At Poco we’re well known for our seasonal approach and our delicious meat. However my real passion is the seasonality of vegetables and the diversity that brings to the table as new ingredients become available to us as the months and weather change. While the evenings are still cool and us seasonal cooks are waiting for the late Spring vegetables to kick in, an exotic Pilaf is a comforting solution for dinner, that makes the most of our winter veg and store cupboard spices.

Pilaf is a delicious and aromatic Middle Eastern dish usually made of rice cooked in a rich broth of onions and spices. It is in the same family as an Indian pilau or biryani.  It’s great to cook at home because it’s so simple, a marvellous one-pot-wonder. I like my pilaf to be an elaborate and flavourful dish with lots of crushed nuts (any will do) and dried fruit.

I like to cook world food with a British twist. So instead of rice I’m using pearl barley a truly British grain perfect for replacing rice in sticky dishes like risotto, paella and pilaf. The barley grains soak up every ounce of flavour from the broth, and become bulging and unctuous.  Barley cooks in about 15 minutes so use it to replace rice in any recipe and follow the same instructions. However do be careful not to overcook it as it becomes fluffy and loses its bite or texture.

Waste not: If you’re lucky and have leftovers save them for a filling salad the next day. Freshen it up with some olive oil and fresh parsley.

Ingredients – Serves 6-8

500g mixed seasonal roots, celeriac and carrots are good at the moment.
3 springs of oregano
50g butter
2 large red onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic
1 heaped tsps coriander
1 heaped tsps cumin
150g pearl barley
Pinch of chilli flakes
50g olives, pitted
Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon of honey
100g hazelnuts, shelled and broken
1 litre water

Directions  - preheat the oven to 180c

1) Cube then roast the roots in oil with the sprigs of oregano.

2) Saute the the onion in the butter till soft, add the spices and chilli flakes. Fry for 2 minutes.

3) Then add the roasted roots, olives, lemon zest, butter, salt, pepper and barley. Stir well to coat the grains and fry for a further 2 minutes, then add the water.

4) Bring to the boil, cover and put in the oven for 20 minutes till the barley is just cooked.

Serve hot with a sprinkle of toasted hazelnuts over the top, followed by some chopped parsley or coriander and a splash of lemon juice.

This is a super yummy, fast lunch or healthy dinner. Supermarkets sell herbs in spindly over priced plastic packages. Buy herbs from the market that come in huge bunches. This recipe is inspired by the greeks love of dill mint and parsley.  A winning combination that brings the mouth to life.

Ingredients – serves 6

6 eggs, beaten and seasoned
1 bunch of spring onions, char-grilled and cut into inch long pieces (see Veg Box – Spring onion)
25g each of dill, mint and parsley. Finely chop the stalks, roughly chop the leaves
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Method

1) In a medium sized heavy-based pan fry the garlic gently in olive oil for one minute. Add the spring onions and chopped herbs and cook for a further minute.

2) Remove the herbs from the pan and return it to the heat with some more olive oil. Add the egg to the pan then sprinkle the herbs and spring onion mixture evenly over the top. Leave it so that you see bits of colour from the herbs sticking above the surface.

3) Cook for two to three minutes till the edges start to solidify. Now put under a grill or in the oven on a low heat for a further two to three minutes. I like to serve it slightly un-set with lots of pepper.

Cook’s Notes and Variations: If you have any goats cheese or creme fraiche a few blobs cooked on top is delicious. Experiment with different herbs when you have them. Store in the fridge covered for up to three days. 

Wilt the herbs with the garlic and the spring onions

Deliciously smokey spring onions cooked on the griddle.

Said in the most positive possible way Spring is almost here! Time for salads and fresh foods to awaken us from our Winter slumber. Spring onions are fresh sweet and crisp and make a delicious addition to any lively recipe. The onion is a true Hero that makes it into almost every dish we cook. Spring onions are simply young onions, picked before the bulb has had a chance to swell.

The spring onion is good raw or cooked making it really quite versatile. Bafflingly people often throw away the green tops. I find their vivid green colour a must in a, tabbouleh, broth or salad. They’re delicious wilted and can replace any green in a dish as they’re so mild. To preserve the tops make a salsa verde instead of using just herbs. A salsa verde will keep in the fridge for a few weeks.

When buying spring onions look for crisp tops a firm bulb and good long root. Don’t worry if the outside is dirty. Give them a good wash and peel off the outer layer if necessary. Store them in the fridge in a plastic bag to help stop them drying out.

My favourite way to cook Spring onions is inspired by the classic Spanish dish calçot with romesco sauce. Charred on a barbecue or griddle, blackened, smokey and sweet. Calçot are a particularly sweet variety of spring onion but the dish works just as well with all varieties.

Cook 3 ways

Raw – Wash, trim the root and very tops if dry. Slice finely. Dress with olive oil and lemon juice. Add to any salad, I particularly like it with beans.

Grilled – Clean but leave whole with the root on. They’re best grilled on the barbecue but are also yummy seared on a griddle or hot cast iron pan. Sprinkle with a little salt and olive oil and put on the heat for two minutes or so till charred then turn.

Wilted – Wash, trim the root and very tops if dry. Wilt in a heavy based pan for two minutes with garlic and sesame or olive oil till soft and rich in colour. Squeeze over some lemon juice or a little soya sauce,

If you enjoy the alchemy and adventure of smoking and foraging for food but have never had the courage to do it, then this is the recipe for you. I’ve spent hours searching through the undergrowth filling my basket with wild and wonderful fungi, that turn out to be unidentifiable, inedible or even deadly. Wild garlic is easily recognisable. Not only for its familiar aroma but pretty white pom-pom flowers and broad green leaves.

Waste not: Smoking helps preserve food. If you have a piece of fish or meat that needs using. Smoke it to give it delicious flavour and another four days shelf life in the fridge.

Hot smoking – All you need is a good extractor fan, tin foil, a roasting tray and a rack that sits inside it. If your worried about the fire alarm then use a bbq or camp stove outside. I tried this recipe out at home and it was fine.

25g tea leaves
50g rice
Lemon zest of one lemon (save the lemon for the dressing)
A few pinches of various aromatics, I like allspice and mace
2 fillets of your favourite fish in this case rainbow trout
100g salt

Method

1) In order to firm up the flesh of your fish for smoking sprinkle the fillets with a generous dusting of salt and leave for 15 minutes. Rinse the salt off and pat dry with a tea towel.

2) Place your roasting tray on the hob with the tea and aromatics in the bottom. Put your rack inside the roasting tray, making sure it doesn’t come into contact with the tea leaves. Place the fish on the rack and seal with foil or a lid if you have one.

3) Put on a moderate heat for about 15 minutes. The fish will now keep for a further three days.

Smoked trout, new potatoes, bitter leaves, wild garlic and horseradish - serves 4 as a starter

2 fillets of smoked trout
Small bunch of wild garlic, shredded
1 radicchio and 1 little gem or romaine. Washed
250g New potatoes, boiled till soft
Knob of horseradish, grated
The juice of one lemon
150g creme fraiche

Method

1) Mix the creme fraiche with the lemon juice, horseradish and season with salt and pepper. I like a generous amount of horseradish to make the dressing hot and sulphurous.

2) In a large bowl cut the potatoes in half, add the horseradish dressing. Mix, just enough to cover the pots. Add the radicchio, little gem, wild garlic salt and pepper and the trout fillets broken into large pieces. Turn everything together very carefully so not to break up the fish and not smother the colourful leaves completely in the dressing.

3) Serve tall on a white plate

Chefs Notes: Rainbow trout is the most widely farmed fish in the UK and is available at most fishmongers all year around, it is a good choice of fish as the farming methods have a relatively low impact on the local eco-systems. The Marine Conservation Society say “Buying organic farmed trout is the best choice to make as fish stocking densities are generally lower in comparison to non-organic farms, feed is sourced sustainably and welfare of a high standard”.

We are on a quest to find a name for Tom’s book. We’ve been trying to come up with a name but we just can’t crack it, so we thought we’d ask for some help. The winner can enjoy a meal for two at our award winning restaurant Poco Bristol or at the next Forgotten Feast banquet in London. See the book brief below.

Please put your suggestion in the comments box below.

Think positive. It’s about fresh, exciting, seasonal ingredients, sourced locally and yummy recipes.
Some ideas to start you off.

Eat ALL…
Every last morsel…
Root to fruit…

Let the games commence!

Here is the preface to the book for inspiration.

Eat ALL simple seasonal cookery using what you have

Inspiration
Use this book for inspiration. Go to the market and pick the freshest, ripest vegetable off the shelf or simply look into your fridge for that ripe and ready tomato or big bunch of radishes you so dutifully bought for their vibrant colours and crisp offerings and know there’s an inspiring recipe waiting for you.

Each chapter is made up of eight Hero ingredients that are readily available in our markets. Each ingredient is represented first by a simple yet favourite recipe of mine that you can make using a few ingredients from your larder. If you have time to go to the market or happen to have other seasonal ingredients available, you can also pick from three world-inspired seasonal recipes that use the already prepared Hero ingredient. At the bottom of each recipe my ‘Cook’s Notes’ give clear tips and inspiration for turning leftovers from these recipes into another delicious meal and how they should be stored to keep them at their best.

Seasonal
When cooking with seasonal ingredients you can’t help but eat better quality food. Fruits and vegetables that are picked at their peak not only taste better but also inherently use less resources to grow and are often transported much shorter distances to your table. The flavour and texture of a rich, juicy tomato in summer is almost completely incomparable to an imported winter tomato, yet they will both fetch a similar price. By using the twenty plus seasonal ingredients in this book as a shopping list for the appropriate months, you will effortlessly improve the quality of your food while simultaneously decreasing the resources needed to produce that food. Buying seasonal produce from your local shops will also help support your local community and farmers.

Supermarkets ignore the seasons, giving us a generic list of ingredients available all year round. This puts massive pressure on our resources and needlessly neglects the bounty of ingredients that we have on our doorstep. With a select choice of the best ingredients you will naturally become a more creative cook and with these simple recipes I promise you will have incredibly delicious meals.

Cooking with the seasons is exciting. Each month rewards us with a new ingredient as it ripens. Summer offers us a huge variety of delicious berries, soft fruits, beans and mediterranean vegetables. As Autumn nears our fields bulge with an abundant variety of fruit and vegetables to forage, pot, jar and can for the cold months ahead. Even winter has a wealth of fresh ingredients from roots and tubers to fresh curly kales. To complete the cycle as the sun begins to shine Spring brings us delicacies of asparagus, radish and rhubarb to wake up our taste buds after a long comforting winter.

I firmly believe that most people really do care about where their food comes from, whether they’re concerned about the excessive use of chemicals, animal welfare, food-miles and waste, taste and quality, or all of the above.

This cookbook is for inspiration and a guide to use what you have. Rather than going to the shops with a long list buy what’s ripe and delicious and looks the most appealing. If you can’t see your ingredient in the contents then flip to the back and use the index to guide you to the perfect recipe. Have fun and experiment.

Enjoy

I had the pleasure of collaborating with www.lovefoodhatewaste.com at our last event for Valentines. We served up these lovely brownies. I would highly recommend giving them a try. If you can’t get hold of any pomegranates then just use the syrup.

Pomegranate Molasses Brownies cooked by Tom from Tom Hunt on Vimeo.

Poco has just been awarded the prestigious 3 Star Sustainable Champion Rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) for 2012. The award recognizes restaurants for their ongoing commitments to sustainability and addresses sourcing, environment and society. Of the three potential Ratings awarded by the SRA, the 3 star Sustainable Champion rating is the gold medal.  Poco was highly commended for its approach to waste reduction and recycling, its support of national charities and its efforts to increase public awareness about issues of food waste.

“The provenance of the food served at Poco is something we take seriously and it is wonderful to be recognized for the effort we put into sourcing environmentally sustainable ingredients. It’s also great to see that more and more attention is being brought to the reality of the food waste situation here in the UK. At Poco we are committed to doing everything we can to ensure our waste footprint is the lowest it can possibly be”.

A big thank you to the SRA for all the work they are doing to encourage more restaurants to step up to sustainability. And to all the staff at Poco, thank you for helping making it happen on the ground!

Check out the following links to find out more!

http://www.thesra.org/some-good-thing/sustainable-restaurant-awards/sra-award-for-environment/

Lovely vid from BBC Food online too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/0/21300338

“Feeling unloved? So was Tom Hunt’s meat and veg before he got his hands on it. The eco chef and food waste campaigner is back for another Forgotten Feast of foods that would have been destined for landfill”

Time out, Jude Brosnan

50% of all food ends up in the bin – so we’re creating a solution – Eat it, don’t waste it

This coming Valentines day Forgotten Feast is coming together with Trevor Beattie’s Charitable Foundation to produce an Alternative Valentines Banquet.

We will serve delicious but unloved, foods from the hoards of organic veg and meat that is often unnecessarily destined for landfill. Unexpected gastronomic gems are always discovered when sourcing food from surplus. The Forgotten Feast will delight and surprise guests with a bountiful feast at Space No.9, Shoreditch’s most exclusive venue.

All diners will sit together; it’s a banquet of lovers, friends and independents alike. Whilst food is shared, awareness will be raised of industrial food wastage – with all event proceeds helping tackle food poverty.

We believe the 20 million tonnes of annual food wastage that exists within our society is inexcusable.
The Forgotten Feast is a restaurant that supports the ugly, the unwanted and the unloved. It creates an unforgettable celebration of taste that centres itself on the use of wild and seasonal foods, surplus foods and foods that have been forgotten or ignored by the modern world. Trevor Beattie’s, The Jack and Ada Beattie Foundation advocates the forgotten and overlooked. They actively support initiatives tackling food shortage through their grant schemes.

The Proceeds from every ticket sold will go towards tackling food waste and relieving food poverty.

 “The phrase ‘unwanted food’ has always troubled us. Can there really be such a thing? Teaming up with the amazing eco chef, Tom Hunt led us to a far more appropriate expression: ‘unloved food’. It was also the perfect start-point for our Alternative Valentines Banquet”.

Trevor Beattie
Tickets go on sale January 16th at the Early bird special rate of £35 a head.
Tickets include a 3-course gourmet feast a welcome cocktail, a live DJ and karaoke provided by Lucky Voice.

TO BOOK TICKETS: Please visit www.beattiefoundation.com

An Alternative Valentines Banquet
14th February 2013
No.9 FRENCH PLACE
SHOREDITCH
LONDON, E1 6JB
7pm-Late

I’m a sucker for fads. I’ve been vegetarian, vegan, freegan, a serious carnivore butchering everything from a squirrel to an ox. Even put myself on a fruitarian diet, living off nothing but whole fruits for a month.

Well now is my time to obsess about desserts. I’ve been too reliant on rhubarb and custard, it’s time for syllabub and clafoutis, posset and brioche, sabayon and macaroons.

Ice cream and sorbet are indulgently satisfying to make. There are endless flavour combinations to experiment with, sweet and savoury. My favourite being the devilishly rich clotted cream ice cream. I like my desserts to have a seasonal twist. Seville oranges are picked in January so now is a good time to use them. They are aromatic and bitter, known for making a good marmalade. I like their sourness in such a sweet dessert as sorbet.

Sorbet ingredients - makes about 500ml 

2kg oranges preferably Seville, squeezed
200g caster sugar

Method 

1) Put the sugar in a small pan, pour enough juice over the top to cover. Bring to the boil and stir till the sugar is dissolved. Pour the sugar syrup back into the rest of the juice. Allow to cool.

2) Put in the freezer for two to three hours. Give it a stir every half an hour with a fork to break up the ice crystals. If you have an ice cream machine churn till its firm.

Sponge cake ingredients 

8 eggs
250g caster sugar
150g plain flour, sieved (00 if you have it)

Method - preheat the oven to 180c – Grease a 25cm (or there abouts) cake tin

1) Whisk the eggs with an electric beater for 20 minutes, till they double in size.

2) After 10 minutes add the sugar a spoonful at a time.

3) Fold in the flour with a metal spoon.

4) Pour into the tin and bake for 35 minutes. Cover with foil and bake for a further 10 minutes.

5) Allow to cool for 15 minutes, then turn out of the tin onto a rack to cool.

Serve warm with the sorbet and some jam if you have it.

She cries the onions into dice, sweats the leeks
into buttered tattered flags, the slime of the starch
from the peeled potatoes adheres to the blade
as her knife slices them into old pennies, she
sweeps the pile into her heavy mother’s late yellow
casserole. Whisks potato flour till it browns, only
flour stops that acid wine and stock fighting the swoosh
of chalky milk. Let the liquids settle their scores -
the girl sends her hand to ferret on the shelf, ghosts
guide her to caraway seeds, nutmeg, pepper, plenty
of salt. She looks in the fridge, pokes about. Faded
tarragon, good, that green and a blob of cream.
Slices of stale bread laid under velvet soup
dissolve the wall between herself and the ancestors.