thepassionatecook

Buckingham Palace, Tower of London... Petersham Nurseries!

 
As many of you know, I contribute semi-regular articles to various other publications, most regularly National Geographic and German publishing house GU's online portal. My recent participation in the H2Ope for Haiti campaign launched by Cook Sister! has prompted me to translate an article on one of London's best restaurants, Petersham Nurseries, which I wrote for kuechengoetter.de a while ago...

If this tickles your tastebuds, why not bid for the prize I donated, PRIZE CODE:  HFH31,  a copy of Skye Gyngell's cookbook "A Year in my Kitchen", personally signed by the author for this special occasion.

Petersham in the London suburb of Richmond Upon Thames is not necessarily on the beaten path and rarely features on your typical tourist's itinerary... the surrounding attractions (Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace and Richmond Park, Europe's largest and widely-known for its wildlife, quite obviously not bothered by the locals frolicking around it) is more or less part of the advanced curriculum for visitors of the UK's capital. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Richmond is popular with young families who appreciate the idyllic location on board of the River Thames, complete with grazing cows, and the quick over- and underground links into central London. Petersham itself is a whole different world still, the few square miles between the river and the park are an exclusive playing field for the super-rich... seemingly unfazed by what's going on in the rest of the world, some stately homes here still exchange owners for 20 million pounds plus - but I guess you also buy into the neighbourhood: Kylie Minogue, the Jagger family and other major and minor celebrities will be living just around the corner, though I doubt they'll help you out with an egg should you need one in a midnight baking frenzy.

This type of company is, of course, no novelty for Petersham Nurseries' head chef Skye Gyngell, born and bred Australian who passed her years of apprenticeship in France and England working under the tutelage of renowned chefs such as Peter Gordon, Anton Mosimann and Fergus Henderson and finally made herself a name as private chef to the stars. Amongst the celebrities she spoilt with her wonderful talent were fashion photographer Mario Testino, Madonna & ex-husband Guy Ritchie, Charles Saatchi and wife, a certain Ms Lawson, who according to rumours gets other people to write her recipes... yes, supposedly also Skye Gyngell who one fine day happened to stumble across a few Victorian glasshouses at the end of a rugged and unassuming path in Petersham. The rest, as they say, is history.

Supposedly it was love at first sight... and as is generally acknowledged, love is blind. There's no other way to explain how someone could have the ludicrous idea to erect a simple wooden shack in the middle of a plant nursery and set about serving up to 50 covers each lunchtime out of what is hardly a high-tech kitchen? And who would have thought that those few pieces of ramshackly garden furniture in a glass house would soon develop into a top gourmet haunt where weekend reservations are notoriously as hard to come by as at the Fat Duck?

Despite the restaurant's popularity, the atmosphere at Petersham Nurseries is reassuringly relaxed - stroll past the most luxurious garden accessories imaginable (if Prada made wellington boots, they would fly off the shelves here!) to the back of the conservatory and find yourself in a dining area filled with massive and partly antique garden furniture set on bare ground - let the exotic tapestries, wood-carved paravents and citrus trees transport your into a another dimension.

Skye Gyngell is reportedly an absolute perfectionist, depite her relaxed Australian style. The set-up of the surrounding nurseries allows her to even control many of the ingredients used in her kitchen, which is strongly centred around what the seasons have to offer: what ends up on the diner's plate is home-grown as much as possible, especially vegetables, salads and herbs. It goes without saying that all of it is organically grown and freshly harvested, and used in a way that allows each ingredient to bask in its own light.

The menu is short - a selection of four or five dishes each of starters, mains and desserts - and the individual creations are simple, without frills or pomp. The food shines through its confident simplicity is bursting with flavour: a mezze plate extraordinaire with beetroot hummus, red pepper and tomato cream, chickpeas and char-grilled vegetables, crab salad asian style with nam jim and fresh cress, home-grown dandelion leaves with pickled walnuts, red wine pears and roquefort. Follow this by a melt-in-your-mouth slow-cooked lamb shoulder on creamy butter beans and wild garlic, monkfish and clams in a summery one-pot seasoned with saffron, tomatoes, rosemary and ground almonds, served with a thick chunk of sourdough and wonderfully yellow home-made aioli... or opt for the seabass carpaccio drizzled with the grassiest of olive oils, lime juice and red chilli - oh yes, that's what summer's supposed to taste like!

The list of desserts is nonchalantly chalked onto a weathered blackboard brought around by the waiting staff and rested casually on one of the many oversized terracotta planters: how about a chunk of Tuscan pecorino adorned with broad beans from the garden, or home-made rhubarb sorbet with verjus? But I bet you won't be able to resist the massive spoonful of chocolate mousse with burnt sea salt caramel and clotted cream - that is veritably heaven on a plate! The only thing I am missing is a proper espresso, so instead of a cafetiere-style roast, I always opt for fresh mint tea... which is better for your digestion anyway, right?

As unusual locations for eateries go, they can be a bit hit and miss... but this one surely falls into the first category. I am lucky enough to live in the vicinity, but this is a restaurant I would go out of my way to visit regularly. If you come in the summer, you might want to think of rounding off your visit by watching a game at the London Polo Club which is just round the corner or taking a stroll through adjacent Richmond Park, you'll see that your efforts to get here are duly rewarded!

Petersham Nurseries
Church Lane
Petersham, Richmond
Surrey
TW10 7AG
Tel: 020 8605 3627
Email: cafe@petershamnurseries.com
URL: http://www.petershamnurseries.com

Parking is limited, on weekends, you can head to the Russell school further down the road for designated parking.
Public transport: Richmond (District Line), then Bus 65 or 371 to Dysart Avenue.
Only open for lunch. Closed Mondays.
Opening times can vary depending on the season, so call ahead to be sure!

Hope for Haiti - have you done your bit?

Now, we all have been moved by the terrible disaster that has struck one of the poorest communities on this planet - here's your chance to make a difference, but take home a unique food-related gift at the same time!

Yours truly has donated a prize that is now up for grabs via online raffle, amongst many other glorious items. I am donating my all-time favourite cookbook from my all-time favourite restaurant here in London, Petersham Nurseries Skye Gyngell's "A year in my kitchen", signed by the author for this very special occasion.

Some time this week, I am aiming to publish an article on the wonderful place that is Petersham Nurseries, probably one of London's best-kept secrets and mekka to all gourmets who value the quality of ingredients and the simplicity of unadulterated flavours over plush carpets and waiters who appear to have swallowed a broom-stick.

Captivating chef and local foods advocate Skye Gyngell is head chef at Petersham Nurseries' award-winning London restaurant. Her beautiful cookbook, A Year in My Kitchen, is as inspiring as its author. Interweaving personal narrative and 100 seasonal recipes, the book reveals how to make food sing. "There is a wonderful sense of anticipation, as well as a comforting familiarity, if you cook with the seasons," she writes in the book, which won the Guild of Food Writers Award for Best Cookery Book in the UK in 1997.
Gyngell’s main strength lies in using best-quality ingredients to create simple dishes that burst with flavours – she mainly cooks with produce from her own garden. This is not fussy, Michelin-starred cuisine, but easy cooking in which Skye Gyngell marries her native Australian fusion cuisine with experiences gained while training in France and working as a private chef to many celebrities, including Madonna and the Saatchi family. The cookbook you are bidding for will be signed by Skye Gyngell personally for the occasion of Disaster Relief in Haiti. PRIZE CODE:  HFH31

Please buy your raffle ticket today to win one of the many unique and amazing prizes... and make a change for the better in poverty-stricken Haiti.

About the campaign:

H2Ope for Haiti is an online raffle that Cook Sister! has launched today together with BloggerAid - Changing the Face of Famine (BA-CFF) to raise funds for Concern Worldwide's relief effort in Haiti. They've selected Concern Worldwide because of its long track record and quick response after the quake to provide clean drinking water and water purification tablets. This non-governmental international humanitarian organisation founded in 1968 works around the world to reduce suffering and work towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries. Concern International has been working in Haiti since 1994 and had over 100 staff members on the ground when the earthquake struck. Despite losing several team members in the tragedy, they have been quick to act with distribution of supplies.

Concern Worldwide estimates that its initial response to the emergency will last at least six months. The money raised by this raffle will be paid directly into Concern Worldwide's account by Justgiving and will be used exclusively for the Haiti relief effort.

On Cook Sister! you will find the list of all the wonderful prizes from our generous donors - from personally autographed cookbooks to parcels of French baking goodies to original art - there is something for everyone.  Unless stated otherwise, all prizes are available for worldwide shipping and tickets cost £6.50 (roughly $10) each. Once you have chosen the prize or prizes you want to buy tickets for, take a note of their prize codes (very important!) and click through to our Justgiving donations page where you will find complete instructions on how to buy your tickets and specify your chosen prizes.  Please read and follow the instructions carefully and e-mail my friend Jeanne (emailcooksister AT googlemail DOT com) if you have any questions.

You have until midnight on Sunday 28 February - happy bidding! 

Oven-roasted jerusalem artichokes with feta and agresto

They have but a fleeting season, yet my love for Jerusalem artichokes is very strong and probably althemore intense because of it. From November onwards I will look out for them on the market stalls and supermarket shelves and this year they arrived very late, close to Christmas only... It happens to me on regular basis that people will notice them in my trolley or at the check-out and ask what they are and what to do with them... to be honest, I think they're just as versatile as any vegetable really, do with them whatever you'd typically do with a tuber: boil and mash, make a soup, possibly a gratin like the one my friend Pille just published or a quiche... there are many ways of savouring this deliciously nutty root and I'll point you to a couple of older recipes below.

The best thing is that jerusalem artichokes don't just have a wonderfully addictive flavour, they're also incredibly good for you, containing large amounts of fruto-oligo-saccharides (or FOS to their friends) that will help maintain a healthy gut and thus strengthen your immune system... you know you could do with a little bit of that, right?

The recipe I want to introduce to you now is a simple salad. A great starter in the winter, best served lukewarm. Although our Cookbook Cook Club has got a bit lazy in meeting up (that's not entirely true, the reason is rather that two of the main pillars of our congregation have families and the other two are jet-setting individuals who can't for the life of them coordinate their holidays), we enjoyed a lovely winter gathering with the theme of comfort food. A slice of toasted sourdough topped with a wintery salad seemed a perfect way to start a dinner - it's incredibly easy to assemble, the jerusalem artichokes are simply roasted in the oven, the tomatoes go in with them for a little while as well, and the whole affair is topped with rocket salad, crumbly feta cheese and agresto. For those of you who, like us, are new to this concept, agresto is an Italian sauce/dressing made from walnuts, lemon peel and juice, garlic, chilli, anchovies parsley and olive oil. It goes incredibly well with the sunchokes because it not only complements their nutty flavour, but also cuts though the mellow sweetness of the vegetable.

Other recipes with Jerusalem artichokes that you might like:
Seared scallops on jerusalem artichoke puree with crispy pancetta (March 2007)
Jerusalem artichoke risotto with scallops (January 2006)

Warming winter pasta with gorgonzola, walnuts, spinach and... single malt

While I should be used to winter weather, being Austrian and all, I had a hard time convincing myself that it was a good idea to leave the house today. I can get quite excited about snow, especially waking up to a winter wonderland where life as we know it has ground to a halt and everything is incredibly still, quiet, subdued - but what we had today was an entirely different story. It was like the heavens couldn't decide whether to snow or rain and the few flakes we got were just wet and slushy and very short-lived indeed. And while the air is usually quite dry when it snows, today you had moisture creeping everywhere, into the deepest, darkest crevices of your body... so you can probably see why I didn't jump for joy!

There was no way I was leaving the house again after the school run and with a weekend just behind us, there wasn't an awful lot of food in the fridge... left-overs pasta would have to do. A rich, creamy sauce with walnuts and spinach was my best bet - I used a single malt whisky from Wales (don't tell my husband) which added a wonderfully smoky note, if my husband didn't have such expensive tastes when it comes to single malts, I would use them more often in cooking! Be creative when you cook this, use your intuition as to how much of the cheese to use especially - gorgonzola varies so much in taste and intensity, so adjust down or up depending on what yours is like. And you could probably skip toasting the walnuts, but it makes their flavour so much more mellow, takes the bitterness away a little and is therefore definitely worth the five minutes.

Winter pasta with gorgonzola, walnuts, spinach and single malt
(serves 4)

100 g walnuts
1 tsp ghee (or butter)
1 clove garlic (crushed)
100 ml whisky (preferrably single malt)
150 g gorgonzola piccante
200 ml double cream
140 g spinach
white pepper, salt & nutmeg to taste
400 g spaghetti

Toast the walnuts in a dry pan until browning and fragrant. Chop and set aside.

Melt the ghee (butter) in a pot, fry the garlic in it until just starting to colour. Deglaze with the whisky, leave to bubble for about 1 minute. Cut the gorgonzola into small cubes, add to the pot together with the cream and leave to cook over medium heat until you have a smooth sauce - constant stirring is required. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in salt water to packet instructions. Drain.

Stir the sauce into the spaghetti, fold in the spinach and walnuts and serve immediately.

Perfect Sunday breakfast...

Breakfasts tend to be only a passing thought for most people - in my family they have an almost religious importance... at least on weekends. I can't say this is an old family tradition I have carried on from my parents, in Austria, the first meal of the day usually consists of a slice of bread, butter and jam washed down with a mug of milky coffee... on Sundays, you might be lucky and have a basket of breadrolls, ham cut so thin you could read the newspaper through it and a soft-boiled egg with that. It was only when I lived in Mexico that I was introduced to a proper cooked breakfast and how to start your day in style... huevos any which way, always with frijoles and tortillas, a glass of juice and a good helping of tropical fruit.

But it's not just about what you eat, it's more about this being like a ritual which starts with shouting, then cursing three storeys up to wake up our fair, but permanently sleep-deprived teenager, but eventually resolves into quality time spent over good food and conversations that, boys allowing, tend to linger well past midday. Far from just shoving down a bowl of heavily processed cereal, we brew some nice green tea (at least 10 wonderful varieties that need careful selection), cook some eggs - benetine or florendict (which is just my weird way of showing that I don't do anything by the book), oeufs cocotte, huevos a la mexicana, etc - maybe even fry a pancake or two and, a few half hours into our conversation probably a fruit salad and most definitely some freshly brewed coffee.

And if you thought that was idyllic, you wouldn't believe how I am craving a breakfast where no toddler is hanging over my shoulders, almost strangling me, while I try and use a knife and fork safely and manage to catapult my food into my mouth and not onto my lap, where I don't have to get up every ten minutes to toast yet another slice of home-made sourdough and smother it with butter, and where I can read a newspaper front to back (have you also found that men - I mean the average man, not my husband who's not in the least interested in the rugby or cricket scores and I thank God for it daily - read newspapers back to front) without having to sort out an argument? Ah! that would be some breakfast!

But I shouldn't complain. The breakfast featured is from last Saturday where I managed to make the perfect sauce hollandaise (in my humble opinion)... I know I am fortunate in that making said sauce, which is probably the most dreaded of them all, more so even than mayonnaise, I have excellent help at hand in the form of my Thermomix, but I have had ups and downs here as well...it always turned out, don't get me wrong, but my daughter (hollandaise addict par excellence) would still say it didn't taste like the one from the jar. This time I, quite by chance, added hot water and the sauce turned out to much smoother, thicker, creamier and fluffier and, well, just perfect, even for my picky teenager, which is why I even bothered you with this in the first place...