Part 54 The June Foodie One. Movin' On Up

Littlewoods, Burger King and Brie ice cream.

Recent studies have concluded that if you put a like at the end of this Post then your hair will become curly.

Hi, welcome back everyone. This week it’s the foodie one. So let’s get down to it.

As the Vanilla Black years rolled on, we realised that as well as being known as a vegetarian restaurant like no other, we were also being labelled as innovative and creative.

This was a great compliment, but we also found it quite funny. As far as Donna and I were concerned, we were still two people guessing our way through. Maybe there’s something to be said for staying humble.

But what we were actually doing is moving forward as much as possible, not necessarily trying to be creative. This was mainly due to my paranoia. Even as a child I was intrigued by businesses which stood still. Littlewoods looked the same to me when I was eight years old as it did when I was twenty years old. Binns felt like a place where my old aunty shopped, but then even she became bored of it. It’s as if a blueprint was drawn up and it was never changed, day one was the same as year ten. Maybe I wasn’t very observant, but as far as I could see, they never moved forward, and we stopped noticing them.

Many years ago I did some training for Burger King. Yea yea I shouldn't have because they're owned by the Devil and and they're the reason that there’s war and famine and they invented those plastic corks which are a pain to pull out of a wine bottle. But it was my job.

However, working behind the scenes with them was a useful eyeopener. They were always moving forward. And one of the ways they did that was to have Special dishes appearing. You know, like Kansas Chicken Fries, or a Bacon Caesar Angus. They always had the core burgers, drinks and bits ’n’ bobs, but they would add the Specials to keep it interesting and fresh. And it gave those who liked a change, more options.

It was also a useful tool to test the market with a new product, then maybe it would appear again, or even become part of the main menu.

So moving forward was very important, someone once said, if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards.

A chef worked with us who had spent a year working at another vegetarian restaurant in London. He loved that we were always introducing new dishes and informed us that at his previous workplace, putting a different dish on the menu was just a case of looking trough a plastic wallet of past dishes and pointing at one. That’s fine, but we couldn't go down that route.

And one of the ways in which we moved forward was messing with people’s heads.

But how?

Right, there was some inspiration waving it's hand in the air, and it was this. Deep fried Brie and cranberry sauce from 1986. This dish was on every pub menu across the land at one time. Actually, it’s probably still on the menu at the Littlewoods Arms.

It’s not a bad dish, the crispy breadcrumbs crack open and the Brie slowly oozes out, then the cranberry adds a nice sweet balance to the sweaty cheese.

But we couldn't just put that on the menu as it was, as mentioned previously, you can get that somewhere else.

So we started a thought process, beginning with the Brie. Now, deep fried food is hot, very hot, so what’s the opposite of hot? Cold. But cold Brie wasn’t exciting, or different. Any Tom, Dick or Chef can take a slab of Brie from the fridge and put it on a plate with some fruit and biscuits.

Quick rant.

A restaurant takes a few pieces of cheese and puts them on a plate with celery twigs, Ritz crackers and a side salad. They call it a cheeseboard and you buy it. Couldn’t you do that yourself at home?

If you want to waste three quid on a coffee for is, that’s the coffee button right there.

Anyway, something deep fried is very hot, and the opposite of very hot is very cold, or you could say, icy.

How could we make Brie icy? Turn it into ice cream, that’s how. We could take something which was traditionally a dessert and bring it into the savoury world. And instead of cranberry we used raspberry. And to pull it back into the starters division, we added sorrel, a leaf with a tart flavour.

Brie Ice Cream, Raspberry Jelly, Sorrel Cream and Sorrel Purée

Brie ice cream and raspberry jelly. We even put it in a fluted mould so it looked like a dessert. Please excuse the presentation, it was a while ago.

Yes, cheese ice creams have made appearances over time, but don’t forget, this was around twenty years ago, in a vegetarian restaurant. We weren't supposed to do that.

Now, a little admission, when it went on the menu, I was concerned that if we called it ice cream, Jim and Jean would run out of the restaurant, screaming and pulling their hair out. Donna said to just live on the edge and call it ice cream, but I was too chicken. So it went out as Iced Brie instead.

Very few people ordered it, which was a shame. The front of house team used the back story, as they did with all of the dishes, the deep fried Brie story, but it just wasn’t catching people.

So the next time we did a dish change that Brie starter was changed from Iced Brie to Brie Ice Cream. It went mad, we couldn't make enough of the stuff. Funny how mixing a few words up can cause a different response.

And we encouraged this way of thinking with the team. Giving some freedom to think creates stronger minds, sideways thinkers, and helped us move forward also.

Quick story. I was asked to do some work with a large company, basically one of those projects which is supposed to motivate the workforce. As well as myself there was another chef there who owned a Michelin star restaurant. We had to organise a competition for the chefs who worked at this large establishment, something to challenge the team, something to inspire them.

So, this particular chappy suggested that the team cook a “nice rack of spring lamb, dauphinoise potatoes, green beans and a chocolate fondant dessert" for the final heat. His point being that it was a test to see if they could cook properly.

Well, I didn’t agree. My point was, if they're working in the kitchen currently, and had been for many years, shouldn’t they already be able to cook some lamb and green beans, they probably did it every day anyway.

I put it to them that they should be building a team which could create, think for themselves and inspire their team members. I suggested that they give them a box of ingredients and they could each choose eight items, then they would be asked to create a couple of dishes using their own imagination.

And what happened? You know when you have a pot plant which desperately needs watering. And you happily give this plant a drink, but the soil is so dry that the water sits on the surface of the soil, and it won’t soak in. You wait a while to see if it starts to absorb, but it doesn’t, it's as if the plant is actually reluctant to take this much needed drink. It’s not going to sink in, or if it does, most of it will probably evaporate by the time any water gets to the roots. So you give up and let it be.

That’s what happened. But hey, each to their own.

Anyway, a big shout out to Chris, one of our chefs, who suggested that we put black olive Madeleines on a starter. Oh yea, and this went with a dish which included potato and olive oil which was shaped into a little ball and coated in an intense, thin layer of tomato jelly. So at first glance it appeared to be a cherry tomato.

And Aidan, who came up with a chilled pea soup as a starter with peanut marshmallow and a little roasted peanut cupcake.

And the chilli jam doughnut as a main course. And the savoury Bakewell with a ratatouille dressing.

Or the edamame bean ice cream with crispy soya sauce and a radish, mint and pea salsa.

Gimmicky? Possibly. Probably.

But you’ve had steak and chips many times, (or maybe you haven’t) and sometimes the chips were chunky, and sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes there was a peppercorn sauce, other times there was a salad. But the main difference was probably how well the steak was handled and cooked. But that’s about it.

So let’s take off those chunky leather blinkers and have a desert as a savoury dish. Carrot cake maybe?

Crispy Carrot Cake, Sheeps Yoghurt Frosting and Pickled Carrots

Orange Oil and Crystallised Parsley

So remember, it’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional response.

However, swapping a dessert item and making it savoury wasn’t always easy. As an example, ice cream needs sugar, it keeps the ice cream soft, it’s something to do with ice formation but we won’t bore you with the details.

A leek and salsify dish with little cubes of lemon verbena ice cream.

But we couldn't have a sweet ice cream as a starter, so research had to be done. And after pestering a few suppliers we found a natural substitute which was 70% less sweet than sugar, but had the same properties.

In fact, there are a number of different sugars available, and they all act slightly differently. It’s not all about Tate and Lyle* you know.

Right, that’ll do, off you pop to the Littlewoods Arms for your black forest gateaux soup and scampi and chips trifle.

Tune in next week as something else happens.

Thanks for reading, Donna and Andrew.

*Did you know, in 1939 Tate and Lyle had become the largest sugar refiner in the world, producing around 14,000 tonnes of sugar a week.