Lido Cafe Takeover

©The Lido Cafe

On Tuesday 19th April Blanch & Shock will be taking over the kitchen of the Lido Café in Brockwell Park and cooking a tasting menu inspired by the ingredients that are beginning to emerge after our harsh winter and showcasing some tricks and ideas we have been working on recently.

Following a recent refurbishment The Lido Café has re-opened to the public as a smart local restaurant with a delicious and carefully-sourced seasonal menu and gwine list, overlooking the terrace of the much loved Brockwell Lido. We are delighted to have been given the opportunity to use a professional kitchen and to cook and serve dinner in such a nice space.

There are 40 seats available for the dinner, priced at 40 pounds per person, which includes five courses and coffee.

The Lido Café will offer suggested pairings from their Wine List.

To book a seat, please contact The Lido Café:
           
E-Mail - info@thelidocafe.co.uk
Telephone: 0207 737 8183

or book in person:

View Larger Map

The Lido Café
Brockwell Lido
Dulwich Road,
London
SE24 0PA 

April Dinner Party

Blanch & Shock cooked a surprise Birthday Dinner for a private client at her home in London. We were keen to get our hands on some of the new fruit and vegetables that had come in to season since our last cooking job, and to try a few new tricks and surprises we have been interested in recently.


Testing and Prep:

Provençal Lavender for a pudding to be served with Rack of Lamb. We briefly infused the flowers in hot water, and then set the aromatic liquid into a jelly with Agar Agar, Citric Acid, salt and sugar (seen below). We then blitzed it until it was smooth.

Miniature Meringues for our petits fours service, drying in the dehydrator.

Granny Smith Apple Crisps for the Cheese Course

Dehydrated Fennel Stalks and Fronds about to be powdered for the Beetroot Course

Heating Dried Chamomile in a vaporizer to extract the aroma, which we fed into test tubes for the Flower Course (see recent Chamomile Post)

Fish head for a fumet

Channel Wrack Kelp for the Fish Course, sent to us by Iain McKellar of Just Seaweed For Iain's blog and more information about his business harvesting seaweeds from Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, go here.

Bitter Chocolate Truffle for the petits fours, before being cut and dressed with Stem Ginger.

Edible menus, protected in plastic from the spray of Beetroot Juice

Dinner:

Apéritif of Champagne served with a Sphere of Rhubarb Juice infused with Rose Petals. The Rhubarb from Franklin's Farmshop in Dulwich, was force-grown by candlelight in Yorkshire.

Plating the first course . The three preparations included Beetroot as a Bloody Mary, shredded and macerated in it's own juice, and as a pudding (made in the same way as the Lavender)

Trio of Beetroot: (l-r) Cinnamon Toast with macerated Beetroot and Juniper Crème Fraiche, Goats' Cheese Crisp with Beetroot Pudding, Fried Dill Fronds and Fennel Powder, and Beetroot Bloody Mary with traditional accompaniments.

Sadly there was no way to both serve and photograph the fish and main courses and get the food served on time or hot, so you will have to imagine a pan-roasted fillet of Gilthead Bream atop planks of braised Salsify, surrounded by Steamed Clams, Channel Wrack Kelp and Salmon Roe and a velouté of Lemon Thyme...

Preparing the test tubes of Chamomile Vapour.

Plating the Flower Course. The flowers in the salad included Viola, Primrose, Rocket, Purple Shamrock (Oxalis) and leaves of Lamb's Lettuce. The flowers were from Derek Lewis at First Leaf. We served Derek's glorious Snapdragons at 'Eat Your Heart Out' in October 2009, and were glad to try some other varieties.

Salad of Flowers, Leaves and Bee Pollen, served with a test tube of warm Chamomile Vapour and an atomiser of Honey dressing.

The next course was also sadly unrecorded.

We served a Rack of Salt Marsh Lamb with a Purée of Pink Fir Potatoes, a glazed baby Carrot, Wild Nettle Fluid Gel, Wild Mushrooms, Lavender Pudding and Olive-Oil-poached New-Seasons' Garlic, with Lamb Consommé

Due to the hosts' preference of cheese over dessert, the next course was a selection of British Cheeses,  served with homemade Chutneys and garnished as follows:

Cheese Course (l-r): Stichelton with Apple Crisp and Apple Chutney, Ogleshield with home-pickled Spring Onion and Damson Chutney, and Tunworth with Coarse Oatcakes and Fig Chutney.

With coffee, we served the petits fours:

Bitter Chocolate Truffles with Stem Ginger, Salt-Caramel Dipped Physalis and Pistachio Meringues

The Edible Menu, presented with the petits fours


Suppliers

Salt-Marsh Lamb
William Rose Butchers, Dulwich, London

Fish
Moxon's Fishmongers, Dulwich, London

Vegetables and Fruit
Franklin's Farmshop, Dulwich, London
Pretty Traditional, Dulwich, London
SMBS, Dulwich London

Honey
DH Perkins' West Dulwich Honey, London

Cheese/Dairy
Neal's Yard Dairy, Borough Market, London

Chocolate
Cacao Barry Alto el Sol Plantation Organic 2008 Vintage Chocolate, Peru

Flowers
First Leaf, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Chamomile

With plans to serve a vapour of chamomile as part of a salad of flowers, mache, bee pollen and honey spritz, we tested the vaporizer with dried Chamomile Flowers from Neil's Yard Remedies.

Catching the vapour in a Jar to test the effects of letting it sit

A plucky chamomile flower

Vapour swirling in the jar

Condensing vapour on the roof of the jar.

Guiding the vapour into a sealable tube using a funnel

Chamomile Vapour.