Damsons and Damsels

The Great British Damson is beautifully ripe by mid September, so we took the opportunity to make some deliciously fruity damson gin. Here is how we did it...

step 1

Take a trolley full of gin, an orchards worth of British damsons, a sackful of caster sugar and two gainful create employees (who by the end of the process will not like gin as much as they used to!) and several very large containers...

step 2

Pour approximately 1/3 of a containers worth of damsons, another 1/3 of sugar and a 1/3 of gin into your chosen vessel.

step 3

Mix with all your might; crushing, squishing and bruising the damsons as much as you can. Seal with an air-tight lid.

Stir every three days to release the rich juices from the fruit and coax the sugar to completely dissolve.

To be continued...

Out and about with the create kitchen

We decided recently to give some of our chefs a camera to document a week in their chef shoes...

We have left out the blurry shots and all the (very artistic) self portraits, and here is a selection...

Monday
Ladies who like to lunch with a view, at OXO2 
salcombe bay crab, chilli beignet & butternut squash bisque | chocolate and passionfruit parfait

 Tuesday  
 Antipasti platters at the Levi's Launch Party

Wednesday

Awards Dinner for 600 at Old Billingsgate 

spiced guinea fowl & cauliflower terrine | blood orange soufflé with cornflake ice cream

Thursday
Canapés for 200 guests at One Marylebone
roasted chicken and bread sauce beignet | cassis macaroon with freeze dried brambles

Friday
Cooking in the dark with the Crown Jewels at HM Tower of London
fig with goats cheese panna cotta and black fig wafer

Saturday
Wedding food stations
beetroot cured salmon and potted crab station | petit fours pick & mix station

All change...

create's new Autumn Winter menus are launched!

After a summer of serving stroganoff, blinis and beetroot to hoards of hungry Russians, (not to stereotype too much), create have settled into September with the sales team’s favourite day of the year, the Bespoke AW tasting.

Here are some sneak previews of create’s brand new menu, using the finest British seasonal produce and as ever a creative imagination.

CANAPES

 tempura seaweed crackers

 with cured sea bass and beetroot cress

homemade fig rolls

with cassis cream

duck and cherry bakewell tart

with smoked almond frangipane

twice baked ham hock and smoked northumberland cheese soufflé

with parsley cream sauce served on mini create plates

hot toddy jellies

with candied orange zest

STARTERS

smoked venison carpaccio

with pickled brambles, toasted hazelnuts and shaved cacao

MAINS

sirloin of british beef

with chard and cashel blue bread and butter pudding, spinach, glazed beetroot and roasted garlic cream

DESSERT

pink yorkshire rhubarb chilled soufflé

with honeyed english mascarpone, ginger and rhubarb gel, poached rhubarb and rhubarb crisps



Say Cheese...

Since December sitting on top of a shelf in the kitchen office have been two boxes, they are nestled in between oven pumps, smoking guns and “inspirational books”, they potentially contain the key to our retirement fund.

They are a beginners cheese making kit, and this morning we made cheese!

Seems relatively straight forward...

This is Alan our Executive Chef reading the recipe, once we had coverted gallons and cups into ml we made it up anyway.

At this stage it looks particularly un-appetising…so we decided to add thyme...

This is where we made a lot of jokes around “saying cheese”

And so we had our final product, it doesn’t really look or feel like cheese but for a first attempt I think we could probably get a job at the Baby Bell factory.

KERB

Last night our Executive Chef Alan and I (Menu Designer) ventured out of our suburbia comfort zone and headed north for the launch party for KERB. 

For those of you who have had your head in the sand for the last year, street food has become cool, and the infamous eat.st on Kings Cross Boulevard was recently re-launched into KERB.

With the intention of eating as much as we could I think in hindsight we did pretty badly, quality- excellent, quantity- disappointing, only managing to attack 2 food vans.

A good portion of the evening was spent in queuing up for the Bhangra Burger with a lot of other trendy “urban foodies” with tweezled moustaches and lumberjack shirts, and had a very delicious lamb wrap, spicy enough to numb my mouth but with a lime/aubergine pickle which I found really addictive (which is worrying as I really dislike aubergine) but totally worth the wait.

After retreating away from the spiced haven we went in search of something else. The queue for the steamed pork bun was endless, the guys selling ribs were sold out and were packing up, so we decided to divide and conquer. I went to Healthy Yummies, not such a good name but amazing scallops with celeriac puree, bacon and sea herbs, it was so good that I didn’t have the will power not to eat it before taking a photo so this one is from their website.

By this point we were really full and the queues were heaving and we were running out of legal tender so rather than running the risk of dancing for money we retreated back to familiar territory where moustaches are only grown for Movember and the only check you see is on tweed.

Look what we found……

We always get excited when we find a new supplier whether it be for canapé kit, tableware or food.

Here are a few of our kitchen and design team favourites which are exploring the create 2012 trend of “literal British food”.

My new best friends

THE AMAZING CANON AND CANON

cannonandcannon.com

Specialists in the most delicious selection of British chorizo’s, parma hams and even air dried alpaca sourced from all over the UK, go and visit their stall at Borough Market. The spicy beer sticks are well worth the queue.

air dried mutton

from dorset with red cabbage remoulade, pear puree and redcurrants

Hopefully some new friends

NURTURED IN NORFOLK

nurturedinnorfolk.co.uk

Personalised cress creators. for anyone that knows create we have a love of all things cress and baby leaf related and this company funnily enough based in norfolk can grow your own bespoke mixes of cress.

rainbow trout rillete

with baby beetroot, micro sorrel, red mustard cress,  black pepper toasts and herb emulsion

TREGOTHAN TEA

tregothnan.co.uk 

The only producers of tea grown in deepest rural Cornwall ………winner.
 

Who needs friends when you have these?

Just when we thought we had seen it all the brilliant ASA have come up with these...

Yes they are exactly what you think they are…… glow in the dark pepper grinders.

Might not have any friends left, I spend so much time on these websites…..

 Once translated into English this website has become our go too page to cure our obsessions for all things that verge on the impossible, candyfloss pasties being one of them and anything miniature and made out of plastic, we love that it is almost unbreakable, even the most heavy handed chef can’t break it.

http://www.100x100chef.com/online/index.php/en

Beautiful ingredients especially the Himalayan salt plates

http://www.souschef.co.uk/

Full of some very cool kit, currently obsessing over mini sardine tins, mini pint glasses for our “pint of prawns canapé”  and plastic egg shells for our “ham and brioche soldiers with hollandaise dip”

http://www.infusions4chefs.co.uk