RECIPES TO TRY THIS MONTH

SALSA VERDE

Salsa verde is such a good barbeque sauce this recipe is good to have on hand in tentative preparation for a scorching summer. It is hugely versatile and there are infinite variations so use this as a guide and vary the herbs, always using parsley as the base though.

Parsley (a combination of flat-leaf and curly if possible improves the texture) - a large handful

Mint – a third of the amount of parsley

Thyme – a teaspoon of leaves

Garlic – a small clove, crushed

Capers (rinsed and chopped unless the tiny ones) – two tablespoons

Juice of half a lemon

Extra virgin olive oil – 100ml to 200ml

Two anchovy fillets (mashed up with the side of a knife)

Salt

Black pepper

Dijon mustard – a teaspoon

Chop the herbs, capers and anchovy fillets by hand, add them to the olive oil and mix well before adding the remaining ingredients. The consistency may vary according to how you want to use it but you want the oil to bind the ingredients in a loose sauce rather than as a medium for them to swim in.

Try barbequing a couple of ribs of beef, searing it close to very hot coals before raising it and turning frequently. Let it rest covered with foil for at least ten minutes then slice thinly and drizzle with the salsa.


BREAKFAST COCKTAIL

Royal wedding Friday was all about the Bellini, the best breakfast drink since the invention of the tea bag. Berwyn is immensely grateful to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for giving us the excuse to start drinking early and to everyone at the Ox House Wine Company in Northleach, Glos. They make a fine Bellini (using Toffoli Prosecco as they do in the Harry’s Bar original) and are definitely improving at the flat whites.

Waitrose sell a peach juice which works well until fresh white peaches arrive in this country and they can be peeled, stoned and pureed before mixing one part puree with two parts Prosecco.
 

MAY NEWS

kids-company-w200We have decided to send you our newsletter every two months from now on so there has been lots happening since our last dispatch but we have been incredibly busy getting ready for the summer party season, writing menus and finessing new recipes.

One highlight was catering for Kids Company’s ‘Tea with Camila’, an important event in their fund-raising calendar, serving some tea time classics with a bit of a twist - feta and asparagus calzones and fresh lemonade were two favourites.
Camila Batmanghelidjh kindly said: ‘Thank you Berwyn for the lovely afternoon tea for our event, the food was beautifully prepared and delicious, wonderfully refreshing homemade lemonade'.

At the Old Vic we catered for a flurry of patrons’ and sponsors’ events around the successful Terrence Rattigan revival ‘Cause Celebre’. We are gearing up for a busy summer in Waterloo too, with Kevin Spacey’s appearance in ‘Richard III’ sure to cause a huge amount of excitement.


PERUVIAN FLAVOUR

Elio is a Peruvian chef who has come over from Spain to work with us for the summer and his arrival brought back happy memories of Berwyn’s formative years in this underappreciated gastronomic wonder of a country. We have been looking at how we might bring some Peruvian classics to London and there are murmurings of a pop-up restaurant later this year or next. Our thoughts have been flitting between ceviches and tiraditos (citrus-marinated raw fish dishes from the coast), quinoas and tubers from the Sierra, and plantain ‘tacacho’ from the jungle.

Peru’s varied topography, which ranges from the desert coast over the Andean mountains to the Amazon jungle, endows it with an extraordinary wealth of sensational ingredients. Peruvian enthusiasm for food and cooking has been fuelled by celebrity chefs in recent years and, helped along by a thriving economy, Lima’s restaurant scene is as vibrant as any city on earth. Culinary cultures as diverse as African, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and French mix with the very distinct native cuisines to produce something that is truly unique. Let us know if you are going and we will make sure you are going to the right places! If you are not off to South America soon, we shall keep you posted about Berwyn’s Peruvian explorations.